4. Methodology

As indicated above, a framework from CA has been used for this research because repair has long been a major concern of CA. A useful starting point is to take the categories of self- and other-initiated self- and other-repair and investigate the extent to which they can be applied to CMC. If similar features are found in email discussions, are they being used for similar purposes?

The location of repair in spoken conversation is also significant:

In fact, most repair (e.g. correction of a word) is done within the turn in which the repairable occurs. But when repair spills over the boundaries of a turn, as when other-than-the-speaker initiates a repair in the turn following the one in which the repairable occurred, then the sequence so initiated is organized by the same turn-taking system, and the repair sequences exhibit the same features of turn-taking as we have been discussing… (Sacks et al (1974, p.724)).

Crystal identifies one potential obstacle to repair in CMC:

… there is no way for a participant to get a sense of how successful a message is, while it is being written - whether it has been understood, or whether it needs repair. (Crystal (2001, p.30))

Where turn-taking rules are different, as in email discussions, the techniques used for repair and the types of trouble needing repair will be different, if indeed repair exists in this medium. A preliminary reading of the data shows that there are indeed features that resemble repair. However, in email discussions, we would expect that some of the types of problem identified by Sacks et al are absent - incorrect word choices if identified by the writer would be edited out, we would not expect to find turn-taking errors arising from overlapping talk, etc.