A longitudinal case study of self-initiated same-TCU repair : insights from the corpus of a monolingual English boy aged 5-7

Abstract

In many instances, due to their limited language skills, children are unable to precisely express their intended meaning through language. As a result, they frequently resort to repair in order to prevent and resolve communication breakdowns. Trouble source is not limited to evident errors in language expression; any language output that impedes the natural flow of conversation can also be considered a trouble source. The CHILDES English MacWhinney Corpus (MacWhinney, 1991) is the source of the data for the present study. The evolution of a target child's trouble source between the ages of five and seven will be examined in this study, based on a corpus of naturally occurring data. This longitudinal case study investigates the development of language and interaction skills in target children by examining their self-awareness and self-correction of errors in language usage and violations of social norms through observing the target child's self-initiated same-turn-constructional unit repair. Repair is examined extensively in Conversation Analysis (CA). This study will be founded on the research methodology of conversation analysis, and the corpus will be transcribed in accordance with CA conventions. According to the findings of this study, the trouble sources of linguistically motivated correction performed by the target child are phonology, syntax, word search, and vocabulary selection. Similarly, the target child's repair is not limited to the level of language usage, but also at the level of interaction, including repair for social purposes and references. Additionally, repairs are used to reduce the negative impact of thought organization on the flow of communication as thought organization need additional time for thinking. We found that the quantity of repairs made by target children aged 5-7 years did not change significantly, and neither did the types of trouble sources, indicating that the target children's ability to make repairs has gradually developed without dramatic changes. In addition, the cognitive process of the target child can also be inferred from the repairs made by the target child for certain trouble sources, such as antonyms, etc.