Universal Principles in the Repair of Communication Problems

Across 12 languages, someone signals a misunderstanding about once every 1.4 minutes, and the cheapest fix is the most specific question.

Dingemanse, M. et al. (2015). Universal Principles in the Repair of Communication Problems. PLOS ONE, 10(9), e0136100.

Type

Journal article

Find it

doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136100

Checked

Against the full text, 15 September 2026

Why it is on the list

Other-initiated repair (“sorry, Thursday this week?”) turns up about once every 1.4 minutes in every language sampled. It comes in three kinds, and people choose the most specific kind available, which costs both sides least. A repair sequence is typically no longer than the utterance it repairs. Week 5’s scripts come from this: misunderstanding is frequent, fixing it is quick, and precision is the polite option.