The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation

Conversation has built-in machinery for fixing trouble, and speakers are expected to catch their own mistakes first.

Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G. & Sacks, H. (1977). The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation. Language, 53(2), 361–382.

Type

Journal article

Find it

doi.org/10.2307/413107

Checked

Against the abstract, 15 September 2026

Why it is on the list

An organisation of repair handles recurring problems in speaking, hearing and understanding, and repair by the speaker strongly predominates over repair by someone else. Week 5 takes two things from it: repair is routine infrastructure, not an emergency, and the protocol gives the speaker the first chance to fix their own trouble.