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exchanges, including the fact that only 11% of conversations do not
present such exchanges, and on the observation that there is no apparent
relationship between the type of clarification requests and the type of
clarification replies. In fact, there is no consistent pattern as to what
is more likely to trigger a total repetition or a confirmation, and this
seems to suggest that the type of clarification reply is shaped more
according to the interests of the respondent than to the form in which
the clarification request is formulated. As adults tend to sustain
conversations, clarification requests in the Reply Move (see 5.2, page
141) are a common way for children to participate in the process of
construction of meaning: clarification requests account for half the
requests made by children in their Reply Move. Vhile clarification
exchanges may be considered 'the result of suspension of interpretive
procedures in adult-child conversation in American Society*
(Согєаго,1977:205), they seem to perform the opposite role in the data of
the present study.
Text-contingent exchanges ... seek to repair breakdowns in
communication or clarify Inadequate messages. ... they offer the
potential for learning more about the the language system and
about the conditions necessary for successful communication.
(Robinson and Robinson, quoted in Velis,1986:81)
Another role of clarification exchanges in the joint construction of
meaning is that of allowing topic Incorporation and coherence. The first
is seen (Veils,1985:389) as the way speakers incorporate previous
utterances by the other speaker in their turn, and has been studied
mostly in adults' talk to children. By incorporating the interlocutor's
topic, one speaker provides positive feedback to the other that his
utterance was in some ways taken in*. Clarification exchanges provide
this feedback across many utterances and turns, and in this way they
secure discourse coherence (i.e., 'the relationship between illocutionary
acts, Viddowson,1978:31). Vhlle cohesion has to do with text, coherence is
related to discourse (James,1980:103), and clarification exchanges secure
coherence by maintaining the flow of conversation temporarily stopped
because of formal or functional inappropriacies, or enriched by new
contributions: the line of the argument and the pattern of interaction is
resumed without difficulty even after complex clarification exchanges.