INSERT FIG 1, (Extract 1) HERE: Silence, syntax, prosody and gaze (self-
repair)
The first line of extract 1 finds the teacher (T) inviting Ciara (C) to talk more about an
idea that she generated in a previous lesson regarding the plot of her story.
Syntactically, Ciara’s response (line 2) begins with an incomplete turn construction
unit (TCU) that ends with a silence instead of the head noun that would typically
follow the determiner ‘a’. At line 3 Ciara extends her prior utterance with the addition
of further specification of the subject and elaboration of the verb phrase. The turn
remains incomplete, however, since a silence once again follows the determiner
instead of the noun. It is not until line 4 that Ciara succeeds in completing her TCU:
this is accomplished by changing her message and opting for a verb phrase, in
replacement for the elusive noun.
The key question is: how does Ciara accomplish self-repair without interruption from
her teacher? Whereas silence affords Ciara a degree of personal time to process
retrieval of the lexical item, the main issue is that the teacher could have taken a turn
during either of the pauses at lines 2 and 3. The first dimension to consider is the
directional focus of Ciara’s gaze; throughout lines 2 - 4 her focus is consistently
downwards towards the book on the table that is placed directly in front of her. That
she never shifts her gaze towards the teacher suggests that she is not invoking her
participation in the search: she is engaged in self-directed activity. Next, syntactic and
semantic analysis further explains the teacher’s lack of involvement. At the onset of
each of the silences, there is an incomplete syntactic unit; the missing noun at the end
of each line renders the semantic information supplied to the teacher incomplete.
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