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OA‘Literatuuropvatting?’ Ander-herstel op initiatief van de leerling in mondelingen Nederlandse literatuur op de middelbare school
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, Volume 47, Issue 3, Dec 2025, p. 181 - 203
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- 01 Dec 2025
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Abstract
‘Concept of literature?’ Other-initiated repair by students during Dutch oral exams on literature
Repair is a mechanism that is used to solve conversational trouble (Schegloff et al., 1977). This conversation-analytic study investigates other-initiations of repair by students during Dutch oral examinations about literature, and how responsibility for trouble is claimed or ascribed in the repair sequence. We found that the type of repair initiation used by the student affects how much conversational work the repair requires. Students mostly select a specific trouble source instead of using an open class repair initiation. Candidate understandings are solved quickly by the teacher, while partial repeats often require more repair work. Open class repair is rarely used by students and requires the most repair work. This work consists of providing additional information, providing hints, rephrasing the question or a combination of these. Sometimes, teachers explicitly take responsibility for the trouble by criticising their own question, which also functions as an account for abandoning the original question and producing a new one. By analysing students’ other-initiations of repair this study sheds light on how students and teachers identify trouble sources and collaborate towards an answer from the student.