Insertion Repair

Insertion repair is a practice in which speakers halt their talk-in-progress to go back and add something else into the turn before resuming (e.g., inserting “blind” in “this girl's fixed up on a da— a blind date”). This article provides the first systematic examination of the technology of insertion repair, based on an analysis of more than 500 instances. We first overview the practice of insertion repair; then examine how the inserted material modifies the ongoing talk. By far the most common modification is specifying: i.e., the inserted material modifies an original reference formulation so as to specify either a unique referent or a particular type of referent. A second common modification is intensifying: i.e., the inserted material modifies the original formulation so as to strengthen it. Other—much less common—modifications are describing, adjusting, and adding. Finally, we consider the relevance of our findings for conversation analytic work on repair, referring, and the relationships between grammar and action and different orders of action.