Over-Exposed Self-Correction: Practices for Managing Competence and Morality

When repairing a problem in their talk, speakers sometimes do more than simply correct an error, extending the self-correction segment to comment on, repeat, apologize, and/or reject the error. We call this “over-exposed self-correction.” In over-exposing the error, speakers may manage (and reflexively construct) a range of attributional troubles that it has raised. We discuss how over-exposed self-correction can be used to: (a) remediate errors that might suggest the speaker’s incompetence; and (b) redress errors that may be heard as revealing relational “evils” (implicating inadequate other-attentiveness) or societal “evils” (conveying problematic social attitudes and prejudices). The article thus shows how conversation analytic work on repair can provide a platform for studying the emergence and management of socially and relationally charged issues in interaction. The data come from a diverse corpus of talk-in-interaction in American, British, and Australian English.