Papers

This page provides direct access to all publication outcomes of the project. These include several collaborative papers combining qualitative and quantitative methods; a special issue with in-depth descriptions of the repair system in 10 languages; and some public outreach pieces aimed at a general audience. Or you can check the list of all papers. All of the work is available in PDF and many of it appeared in open access venues, in line with our aim to remove barriers in access to science.

Multi-authored

One type of output of this team science project has been multi-authored collaborative papers. Some of these cover as many languages as possible, with contributions from a wide range of authors. Other papers reflect smaller-scale collaborations that focused on particular phenomena. All combine qualitative and quantitative methods.

Highlights. The paper ‘Huh? What? A first survey in 21 languages’ (2013) was described in a review as “particularly deserving of readers’ attention” and “a good start and model for cross-language studies in conversation analysis” (Zhou & Yu, 2015). The paper ‘Is ‘Huh?’ a universal word?’ (2013) was described as “the most comprehensive comparative CA study to date” (Kasper & Wagner 2014:184). Its first submission was rejected with the following note: “although this work is interesting, it does not have the broad appeal needed for PNAS”. It received global media coverage when it came out a few months later.

The paper ‘Formats for other-initiation of repair’ (2014) was selected for inclusion in the Routledge anthology Critical Concepts in Linguistics. The paper ‘Universal principles’ (2015) received press coverage in 2015 for its documentation of ‘a whole other kind of linguistic universal’ (NPR). The papers ‘Suspending the next turn’ (2016) and ‘The timing of visual bodily behaviour’ (2016) show the importance of sequentially organized embodied behaviour in signed and spoken languages alike.

Special issue of Open Linguistics

One of the primary outcomes of the project was a special issue of Open Linguistics hosting a collection of qualitative papers detailing the other-initiated repair system in 10 distinct languages. The introduction set out the project’s approach to pragmatic typology. The individual papers enabled project members to present detailed qualitative analyses of the repair system in all its particulars. The special issue also contains the inductively derived coding scheme that underlies the comparative and quantitative findings.

A note on open access. This collection was the first special issue of Open Linguistics, then a brand new Mouton De Gruyter journal. While we had an expression of interest from a more established Elsevier-owned venue, we pivoted to open access to reflect our evolving understanding of the deeply problematic nature of Elsevier’s business practices (see the cost of knowledge).

Public outreach

We wrote about the larger project in Scientific American Mind (translated in Gehirn & Geist), The Conversation, and American Scientist. Following the media coverage of some of our work, we also maintain a “frequently asked questions” page.

All papers

A complete list of all published output follows below.