Spoken language plays a dominant role in human communication, and oralEnglish competence will directly affect the communicative competence andcommunicative effect. However, Affected by traditional examination-orientededucation, spoken English ability did not cause enough attention, which caused muteEnglish abounding among college students. College English teaching reform, one ofthe new century educational reforms launched by ministry of education has steppedinto the stage of implement since 2003. With higher demands for English talents anddevelopment of English teaching, improving students’ speaking and listeningcompetence becomes the focus of English teaching. Therefore, spoken English getsunprecedented attention. In this context, the attention of oral English competence hasbeen increased. Self-repair as a common phenomenon in students’ oral expression hasaroused the concern of many researchers. Speakers make errors or inappropriateexpressions every now and then. They may spontaneously correct errors or modifyinappropriate information in their own speech. Such modification results in self-repair(Van Hest,1996).Self-repair has been proved to be one of the most significant traits in spokenlanguage. Self-repair behavior is one of the linguistic features not only in firstlanguage but also in second language . The study of self-repair originated in the workby Schegloff et al.(1977) who were the first to put forward the term ‘self-repair’. Theearly studies on self-repair behaviors were studying native speakers’ repair inconversation. Since then, more researchers have devoted to the studies of self-repairin the field of conversation analysis. Later on the focus of many researchers andpsycho-linguists has been shifted to the field of language acquisition. Levelt(1983), the most representative researcher during this period, formulated the famousmonitoring model. He developed the Perceptual Loop Theory of Monitoring, whichshed light on the underlying reasons for self-repair and laid solid foundation onfurther researches into self-repair behaviors analysis of both L1 and L2. Someresearchers such as Van Hest (1996, 2000, 2004) and Kormos (1998, 1999, 2000)study the self-repair behaviors in L2.
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2.1 Definitions of Relative Terms
The further studies of self-repair can not be carried out without the understandingof the definitions and the classification systems of self-repair behaviors. In order tounderstand the nature of self-repair behaviors, the definitions and the classificationsystems of self-repair behaviors are summarized in the present research. The definition of self-repair is one of the most crucial aspects of self-repairresearch. It varies according to different approaches or purposes of the study. Thuscorrection and repair should be firstly defined and explained before giving thedefinition of self-repair. Repair and correction are two important phenomena ofspeech expression. In the study of L2, the two terms all refer to the correction oferrors in learners’ language output. Strictly speaking, the meaning of these two termsis different. Schegloff et al. (1977) are the first linguists who propose that we shoulddistinguish them. The term ‘correction’ refers to the replacement of a linguistic erroror mistake with a correct form, while the term ‘repair’ deals with inappropriateinformation occurred in spontaneous linguistic output and it’s not merely limited tothe replacement of error and mistake. When speakers notice inappropriate expressionnot only errors they have produced, they will take action to repair. Therefore, ‘repair’has a broader range than the term ‘correction’. “It is a notable fact that the occurrenceor distribution of repair is not well-ordered by reference of the occurrence of error.Repair is sometimes found where there is no hearable error, mistake or fault.Furthermore, hearable errors do not necessarily yield the occurrence of repair”(Schegloff et al, 1977).
