Inter-subjectivity in Instant Messaging Interactions

<jats:p> This research studies participants’ self-repair practices in instant messaging (IM) interactions. IM is an online forum that allows two people to converse with each other through the exchange of text messages. Same turn, self-repair practices in IM are particularly interesting because here the message composition experience is uniquely poised between the written and oral contexts of communication. The composition is private and textual yet it is for an immediate audience. Drawing on the comparative approach used by Drew, Walker and Ogden (2013), the analysis compares the initial and final versions of participants’ messages and observes the repair operations they perform (Schegloff, 2013), the technology used to effect the repair and the actions thereby achieved. The data used for this research comprise 15 chats between 30 participants. The initial versions of the messages were recorded using a key logging software and these were compared with the final versions retrieved from the chat logs. A total of 671 messages were analyzed to study the ways in which participants self-repair their messages to design turns that are best suited for particular interactional needs. The analysis suggests that the repair operations that IM participants perform are not very different from their oral counterparts and include replacing, inserting, adding, deleting, aborting, searching and sequence jumping. IM participants engage in such repair to achieve significant actions such as upgrading or downgrading their claims, displaying sensitivity to epistemic authority, searching for the right referent amongst others. Besides issues related to turn design, self-repair in IM is used for another crucial function: to address trouble arising out of sequential placement of messages and to construct messages that are most appropriate for an ever-changing semantic environment. </jats:p>