Practices and actions: Boundary cases of other-initiated repair

Working within a naturalistic paradigm for which the notion of ''practices'' is mole apt than ''processes,'' I address the multiplicity of ties between practices of talk-in-interaction and the actions which they accomplish. After describing common procedures of data collection and preparation in this mode of inquiry and the ''boundary cases'' which these procedures may engender, I explore alternative actions which can be recognizably produced by practices of talking ordinarily associated with the action of ''initiating repair.'' Two practices in particular are examined: questioning terms (''huh?,'' ''who?,'' etc.) and certain forms of repeats. As well, I show that in some contexts the action of initiating repair can be produced by a practice which does not ordinarily produce it. The moral of the article is that situated analysis must go hand-in-hand with more formal analysis in order to arrive at satisfactory accounts of discourse practices, and of discourse processes as well.