Referential choices and the need for repairs in covertly-taped conversations

This paper examines how speakers' conversational goals of concealment which guide the speakers' use of reference in conversation, affect the way speakers negotiate and repair the identity of a human referent in conversation. In conversations where the speakers design their utterances so as to conceal matters from overhearers, the speakers prefer reference forms that the addressees can recognize easily but that cannot be recognized by overhearers, such as 'private keys.' This referencing strategy (which is often successful) consists in speakers and addressees using their communal and personal common ground to identify referents in the data. There are instances, however, where the speakers' referencing strategy is not consistent with their conversational goals of concealment, and the reference forms fail to be recognized by the addressees or to evoke the intended connections. Once a reference form has failed to trigger mutual understanding between the speakers and their addressees, the repair mechanisms and strategies used to resolve this lack of understanding are in line with the speakers' conversational goals of concealment. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.