Repairing self- and recipient-reference

There are dedicated reference terms—in English—for self- and recipient reference (I and its grammatical variants for self; you and its grammatical variants for recipient). These terms are invariant across occasions of reference and, as such, are repaired much less commonly than are references to third persons. In this article, we focus on four types of “trouble” addressed by repair to selfand recipient reference: (a) indexing the wrong referent, (b) possible referential ambiguity in direct reported speech, (c) masked scope and/or constituent membership of referent, and (d) masked relevance of referent. We also show that repairs to self- or recipient reference are routinely not limited to fixing problems of understanding but are also used in the service of the interactional task at hand.