The robustness and flexibility of human language is underpinned by a machinery of interactive repair. Repair is deeply intertwined with two core properties of human language: reflexivity (it can communicate about itself) and accountability (it is used to publicly enforce social norms). We review empirical and theoretical advances from across the cognitive sciences that mark interactive repair as a domain of pragmatic universals, a key place to study metacognition in interaction, and a system that enables collective computation. This provides novel insights into the role of repair in comparative cognition, language development, and human–computer interaction. As an always-available fallback option and an infrastructure for negotiating social commitments, interactive repair is foundational to the resilience, complexity, and flexibility of human language.

人类语言的稳健性和灵活性是由交互式修复机制支撑的。修复与人类语言的两个核心属性密切相关：反身性（它可以传达自身）和责任感（它用于公开执行社会规范）。我们回顾了认知科学领域的经验和理论进展，这些进展将交互修复标记为实用共性的一个领域、研究交互中元认知的关键场所以及支持集体计算的系统。这为修复在比较认知、语言发展和人机交互中的作用提供了新的见解。作为一种始终可用的后备选项和用于谈判社会承诺的基础设施，交互式修复是人类语言的弹性、复杂性和灵活性的基础。