Repository | Journal | Volume | Articles
(1999) Human Studies 22 (2-4).
Grammar and social interaction in Japanese and Anglo-american English
the display of context, social identity and social relation
Hiroko Tanaka
pp. 363-395
This paper employs conversation analysis to examine the inter-connection between grammar and displays of contextual understanding, social identity, and social relationships as well as other activities clustering around turn-endings in Japanese talk-in-interaction, while undertaking a restricted comparison with the realisation of similar activities in English. A notable feature of turn-endings in Japanese is the particular salience of grammatical construction on the interactional activities they accomplish. Complete turns which are also syntactically complete are shown to be associated with the explicit display of contextual features, whereas syntactically incomplete turns are designed to circumvent or minimise such displays. The explicit or implicit display of one's social and contextual relationship to the interactional environment is therefore seen to be an integral part of the performance of social actions in Japanese. On the other hand, in English, it is more difficult to establish a clear association between grammar and the inclusion or avoidance of contextual displays.
Publication details
Full citation:
Tanaka, H. (1999). Grammar and social interaction in Japanese and Anglo-american English: the display of context, social identity and social relation. Human Studies 22 (2-4), pp. 363-395.
This document is unfortunately not available for download at the moment.