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This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Mi 48106-1346© Copyright Naomi Fujita 2001 All Rights ReservedABSTRACT POLITENESS IN INTERACTION: A DISCOURSE APPROACH TO JAPANESE POLITENESS MARKERS ‘Naomi Fujita Previous studies described politeness as a function of several social variables such ‘as power and social distance. As a result, their illustration of politeness remained static and categorical, and they failed to account for the varied dynamic enactments of politeness in connected discourse. Contrary to these static views, this study adopts a process-oriented discourse approach to linguistic politeness. It describes politeness Phenomena situated in the naturally-occurring discourse of multi-party interactions. By examining spoken discourse gathered in six faculty meetings at Japanese secondary schools, this study describes (1) how a limited number of politeness markers (the final particle ne, the connective particle kedo, and the plain and masu forms of clause-final predicates) create various interpersonal functions, and (2) how multiple politeness markings are integrated in discourse. This study depicts a set of sequential factors affecting politeness. It describes how the core linguistic properties of markers interact with various sequential factors as ‘well as situational variables to create politeness in interaction. It also illustrates the cumulative, multilayered, and interactional nature of multiple politeness markings.Various politeness functions coexist, accumulate, and interact with one another to create layers of politeness that attend to different face wants involved in talk. ‘This study also illustrates that the participants’ face wants interact and influence each other in a moment-by-moment fashion as the conversation unfolds. In addition, one type of face want may entail another. These observations lead to a new conceptualization of the interactants' negative and positive face, not as opposing notions, but as a web of intersecting dimensions. Furthermore, this study contributes to the discussion of social index vs. strategic politeness. By examining the diverse and combined uses of plain and masu forms, this study suggests that the social indexical meaning of a marker can be the basis of its strategic use. ‘The discourse analytic microanalysis adopted in this study reveals an interactive, multilayered view of politeness. Relating the linguistic properties of markers to their interpersonal functions, it also coztributes to the growing field of inquiry investigating the relationship between grammar and interaction, and grammar and pragmatics.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS am greatly indebted to my teachers, colleagues, and friends who helped me at various stages of this study. First and foremost, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the committee members, Professors Leslie Beebe, James Purpura, Howard Williams, and Gregory Hamilton, for devoting serious time and providing me with encouragement and helpful comments. My debt to Leslie Beebe, my mentor and teacher, goes yet further back. Her courses at the Teachers College Tokyo program opened the window to the field of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, and prompted me to continue my studies in the United States, Without her encouragement and guidance, I would never have started this journey. Throughout my graduate studies, she has continued to inspire and inform my work. Especially, I would not have been able to complete this dissertation, had it not been for her gentle yet firm “push,” insightful suggestions, and unending support. My sincere thanks also go to the teachers in Japan who allowed me to tape-record their meetings, especially to my two friends who acted as a lisison between the other teachers and me. Since I promised anonymity I cannot mention their names, but they know who they are. I would also like to extend my appreciation to the past and present members of the doctoral seminar, who provided me with a sense of community. Finally, to Bernhard, thank you for your patience, humor, and support of every kind.TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .. Politeness as Social Norm “ Politeness as Conversational Contract.. Politeness as Conversational Maxim. Politeness as a Face-Saving Device . Issues of Politeness. Notion of Face.. The origin of face. ‘The origin of positive/negative distinction. Universal vs. culture-specific face.. Mubtiple politeness strategies. Strategic and Social Index Politeness. Sociolinguistic Variables and Politeness... Discourse Analysis and Politeness . Politeness and Speech Act Studies. Face-Threatening Acts and Conflict Talk... Politeness and Conversation Analysis. Politeness and Interactional Sociolinguistics. Japanese Politeness Markers...Assessing iting Research Procedures for Assessing Multiple Politeness Markings. Summary. THE FINAL PARTICLE NE: AN INVOLVEMENT MARKER............ 90 KEDO: A MITIGATION DEVICE Kedo as a Hedging Marker... Qualifying Other's Statements: Disagreements. Setting a Limit: Qualification within a Turn. Summary. PLAIN AND MASU FORMS..... Preliminary Methodological Remarks... Plain Forms with and without Particles Masu Form as Official Frame for an Utterance...‘Vil. MULTIPLE POLITENESS MARKINGS INTEGRATED IN DISCOURSE...214 Conbians tne a i 216Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 LIST OF TABLES First Parts and their Preferred and Dispreferred Second Parts. The Masu and Plain Forms of Verb, Noun, and Adjective. ‘The Core Linguistic Properties of the Three Politeness Markers...... ‘Summary of Six Meetings..... Different Variants of Ne and their Meanings ........ 92 ‘Sequential Placement of Kedo and Main Clauses... 164 Development of Aoki's Turn in Lines 2 to 20........ 169Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 2.3 Figure 2.4 Figure 2.5 Figure 2.6 Figure 3.1 Figure 5.1 Figure 5.2 LIST OF FIGURES ‘Superstrategies of politeness (1-4) (adapted from Brown and Levinson, 1987, p. 69). ‘The origins of positive vs. negative face ...... Japanese vs. American "self" (adapted from Kubota, 1990, p. 75).........26 Tlustration of Brown and Levinson's (1987) discussion of negative and positive strategies on social distance/politeness scales .......cseueu32 Unidimensional model (adapted from Tannen, 1994, p. 27).. Multidimensional model (adapted from Tannen, 1994, p. 28)......... Discourse analytic approach to politeness Speech act component analysis of lines 3 and 4...... 145 Sequential relations between the kedo clauses and the corresponding main clauses.. 23 viiiChapter I INTRODUCTION In casual and institutional talk, speakers are constantly engaged in a wide range of interactional activities. These include requests, disagreements, apologies, and refusals. People also solicit information, make compliments, tell stories, and express opinions to each other. In order to understand how these activities are performed, the underlying politeness dimension of talk must be explored. That is, in performing these speech activities, speakers simultaneously negotiate their interpersonal needs, which are realized through various linguistic resources. The current study of linguistic politeness analyzes these interpersonal needs and the linguistic resources that embody them. Linguistic politeness, sometimes defined as "appropriate language usage associated with smooth communication* (Ide, Hill, Cames, Ogino, & Kawasaki, 1992, p. 281), is an essential research area within communication studies since successful verbal interaction is crucial in establishing and maintaining relationships between people, organizations, and nations, The description of appropriate language usage in varying cultural settings corresponds to the description of pragmatic knowledge in performing various speech actions. Indeed, the study of politeness is one central concern of pragmatics. Current theory views politeness as basic to human interaction. Politeness becomes “essential to the production of social order, and a precondition of human cooperation" (Blum-Kulka, 1992, p. 255). An attempt to understand the phenomenon "goes to the foundations of human social life" (Gumperz, in Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. xiii). Researchers have investigated the motivating factors behind politeness as well as the linguistic realizations of politeness across languages and cultures.Japanese is one of the most frequently cited languages in politeness studies. Pragmatic decisions in Japanese, which are based on social and situational factors such as interlocutors and settings, are often reflected explicitly at the morphological and lexical levels. Equipped with these encodings, the Japanese language appears to be a language well suited to study politeness. Although the literature on Japanese politeness is rich, the results diverge from and sometimes contradict current politeness theory. Many of these studies focus on the sentential level of analysis because the notion of politeness is often viewed in relation to speech acts, which have traditionally been viewed as properties of individual sentences. Although Brown and Levinson (1987) acknowledged the importance of discourse-level analysis, few studies have focused on politeness in longer stretches of discourse. For instance, little research has examined. politeness in a speech event in which various speech acts are embedded. This expanded analytical scope is essential because conclusions about pragmatic choice varies according to whether the unit of analysis is a single sentence or longer discourse. In Japanese, there are clear distinctions between conclusions achieved from sentential and discoursal analysis. The variations in strategy use within a stretch of discourse contradict the rigid, obligatory nature of Japanese politeness markers. ‘The current study investigates how Japanese speakers utilize various linguistic resources to create politeness in interaction. It attempts to demonstrate the "process" of creating politeness in ongoing discourse. Two types of analysis are employed to describe the process. The first focuses on a limited number of linguistic resources (ie., politeness markers) which create politeness in discourse. The markers examined in this study are the final particle ne, the connective particle kedo, and the plain and masu forms of clause-final predicates. The study first describes how the linguistic properties of these markers realize various interpersonal functions. It then incorporates multiple realizations of politeness in a stretch of discourse, describing how various politeness enactments interplay in ongoing discourse. This introductory chapter reviews the currentdevelopment of politeness studies and discusses the analytical framework upon which this study is based. Rationale for the Study Brown and Levinson's (1987) influential theory of linguistic politeness has spurred great interest in this complex interdisciplinary subject. Since then, a number of studies have examined linguistic politeness enactments in different languages and cultures. Politeness studies include three major areas: (1) arguments for the notion of face as an underlying universal motivation for politeness; (2) the distinction between politeness as a strategic device and as a form of social index; and (3) the social and psychological factors affecting the enactment of politeness. These issues are interrelated in that the arguments related to one issue inevitably require references to the others. However, previous studies have viewed politeness as "categorical" and “static” in nature, and they do not describe the process of creating politeness in ongoing discourse. ‘This section describes the predominant "categorical" view of politeness, which contrasts with the process- and discourse-oriented view of politeness adopted later in this study. It then briefly exemplifies how a process-oriented, discourse-level analysis pertains to major issues in politeness research, such as questions concerning the notion of face, different types of politeness, and the relevant social factors. The divergent results ‘concerning these issues generate the need to employ a process- and discourse-oriented analysis. Brown and Levinson (1987) argue that the two fundamental motivations behind politeness are negative and positive face wants: the want not to be impeded (negative) and the want to be approved of (positive). When participants of communication perform “face-threatening acts" (FTAs), i.c., actions which may threaten the speaker's and/or hearer's face, they simultaneously attempt to defend and maintain each other's face. FTAs require softening devices which counterbalance the threat, namely "politeness4 strategies,” by which they convey their intention to be polite while performing these acts. ‘The speaker assesses several contextual variables (j.e., social variables) to determine the kind of politeness strategies to use. In this sense, Brown and Levinson consider politeness to be a function of these social variables: power, social distance, and the degree of imposition inherent in performed speech acts. Although Brown and Levinson's contribution in connecting social and psychological parameters to linguistic strategies is enormous, they fall short in describing politeness as a linguistic "process." The umbrella term “politeness strategies" is an open list of linguistic realizations at different levels. ‘Wood and Kroger’s (1994) criticism pertains to this point: [In Brown and Levinson's model,] [s}trategies at different levels of linguistic structure, for example, whole chunks of discourse (¢.g., "interest the hearer"), sentences (e.g., “I'm sorry to bother you"), and individual words (e.g., "possibly”) are all treated in the same way. (p. 255) Thus, since Brown and Levinson's (1987) treatment of politeness remains “categorical,” they do not adequately describe the process of creating varying strategies linguistically. How does this view of politeness relate to the above-mentioned issues concerning politeness? Regarding the notion of face, Brown and Levinson consider negative and positive face wants to be universal motivations underlying politeness. Against this claim of universality, Matsumoto (1988) asserts that the individual face wants presented in Brown and Levinson's framework, especially negative face wants, differ from the culturally-specific notion of face in Japanese society which has a collective rather than individual orientation. Similarly, researchers have suggested other types of face connected to social norms rather than individual intentions (Janney & Arndt, 1992; Mao, 1994; Nwoye, 1992; O’Driscoll, 1996) and argued that the weight attached to different kinds of face varies cruss-culturally (Longscope, 1995). One could account for the discrepancy between universal and culturally-specific face by ciosely observing socially-situated discourse. The above claim of the universality of face, as well as the culturally-specific nature of Japanese face, has been based on5 introspective language data which consist of a set of isolated sentences, or on research in the fields of anthropology and social psychology. However, it is questionable whether these sources are sufficient to analyze politeness linguistically since introspective data sometimes do not reveal the subtle mechanisms of talk exhibited in natural data. ODriscoll (1996) maintains that positive and negative face wants are fundamental human ‘wants and that speakers frequently answer these face wants unconsciously. In this light, it may be possible to determine whether the dual notion of positive and negative face suffices for the pragmatic analysis of the Japanese language through socially-situated discourse data. Another issue in politeness research concerns the distinction between strategic and social index politeness. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) characterization of politeness as a strategic device which interlocutors employ to minimize the face-threatening nature of a social act has been challenged by researchers of Japanese politeness (Hill, Ide, Ikuta, Kawasaki, & Ogino, 1986; Ide, 1989; Janney & Arndt, 1993; Matsumoto, 1988, 1989). They argue that Japanese politeness is better accounted for as “discernment” (.e., social index politeness), a system that operates according to social constraints independent of the speaker's intentions. Politeness in a Japanese context is described as "a linguistic expression of ‘social warrants” (Kasper, 1990, p. 196). In this light, Kochman's (1984) characterization of politeness in mainstream American public etiquette as "social warrants" or "the entitlements to which individuals lay claim in social interaction” (p. 202), is similar to Japanese politeness. ‘Two key characteristics distinguish the concepts of social index politeness vs. strategic politeness: (1) the speaker's intention, and (2) the degree of freedom in choosing linguistic expression (O'Driscoll, 1996). That is, the speaker's intention and the resulting, flexible usage are associated with strategic politeness; on the other hand, socially-required rather than intentional use, and a low degree of freedom in choice of linguistic expression, are associated with social index politeness.Researchers have argued that these two concepts are not mutually exclusive but rather interrelated and complementary aspects of politeness (Hill et al., 1986; Kasper, 1990; O'Driscoll, 1996). Nevertheless, the normative view of politeness as a social index emphasizes its "fixed and mandatory” nature (Janney & Arndt, 1993, p. 18), based ona low degree of freedom in linguistic choices. As a result, a number of studies on Japanese politeness have sought to describe the interrelated effects of social variables such as gender, age, and perception of status and distance between interlocutors (Ide, 1982; Ide, Hori, Kawasaki, Ikuta, & Haga, 1986; Ikuta, 1983; Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo, 1983; Matsumoto, 1988; Shibatani, 1990), While this characterization is legitimate as a result of cross-linguistic comparison, these attempts to identify politeness as an index of static social variables do not seem to adequately describe the complex and varied use of politeness strategies in a stretch of discourse. Recent studies on Japanese honorifics, based on discourse-level conversational data, demonstrate flexible and diverse enactments of politeness (Cook, 1996; Maynard, 1993; Okamoto, 1999). The socially and psychologically motivated variations displayed in these studies contradict the view of Iapanese politeness as rigid in nature. In other words, conclusions about making pragmatic choices vary according to the unit of analysis. Since most Japanese politeness studies employ a sentential-level analysis, the literature would be enhanced by a description of Japanese politeness from a discourse point of view. This description of various politeness enactments used together in a stretch of discourse (i.e., “integrated” multiple politeness markings) is particularly relevant for two reasons. First, the integration is not readily observable in isolated sentences, but rather across a stretch of discourse. Second, the notion of integration entails flexible and divergent enactments of politeness. ‘Thus far, this section has delineated discrepancies within the results of previous research on politeness conceming three main issues. It speculated that introspective and/or isolated sentence data in these analyses, as well as their "categorical' treatment of7 politeness, might have created these discrepancies. These tendencies to adopt a sentence- level analysis and "categorical" treatment of politeness are due partly to the act-by-act treatment of language usage in the Gricean framework which Brown and Levinson (1987) used to develop their politeness theory. However, Brown and Levinson address the importance of discourse-level analysis, suggesting that improved conceptualizations of politeness will most likely emerge from interactional discourse studies (p. 48). This expanded analytical scope is essential to a deeper understanding of the linguistic phenomenon, Therefore, the current study adopts a process-oriented, discourse approach to politeness. Purpose of the Study This study investigates how Japanese speakers utilize various linguistic resources to create politeness in interaction. It analyzes a set of discourse data situated in faculty meetings at Japanese secondary schools. Participants in these meetings are teachers who belong to the same grade level (seventh, eighth, or ninth grade) and teach the same group of students. In semi-formal meetings of six or seven coworkers, the participants (teachers) exchange their opinions about upcoming events and issues concerning their students. In discussing these matters, they employ various politeness enactments to maintain harmonious yet fruitful verbal interactions. The goal of this study is to describe the process of creating politeness in ongoing discourse. The first part of the study focuses on several Japanese linguistic markers, each of which leads to varying pragmatic functions associated with politeness (i.e., politeness functions). Analysis centers on four linguistic markers: the final particle ne, the contrastive connective particle kedo, and the plain and masu forms of clause-final predicates.! These markers are called politeness markers since various politeness | The plain and masw forms are morphological markings on noun, adjective, and verb stems appearing in the clause-final position. For further discussion, see Chapters Hf and VI.8 functions associated with these markers are analyzed in this study. Placing these markers into an interaction, however, does not create politeness in a simple, signaling way. The process of creating politeness--how the linguistic properties of these markers lead to their politeness functions~is the central concern of this study. In this study, politeness is not viewed as an inherent property of any linguistic expression. Similarly, Brown and Levinson (1987) state that "politeness is implicated by the semantic structure of the whole utterance, not communicated by ‘markers’ or ‘mitigators' in a simple signaling fashion which can be quantified" (p. 22). In other words, they also recognize that politeness is not an inherent property of any expression. In line with this perception, the present study asks the question of how, if at all, the linguistic property of a marker contributes to the pragmatic effect of politeness. In this regard, this study is also related to the growing literature on interaction and grammar (¢.g., Ochs, Schegloff, & Thompson, 1996), a field that explores the notion that grammar and social interaction organize each other through naturally-occurring conversations. This study attempts to describe how the linguistic properties of varying markers work jointly with other factors to create the pragmatic functions of politeness in interactions. In order to delineate the process of creating politeness, this study also focuses on the multiple politeness markings co-occurring in ongoing discourse. Following the analysis of linguistic markers, it also describes ways in which various politeness functions work jointly to accommodate the complex interpersonal needs of multiple interactants by incorporating various realizations of politeness into its analysis. Thus, this study attempts to describe the "process" of creating politeness in discourse by focusing on four Japanese linguistic markers, and by analyzing multiple enactments of politeness in a stretch of discourse. Ultimately, the description of the process allows for a reconsideration of the previously mentioned issues in politeness research, namely issues involved in the notion of face, types of politeness, and social variables affecting Politeness enactments.Research Questions Having discussed the analytical framework of this study and the importance of a process-oriented, discourse-based analysis of politeness, this section presents the research questions of the study. The analysis is based on naturalistic spoken data of multi-party interactions at grade-level faculty meetings in Japanese secondary schools. By exploring the roles linguistic elements play in creating politeness and its multiple ‘enactments, this study addresses the following five questions: 1. Which Japanese politeness markers occur in verbal interactions at faculty meetings? 2. Which pragmatic functions are associated with politeness markers in verbal interactions at faculty meetings? How do politeness markers contribute to the pragmatic functions of politeness? 4. How do multiple politeness markings function together in discourse? 5. Do politeness functions interact across speakers? If so, in what way? ‘The operational definitions of the terms and expressions used in these questions are provided in Chapter III. This chapter also presents an overview of the data, the Preparation of the database, and the framework of the analysis employed in this study. ‘The first three research questions are concerned with the ways in which the pragmatic functions of politeness are created through the placement of individual markers. ‘The last two questions relate to multiple enactments of politeness and the interaction of functions within and across turns. Both analytical procedures and focus of description differ depending on which set of questions is examined. Therefore, these two sets of questions are discussed in separate chapters.Signifi the Ss ‘As mentioned earlier, the Japanese language contains a number of explicit linguistic encodings of social and situational variables. As a result, politeness in the Japanese language has attracted considerable interest in the field of pragmatics. This study hopes to contribute to this growing body of research by adopting a process- and discourse- oriented approach to politeness as opposed to the more static analysis commonly used in previous studies on politeness. By describing how speakers jointly create politeness in ‘ongoing discourse, it offers an alternative view of politeness as a dynamic and interactive process. This view can also advance our understanding of linguistic politeness as a phenomenon apart from any one language. Furthermore, the current study incorporates research from different fields into the analysis of linguistic politeness. Research within the field of speech act studies, conversation analysis, and interactional sociolinguistics, as well as diverse studies on individual markers, are all vital resources used in this analysis. Insights from this diverse body of literature permit a rich and detailed description of the linguistic phenomenon. Finally, the current study also hopes to contribute to a better understanding of individual markers by exploring their various social functions in discourse. The intricate relationship between the linguistic properties and social functions of markers examined in this study helps to paint a holistic picture of these markers. I hope that the findings of the current study will help teachers, material writers, and advanced learners of Japanese understand the intricate use of the politeness strategies involved in Japanese language proficiency. Overview of Di ; Chapter II of this study presents an overview of Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory as well as other studies concerned with various politeness issues. The results of this synthesis prompt a process-oriented discourse approach to the linguisticu study of politeness to deepen the understanding of this linguistic phenomenon. The relationship between discourse analysis and politeness is also explored. Different concepts discussed in discourse analytic studies are related to politeness. This chapter also reviews previous studies on the four politeness markers analyzed in this study. The review of previous research regarding each marker results in a description of the linguistic properties of the markers. Chapter III presents the research method employed in this study. The nature of the data analyzed, the preparation of the database, and the framework of analysis are discussed. Chapters IV to VII are data analysis chapters which answer the first three research questions: 1, Which Japanese politeness markers occur in verbal interactions at faculty meetings? 2. Which pragmatic functions are associated with politeness markers in verbal interactions at faculty meetings? 3. How do politeness markers contribute to the pragmatic functions of politeness? In assessing these questions, these chapters demonstrate the linguistic process of creating varying politeness functions associated with linguistic markers. Specifically, Chapter IV documents the functions associated with the final particle ne, Chapter V with the contrastive connective particle kedo, and Chapter VI with the plain and masw forms of clause-final predicates. Based on the results of these three chapters, Chapter VII answers the following two questions: 4. How do multiple politeness markings function together in discourse? 5. Do politeness functions interact across speakers? If so, in what way? Examining multiple politeness markings, Chapter VII discusses how the discourse ‘integrates various politeness functions. It also presents an alternative view to Brown and Levinson’s (1987) illustration of the multiple enactments of politeness. Chapter VIII, the12 Conclusion, summarizes the findings presented in the previous chapters and considers their contribution to the conceptualization of politeness.Chapter I REVIEW OF LITERATURE This study describes how speakers utilize various linguistic resources to create politeness in discourse. It demonstrates the "process" of creating politeness by focusing on a limited number of linguistic resources and by examining how various politeness enactments are integrated in ongoing discourse. Ultimately, this study incorporates several different fields of linguistic study: pragmatic studies on politeness, various approaches to discourse analysis, and research on specific linguistic markers. In order to provide a basis for cross-referencing among these diverse fields, the current chapter summarizes the major issues discussed in previous studies on linguistic politeness and examines how various approaches to discourse analysis relate to politeness. It also reviews previous research on the four Japanese politeness markers examined in this study: the final particle ne, the contrastive connective particle kedo, and the plain and masu forms of clause-final predicates. P ; Poli Since the issues and criticisms concerned with politeness inevitably involve references to the theoretical framework and basic notions of politeness theories, this first section provides an overview of several politeness theories. It presents four different perspectives on politeness, based on Fraser's (1990) classification: the "social-norm* view, the "conversational-contract" view, the "conversational-maxim” view, and the "face- saving" view. The purpose of this section is to summarize the four different views and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. A general understanding of the four approaches is important for later discussion of issues concerning politeness.Politeness as Social Norm ‘When viewed through the lens of a social norm, linguistic politeness is regarded as fa standard verbal behavior of a society. This view assumes that every culture has specific norms of behavior and that speakers are evaluated on whether they have behaved politely, according to these norms. In this normative view, politeness is generally associated with a speech style. In other words, the degree to which people use linguistic resources associated with formal register correlates with the degree of politeness (Fraser, 1990). Fraser (1990) notes few adherents to this approach in current studies on politeness, This claim may be legitimate if this view equates politeness only with formality. However, the social norms of society can be, and usually are, a broader notion which entails components other than formality. Given this broader notion, politeness as the social norm can relate to "discernment politeness," the "almost automatic observation of socially-agreed-upon rules” (Watts, 1992, p. 52), frequently discussed in relation to the Japanese culture (Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1989). The standard of behavior assumed in the social-norm view corresponds with discernment politeness since both are concerned with normative, appropriate behavior in a particular social setting (¢.g., the use of "si addressing a male guest of high social status at a formal dinner),! Moreover, if a social norm corresponds with the appropriateness of any social setting, the social-norm view can be related to Meier's (1995) view of politeness as “socially appropriate behavior" (p. 351), and to Fraser's (1990) conceptualization of politeness, which will be discussed below. Poli c ional C ‘Researchers attempt to account for politeness in terms of the rights and obligations of participants in conversations (Fraser, 1990; Fraser & Nolen, 1981). These ‘Discernment politeness” will be discussed further in the section introducing different types of politeness.rights and obligations constitute a conversational contract (CC), which, in turn, determines participant expectations in conversations. This view assumes that politeness is the norm. Politeness is defined as the normative act of “operating within the then-current terms and conditions of the CC” (Fraser, 1990, p. 233). In other words, it is the most general view of politeness which equates politeness with appropriate language usage. In this sense, this view can be associated with the social-norm view of politeness: both assume that being polite is ‘equivalent to using language appropriately. However, this view differs from the social-norm view in that the conversational contract (the situation-dependent rights and obligations of participants), rather than social norms, determine participant expectations of appropriateness. Moreover, while the ‘social norm is a general and static notion, the conversational contract is dynamic and interactive in nature. The conversational contract is constantly subject to change during the course of interaction, according to the participants’ constant assessment of varying contextual factors. By connecting politeness with conversational contract, this perspective presents the most general and dynamic view of politeness. However, it is difficult to apply this ‘approach to linguistic data since the exact components of conversational contracts--rights and obligations in actual interactions--are neither adequately elaborated nor easily detectable in analysis. Poli c ional Maxi ‘The “conversational maxim" is related to Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle (CP), which states that participants in conversations try to cooperate in order to ensure the most efficient transmission of information. He identifies four basic conversational maxims which constitute the Cooperative Principle (CP):16 * the maxim of quantity (to make one's contribution as informative as necessary) + the maxim of quality (to make a truthful contribution), * the maxim of relevance (to make a relevant contribution), and + the maxim of manner (to make a clear contribution). This principle of language usage, along with its maxims, is immeasurably important in the pragmatic analysis of verbal interactions: the principle can refer to what is inferred in conversations since any mutually recognized deviation from the principle gives rise to conversational implicature. Politeness as a conversational maxim can be viewed as an elaboration of the Cooperative Principle, in which Grice's maxims are adopted and supplemented by other pragmatic rules or principles. That is, this view of politeness devises principles concerning the interpersonal aspects of interactions to supplement the Cooperative Principle, whose primary concer is interaction aimed at the most efficient transaction of messages. Lakoff’ (1973) work was the first to account for politeness in this approach. This model considers politeness to be "a device used in order to reduce friction in personal interaction" (Fraser, 1990, p. 223), Lakoff (1973) presents the interpersonal tule, "be polite,” to supplement Cooperative Principle, which she rephrases as another tule, "be clear.” The interpersonal rule "be polite” consists of three sub-rules: (1) do not impose, (2) give options, and (3) make the addressee fee! good. These sub-rules correspond, respectively, to three types of politeness: (1) formal/impersonal politeness leads to the rule "do not impose," (2) informal politeness leads to the rule "give options,” and (3) intimate politeness leads to the rule "make the addressee fee! good.”7 In her later work, Lakoff (1979) modified her model and distinguished between four stylistic strategies: clarity, distance, deference, and camaraderie. The speaker chooses one of these strategies according to his or her speech style and assessment of the situation. Here, the four strategies are characterized to form a continuum of social distance among participants: the clarity strategy is associated with the least relationship between participants, while the camaraderie strategy is associated with the most relationship between participants. The main criticism of Lakoff’s approach is that her model of politeness is too vague theoretically to be operative in actual analyses (Van De Walle, 1993; Watts et al., 1992). For example, the relationship among the sub-rules or strategies is not fully discussed. Furthermore, it is not evident how a speaker or hearer assesses what level of politeness is required in actual interactions (Fraser, 1990; Van De Walle, 1993). Leech's (1983) approach to politeness is also based on Grice's maxims and is more elaborate than Lakoff’s conceptualization. He discusses politeness within the framework of Interpersonal Rhetoric. Interpersonal Rhetoric is related to a speaker's social goals (what social position a speaker takes) rather than illocutionary goals (what a speaker tries to convey through a speech act). Within the domain of Interpersonal Rhetoric, Leech (1983) establishes three sets of maxims, which are related to three principles: (1) The Cooperative Principle (CP), (2) The Politeness Principle (PP), and (G) The Irony Principle (IP). His Cooperative Principle corresponds to Grice’s principle. On the other hand, the Politeness Principle was outlined as a general term to "minimize the expression of impolite belief" (p. 81). Leech presented six maxims associated with the Politeness Principle: (1) tact maxim (minimize cost to hearer, maximize benefit to hearer), (2) generosity maxim (minimize benefit to speaker, maximize cost to speaker),18 (3) approbation maxim (minimize dispraise of hearer, maximize praise to hearet), (4) modesty maxim (minimize praise to speaker, maximize dispraise of speaker), (5) agreement maxim (minimize disagreement between speaker and hearer, maximize agreement between self and other), and (© sympathy maxim (minimize antipathy between speaker and hearer, maximize sympathy between speaker and hearer). He also suggested that each maxim operates along a range of scales such as cost-benefit, optionality, indirectness, authority, and social distance. This complex interrelation between maxims and scales determines the fine shading in the degree of politeness, aiming to achieve maximum benefit to the hearer at minimum cost. Leech (1983) also distinguished between relative and absolute politeness. Relative politeness stands for politeness within a particular setting and culture, whereas absolute politeness refers to politeness inherently associated with specific speaker actions. The idea of absolute politeness indicates that speech acts are inherently either polite or impolite based on their illocutionary force. Leech postulated the importance of absolute politeness, stating that "general pragmatics may reasonably confine its attention to politeness in the absolute sense” (p. 84). Leech (1983) further suggested four main illocutionary functions: competitive, convivial, collaborative, and conflictive. He associated them with choice of politeness types. For instance, competitive illocutions (¢.g., ordering), which are inherently impolite, require forms of mitigation. On the other hand, convivial illocutions (¢.g., thanking), which are inherently polite, call for politeness enhancing their positive impact. Despite its detailed elaboration, Leech's model remains abstract. The main criticism of this framework is that it "gets lost in details and, therefore, fails to adequately portray the general picture" (Van de Walle, 1993, p. 57). First, the model is too rigid and abstract to reflect our social and psychological process of perceiving and producing polite expressions (Fraser, 1990; Van de Walle, 1993). Second, Leech's theory does not account19 for the possibility that several illocutionary functions may overlap and co-occur in actual discourse. Third, since the list of maxims is open-ended, the model may not serve as a parsimonious analytical instrument (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Poli Face Saving Devi ‘Among the approaches to politeness, Brown and Levinson's (1987) approach has been the most influential paradigm to date. Similar to other approaches, it is based on the maxims of Grice's Cooperative Principle (CP). However, unlike Lakoff's and Leech's approaches, Brown and Levinson's model does not present a set of maxims to supplement Grice’s maxims, nor, like Fraser's approach, does it present an overarching notion that includes CP. Instead, this model views politeness as the reason for deviating from Grice's maxims. That is, while the essential assumption of CP is that rational conversation contains "no deviation from rational efficiency without a reason” (Brown & Levinson, 1987), considerations of politeness in ordinary conversation provide reasons for deviation. Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory is also unique because it links the Cooperative Principle (CP) with the notion of face, as itis used in social studies. Adopting Goffinan's (1967) notion of face, the authors defined "face" as "the public self- image that every member wants to claim for himself" (p. 61). They further present two face types , positive face and negative face. Negative face is defined as "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-destruction~i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition" (p. 61). Positive face is defined as "the positive consistent self image or ‘personality’ (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants” (p. 61). Brown and Levinson consider these two types of face as the “wants” of every competent adult member of society. In other words, every speaker wants his/her action to "be unimpeded by others (negative face wants)" and20 every speaker wants his/her action to "be desirable to others (positive face wants)" (p. 68). In this way, Brown and Levinson (1987) regard politeness as the manifestation of respect for the intetlocutor’s face. They claim that participants of communication want to maintain each other's face as well as to defend it when threatened in interaction. The underlying assumption of their model is that face is vulnerable. Most speech acts can be regarded as being inherently face-threatening, either to the speaker, the hearer, or both. Consequently, these "face-threatening acts (FTAs)" require softening devices which counterbalance the threat by appropriate doses of politeness (Kasper, 1994). In order to meet this requirement, speakers employ “politeness strategies," by which they convey their intention to be polite while performing the FTAs. Brown and Levinson’s taxonomy of politeness strategies is summarized in Figure 2.1. They place four superstrategies of politeness (1-4 in Figure 2.1) within their taxonomy. without redressive action, baldly (1) ‘on record < positive politeness (2) with redressive action Do the m( negative politeness (3) off record (4) Don't do FTA Note. FTA = face threatening act Figure 2.1, Superstrategies of politeness (1-4) (adapted from Brown and Levinson, 1987, p. 69). Committing an FTA on record without redressive action parallels Grice's maxims. Itis the most efficient, clearest way of performing an act. As for performing an FTA on record with redressive action, positive politeness strategies include expressions of2 solidarity, whereas negative politeness strategies are primarily expressions of restraint. Off-record politeness, the avoidance of explicit imposition, is the most indirect type of politeness, requiring a grester amount of inference. These four superstrategies are hierarchically organized. That is, according to how serious the face threat of an FTA is, a speaker can choose from among the four superstrategies. While the most serious offense requires an off-record strategy, the least serious offense requires a bald-on-record strategy. The seriousness or "weightiness” of an FTA is measured by assessing contextual factors. Their formula is comparable to Leech’s scales of politeness. The suggested formula is: Wx = D(S, H) + P (H, S) + Rx, where Wx represents the "weightiness" of FTAx, which estimates the risk of face-loss. Ws, in turn, determines the degree of politeness the speaker needs to attend to in performing x. The three variables that determine the degree of weightiness (W) are: D (S, H), the social distance between the speaker and the hearer; P (H, S), the relative power of the speaker with respect to the hearer; and Rx, the absolute ranking of imposition of an act x in the particular culture in which x is performed. Although each variable is assigned 1 value-scale from 1 to n, the method of scaling and the interplay among the variables are not discussed by Brown and Levinson (1987). Brown and Levinson's approach is regarded as the most comprehensive since their notion of face provides a social and psychological explanation for the politeness phenomenon. Their extensive use of cross-cultural data also lends credibility to their theory. Their approach, however, remains controversial in three ways. First, their claim that politeness is universal is questionable since the notion of face on which their claim is based may be culture-specific. Second, the notion of politeness itself needs to be clarified. ‘Third, criticisms arise concerning their formula of sociolinguistic variables. The next section introduces arguments concerning these issues.Issues of Politeness The issues discussed in this section concern the notion of face, types of politeness, sociolinguistic variables of politeness, and the nature of politeness strategies. Even though this chapter introduces these issues separately, they are interrelated and therefore require numerous cross-references. Notion of Face ‘Two main issues concem the notion of face, which forms the basis of Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. First, there is a issue relating to the claimed universality of notion of face. Second, there is an issue about distinguishing between positive and negative face. Again, these two issues are interrelated and require cross- references. Before discussing these two issues, however, the origin of the notion of positive and negative face is introduced since the way in which Brown and Levinson (1987) adopted these notions is related to the discussion. The origin of the two terms coined by Brown and Levinson, "positive face” and "negative face," are schematized in Figure 2.2. The positive/negative distinction is based on Durkheim's (1995/1912) notions describing basic religious cults. The notion of “face” is based on an English folk term (based on the translation of a Chinese expression), as well as Goffinan's (1967) notion of face. ‘The origin of face. Brown and Levinson (1987) introduced the notion of face as a universal human need to explain why certain expressions are considered polite. Therefore, this notion has become the core issue in discussing the universality of Politeness. According to the authors, two sources for their notion of face are the English folk term “face” and Goffinan's (1967) extended notion.23 Figure 2.2. The origins of positive vs. negative face. Brown and Levinson (1987) noted that the English folk term "face" is taken from the metaphorical expression "to lose face,” which means to be embarrassed or humiliated. The origin of this expression can, in fact, be traced back further. Originally, it was translated from the Chinese expression tiu lien. The expression "to save one’s face” was “originally used by the English community in China, with reference to the continual devices among the Chinese to avoid incurring or inflicting disgrace” (Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, vol. XIV, p. 526). It is interesting to note that the original notion of face was derived from a Chinese expression since, as will be discussed later, researchers from East Asian countries often argue against Brown and Levinson’s claim that the notion of face is universal. Goffman (1967) adopted the term "face" for his theory of interpersonal communication. He defined face as "the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact” (p. 5). Adopting Goffman's terminology, Brown and Levinson (1987) stated that face is “something that is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction" (p. 61). By adopting Goffman's24 (1971) notion, the study of politeness has linked itself to other fields, such as self- presentation in social interaction and managing interpersonal relationships. Fraser (1990), however, questions whether Brown and Levinson's conceptualization maintains Goffman's original notion of face. Along the same line, ODriscoll (1996) pointed out that while Goffinan's notion of face referred to self-image, Brown and Levinson’s face was seen both as an image and as the desire for a positive self- image. Furthermore, researchers doubt if Goffman's notion can be extended to cover negative face in Brown and Levinson's paradigm (O'Driscoll, 1996; Watts et al., 1992). Thus, the examination of the positive/negative distinction becomes pertinent to understanding the various notions of face. The origin of positive/negative distinction. The distinction between negative and positive face wants was derived from Durkheim's (1995/1912) distinction between negative and positive cults, These cults are the system of ritual practices which aim to keep a balanced relationship between sacred and profane beings. Negative cults are rites of prohibition to "prevent undue mixings" between the sacred and profane, while positive cults are rites of approach to exalt and propitiate the sacred. ‘These distinctions can be extended to interactional rituals in everyday life. Durkheim (1995/1912) regarded religious forces as "transfigured collective forces" (p. 327), Thus, by examining an archaic religion, he attempted to "reveal a fundamental and permanent aspect of humanity” (p. 1). A similar extension is readily observable in sociological studies. For example, Goffiman (1967) stated that individuals were allotted ‘sacredness and that interactional rituals were the remains of earlier public rituals. Brown and Levinson (1987) developed the argument one step further and regarded interactional ritual as the "omnipresent model for rituals of all kinds* (p. 44). In this sense, both negative and positive face concem the sacredness of the individual: negative face is attended to by means of negative rites of avoidance, while positive face is attended to by means of positive rites of approach.25 Universal vs. culture-specific face. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) notion of Positive and negative face is, therefore, a combination of two theses concerning fundamental human traits: Goffman's (1967) notion of face and Durkheim's (1995/1912) distinction between positive and negative rites. Thus, itis not surprising that Brown and Levinson (1987) claimed the universality of their notion of face, as follows: [While the content of face will differ in different cultures (what the exact limits are to personal territories, and what the publicly relevant content of personality consists in), we are assuming that the mutual knowledge of members' public self- image or face, and the social necessity to orient oneself to it in interaction, are universal. (pp. 61-62) Other researchers (Tracy, 1990; Wood & Kroger, 1991) also support the universality of the notion of face, drawing on the origins of the notion addressed by Durkheim and Goffman. However, criticisms of universality claims are often posed by researchers in non- ‘Western societies (e.g., Ide, 1989; Matsumoto, 1988, 1989; Nwoye, 1992; Pan, 1995). ‘Their arguments are based on a claim that the concept of self and its relation to society vary cross-culturally, and that these varying concepts of self lead to culturally-mediated interpretations of face. As a result, they claim cultural specificity for either the concept Of face itself or the elevated status of negative face in Brown and Levinson's (1987) paradigm. First, the notion of face is claimed to have different interpretations in group- oriented cultures. For instance, Ide (1977) presented different configurations of self between Japanese and American cultures, as illustrated in Figure 2.3 (cited in Kubota, 1990). The area "A" represents the outside world that consists of co-workers and acquaintances, while "B" represents one's in-group, such as family and intimate friends. ‘The boundary between self and in-group is clear in the American model and more diffuse in the Japanese model. On the other hand, the Japanese make a clearer distinction between A (outside the group) and B (inside the group) than Americans. The diffuse26 boundary between self and one's in-group creates interdependence among insiders (Doi, 1971), and the collective orientation of Japanese culture is manifested in its emphasis on empathy, belongingness, and dependency (Clancy, 1986; Lebra, 1976). American "self" Figure 2.3. Japanese vs, American "self" (adapted from Kubota, 1990, p. 75). Similarly, Markus and Kitayama (1991) distinguish between independent and interdependent self. They claim that independent self is associated with Western cultures, which emphasize the separateness of individuals. On the other hand, interdependent self is associated with non-Western cultures, which emphasize the connectedness of members of society. These claims are not limited to Japanese society. Sifianou (1992, 1993) presents a similar distinction between in-group and out-group orientations in Greek culture, arguing that they also emphasize involvement and in-group relationships based on mutual independence. Nwoye (1992) describes the Igbo society as group oriented in a similar way: the relationship between self and others in Igbo can be depicted as "I and others" rather than as the "I versus others" relationship in Wester society. In cultures with different social orientation, the notion of face and its role in the Politeness system can be distinguished from the notion of face and the role in Western27 cultures. For example, Japanese politeness is claimed to be driven not by concerns about maintenance of face, but by concerns about maintenance of the relative place or position. of others (Ide, 1989; Matsumoto, 1988). Therefore, the highly individualistic Western face proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) cannot be claimed as the underlying motivation for politeness in Japanese society. Similar claims are made for Chinese society. Researchers argue that the underlying motivation for politeness in China is "relation acknowledgment” (Pan, 1995); therefore, the Chinese notion of face differs from Brown and Levinson's notion (Mao, 1994). Mao presents two interactional ideals: “ideal social identity” and "ideal individual autonomy," which operate in Asian and Wester society, respectively. He argues for a "relative face orientation," in which Chinese and Japanese face are oriented toward an “ideal social identity," whereas Brown and Levinson's face is oriented toward an “ideal individual autonomy." Along the same line, Nwoye (1992) contrasts "public/group face" (the notion of face in Igbo culture) and "private/individual face” (the notion of face in Western societies). Another related argument against the universality of face concems the status of negative face in the politeness system. As mentioned, the limits of personal territories in ‘group-oriented societies are less well-defined than those in Western societies. The collective nature of these societies tends to devalue negative face wants and raises a question about Brown and Levinson’s (1987) claim that both positive and negative face ‘wants exist in all cultures. For instance, researchers argue that negative face wants cannot account for politeness behavior in Japanese culture since Japan has a collective rather than an individualistic orientation (Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1989; Matsumoto, 1988, 1989). As an example, Matsumoto (1988) states that Japanese social interactions are governed by the maintenance of relative position rather than by an individual's proper territory, thereby devaluing the importance of individuals and their rights,A similar argument arises about the Chinese notion of face: Se neither of the two concepts of face in Chinese, lian and mien-tzu, is associated with negative face (Gu, 1990; Hu, 1944). Even within European cultures, Sifianou (1992, 1993, 1995) argues that positive rather than negative face wants are more significant, as in Greek culture. Wierzbicka (1985) presents a similar case for Polish interaction. She raises objections against Western values of individualism, manifested in politeness and other pragmatic theories in general, and maintains that these values are not necessarily shared by other cultures. ‘Thus, arguments against universality are largely based on the claim that Brown and Levinson's (1987) notion of face, especially negative face, is individualistic in nature, and therefore cannot be applied to non-Westem societies which have a collective orientation. In defense of the universality of face, however, O'Driscoll (1996) argues that “a link between the concept of face itself and individualism has been forged” (p. 7). He claims that even though Brown and Levinson (1987) designated face as an attribute of an individual, this did not necessarily imply a link between the concept of face and the cultural value of individualism. Researchers have presented varying accounts of their attempts to synthesize the controversy on the universality of politeness. First, Brown and Levinson (1987) addressed cultural variability by claiming that positive and negative face are assigned different content and weight in each culture. Second, Watts etal. (1992) introduced the distinction between first- and second-order politeness--the everyday notion of what constitutes polite and impolite behavior (first order) and politeness as a theoretical construct (second order). According to the authors, most of the approaches pursuing universals in politeness necessarily involve second-order notions of politeness. On the other hand, studies of politeness in particular cultural frameworks tend to involve a first- order notion of politeness. Therefore, universal principles and the cultural relativity of29 politeness can be studied simultaneously as long as the two levels of analysis are not confused.? In the same vein, O'Driscoll (1996) contrasts “foreground-conscious” and “preconscious" face. While "foreground-conscious" face is culture-specific, ‘“preconscious" face, which consists of positive and negative face, is universal. He maintains that positive and negative face wants are fundamental human wants, and speakers frequently attend to these face wants unconsciously. On the other hand, conscious desire for "good" face is variable since a culture determines what constitutes The conscious/preconscious distinction reveals the important fact that most claims about face depend on "conscious" sources, such as introspective language data and research results in the fields of anthropology and social psychology. Even though these sources are valuable, their results are sometimes contradictory. For instance, face in Japanese society is claimed to be culturally-specific (e.g,, Ide, 1989; Matsumoto, 1988, 1989) while Brown and Levinson characterized Japanese culture as predominantly oriented toward negative face. If O'Driscoll's (1996) claim about the unconscious face- attending mechanism--that speakers frequently attend to their face wants unconsciously-- is true, these sources may not sufficiently describe linguistic politeness. That is, introspective sentential data may not be suitable to assess underlying unconscious face wants since these are manifested in the subtle mechanisms of talk which are observable only in natural data. In order to determine whether the dual notion of positive and negative face is sufficient for pragmatic analysis, a systematic analysis of socially-situated natural discourse is necessary. 2 although insightful, these explanations involve practical difficulties. Since researchers observe the same linguistic behavior whether their study focuses on first- or second-order politeness, the two levels are closely ‘create their own levels of abstraction that may or may ‘not equal the second-order politeness. As a result, Eelen (1999) states that the relationship between the first and second notion of politeness is “a bit unclear to say the least” (p. 167).30 ‘Another pertinent issue conceming the notion of face is the relationship between Positive and negative face. Brown and Levinson (1987) presented these kinds of face as ‘two aspects of fundamental human desire without referring much to the relationship between them. They touch upon the relationship between positive and negative face in their discussion of the hierarchical order of the superstrategies. Strategies which attend to negative face are apparently chosen when performing more face-threatening acts, while Positive strategies are associated with less face-threatening acts. This reveals that they consider positive and negative face as distinct and more or less opposite categories. The authors' view of the relationship is also revealed in their illustration of the combined use of politeness strategies. The next subsection introduces and examines their illustration of this phenomenon. Multiple politeness strategies. Since politeness in language has been chiefly discussed in conjunction with analyses of speech acts performed in individual utterances, the co-occurring politeness strategies in connected discourse have not been the focus of previous studies. Although researchers have listed several politeness markers simultaneously in their descriptions of speech act realizations, there has been no discussion of how different strategies co-occur and interact with each other since the ‘general purpose of these studies was to encompass the potential range of strategies constituting the speech act under discussion. Brown and Levinson (1987) only briefly illustrate the use of multiple politeness markings ("mixture of strategies” in their terms). This section outlines their illustration and points out several theoretical and practical problems. Brown and Levinson’ illustration of how multiple strategies are integrated in talk reveals their view that negative and positive politeness are distinct and more or less ‘opposing categories on a single scale. The authors claim that there are two ways in which co-occurring strategies are integrated in talk: (1) the speaker creates a "hybrid" strategy, a strategy located "somewhere between the two [i.e., the negative and positive strategies]"31 (P. 230), and (2) the speaker makes a moment-by-moment "minute adjustment,” by moving the speaker and addressee "back and forth between approaching and distancing in their interaction" (p. 231). ‘Their argument is intuitively appealing since interactants constantly negotiate their relationship with each other. Moreover, Okamoto (1999) presents data that empirically support this account in discussing honorific and non-honorific expressions in Japanese conversation. She demonstrates how speakers attempt to express "the right degree of formality/deference” (p. 64) by "mixing" honorific and non-honorific expressions. In other words, speakers may utilize both honorific and non-honorific expressions in addressing the same interlocutor within a single speech event in order to ‘create a desired interpersonal relationship. However, Brown and Levinson's (1987) conceptualization invites questions concerning the contrastive relationship between negative and positive strategies. First, Brown and Levinson's claim that positive and negative strategies function as approaching and distancing devices appears to relate the two strategies to a social distance scale, which is depicted as (A) in Figure 2.4. However, identifying negative and positive strategies with distancing and approaching devices, respectively, highlights the distance-D(S,H)--in Brown and Levinson's formula of social variables that affect politeness: Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) + Rx. Thus, the other two parameters--power and the absolute value of imposition--remain unexplained in this conceptualization.4 3 According to Brown and Levinson, these two types of “mixture” are motivated by the need to establish a ‘balance or by the speaker's momentary change in moods (sometimes the speaker feels close to interactans and otber times alienated). coy aepatos of rows and Linon’ hor em to ighlight the isaac ee 2 el crploing Foch mss nay poses o volvement for a notion equals : | deference politeness or independence for negative politeness ¢Scollon & Scollon, 1981, 1995),(A) social distance scale: distance closeness (B) politeness scale: more polite | less polite negative strategy positive strategy Figure 2.4. Mlustration of Brown and Levinson's (1987) discussion of negative and positive strategies on social distance/politeness scales. Second, even if one incorporates the other two parameters (.e., power and value of imposition), other problems remain. In this case, the scale on which the negative and positive strategies are recognized becomes reasonably equivalent to the rank order of their five superstrategies, varying from the most polite to the least polite, depicted as (B) in Figure 2.4. This second possible interpretation of Brown and Levinson's illustration does not only concern social distance but also incorporates other parameters under discussion. However, in this interpretation, the nature of hybrid strategies is not clear. Considering negative politeness as the politeness of non-imposition and positive politeness as that of solidarity, the idea of "somewhere between negative and positive” is hard to grasp. Moreover, in the hybridizing process, a paradoxical phenomenon occurs: the use of Positive politeness makes the utterance "less polite” on the scale. A discourse perspective unveils other concems as well. Brown and Levinson's arguments on co-occurring strategies relate only to the multiple politeness markings of a single speaker. It is worth exploring whether strategy usages interact with one another across speakers. Moreover, when considering the combination of varying strategies associated with different markers in a stretch of discourse, minute adjustment and hybridization do not appear to flexibly illustrate the complex phenomenon. This section critically examined Brown and Levinson's description of the multiple co-occurring strategies. Multiple strategies co-occur regularly in everyday conversations.33 Generally, when a speech event as a whole is under discussion, the claim that speakers adjust social distance by employing different strategies is intuitively appealing. However, it is questionable whether or not Brown and Levinson's description of the multiple co- occurring strategies can account for the frequent integration of numerous markers involved in a longer stretch of discourse. Moreover, some strategies (e.g., hedges) are listed both as negative and positive politeness in Brown and Levinson's list of strategies. By exploring the strategy mixture in a larger stretch of discourse, it will be possible to examine these issues further. An analysis of naturally occurring discourse may advance a deeper understanding of the relationship between positive and negative face. Indeed, in the field of discourse analysis, similar notions have been discussed (Scollon & Scollon, 1981, 1983, 1995; Tannen, 1984, 1994).5 In analyzing discourse data, researchers have argued that independence and solidarity politeness (Scollon & Scollon, 1995), or distancing and solidarity functions of indirectness (Tannen, 1984), are seemingly opposing but actually interrelated notions, Researchers have pointed out the paradoxical nature of the two notions, which both entail and limit each other at the same time. This leads to the view that every communication is a double bind since both independence and solidarity are constantly present. This discussion contributes to a better understanding of the two basic needs that are inevitably expressed in communication. ee Be ‘Another important issue is concerned with the distinction between politeness as a strategic device and politeness as a social index. Brown and Levinson (1987) consider politeness as a strategic device that interlocutors employ to attend to negative and positive face wants. In other words, politeness is a redressive action employed to “counterbalance the disruptive effect of face-threatening acts" (Kasper, 1990, p. 194). ‘S These similar notions are discussed later in this chapter under the heading “Interactional Sociolinguistics and Politeness.”34 Leech (1983) presents a similar conceptualization of politeness as a strategy of conflict avoidance, (Questions were raised concerning the cross-cultural applicability of these conceptualizations of politeness as a strategic device. Researchers have argued that in some societies, politeness operates “independently of the current goal a speaker intends to achieve," and therefore cannot be characterized as a strategic device (Ide, 1989, p. 196). ‘These researchers distinguish between two kinds of politeness: strategic or volitional politeness and discernment or social index politeness (Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1982, 1989; de et al, 1986; Kasper 1990). Strategic or volitional politeness is also considered politeness as strategic conflict avoidance, whereas discernment or social indexing politeness is "the linguistic expression of ‘social warrants" (Ide, 1989, p. 196), which marks the speaker's recognition of the expected norms. This concept of “discernment” is synonymous with the basic sense of the Japanese word wakimae, "conforming to the expected norm,” which refers to an "almost automatic observation of socially-agreed-upon rules" (Hill et al, 1986, p. 348). Thus, selecting the appropriate linguistic form is almost obligatory and automatic, after assessing role relations and situational factors. In other words, discernment is seen as independent of the speaker's current goal in interaction. A type of politeness similar to discernment has also been reported in Igbo (Nwoye, 1992) and Chinese cultures (Gu, 1990; Mao, 1994; Pan, 1995). In these cultures, "discerning what is appropriate and acting accordingly is much more important than acting according to strategies designed to accomplish specific objectives" (Nwoye, 1992, p. 311). Asa result, Nwoye distinguishes between politeness addressed to "group face" vs, "individual face." Likewise, Gu (1990) distinguishes between “normative” and "instrumental" politeness. These contrasts are similar to the contrast between strategic and social-index politeness.35 ‘The keys in distinguishing these two kinds of linguistic politeness--strategic (volitional) politeness on the one hand, and discernment (social index) politeness on the other hand--are the speaker's intention and the degree of freedom in the choice of linguistic. expression (O'Driscoll, 1996). As for the speaker's intention, in most cases, strategic politeness is used intentionally while discernment is used unintentionally. It is difficult, however, to distinguish between these two types of politeness in terms of intentionality since intentionality is elusive and difficult to detect in analyses. Moreover, it appears that Brown and Levinson (1987) attempted to incorporate both the intentional and unintentional enactment of politeness into the term "strategy." ‘When explaining their use of the word "strategy," the authors state that it should cover both “innovative plans of action, which may still be (but need not be) unconscious," and routines, or ready-made plans whose application is automatic (p. 85). In other words, their definition of "strategy" includes both intentional and unconscious politeness. Another key concept in distinguishing between the two kinds of politeness is the optionality, or the amount of linguistic choice. Hill et al. (1986) claim that volitional politeness allows the speaker a "considerably more active choice [to choose] from a telatively wider range of possibilities" (p. 348), whereas in the case of discernment, the choice is mostly obligatory. O'Driscoll (1996) likewise asserts that the degree of freedom in the choice of linguistic expression distinguishes between the two types of politeness. In this light, the strictness of social obligation in conforming to the expected norm can vary from culture to culture, and, within the same culture, from expression to expression. For instance, both the conventionality of an expression and how politeness is marked in a Particular language are factors that determine whether a politeness enactment is considered a social-index. This situational variation may invalidate the distinction between the two types of politeness solely on the basis of obligation. Without a clear distinction between them, therefore, strategic politeness and discernment should be viewed as interrelated and complementary aspects of politeness36 rather than as distinct, mutually exclusive types of politeness (O'Driscoll, 1996; Van De Walle, 1993). Kasper (1990) has suggested, for example, that future studies investigate “the exploitation of social markers in expressing strategic politeness" (p. 197), admitting the possibility that social-index politeness can be used strategically. In order to explore this possil it is important to examine socially and psychologically motivated variations in diverse politeness enactments based on naturalistic discourse data. Another claim worth considering about the two kinds of politeness is that although both volitional (strategic) politeness and discernment are observed in Western societies and in Japan, politeness in Western societies is skewed toward strategic politeness while politeness in Japan is predominantly discernment (Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1982; Ide et al., 1986; Janney & Amdt, 1993). Although these observations may be valid 1s a result of cross-linguistic comparison, their research may have been partially responsible for the view of Japanese politeness as "fixed and mandatory" (Janney & Arndt, 1993, p. 18). The claim that Japanese politeness is mostly discernment is often based on research which correlates the subjects’ judgment of situational factors with linguistic choice when they perform a single speech act assessed by a written questionnaire (Hill et al., 1986; Ide et al., 1986). However, recent studies on Japanese honorifics, based on discourse-level conversational data, demonstrate flexible and diverse enactments of politeness (Cook, 1996b, 1999; Maynard, 1993; Okamoto, 1999). A considerable variety of different honorifics observed in these studies seems to contradict the view of Japanese politeness marking as mandatory. Thus, a variety of politeness enactments, including honorifics, within larger stretches of discourse require further study. ‘The previous discussion of strategy combination becomes pertinent in considering the variability of politeness strategies. As mentioned, Brown and Levinson (1987) fall short in supporting their discussion of co-occurring politeness strategies by not including concrete examples. It is questionable whether their illustration can be applied to37 discourse data. Therefore, it is important to examine variations in politeness enactments in discourse data. s Vari Poli Another main issue in the discussion of linguistic politeness is the identification of sociolinguistic variables which affect the use of politeness strategies. Brown and Levinson's (1987) original theory includes the formula of "weightiness of FTAs," which is measured by adding three variables: power, social distance, and the FTA’s inherent degree of imposition. Prior to Brown and Levinson's politeness theory, Brown and Gilman (1960) attempted to account for pronoun usage in terms of two variables, power and solidarity. Researchers continue to discuss these and other social and psychological variables affecting the enactment of politeness. A number of speech act studies which focus on first and second language performance discuss the effect of power and distance on Politeness. These studies claim cross-cultural differences in the performance and perception of politeness in various speech acts such as disagreements (Beebe & Takahashi, 1989), refusals (Beebe et al., 1990), requests (Blum-Kulka, 1982, 1983; Blum- Kulka & House, 1989; Ervin-Tripp, 1976, Fraser, Rintell, & Walters, 1980), and apologies (Fraser, 1981; Olshtain, 1989). Also related is Wolfson's (1988, 1989) Bulge Theory. Wolfson states that social distance and power are not related in a linear fashion to more elaborated talk. Comparing intimate and non-intimate interlocutor groups, Wolfson develops her Bulge Theory, which states that the power and distance between interlocutors affect the amount of elaboration in talk, and that the amount of linguistic elaboration forms a bulge-shaped curve along the scale of social distance. According to Wolfson, speakers use increasingly more elaborated talk with status equals, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances than they do with status unequals, intimates, or strangers. They do so because they are continually38 negotiating their relationship with status equals, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances, while they have less need to negotiate their relationship with status unequals, intimates, or strangers, where the relationship is either secure ot non-existent. Even though Wolfton did not directly relate her theory to politeness, linguistic elements involved in the elaboration are related to politeness. Some researchers take issue with Brown and Levinson's presentation of three-fold sociolinguistic variables, and discuss other supplementary factors affecting politeness behavior. For instance, in investigating politeness strategies in Shakespeare's tragedies, Brown and Gilman (1989) claim that degree of imposition and power, rather than social distance, affect the enactment of politeness. They argue that social distance must be distinguished from affect and demonstrate that the latter has an impact on politeness behavior. In addition to social distance among interlocutors, the metaphorical distance between interlocutors and conveyed information may affect the enactment of politeness (Kamio, 1979, 1990). According to Kamio, information presented in conversation can be judged as belonging to the speaker, addressee, or both. The judgment depends on the metaphorical distance between the interlocutors and the information; the person who knows the information better at the time of conversation is regarded as "nearer" to the information in question. Thus, the content of an utterance can be either shared by the speaker and hearer (je., the speaker's and hearer's shared territory of information), or held only by the hearer (i.e. the hearer’s territory of information), or held only by the speaker (ie, the speaker's territory of information), Kamio (1979, 1990) reported that Japanese speakers vary their use of sentence-final forms, depending on their perception of information territory. For instance, when two people meet in the street on a hot day, they obviously share a perception of the warm weather. In this case, one can say “aisui desu ne (it's hot, isn't it?)" with the final particle ne, but it would sound inappropriate to say “atsui desu (it's hot)* without the particle.39 Other factors affecting politeness behavior include topic and goal of interaction (Blum-Kulka et al, 1985), age (Blum-Kulka et al,, 1985), type of speech event (Blum- Kulka, 1990), type of offense (Holmes, 1989), and interlocutor’s gender (Brouwer, 1982; Holmes, 1986, 1988; Kemper, 1984; Zimin, 1981). Among these studies, a few on the intetlocutor's gender present opposing results. Some studies show that the gender difference is negligible (Kemper, 1984; Zimin, 1981), while others report a difference based on interlocutor’s gender (Holmes, 1986, 1988). Considerable cross-cultural differences have also been observed in these studies. Kasper (1990) attempts to categorize variables by differentiating between context- external variables, such as the social factors of power and distance, and context-internal variables inherent in specific speech acts, such as the rank of imposition (R) of the act discussed by Brown and Levinson (1987). A number of speech act studies have presented various components of the R-factor for different speech acts (¢.g., Blum-Kulka & House, 1989; Holmes, 1989; Olshtain, 1989). These components are frequently concemed with the rights and obligations of interlocutors, and the weightiness of the components shows cross-cultural variation. The remaining problem is that a number of studies on sociolinguistic variables demonstrate difficulty in determining which variables affect politeness at any given point in an interaction (Kasper, 1990). This difficulty is summarized in Kasper’s (1990) remark that "what exactly the mechanics are of this delicate interplay of social, psychological and communicative processes remains a major issue for pragmaticists to address” (p. 205). ‘The difficulty may be related to the correlational treatment of social variables and sentence-level speech enactments employed by most studies. That is, varying factors, the communication processes in particular, are difficult to assess within a quantitative analytical framework. The process of creating politeness, which involves varying factors, is best assessed by analyzing the phenomenon qualitatively within a longer stretch of discourse. Moreover, correlational studies cannot account for the varied use of different40 politeness markers within a stretch of discourse reported by Cook (1996), Maynard (1993), and Okamoto (1999). Therefore, it would be useful to employ an emic approach to politeness in order to depict the process of creating politeness in discourse. This section summarized the issues concerning the notion of face, different types of politeness, and sociolinguistic variables affecting politeness. It suggested that these issues are closely related to one another. It also showed that the discrepancy in the literature is partly due to the use of introspective, sentence-level language data and partly due to the view of politeness as a function of static sociolinguistic variables. An analysis of naturalistic extended discourse data, therefore, becomes pertinent to the study of politeness as a dynamic phenomenon. Dis is and Pol Given the premise stated in the previous section, this section provides an overview of how politeness relates to different approaches to discourse. First, it describes the connection between speech act related studies and politeness. Second, it introduces the relation of studies of verbal disputes to linguistic politeness. Finally, it Presents two research traditions to analyze verbal interactions--conversation analysis and interactional sociolinguistics--and discusses how the key concepts of these approaches can relate to linguistic politeness. Politeness and Speech Act Studies. The strong tie between politeness and speech act studies was based on the fact that the notion of a face-threatening act (FTA), the core of Brown and Levinson's (1987) Politeness theory, was based on the notion of speech act. Even though speech act studies are generally dependent on sentence-level analysis, they provide an analytical tool ‘The philosophical notion of speech act was introduced by Austin (1962) and elaborated by Searle (1969, 1971, 1975, 1976).41 usable in discourse-level analysis. Moreover, recent studies incorporate discourse-level performance into analyses of speech actions. It is immediately obvious that extensive studies of cross-cultural data on various speech acts have provided a deeper understanding of politeness strategies. In speech act studies, the notion of politeness is usually conceived of as a mitigation of a hearer-costly act. For example, the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), an early comprehensive study on speech acts, investigated requests and apologies in Hebrew, Danish, German, Canadian French, and British, American, and Australian English (Blum- Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). ‘Other works include studies on FTAs such as apologies (Bergman & Kasper, 1993; Cohen & Olshtain, 1981; Coulmas, 1981; Holmes, 1989; Olshtain, 1983, 1989; ‘Olshtain & Cohen, 1983; Owen, 1983), refusals (Beebe & Cummings, 1985, 1996; Beebe et al., 1990), requests (Blum-Kulka, 1987, 1989; Blum-Kulka & House, 1989; Blum- Kulka et al., 1985; Weizman, 1989, 1993), disagreement (Beebe & Takahashi, 1989; D’Amico-Reisner, 1983; Kakava, 1993), and complaints (House & Kasper, 1981; Olshtain & Weinbach, 1987). On the other hand, politeness strategies have also been analyzed as a maximization of hearer benefits, such as in work on compliments (Herbert, 1989; Holmes, 1986, 1988; Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1983). Speech act theory, however, has been criticized for emphasizing only sentence- level analysis. Noting this shortcoming in the progress of their theory, Brown and Levinson (1987) tried to distance their notion of FTA from that of speech acts: ‘Face-threatening acts' or FTAs need not be realized in sentence-like units, and the upshot of all this is that we must now acknowledge that the speech act categories that we employed were an under-analyzed shorthand, but one which, were we to try again today, would still be hard to avoid. (pp. 10-11) Nevertheless, since earlier research on linguistic politeness was often incorporated into studies of speech acts, a discourse-level analysis of politeness strategies has been largely neglected.42 Researchers have also attempted to incorporate discourse-level analysis within the scope of speech act studies. For instance, Held's (1989) study on requests demonstrates that certain politeness strategies occur in relation to the function and placement of requestive behavior in a discourse sequence. Furthermore, Blum-Kulka (1990) suggests that discourse organization and conversational management can be seen as a part of politeness strategies in performing requests. Studies on speech act performance in first ‘and second languages employ discourse data achieved through role plays (e.g., Houck & Gass, 1996; Scarcella, 1979; Trosborg, 1987, 1995) and through observation of authentic discourse (¢.g., Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1993; Beebe & Cummings, 1983, 1996; Ellis, 1992; Kanagy & Igarashi, 1997; Salsbury & Bardovi-Harlig, in press; Wolfson, 1981; Wolfson, D'Amico-Reisner, & Huber, 1983). Even though earlier studies tended to focus on sentence -level analysis, studies on specific speech acts or FTAs are indispensable to the development of the politeness theory, and both of these disciplines benefit from each other. For instance, the studies presented functional notions such as upgraders, downgraders, and grounders, which are useful in analyzing politeness either in sentence or discourse-level analysis. Face-Threatening Acts and Conflict Tall Since politeness studies incorporate the notion of face-threatening act (FTA), discourse events which contain a series of such acts are often analyzed in terms of politeness. Thus, an obviously pertinent sub-field of discourse analysis is the study of arguments and verbal disputes because the prototypical nature of dispute is face- threatening. Various linguistic features analyzed in these studies relate to politeness strategies (¢.g., Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1990; D'Amico-Reisner, 1983). Disputes and arguments are not described only as face-threatening activities, however. Studies on conflict talk among children and adolescents often depict conflict talk as status and solidarity-building activities (Boggs, 1978; Eisenberg & Garvey, 1981;a Eckert, 1990; Eder, 1990; Emihovich, 1986; Goodwin, 1983; Goodwin & Goodwin, 1990; Katriel, 1985). Disputes are also considered solidarity-building in certain cultures such as the African-American (Kochman, 1981; Labov, 1972a) and Jewish community (Schiffrin, 1984, 1985, 1990). Moreover, in certain settings such as the courtroom (Atkinson & Drew, 1979; Conley & O'Barr, 1990; Lakoff, 1989, 1990) and the therapy session (Labov & Fanshel, 1977; Lakoff, 1989, 1990), disputes are expected rather than avoided, and the strategies used in these settings differ from those discussed in other studies on disputes. Different discourse-level analyses have incorporated the notion of linguistic politeness although their goal is not to study politeness per se. These studies are beneficial to politeness studies in two ways: (a) they emphasize the significance of discourse setting, interlocutors, and other psychosocial factors affecting politeness strategies; and (b) they provide an analytical scheme and instruments of discourse strategies related to linguistic politeness. Thus far, this section has discussed discourse-based politeness studies which stemmed from the earlier speech act studies. In these studies, discourse-level analysis of politeness is realized either by presenting discourse-level strategies or by analyzing verbal disputes, a form of discourse-level FTA. In fact, Brown and Levinson's (1987) original work incorporated the notion of discourse in a similar way. Although the authors admitted that their politeness theory largely neglected conversational structure, their categories of positive and negative politeness strategies did include more than a few discourse-level items such as safe topics, repetition, and small talk. Moreover, their definition of off-record strategies implicitly utilizes the notion of larger structural dimensions. They also argue that conversational plans are hierarchical and that conversational understanding is achieved by reconstructing the speaker's intent above the utterance level. Thus, Brown and Levinson seem to recognize that some strategies can be described only in terms of sequence of utterances although they do not develop this argument to any degree. Furthermore, at the end of their commentary, Brown and44 Levinson (1987) address the importance of discourse-level analysis. They state that their cognitive approach to interaction falls short in accounting for the "emergent," process- oriented character of social interaction, and that "(w)ork on interaction as a system...remains a fundamental research priority, and the area from which improved conceptualizations of politeness are most likely to emerge" (p. 48). In surveying the field of discourse analysis, on the other hand, researchers often discuss topics related to politeness. Moreover, although prior work in discourse analysis did not explicitly study politeness, its analytical scheme is useful to elucidate politeness strategies. The next section attempts to depict this connection between discourse analysis and politeness, so that the research results in discourse analysis can be readily applied to the analysis of linguistic politeness. Poli c 5 p Conversation analysis has been developed as an approach to study the social organization of everyday talk-in-interaction. It aims to discover a system of talk by which individuals create a sense of social order by offering systematic descriptions of recurrent structural characteristics of talk-in-interaction. A number of studies within the conversation analytic approach discuss organizational features of talk such as tum-taking, adjacency pairs, preference organization, pre-sequences, repair construction, overlap, and topic organization. The research includes non-lexical and quasi-lexical speech objects such as laughter, pause, and response tokens. Later work within the conversation analytic ‘approach incorporates nonverbal behaviors such as gaze and body movement as part of interactional behavior. ‘Conversation analysis formulates a set of norms to depict the organizational characteristics of ongoing interactions. Unlike other linguistic rules, these rules describe “unmarked expectations rather than the set of possible well-formed sequences or conversations" (Levinson, 1983, p. 367). Hence, Levinson presents an apt analogy45 between the rules in conversation analysis and Grice's maxims. Various rules delineate the organizational characteristics of talk which are relevant to the study of linguistic politeness. Preference organization is one of them. The notion of "preference" was presented to characterize the unequal status attached to altemative second parts of adjacency pairs (e.g., agreeing or disagreeing on an assessment). Some second pair parts are routinely preferred while others are dispreferred. The term "preference" does not refer to the personal desires or psychological dispositions of speakers, but rather to the recurrent features of alternative actions. That is, second pair parts recurrently show a set of distinct features, depending ‘on whether they are preferred or dispreferred. Researchers found that a variety of first pair parts have preferred and dispreferred second parts (see Table 2.1, adapted from Levinson, 1983, p. 336). While preferred actions are usually performed directly with little or no delay, dispreferred actions exhibit one or more of the following features: (1) delay of delivery within a tum or across several tums; (2) preface and qualification accompanying the second pair within the same turn; (3) mitigated or indirect performance; and (4) accounts or explanations of why the action is performed. Table 2.1 Invitation acceptance refusal Assessment ‘agreement disagreement Question expected answer unexpected answer or non-answer These features of dispreferred sequence are closely related to politeness strategies. In fact, Brown and Levinson (1987) introduce types of preface accompanyingdispreferred actions, such as token agreement and hedging expressions, as examples of . politeness strategies. For instance, a token agreement is considered a positive politeness strategy, displaying the speaker's desire to agree with the hearer. Thus, it is possible to ‘assume that the speaker generally places markers of dispreferred actions based on consideration of face wants. Therefore, these features can function as politeness markers. However, the "purist" tradition of conversation analysis pays secondary attention to social context, such as social identities of participants, conversational setting, and so on since their analysis requires context relevance to be grounded in the interaction itself. These studies can describe organizational features of talk with little reference to the social or psychological environments in which the talk is situated. In other words, politeness, with its underlying interpersonal motivation, has no place within “purist” conversation analysis. ‘Nevertheless, researchers claim that face considerations are associated with the notions presented in the conversation analysis framework (Heritage, 1989; Levinson, 1983; Taylor & Cameron, 1987). Although preference is claimed to be a purely structural concept referring to structural markedness, Levinson (1983) points out that another characteristic of dispreferred actions is that "they tend to be avoided" (p. 333), indicating the psychological working of preference. Moreover, Heritage (1989) explicitly states that [t]he role of preference organisation in relation to a wide variety of conversational actions appears to be strongly associated with the avoidance of threats to ‘face (pp. 26- 27). These arguments support the claim that preference is motivated by face wants; therefore, some features of dispreferred actions can be regarded as politeness strategies. Politeness and Interactional Sociolinguistics In order to investigate linguistic politeness, another pertinent approach to discourse is interactional sociolinguistics. The overarching premises of this approach are that meaning is interactionally created, that interpretation is based on shared expectations47 among interlocutors, and that interlocutors’ interpretations of context are crucial to understanding discourse. Interactional sociolinguistics focuses on cross-cultural communication, delineating how different cultural backgrounds influence the speaker's interpretation of interaction. ‘According to this approach, interactants can make sense of ongoing discourse by creating an interpretive frame, “a set of expectations which rests on previous experience" (Gumperz, 1982, p. 102). Since the interaction is dynamic, frames are interactive and constantly redefined. Participants use interpretive frames to mutually interpret and negotiate interactional meaning. Gumperz (1982) illustrates how interactants signal their interpretive frames by varying "contextualization cues"linguistic and para-linguistic features of language signaling speakers’ conversational intents. These cues include lexical and syntactic choices, tone of voice, and intonation of utterances. People with different cultural backgrounds have different ways to signal their conversational intent. In other words, they employ different sets of contextualization cues. Tannen (1984) refers to these sets of cues employed by a group of people as "conversational style." Speakers from different countries, different regions of the same country, or different ethnic backgrounds may employ different styles. Tannen also shows gender-based differences in conversational styles in middle-class American society. Tannen (1984) claims that conversational style "results from the need to serve basic human needs in interaction" (p. 19). Building on Brown and Gilman's (1960) notions of power and solidarity, she claims that these two factors are the motivation underlying stylistic choices. According to Tannen (1984), power and solidarity are "not precisely parallel" (p. 15), but are in fact similar to Brown and Levinson's (1987) conceptualization of negative and positive face wants. Tannen appears to interpret Brown and Levinson’s positive politeness as a rapport- or solidarity-building strategy, and negative politeness as a deference or distancing strategy. Scollon and Scollon (1983, 1995) present similar interpretations.Tannen (1984, 1986, 1994) explores the relationship between power and solidarity which emerges in conversation. In a summary of her earlier works (1984, 1986), Tannen (1994) states that “although power and solidarity, closeness and distance, seem at first to be opposites, each also entails the other,” and therefore, the relationship between them is “paradoxical” (p. 22). At this point, it is not clear whether she equates power to distance and solidarity to closeness. Later in the same article, the relation becomes obvious when Tannen contrasts the unidimensional and multidimensional models of conceptualizing power, solidarity, and other related notions. First, Tannen introduces the unidimensional model, which she claims to reflect American assumptions. This mode! conceptualizes power and solidarity on a single continuum, which also represents symmetry/asymmetry, hierarchy/equality, and distance/closeness, as Figure 2.5 depicts. ‘ > power solidarity asymmetry symmetry hierarchy equality distance closeness Figure 2.5. Unidimensional model (adapted from Tannen, 1994, p. 27). Second, Tannen presents the relation between power and solidarity as a multidimensional grid of intersecting continua, depicted in Figure 2.6. Here, the typical ‘employet/employee relationship in America can be found in area B, and the relationship between American siblings in area C. However, the cross-cultural perspective suggests the possibility of other relations, such as the Japanese relationship of amae (a term which originally appeared in Doi, 1971), typified by the parent-child or employer-employee49 relationship (Yamada, 1992). Individuals are closely bound in a hierarchical interdependence in such relationships, and are therefore located in area A. Figure 2.6, Multidimensional model (adapted from Tannen, 1994, p. 28), It is interesting to observe that the power and solidarity dimensions and corresponding examples appear to be equivalent to Brown and Levinson's (1987) sociolinguistic variables, namely power and distance. In Brown and Levinson's model, negative and positive face wants are depicted as motivation underlying polite behavior, while sociolinguistic variables are contextual factors constituting the "weightiness” of the FTA. They therefore affect the enactment of politeness. The two sets of notions are discussed separately in Brown and Levinson's work with no mention of the relationship between them. On the other hand, in Tannen's discussion, power and solidarity are both motivations underlying choice of linguistic styles and types of contextual features, namely interpersonal relations between interlocutors. Therefore, it is questionable whether one can equate Brown and Levinson's notions of negative and positive politeness with Tannen's notions of power and solidarity. ‘Nevertheless, Tannen's discussion is insightful in several ways. First, the view of power and solidarity, not as opposite but as paradoxical notions entailing each other, may be applied to the conceptualization of negative and positive face. Second, Tannen (1984)50 describes the elements of speech style, such as overlap, pause, silence, and narrative strategies, as polysemous and contributing to both solidarity and power. Similar claims might be made about other linguistic devices in relation to negative and positive face wants. That is, a linguistic device may work polysemously in discourse and serve both negative and positive face wants. Thus, a detailed analysis of how linguistic devices function in discourse may contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between negative and positive face. In this light, another relevant study in the field of interactional sociolinguistics is ‘Schiffrin's (1987) analysis of discourse markers. She describes how several discourse markers, such as oh, well, now, then, you know, I mean, so, because, and, but, and or, function in various "planes" of talk which jointly contribute to both the local and global coherence of talk. These planes of talk include exchange structures, action structures, idea structures, participation frameworks, and information states. In her analysis of various markers, several functions appear to be associated with politeness. For instance, or gives ‘options to the hearer while you sz1ow adjusts the interactional alignment between speaker and hearer. Moreover, Schiffrin's (1987) close analysis of how markers function can be contrasted with the lack of such description in studies of linguistic politeness. That is, even though Brown and Levinson (1987) state that "politeness is...not communicated by ‘markers! or ‘mitigators' in a simple signaling fashion” (p. 22), studies on politeness lack a description of how politeness functions are created in discourse. For instance, Brown and Levinson maintain that certain particles "encode" hedges. Their description remains a mere list of particle usage, contradicting their own claim cited above. Therefore, it is worth focusing on a limited number of markers and analyzing the process of creating politeness. This section discussed the relationship between politeness and different approaches to discourse. Even though the study of linguistic politeness was initiatedSs. with a focus on sentential-level analysis, varying approaches to discourse either explicitly or implicitly incorporated the notion of politeness into their analyses. Most relevant are features of dispreferred second parts in conversation analysis, contextualization cues which constitute conversational styles. From a politeness perspective, these linguistic and paralinguistic features may serve positive and negative face wants. In particular, the polysemous nature of linguistic devices presented in studies of discourse markers and contextualization cues suggests the strength of an analysis focusing on specific linguistic devices. Following this line of thinking, the current study focuses on several Japanese linguistic markers and describes how their politeness functions are created in discourse. ‘The next section reviews how these markers have been discussed in the literature. Japanese Politeness Markers This section provides an overview of studies on four Japanese linguistic markers: the final particle ne, the connective particle kedo, and the plain and masu forms of clause- final predicates. A word of caution must be expressed about the phrase “politeness: marker." This study questions the claim that politeness is an inherent property of any linguistic expression. The politeness markers discussed here, therefore, may not achieve politeness "in a simple signaling" manner (Brown & Levinson, 1984, p. 22) ‘Nevertheless, they are called politeness markers since their linguistic properties interact with varying factors to create politeness in ongoing discourse. Given the premise of the above characteristics of politeness markers, markers can only be found within sequences which exhibit the pragmatic functions of politeness. Therefore, these sequences were isolated in the data before determining which markers would be discussed in this section. Thus, even though this section is part of the literature review, the selection of the markers is part of the data analysis. The purpose of this section is twofold: to provide a general understanding of the markers, and to determine the32 core linguistic properties of the markers. The linguistic properties will be incorporated into the discussion of markers in Inter chapters. Final Patti Japanese has a number of particles which are called shusjashi or "final particles." ‘Among them, the final particle ne is one that most frequently appears in verbal interactions. Cook (1992) observes that it is difficult to carry on a conversation without using this particle. Its frequency results partly from the fact that ne can appear both in utterance-final and intrasentential positions. This section examines previous studies which focused on this most prevalent final particle and attempts to determine its core linguistic property. Before reviewing previous studies, it is important to define "linguistic property.” The linguistic property of an expression is the most common characteristic of the expression which can be realized on grammatical, semantic, or pragmatic levels. For instance, the grammatical property of but is coordination, while its semantic meaning is to contrast. Here, contrastive meaning may be categorized as a pert of its grammatical function, creating a fuzzy distinction between grammar and semantics. In the same vein, the distinction between semantics and pragmatics can be indistinct. The indexical meaning of an expression may be categorized on both levels. For instance, Schiffrin (1987) categorizes particles as markers with functions (on the pragmatic/discourse level) but without meaning (on the semantic level), according to her analysis of discourse markers (p. 319). On the other hand, researchers claim that referential meaning is only one part of the meaning of a linguistic expression (Ochs, 1988, 1989; Silverstein, 1976). They ‘maintain that there are other equally important dimensions of meaning, including the social and affective dimensions. These indexical meanings of linguistic expressions indicate contextual information such as the social identity of interactants, the speaker's attitude toward the addressee, and the content of the talk, and the social relationships5 among interactants, Despite the fixzzy boundary, linguistic property in this study ° includes grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic properties of linguistic expressions. Since the particle ne as well as most of the other sentential particles in Japanese do not contribute to the referential meaning of an utterance, the linguistic property of the interactional particle ne may reside in its non-referential meanings. More specifically, it can be either a type of information state marker or an affect marker. The following ‘sections review these two interrelated characteristics of the particle and suggest that the core linguistic property of the particle is to mark the affect of sharedness and involvement. ‘Ne as an information state marker. A number of studies have found that the particle ne is used to indicate the speaker's agreement with the addressee or to solicit the addressee’s agreement with the speaker on particular information (Kamio, 1979, 1990; Kuno, 1973; Tanaka, 1971; Tsuchihashi, 1983; Ueno, 1971). Ueno (1971) claims that Japanese final particles are related to presupposed performative verbs, such as state, ask, and suggest. She classifies the particles into two groups: those expressing the speaker's insistence on the given information, and those expressing a request for compliance and confirmation with the given information. The final particle ne belongs to the second group, asking for compliance and creating rapport. In the same vein, Tsuchihashi (1983) argues that sentence-final particles are used, depending on the speaker's (1) confidence in his or her information, (2) willingness to admit challenge, and (3) solicitation of confirmatory responses. The final particle ne in this study solicits confirmatory responses and indicates the speaker's lack of confidence in his or her information. Kamio (1979) argues one step further by claiming that ne is a type of evidential marker which marks "territories of information." The use of ne, according to Kamio, marks the information that the speaker assumes is shared with the addressee (speaker and addressee's shared territory of information), and is held only by the addressee (addressee's territory of information), but not only by the speaker (speaker's territory of information).54 This view, however, was questioned by later studies, which found the use of ne to be also in the speaker's territory of information (Cook, 1992; Maynard, 1993). For instance, in her analysis of the use of ne in personal letters, Ishikawa (1988) found ne in ‘sentences whose content was held only by speaker (writer). In these cases, she claims, ne is used solely to indicate the speaker's friendly attitude. Realizing this limitation, Kamio (1990, cited in Maynard, 1993) modified his claim, stating that ne cannot be used when the information is "more deeply involved with the speaker than it is with the hearer” (translated in Maynard, 1993, p. 201). Building on Kamio's modification, Maynard (1993) presents a notion of "relative information accessibility and/or possessorship” (p. 198). According to Maynard, ne is used when the speaker feels that he or she has relatively low access to the given information. That is, when the speaker assumes that the hearer knows the content of the utterance better, he or she attaches ne to the utterance. McGloin (1984) also discusses that ne can “create rapport between the speaker and the hearer...by assuming knowledge on the part of the hearer" (p. 137). ‘Ne as an affect marker, Another frequently discussed characteristic of ne is marking the speaker's positive affect or friendly attitude toward the addressee. Researchers have pointed out the function of ne to create rapport between interlocutors (Ueno, 1971), to mark a speaker's friendly or co-responding attitude (Kamio, 1990), and to mark positive affect (Clancy, 1986). In the same vein, by contrasting the two sentence final particles yo and ne, Maynard (1993) argues that in interactions with ne, participants ‘engage primarily in the interpersonal act of co-solicitation and granting of approval. ‘Therefore, the author claims that interaction is foregrounded while the information exchange is backgrounded in interactions with ne. Incorporating the framework of direct and indirect indexes, Cook (1992) presents a similar argument. Indexes are types of signs that indicate contextual information. They can directly indicate the contextual information such as the social and affective stance of the speaker. Their indirect indexical meanings are created from the combination of this55 direct meaning of indexes and their social context. Cook claims that the core meaning or direct index of the particle ne is to mark "affective common ground," i.e., the agreement in feeling between the speaker and the addressee. She further argues that other functions are pragmatically evoked by the combination of the direct index and the context that surrounds it. These secondary functions are called indirect indexes, and include requesting confirmation, getting attention, introducing a new topic, keeping the floor, socializing children, mitigating face-threatening acts, and marking intimacy. ‘Thus far, two characteristics of the final particle have been discussed: one as an information state marker, the other as an affect marker. Ne’s primary function has been argued either as informational (Ishikawa, 1988; Kamio 1990; Tsuchihashi, 1983), or as interactional and affective (Cook, 1992; Maynard, 1993). Among these two characteristics, interactional and affective meanings appear to be primary for several reasons. First, the analyses of ne as an information state marker mostly employ introspective or written discourse data, while the analyses of ne as interactional affect marker employ spoken discourse data. Since ne is used more frequently in spoken than in written discourse, the studies analyzing spoken data are more reliable. Second, researchers have pointed out cases in which the placement of ne cannot be explained solely as an information state marker (Cook, 1992; Ishikawa, 1988; Maynard, 1993). Ne ‘as an information state marker, therefore, cannot hold its primary status since this primary meaning should be the most prevalent feature of the linguistic expression. Third, ‘a study on sound symbolism in Japanese shows that words with the nasal [n] sound personal and subjective (Makino & Tsutsui, 1986). The affective meaning of ne appears to be primary from this point as well. Different affects associated with ne include friendly attitude, interpersonal appeal, positive affect, and affective common ground. These affects can be summarized as the interpersonal affect of involvement and mutual alignment among interlocutors. Thus, the affects of involvement and mutual alignment constitute the core linguistic properties of56 the particle in this study, and they interact with factors in their sequential environments to create various politeness functions in discourse. Since the current study is primarily based on the theoretical framework of Brown and Levinson's (1987) study of politeness, a brief consideration of how the authors discussed the particle is in order. The particle ne is mentioned in their discussion of the strategy of "hedges on illocutionary force," one of their negative politeness strategies. They cite Lakoff’s (1972) argument (following Ueno, 1971) that ne suspends the sincerity condition of assertions, the preparatory condition of coerciveness in orders, and the essential condition of questions (Brown & Levinson, 1987). They consider the particle as having effects similar to English tag questions or the expression / wonder. Previous studies on the particle ne, however, have presented the functions of the particle as being equivalent to positive politeness strategies. More specifically, the functions of ne appear to be related to positive politeness strategies such as "hedging opinions," "presupposing/raising/asserting common ground," and "conveying that the speaker and hearer are cooperators." Thus, from a politeness perspective, the functions of ne can be analyzed as both negative and positive politeness strategies. ee Kedo is a contrastive subordinate connective particle, which can be translated as "although" or "but" in English. Kedo has three variants, keredo, kedomo, and keredomo, which function similarly in conversation.7 Unlike the final particle ne, the use of kedo is fairly restricted by its grammatical properties. Nevertheless, an analysis of its role only within the grammar of the Japanese language is confining since the particle appears to serve various pragmatic functions, and these pragmatic functions cannot be delineated without mentioning kedo's sequential environments in talk-in-interaction. ‘7 This study examines kedo and its variants, keredo, kedomo, and keredomo, in the same manner.Japanese has two structurally different types of connective expressions, ° setsuzoku-shi or independent “connectives,” and setsuzoku-joshi ot attached “connective particles." Japanese connectives function in the same manner as those in English: they are free forms, which are usually used in the initial position of a clause or utterance. The other type of expression, to which kedo belongs, consists of connective particles. These are attached to a verb, an adjective, or a copula in the clause-final position. Traditionally, a clause ending with one of these particles is considered a subordinate clause preceding the main clause of an utterance. The contrastive connective particle kedo expresses a contrastive relationship between the two propositions: one in the preceding subordinate clause (edo clause) and the other in the succeeding main clause. Thus, the linguistic Properties of kedo are readily deducible from its grammatical and semantic characteristics. In this study, subordination and the contrastive meaning of the particle are regarded as its core linguistic properties. Recent studies on the particle kedo have presented other characteristics of the contrastive connective particle in discourse. First, researchers have observed that kedo clauses appear following the corresponding main clause in spontaneous spoken discourse, despite its canonical position preceding the main clause. This type of kedo clause is explained as being interactionally motivated by a pause or by a recipient's minimum uptake (Mori, 1999). That is, when speakers notice a lack of response or a minimum uptake, they attach a kedo clause retrospectively to their prior tum. Therefore, these kedo clauses are described as “afterthoughts” (Clancy, 1982; Hinds, 1982). Second, a kedo clause and its main clause may be produced by different speakers in ongoing discourse. In these cases as well, kedo clauses either follow the canonical order by preceding the main clause, or they appear after the main clause. In both cases, more than one speaker co-constructs a sentence-like unit by connecting the two parts with kedo. Third, researchers have observed the "independent" use of the kedo clause without any corresponding main clause. In these cases, kedo does not appear to exhibit accontrastive meaning since only one proposition is involved. ee edo has been pointed out in a number of studies. Researchers have used either conversational or introspective data to claim that kedo frames the preceding elements as a background situation in narratives (Nakayama & Nakayama, 1997), and that kedo in utterance-final position exhibits a mitigating effect (Maynard, 1989; Mori, 1999; Nakayama & Nakayama, 1997; Ohori, 1995). Plain and Masu Forms The plain and masu forms in Japanese are morphological markings on the noun, adjective, and verb stem appearing in the clause-final position. In speaking and writing Japanese, one must constantly choose one of these two forms. The term "masu form" includes both present and past tense endings of verbs (-masu and -mashifa), and the copular present and past tense forms (desu and deshita), as well as their negative endings. ‘The plain form is the clause-final form without these endings. Table 2.2 illustrates the inflected endings of the plain and masw forms. verb affirmative kaeri-masu kaeri-mashita kae-ru kae-tta (kaeru) negative kaeri-masen kaeri-masendeshita karanai —_kaera-nakatta noun _— affirmative asa-desu asa~deshita asa-da asa-datta (asa) negative asa-jaarimasen asa-jaarimasendeshita asa-janai -—asa-janakatta adjective affirmative nemui-desu — nemu-kattadesu nemui nemu-katta, (emul) negative — nemuku- emul nremuku-nai nemuku- arimasen arimasendeshita nakatta59 ‘The masu form contrasts with the corresponding plain form in terms of its pragmatic meaning. For instance, the two sentences introduced below have identical referential meanings--"Today is a holiday"~-while their pragmatic meanings are not the same. 1. Kyoo wa yasumi desu. [masu] today Top holiday Cop “Today is holiday." 2. Kyoo wa yasumi da. {plain} today Top holiday Cop "Today is holiday." Traditionally, grammarians have referred to the masu-form as the addressee honorific and formal style ending, while they refer to the plain form as abrupt and informal. These references reflect the general belief that the masu form is used in formal and polite social contexts, while the plain form is used in informal and intimate contexts, and that nonreciprocal use of the two forms indicates status difference. However, recent studies of these two forms in socially situated speech events have pointed out that speakers use both forms even while addressing the same hearer in a single speech event (Cook, 19962, 1996b, 1997, 1999; Maynard, 1993; Okamoto, 1998, 1999). These studies invalidate the simple view of the plain and masw forms as indicators of formality or politeness. This section reviews the various explanations for the use of the two forms and attempts to delineate their core linguistic properties. ‘Social distance marker. As mentioned, mutual use of the masu form is regarded as ‘an indicator of formal or sofo (“outside") relationships between interlocutors, while mutual use of the plain form is viewed as an indicator of casual or uchi ("inside") relationships. In the same vein, the nonreciprocal use of the two is viewed as an indicator of unequal status among interlocutors. For instance, nonreciprocal exchange is observed60 when an employee answers, with masu forms, a boss's question which is expressed with plain forms. These pragmatic motivations underlying the choice between the two forms appear to be similar to those underlying the choice between two sets of second person pronouns- -T and V—in some European languages (e.g., du and Sie in German) Analogous to the European 7-V system, researchers argue that the masu form is a marker of social distance between interlocutors (Hinds, 1978; Ikuta, 1983; Shibatani, 1990). In examining interactions in a television interview program, Ikuta (1983) claims that the masu form is an index for [+distance], and the plain form marks [-distance] between interlocutors. According to the author, speakers choose between the two forms primarily because of the social situation; and within the situation, speakers may switch between the two forms, depending on their feeling at the moment. In the same vein, Shibatani (1990) maintains that speaker's choice between the two forms depends on the psychological distance between interlocutors, These claims recall Brown and Levinson's (1987) description of the "mixed" use of positive and negative politeness strategies to "move the speaker and addressee back and forth between approaching and distancing in their interaction” (p. 231). If the plain and ‘masu forms work as approaching and distancing devices, respectively, the mixed use of the two forms can be characterized as the primary example of strategy mixture. However, the view of the plain and masu forms as a social distance marker fails to explain the alternation between the two forms in various speech situations. For instance, Cook (1999) argues that social distance cannot solely account for why teachers alternated their use of the two forms in the elementary school classrooms she examined. $e irene ween hero te that 7. seman can expe eps tan esol with an explicit reference to the addressee, while the masu respect regardiess of the referent. Based onthe diftrences,Comne (976) captors he TV lem ms reerent hones the mane plain speech level as addressee honorifics.6 Presentation of public self Cook analyzed classroom interactions in elementary schools (1996a) and interactions between caregivers and an infant (1996b), to offer another explanation for the alternation between the two forms. She claims that the masu form indexes “the presentation of public self," in caregivers and children's private interactions at home in which the plain form dominates. For example, when a mother uses the masw form in teaching her child social norms, she presents the social persona (role) of a mother. This proposal can also account for teachers’ use of the masu forms in addressing the whole class, and their use of the plain forms in addressing individual students. That is, in addressing the whole class, a teacher presents his or her social persona as a teacher, while in addressing individual students, a less inhibited manner of speech is possible. Cook (1999) further examined two other speech events--a television interview Program and a neighborhood quarrel. These analyses led the author to modify her earlier claim to include both public self-presentation and addressee deference into the indexical value of the masu form. She claims that contextual features of communicative events foreground one of these values over the other. That is, a television interview program, which "demands a display of mannered seff-presentation" (p. 104), foregrounds the masu form's indexical value of self-presentation; the interlocutor’s recognition of status difference, however, foregrounds that of addressee deference in the neighborhood quarrel. ‘As for the relationships between the two indexical values, Cook only mentions that a display of self-presentation can be interpreted as a display of deference in some context. Their relationship, however, becomes important in considering the linguistic properties of the plain and masu forms. Speaker orientation and addressee-awareness. In accounting for the alternation between the plain and masu forms, researchers associate the masu form with speech to others, and the plain form with speech addressed to oneself (Kindaichi, 1982; Makino, 1983; Maynard, 1993), Makino (1983) proposed that the masw form cannot be used62 when the content of an utterance is “highly speaker-oriented." Speaker orientation is defined as “the speaker's communicative motivation to express some highly subjective and presuppositional information by inwardly looking at himself" (Makino, 1983, p. 139). ‘The opposite notion, listener orientation, is referred to as "non-speaker orientation.” The plain form is used to express speaker-oriented content, and can be found in casual conversation when the above-mentioned “orientational dichotomy” is neutralized (p. 143). Based solely on this proposal, an occasional switch from the plain to masu form in casual conversation is difficult to explain since it does not provide a reason for the neutralization (Cook, 1999). Analyzing casual conversation as well as written prose, Maynard (1993) attributes the use of the plain and masu forms to the levels of speaker's "addressee awareness." She claims that when a speaker is more aware of an addressee ("thou," in Maynard's term) as a separate and potentially opposing entity, he or she tends to use the ‘masu form. In contrast, when a speaker is less aware of the addressee, as in self- addressed utterances, the plain form is used. The use of plain forms is observed in "low awareness situations” such as: (1) exclamations and sudden recalls; (2) scene-internal narration of an event; (3) self-addressed utterances and monologues; (4) jointly created utterances; (5) background information; and (6) conversation among intimates. In casual conversation among intimates, speakers use the same style as in self-addressed utterances (Ce, the plain form) since the psychologically-close relationship among interlocutors makes less distinction between "thou" (addressee) and self (speaker). ‘As a counter-example to Maynard's (1993) proposal, Cook (1999) analyzed interactions in a neighborhood quarrel where the plain form was observed as predominant. She claims that since the two quarrelers did not appear to be psychologically close (i.e., not intimate friends), their use of the plain forms cannot be explained by Maynard's proposal of addressee-awareness.63 Linguistic properties of the plain and masu forms. Thus far, several ways to account for the alternation between the plain and masu forms have been presented. This section attempts to synthesize these proposals and determine the core linguistic properties of the two forms. The core linguistic property of a linguistic expression should be the most prevalent quality observable in all instances of its use. Among the different conceptualizations presented above, public self-presentation (Cook, 1996b, 1999) and addressee awareness (Maynard, 1993) appear to be the most widely applicable. However, neither notion can fully account for the use of the two forms. According to Cook (1999), an indexical value of self-presentation is not sufficient to account for the use of masw forms: it must be supplemented by another indexical value, namely addressee deference. Similarly, addressee awareness cannot explain the use of plain forms in quarrels among neighbors (Cook, 1999). How can the two notions be modified? Is there any relation between them? The synthesis of the two views of the plain and masu forms appears to necessitate a modification of Maynard's (1993) conceptualization of "addressee- awareness.” Let us reconsider Cook's (1999) criticism of Maynard's claim. According to ‘Cook, Maynard's claim cannot account for the use of the plain form in a neighborhood quarrel where the interlocutors are not psychologically close to each other. That is, speakers are aware of the addressee as a separate and distinct entity in the quarrel, and, therefore, should use the masu form, according to Maynard's model. The speakers in Cook's data, on the other hand, continued to use plain forms until their social roles became evident. As soon as one of the speakers realized that the other speaker was his landlord, he immediately switched to the masu form. This switch presents a cue to reformulate Maynard's concept of addressee-awareness. In other words, the speaker in Cook's example switched to the masu form when he recognized addressee as socially related to the speaker, as a person to whom the speaker must present the social persona.64 Thus, the speaker's awareness of "thou" as a socially related individual, to whom the speaker has to present his or her social self, triggered the use of masu forms. However, in other cases, the addressee’s social attributes may not be the only factor that can trigger a similar shift, When speakers shift their speech from one form to another within a speech event addressing the same addressee, it is sometimes difficult to attribute the shift to the change in how much the speaker is aware of the addressee. In the co-workers’ meeting examined in the present study, for instance, the speakers ‘occasionally switch from the masw form to the plain form when they are engaged in a series of jokes. I argue, therefore, that the speaker's shift is motivated not only by awareness of the addressee but by his or her recognition of the “context,” which includes addressee, speech setting, and linguistic context. When the speaker recognizes a "high pressure context" to display his or her social self, the masu form is used. In a similar way, the recognition of "low pressure context” triggers the use of plain forms.1° When “addressee awareness" is redefined in Maynard's proposal as "recognition of ‘high pressure context’ to display speaker's social identity,” the relationship between addressee awareness (Maynard, 1993) and self-presentation (Cook, 1996b, 1999) becomes obvious. The speaker recognizes a “high pressure context" to display social identity when he or she is involved in a social relationship and acquires a social persona. Thus, the presentation of a social self and the recognition of a “high pressure context" become closely connected notions which can be viewed as being two aspects of the same Phenomenon. Consequently, the linguistic property of the masu form is to mark a speaker's recognition of a "high pressure context" to display his or her social identity. In heer the speaks consider the adres 2s annie to whom the speaker mat show a social etsona depends on various social and paychologicl factors. For instance, a self-conscious speaker might that everyone "demands" the presentation of social persona. Such an individual uses masu forms cousaty a various dons {Oth spake’ iment on hghfow pes content pay his her socal ldemy, again depends on various Socal and pajehogial ctor. A speaker may consider ll sittin "high Pressure” and constantly uses masw forms.contrast, ee eee “low pressure context" to display his or her social self. Relevant politeness strategies. Under Brown and Levinson's (1987) list of politeness strategies, the use of the masu-form is mentioned in the strategy of “give deference," one of the negative politeness strategies. They regard the masw form as a formality marker whose usage is tied to the formality of speech setting. As discussed earlier, this view does not account for the varied use of the two forms within a single speech setting. ‘Another relevant point is code-switching. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), a switch into the in-group code can encode positive politeness, whereas a switch to the out-of-group code may signal negative politeness. Since the plain form was described as an in-group code and the masu form as an out-of-group code, the switch to either form can be viewed as a politeness strategy. Code-switching and style shifting in different languages have been reported by different researchers. Gumperz, for example, distinguishes two types of code-switching: the situational and the metaphorical. Situational code-switching refers to a switch according to “clear changes in [the] participants’ definitions of each other's rights and obligations" (Dil, 1971, p. 294). People may also switch from one variety to another to convey a different view of the situation or their role relationships. This kind of switching “relates to particular types of topics and subject matters" (Dil, 1971, p. 295) and is defined as metaphorical code-switching. Blom and Gumperz (1972) investigated the languages spoken in a small town in Norway and found that code-switching operated "below the level of consciousness and may be independent of the speaker's overt intentions" (p. 430). Style-shifting was investigated by Labov (1966, 1970, 1972b) in his studies of the languages used in New York City. Labov demonstrated that people shifted their speech styles, depending on the attention they paid to their own speech. In other words, his66 study showed the conscious manipulation of different styles. While his focus was on the shift in phonological variables, lexical and grammatical elements can be seen to shift similarly as well. Although the above-mentioned studies on code-switching and style-shifting cannot be readily applied to an analysis of plain and masu forms, they are closely related to the present study because they consider both the social and psychological factors affecting the choice ‘Summary This chapter has provided an overview of studies on linguistic politeness, and described the issues concemed with notions of face, types of politeness, and sociolinguistic variables affecting the enactment of politeness. As mentioned repeatedly during the discussion of these issues, naturalistic discourse data can lead to a better understanding of the politeness phenomenon. In particular, the combined use of different strategies within a stretch of discourse can be only described by means of such data. Sections of the chapter described the relationship between politeness and various approaches to discourse analysis. As for conversation analysis, the normative system of talk, and preference organization specifically, was argued to be closely related to a speaker's face wants. Within interactional sociolinguistics, Tannen's (1996) conceptualization of power and solidarity and their relationship with positive and negative politeness were discussed, Moreover, a close analysis of discourse markers (Schiffrin, 1987) was contrasted with the lack of such analysis in politeness studies. This suggested a need for a process-oriented analysis focusing on a small number of markers. In sum, the early sections of this chapter delineated the need for a discourse-based analysis of politeness, and attempted to find ways to connect the study of politeness with a linguistic analysis of discourse. One such connection is the study of linguistic politeness markers observed in naturally-occurring discourse. An analysis of how the7 function of politeness markers is created in interaction, and of how various markers and their functions coexist and interact within a stretch of discourse, may reveal an alternative view of linguistic politeness. ‘The last section of this chapter reviewed studies concemed with three Japanese politeness markers: the final particle ne, the contrastive connective particle kedo, and the plain and masu forms of the clause-final predicates. Their core linguistic properties were established through critical reviews of earlier studies. Table 2.3 reviews the properties of these three markers, which will be incorporated into the analyses of the markers in Chapters IV to VIL Table 2.3 “The Core Linguistic Properties of the Three Pol M ne the affect of involvement and mutual alignment kedo subordination and contrast the masu form the speaker's recognition of a “high pressure context" to display his or her social identity. the plain form the speaker's recognition of a "low pressure context" to display his or her social identity.68 ‘Chapter 111. METHOD This chapter provides an overview of the methodological procedure of the study in which I explore how the markers are placed in ongoing talk to create the pragmatic functions of politeness. I have outlined the procedure of preparing a database, provided a data profile, and presented the framework of the analysis. This discussion first describes the participants and the speech setting of the interactions analyzed, including the reasons why this subset of Japanese native speakers and speech events were chosen. Subsequent sections discuss the preparation of the database and the collected data (namely, structure and topics of the conversational data). The last section outlines the framework of the analysis step by step. Pantci This study documents the process of creating politeness in multi-party interactions among adult Japanese native speakers (teachers). The data consisted of interactions among teachers which took place at faculty meetings at several secondary schools in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The meetings are characterized as "grade-level faculty meetings." They are meetings for teachers who teach the same body of students-- that is, teachers assigned to the same grade. Six or seven teachers in public secondary schools participated in each faculty meeting. Their ages ranged from early 20s to late 50s, ‘Their degree of expertise in teaching varied as well. Because some graduated from college the same year that the data were collected, they only had a few months of teaching experience; others had been teaching for more than 30 years.6 The participants in each faculty meeting were a group of teachers who taught different subjects to the same body of students over three years. In every school, a new group is formed when a new set of seventh graders enters the school. The same teachers take care of this newly formed group of student for the full three consecutive years of secondary school. Of course, minor personnel changes may occur from year to year. ‘The groups consist of homeroom teachers and a smaller number of other teachers. Each homeroom teacher takes care of a class unit of approximately 40 students. Besides teaching, their duties include conducting the daily class assembly, organizing the class to participate in school events such as sports day, hiking, and school festivals, and talking with parents both individually and at PTA meetings. The other nonhomeroom teachers in the groups usually support the homeroom teachers in the above-mentioned activities. These teachers often talk to one another in the teachers’ room every day. The teachers’ role can be regarded as one of “surrogate parent," caring for the same group of “children” for at least three years. It is therefore not surprising that the teachers get to know each other quite well over the course of time. Several reasons guided the choice of this Japanese native speaker population. This study attempts to describe how linguistic politeness varies within a single stretch of discourse, and how elements of linguistic context trigger this variation. If the social/role telationships are rigidly fixed (e.g., professor and student in an advisory session), variation might not be as readily observable. The participants in this study were coworkers (teachers in the same schools). The social relationships among status-equal coworkers were characterized as "dynamic and open to negotiation” (Wolfson, 1989, p. 130). The relatively open nature of such relationships might invite varied politeness strategies. Moreover, these social relationships might contribute to the production of both positive and negative politeness strategies that, respectively, attend to the interactants’ wants to be approved and not to be impeded. That is, member familiarity might enhance the use of positive politeness strategies, while differences in members’work experience and age might increase the likelihood of negative politeness strategies. ” ‘Thus, this group of participants might trigger variety in linguistic politeness enactments. Other reasons for selecting this subset were also related to factors that affect the use of politeness. For example, in Japan, a person's education level and work experience are known to affect the use of honorifics, the indispensable constituents of Japanese politeness. As teachers in Japan, all participants had at least a college-level education as well as some work experience and were, therefore, expected to be proficient in using honorifics. Another social factor claimed to affect the use of honorifics was that of gender (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo, 1957). Since secondary education is one of the few fields in Japan where the number of occupational opportunities for women is nearly equivalent to that of men, a matching number of participants from both genders is likely to attend the grade-level conferences. Even though gender differences associated with politeness were not the central issue of this study, data were gathered from both genders to reduce bias. ‘As mentioned, these participants were chosen because they might trigger variety in politeness enactments. The setting was selected with the same motivation. The chosen setting was a semi-formal speech setting in which different politeness enactments could be observed. The next section discusses how the selected setting contributes to the frequent use of politeness. ‘Setting Grade-level faculty meetings were held regularly, at least once every month, throughout the school year. The agenda of these meetings included discussing upcoming events as well as problems concerning the students. Most of the extracurricular activities involved in Japanese secondary school life were planned and executed by the grade-level unit. Additionally, Japanese teachers were considered to be partially responsible forn correcting students’ behavioral problems, and serious problems were usually discussed at these meetings as well. ‘These after-school meetings offered a relaxed atmosphere in which the participants could sit together in a small room sharing tea and snacks. The length of the meetings depended on the number and content of the agenda items to be discussed; in addition, participants were also permitted to raise any topic of importance to them. Thus, the setting was characterized as semi-formal: while the schedule and procedures for these conferences were set (formal), the atmosphere was often relaxed (informal). This setting was chosen because it might trigger a variety of politeness strategies since the semi-formal nature of meetings may facilitate various types of negotiation (Wolfson, 1988, 1989). If the setting was either rigidly formal or informal (eg., formal faculty meetings or informal chats between teachers), the variety of observable politeness strategies might have been limited. Finally, this setting was chosen because I was quite familiar with this type of ‘workplace culture from my nine years of experience as a secondary school teacher. ‘Thus far, we have observed how the participants and setting were selected to assure a variety of linguistic politeness types in the data. Although the setting and population were advantageous for the study of linguistic politeness, their selection also served to limit the data in specific ways. Therefore, the findings of this study are not generalizable to the Japanese spoken language in other settings. Nevertheless, I hope that the findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the intricate nature of linguistic politeness in the Japanese language. Data Collection Procedures ‘This section provides an overview of data collection procedures as well as the overview of the data collected in this study. Following the overview, the strengths and weaknesses of the type of data collected are discussed.2 sccaping the D The data analyzed in this study consisted of six grade-level faculty meetings held at four different secondary schools in the Tokyo metropolitan area, Each meeting was audiotaped by one of the participants. All of these conferences provided naturally- occurring speech data because they were ordinarily scheduled meetings without any maniyulation by the researcher to collect data. To minimize any possible intrusion caused by the presence of the tape recorder, audiotaping began before the meeting started, while participants chatted with each other. However, this portion of the recording was not analyzed. Before data collection, written consent forms were distributed to all participants informing them that: (a) the study would not focus on the content of their discussion, (b) names of individuals and organizations would remain anonymous, and (c) participation was voluntary (see Appendix A for the Engiish translation of the consent form). Overview of the Data The audiotaped data of the six faculty meetings provided naturally-occurring data of spoken Japanese. Table 3.1 summarizes the characteristics of each meeting. ‘The number of participants at each conference varied between six and seven. people. Oftthe six tape-recorded conferences, 4, 5, and 6 were conducted by the same group of teachers (group D), One teacher participated in conferences 1 and 3, and another teacher participated in 2, 4, 5, and 6. In each conference, the head teacher of the group, who was responsible for the teachers and students of the grade, acted as chairperson. The length of the conferences ranged from approximately 20 to 90 minutes, depending on the number and content of items on the agenda. Any teacher who wished to present a topic would inform the chairperson of the topic prior to the meeting. Even though participants were encouraged to raise both related and unrelated topics during thecourse of the meetings, all main topics observed in the data were pre-scheduled and introduced by the chairperson during the meeting. In addition to the main topics (see Table 3.1), numerous sub-topics were included, some of which were spontaneously initiated by the participants. 2 B 6 (3,3) 74:30 student council assignments for summer vacation assembly during summer vacation problematic students 3 c 6@,3) 26:50 parent-teacher meeting guidance sessions 4 D 70,4) 40:30 school trip during summer vacation 5 D 70,4) 35:10 parent-teacher meeting problematic students 6 D 73,4) 26:30 assignments for summer vacation intemship program This section has described data collection procedures and provided an overview of the data analyzed in this study. The next section defines the scope of analysis, and offers suggestions for future research.4 Limitations of the S This study describes the working of linguistic elements in creating politeness within a qualitative framework, rather than the correlational relationship between social variables and politeness enactments. Thus, the quantitative treatment of linguistic elements was not a central focus of analysis. Previous literature repeatedly discussed the correlational relationship between social variables and politeness enactments. These studies addressed questions such as what types of politeness strategy are used in addressing a higher- or lower-status addressee, and what social attributes of speakers and settings are associated with certain linguistic forms. In contrast, this study attempts to explore the linguistic process involved in politeness enactments by describing the working. of linguistic markers in their local and global linguistic contexts. In general, “issues of how frequently, how widely, or how often particular phenomena occur are to be set aside" @sathas, 1995, p. 3) in the conversation analytic framework. Therefore, the quantitative ‘treatment of strategies and markers is not the research focus in the qualitative framework of this study. Similarly, participants’ social background was not a central focus of analysis since this study focuses on how linguistic elements create politeness rather than on how social variables and politeness enactments correlate. However, focusing on linguistic processes rather than social variables is not meant to ignore the influence of participants’ social background to determine the types of politeness strategies used in their utterances. On the contrary, this study considered social variables as a preliminary step in a process- oriented analysis. That is, based on the results of previous studies, this study incorporates the social context of utterances into the analysis of linguistic processes. A speaker's age, gender, and role in the group are mentioned in the analysis when these attributes become relevant to particular linguistic choices made by the speaker during imeractions. More important, however, the participants belong to the same discourse7s ‘community. The norms of interaction in this particular discourse community of Japanese secondary school teachers constitute the object of inquiry in this study. Another limitation of the study concerned the nature of collected data. While the data displayed excellent examples of naturally-occurring spontaneous interactions, they were obviously limited by a lack of visual information. Numerous researchers have claimed the importance of visual cues such as gaze, body alignment, and head movement in analyzing spoken discourse (Ford, Fox, & Thompson, 1996; Goodwin, 1981; Goodwin & Goodwin, 1987). In describing the emergent properties within ongoing talk, one cannot overemphasize the importance of nonverbal cues. Despite this limitation, this study focuses solely on the verbal elements of talk-in-interaction. Hopeiully, future studies on politeness will incorporate this important aspect of interaction into their analyses. ‘Data Analysis Procedures This section first introduces the procedures of transcription and glossing of the Japanese language in the analysis. It then provides the general framework of analysis and the definitions of key terms employed in this study. Finally, this section describes the actual steps taken to advance the inquiry initiated by the research questions. Transcription Converting audio data into written language is "a selective process reflecting theoretical goals and definitions" (Ochs, 1979, p. 44). The selected method of ‘transcription reflects a researcher's decision on which aspect of interaction is considered important. In this study, notations included a moment-by-moment sequential representation of the interaction as well as selected linguistic and paralinguistic features. Moreover, this study adopted a conversational analytic approach to discourse, with reference to other approaches to discourse such as interactional sociolinguistics and speech act-based discourse analysis. Therefore, the collected audiotapes were transcribed6 mainly according to the conventions of conversation analysis (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984) with some modifications (see Appendix B for transcription conventions). ‘The data analyzed in this study consisted of spoken Japanese. Japanese transliteration is presented in the phonetic orthography called the Hepburn style. In order to secure the anonymity of the participants, pseudonyms replaced all proper names in the data. ‘The excerpts introduced in the following chapters include word-by-word glosses. and turn-by-turn English translations. Since the purpose of the analysis was to depict the nature of creating linguistic politeness as a process, the sequential order of expressions in Japanese became an important consideration. As a result of trying to convey the sequential placements of linguistic expressions in Japanese, the English translations may lack a sense of naturalness or fluency. Furthermore, in the English translations, target politeness markers are presented in Japanese since the meanings and functions of the marker are referred to in the discussions following each excerpt. ‘General Framework Since the primary goal of this study was to describe how varying pragmatic functions of politeness were created in talk-in-interaction, a qualitative approach to discourse analysis was employed. More specifically, conversation analysis (e.g., Sacks, ‘Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974) was chosen as the principal approach in this study. This section first presents the reasons why a conversation analytic approach was most ‘Suitable for this analysis. Following this discussion, the differences between the current analysis and pure conversation analysis are considered. Finally, an eclectic approach incorporating different approaches to discourse is proposed to devise an analytical framework suitable for an interactional analysis of politeness. This study primarily adopted a conversation analytic approach to discourse since it was concerned with the interactional aspects of discourse. Conversation analysis was1 used to examine the context-shaped and context-renewing nature of ongoing discourse. The methodological framework of conversation analysis, which aims to discover a system of talk by which individuals create a sense of social order, offered systematic descriptions of recurrent structural characteristics in talk-in-interaction. Conversation analysts view any communicative action as "doubly contextual" because communicative actions are simultaneously both context-shaped and context-renewing (Heritage, 1984, p. 242). Communicative actions are context-shaped in that they display an understanding of the local configuration of a preceding sequence and the global environment of the ongoing activity. At the same time, they are context-renewing since they provide changes in local configurations and, therefore, influence subsequent talk. Another reason for choosing conversational analysis was its applicability to analyses of linguistic markers. In this approach, context, which is renewed by the utterance and simultaneously shapes the utterance, has to be empirically attested to through actual interaction. Through an empirical scrutiny of structural features in interaction, this approach provides "very close and detailed analyses of the workings of specific devices or structures in the construction of talk" (Schifftin, 1994, p. 409). Since the central concer of this study's analysis was a set of linguistic devices, the approach offered a pertinent methodological framework. Within the conversation analytic approach, a number of studies have discussed organizational features of talk such as tun-taking, adjacency pairs, preference organization, pre-sequences, repair construction, and topic organization. The research includes nonlexical and quasi-lexical speech objects such as laughter and response tokens, and incorporates nonverbal behaviors such as gaze and body movement as part of interactional behavior. In depicting organizational characteristics of ongoing interactions, a set of "rules" or "norms" formulated in the conversation analytic framework describe "unmarked As stated, the current study does not incorporate nonverbal behaviors.8 ‘expectations rather than the set of possible well-formed sequences or conversations” (Levinson, 1983, p. 367). Hence, Levinson presents an apt analogy between the rules in conversation analysis and the Gricean maxims. His analogy is reminiscent of Brown and Levinson's (1987) projection that an improved conceptualization of politeness may emerge from a model of interaction other than the Gricean framework. That is, the normative system of talk presented by conversation analysts may provide a pertinent alternative to the Gricean maxims which caused Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory to suffer from an "overdose of ‘cognitivism™ (p. 48). Thus, another reason for choosing conversation analysis was that the normative system of talk presented in the conversation analytic framework may form the basis for analyzing politeness, much like the Gricean maxims form the basis for analyzing politeness in Brown and Levinson's theory. More specifically, the way in which face considerations work as the underlying motivation for politeness can be incorporated into the conversation analytic framework. In Brown and Levinson's (1987) theory, face considerations function to motivate politeness, which is characterized as a deviation from Gricean principles. In this study, face considerations were depicted as the motivating force behind a particular systematics of talk, namely preference organization, as described in conversation analysis? However, a fundamental difference exists between the current study and other conversation analytic studies. Within the "purist" tradition of conversation analysis, researchers pay secondary attention to social context, such as social identities of participants, conversational setting and so on, since their analysis requires context relevance to be grounded in the text itself. They describe organizational features of talk with little reference to the social or psychological environments in which the talk is situated. On the other hand, the current study explored the relationship between organizational features and politeness. Since the description of politeness requires For a description of preference organization, sec Chapter I.9 references to social and psychological elements such as interactional relationships and face considerations, this study was not relevant to the research domain of “purist” conversation analysis. ‘Nevertheless, researchers claim an association between face considerations and notions presented within the conversation analysis framework (Heritage, 1989; Taylor & ‘Cameron, 1987). Heritage (1989) states that "[t]he role of preference organization in relation to a wide variety of conversational actions appears to be strongly associated with the avoidance of threats of ‘face (pp. 26-27). Moreover, some conversational analysts incorporate ethnographic information into their analysis to better understand talk-in- interaction (Bilmes, 1992, 1993; Cicourel, 1992; Moerman, 1988). These studies warrant the application of the methodological framework to the study of politeness. This study incorporated other approaches to discourse as well, while the central methodological framework was that of conversation analysis. First, it employed ethnographic descriptions frequently utilized in interactional sociolinguistics (e.g., Gumperz, 1982; Tannen, 1984) and ethnography of communication (e.g., Hymes, 1972, 1974). The qualitative descriptions of the speech setting and the role relationships among participants complemented the structural descriptions of ongoing talk, incorporating, detailed knowledge of the workplace culture. It also utilized knowledge about interactional aspects of talk and speech styles often discussed in interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982; Tannen, 1984, 1989). Furthermore, since previous Politeness studies were developed parallel to studies on various speech acts, pragmatic concepts introduced in speech act studies aided the relevant analyses in this study. Thus, the discourse analytic approach to politeness employed in the current study can be summarized in Figure 3.1. This eclectic approach was best suited to the study of politeness since the a notion of politeness itself crosses boundaries of varying research fields including social, psychological, and linguistic studies of talk.conversation analysis discourse Figure 3.1 Discourse analytic approach to politeness ‘Thus far, I have described the general framework of the analysis adopted in this study. Next, I provide an overview of the ways in which the study's research questions ‘were operationalized and assessed within the general framework. In other words, I describe the steps of inquiry according to each addressed research question. Before the description, however, the operationalized definitions of key terms used in this study are presented. Definition of 1 This study explores the process of creating politeness in discourse, with the research focus on (1) the working of politeness markers in talk-in-interaction to create politeness functions, and (2) the ways in which multiple politeness markings function together in discourse. In this section, I present definitions of key terms employed in this study, namely, "politeness markers," "politeness functions," and "multiple politeness markings." The first two terms, "politeness markers" and "politeness functions," refer to forms and functions of linguistic politeness, respectively. "Politeness markers” are empirically observable linguistic elements which, in conjunction with other contextual features, create politeness functions. The linguistic elements can be realized on different81 levels: morphological (¢.g., the masu ending in Japanese to indicate addressee honorifics), lexical (e.g., address terms), and grammatical (e.g., the use of passive sentences in formal letters). The markers, however, cannot always communicate politeness "in a simple signaling fashion" (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 22). The intricate mechanism of creating politeness functions through the placement of the markers is among the central themes of this study. The term "politeness function" refers to the interactional function of a sequence which attends to the speaker's and/or hearer’s face considerations, such as "presenting shared sentiments (to attend to both the speaker's and hearer's positive face wants)," and “mitigating requests (to attend to the hearer’s negative face wants).” In this light, they are akin to the functional elements within Brown and Levinson’s (1987) hierarchically organized politeness strategies. By calling this kind of interactional import "function" rather than "strategy," I attempted to emphasize the tie between linguistic forms and their interactional import, de-emphasize the connotation of conscious deliberation, and stress. its process-oriented property. In fact, Brown and Levinson (1987) maintain that their use of the term "strategy" does not imply the speaker's intentionality. They use "strategy" to cover both "innovative plans of action, which may still be...unconscious,” and "routines," ready- made plans whose application is automatic (p. 85). Thus, strategies, as they define them, include both conscious and unconscious uses of politeness. Similarly, the "pragmatic functions of politeness" concern any types of interactional import, regardless of the speaker's intentionality. Having acknowledged Brown and Levinson's definition, the term “strategy” may be used instead of "function" throughout the current study. In any case, it should be kept in mind that neither "strategy" nor “function” implies speaker intentionality. The "politeness function” concerns both the speaker's and hearer’s face considerations as well as the possible interplay between them. Brown and Levinson's82 (1987) list of strategies is criticized by Penman (1990), who claims that most of the strategies are other-directed, attending to the hearer’s face only, and that the theory underplays the importance of self-directed strategies. This study incorporated self directed strategies as well. On a more operational level, politeness functions are identified by drawing mainly ‘on Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies. ‘These strategies attend to the participants’ positive and/or negative face wants. Moreover, mitigating devices occurring in dispreferred sequences within the conversation analytic framework may constitute politeness functions as well since their use may be motivated by face considerations. In this study, the term "pragmatic function of politeness” is used interchangeably with “politeness functions.” "Multiple politeness markings" refers to a co-occurrence of more than one politeness function within a single sequence. Brown and Levinson (1987), who illustrate a similar notion with the term "mixture of strategies," present an example of this phenomenon: [3-1] Hey Joe, let's go take in a flick tonight, OK? —-I mean, if you're not too busy and would like to. (p. 231) According to the authors, this example illustrates that the speaker first issues a positively polite invitation and then adds a hedge, which is a negative politeness strategy. In other words, in this case, politeness functions of different polarities co-occur within one tum. In addition to this "mixture," the "multiple politeness markings” in the current study comprise a wider variety of co-occurring elements. First this study examined co- occurring politeness functions of the same polarity (e.g., negative politeness co-occurring with another negative politeness). Second, this study not only examined multiple occurring elements within a wider sequence. a tum, as in Brown and Levinson's example, but also explored co-Defining a “sequence” based on either a structural or functional unit is a notoriously difficult task, as previous attempts have demonstrated. In this study, I examined the co-occurrence of politeness functions within a flexible boundary of neighboring and connected talk instead of offering a rigid definition of the structural or functional boundary of talk. Hence, multiple politeness markings are found in such units as a single turn, an adjacency pair, and a structural unit labeled "transaction." It is also found in a speech action realized over several turns, either individually or cooperatively, by more than one speaker. For instance, a request sequence could include the following, Patty, can you do me a favor? ‘Sure. What is it? ‘Are you going to school today? Yeah, This book is due today, but I forgot to take it to the library. Could you just drop it at the counter? In this section, I provided definitions of the important terms used in this study and illustrated the relationships among them. Based on these definitions, the next section Presents an overview of the methodological steps taken to answer the five research questions of this study. Of these five questions, the first three questions concern the working of individual markers in the process of creating politeness functions, while the last two questions concen multiple co-occurring politeness functions. Therefore, two separate descriptions of the analytical procedures are provided for each set of questions. R fi ing the P { Creating Poli The first set of three questions with regard to individual markers is repeated here for convenience: 3Transaction" is a structural unit which consists of a preliminary move, one sear oni me, mtg te Bingham sie daa tap ca & rr, 184 1. Which Japanese politeness markers occur in verbal interactions at faculty ‘meetings? 2. Which pragmatic functions of politeness are associated with politeness markers in verbal interactions at faculty meetings? 3. How do politeness markers contribute to the pragmatic functions of politeness? ‘These questions cannot be addressed sequentially as they are intricately intertwined. The ‘overall research steps taken to assess these questions are described below. ‘The first step in the inquiry was to identify the sequences which exhibited the pragmatic functions of politeness. I drew chiefly on the politeness strategies presented in Brown and Levinson (1987) to search for sequences that demonstrated the proposed interactional functions. I also paid attention to the preference organization within ‘conversational sequences introduced in conversation analysis studies (Heritage, 1984; Levinson, 1983; Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1987). More specifically, mitigation devices observed in dispreferred moves may have a politeness function since they may be motivated by face considerations. Since an indispensable aspect of interactions was the negotiation of interpersonal relationships, politeness was prevalent throughout the data, To list all occurrences of politeness phenomena would be an arduous task, resulting in an even more extended inventory than Brown and Levinson's (1987) list of politeness strategies. In this study, however, it is more appropriate to limit the number of linguistic elements (markers) to be analyzed since the purpose of the study is not to supply a complete list of different types of Japanese politeness, but to present a qualitative description of how politeness functions are created in discourse. Furthermore, because the data analyzed in this study are those of a particular speech setting (grade-level faculty meetings), the applicability of the list to other speech settings would be questionable even if one created an inclusive list of politeness phenomena. In sum, with the research focus on depicting the process of85 creating politeness functions, this study examines politeness functions associated with a limited number of linguistic markers instead of listing all politeness functions which appeared in the data. A limited number of politeness markers were selected in the second step. This second step involved the selection of a set of linguistic elements~politeness markers~for analysis. Linguistic elements, which frequently appeared in the sequences identified in the first step, were chosen as salient politeness markers. The “salient” politeness markers were operationally defined as those used by more than three participants per meeting and those which occurred at least twenty times per meeting. ‘These numbers were determined to ensure numerous examples for analysis and to exclude markers whose occurrence could be mainly attributed to personal speech habits, although even one instance is generally considered "sufficient to attract attention and analysis" (Psathas, 1995, p. 50) in exploratory analyses of conversations. However, frequency was not the only criterion for marker selection. The linguistic properties of the elements, as well as the roles the elements played in the sequences, provided additional motivation to select the markers. In this light, the selection of the markers was performed concurrently with the next two steps described below. The third step involved in the inquiry was identifying the linguistic property of the marker. The linguistic property of each marker provided an initial platform for describing the process of cresting politeness. The results of the identification process ‘were summarized in Chapter II since the process chiefly depended on the previous literature on selected markers. The findings of these previous studies were confirmed through an examination of the data in the current study. As noted in Chapter II, while the linguistic properties of the contrastive connective particle kedo were readily accessible, descriptions of the linguistic properties of the final particle ne and the plain and masu forms of clause final predicates required an86 examination across studies because the primary properties of these markers resided in their pragmatic functions, Nevertheless, the results of this examination provided at the end of the review of the four markers constituted the linguistic properties of the markers that were examined in this study. The last and probably most important step in the inquiry was the assessment of ways in which the politeness markers created the pragmatic functions of politeness. I explored the prominent sequential environments for each politeness marker in order to assess the process of creating politeness functions. ‘The sequential environments explored in this study included the macro and micro environments. First, the macro environments in the analysis consist of the pragmatic actions which house the politeness markers. Pragmatic actions are categories indicating the functions performed by the linguistic expressions. Requests, disagreements, invitations, and apologies are examples of pragmatic actions. While the characterization of these categories creates complex issues in speech act studies, conversation analysis uses these terms “unreflectively” as forms of “folk” meta-language (Levinson, 1983, p. 368). Since neither the purpose nor the framework of the current study concem the rigid definition of these categories, I followed the treatment of these actions in the conversation analytic framework. Within the above-mentioned macro environments, micro environments or other sequential concerns within the macro environments involve the location of the marker within a turn, as well as other linguistic and nonlinguistic elements of talk. I explored how these varying environments worked jointly with the linguistic properties of each marker to create the pragmatic functions of politeness. ‘Thus far, I have described the ways in which I explored the first three questions of this study. These questions concem individual politeness markers and the ways in which the linguistic properties of these markers serve as resources for achieving pragmatic87 functions of politeness. The subsequent two questions address issues regarding multiple politeness markings R P & ; inte Politeness Marki The process of inquiry to assess the latter two questions incorporated the results of the previous analyses of individual markers. The second set of questions, therefore, connected the results of the earlier analyses a central issue of politeness. Here, the second set of questions are repeated, along with the research procedures for assessing these questions. 4. How do multiple politeness markings function together in discourse? 5. Do politeness functions interact across speakers? If so, in what way? First, I located the sequences in which varying politeness functions were concurrently exhibited. Politeness functions refer to all functions explored in conjunction with the second and third research questions and several other functions observed in the sequences. Whereas the required scrutiny in the analyses necessitated limiting the number cof markers examined in the earlier analyses, it is necessary here to include a number of Politeness phenomena observed in the data in order to sufficiently delineate the interplay among co-occurring politeness functions. Therefore, several other functions which were discussed in the literature on politeness and discourse analysis were included in the analysis of the mixture of politeness. This study analyzed a variety of politeness strategies employed by a single speaker as well as any interplay among the politeness functions found in the utterances of several participants. Second, I explored how multiple politeness markings function in terms of positive and negative face considerations. I analyzed the examples of multiple politeness markings based on the findings of the earlier chapters. That is, the politeness functions created by the markers were considered as "given" in the analysis in order to incorporate a number of co-occurring politeness functions. The analysis involved the combinations occurring,88 within a single tur, in consecutive utterances of a single speaker, and in neighboring turns of more than one speaker. In this section, I attempted to describe the face considerations associated with politeness functions, and whether a certain function primarily attended to the speaker's or the hearer’s positive or negative face. The findings of the section resulted in an alternative view of multiple politeness markings. This section described the procedure of assessing the two interrelated and progressive sets of questions. The process of creating politeness described in the earlier analyses formed the basis for the second analysis of multiple politeness markings. ‘Summary This chapter provided an overview of the research procedures used for the current study. The purpose of this study was to describe politeness in ongoing interactions. To this end, the setting and participants of the study were selected to trigger variety in politeness enactments. The general methodological framework of this analysis was the combination of four different approaches to discourse analysis: conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, and speech act-based analysis of discourse. This eclectic approach was best suited to the current study since its aim was to describe politeness, a multifaceted notion which is connected to studies in heterogeneous research fields. The analysis of this study centered on four politeness markers: the final particle ne, the contrastive connective particle kedo, and the plain and masu forms of clause-final predicates. The selection of the markers, the description of their linguistic properties, and the identification of the politeness functions associated with the markers were conducted nearly concurrently in a spiral manner in the actual analysis, providing the resources to delineate the process of creating politeness. Utilizing the descriptions provided above, the analysis of multiple politeness markings connected the earlier analyses to one central issue of politeness. Through an89 examination of the ways in which negative and positive politeness jointly function in talk- in-interaction, I was led to an alternative conceptualization of the relations between the ‘two types of face. ‘The following chapter presents the findings concerning the first politeness marker, the final particle ne. It describes how various politeness functions associated with the marker are created in ongoing talk.Chapter IV THE FINAL PARTICLE NE: AN INVOLVEMENT MARKER, Similar to Fraser's (1990) claim that "sentences are not ipso facto polite” (p. 233), I maintain that politeness is not always an inherent property of any linguistic expression. Rather, the linguistic function of politeness emerges when there is an intersection of various factors such as linguistic properties of the expressions, their sequential environment within talk-in-interaction, and the social context in which the speech event is situated. Although researchers so far have discussed the relationship between social context and linguistic expressions, the linguistic properties of these expressions and the sequential context in which they appear have not been effectively connected to the study of politeness. As a result, previous studies fell short in describing the “process” of creating politeness in ongoing discourse. Focusing on a single linguistic marker in each chapter, the current study attempts to describe the process of creating politeness in interaction: it examines how the linguistic properties of the markers serve the purpose of maintaining the positive and negative face of interactants in various sequential environments of talk. As noted in the Introduction, the following discussion concerns these three research questions: 1, Which Japanese politeness markers exist in verbal interactions at faculty meetings? 2. Which pragmatic functions of politeness are associated with politeness markers in verbal interactions at faculty meetings? 3. How do politeness markers contribute to the pragmatic functions of politeness?1 The politeness marker explored in this chapter is the final particle ne. Ne is a type of particle which appears both in utterance-final and intrasentemtial positions to denote shared affect and conversational involvement, Because of its location within a sentence, it is referred to as a final or sentential particle as well as an insertion particle. The meaning and pragmatic functions of the particle in both locations are practically the same. Moreover, the interactional nature of the particle has led researchers to consider it as an interactional particle.! AAs seen in Chapter Il, the linguistic property of the interactional particle ne resides in its social and affective meanings: the particle signals the interpersonal affect of involvement and mutual alignment among interlocutors. Cook (1992), analyzing the particle ne in child-adult conversations, a formal lecture, and a Diet inquiry session, maintains that ne directly indexes affective common ground among participants, and introduces its indirect indexical meanings, such as requesting confirmation, introducing a topic, and mitigating face-threatening acts. She presents a framework in which the direct indexical meaning of an expression interacts with other contextual factors to achieve various indirect indexical meaning. What I call “linguistic property” of the particle is referred to as “direct indexical meaning” in Cook's (1992) study: affective common ground is the basis for conversational involvement and mutual alignment. Similarly, what I call the "politeness function" of a marker in this study is a type of indirect indexical meaning in Cook's study. While her study is effective in delineating the general characteristics of the particle, more politeness functions associated with the final particle should be discussed with reference to the sequential context in which the expressions are situated. This chapter presents the following politeness functions of the final particle ne: « soliciting agreements + marking agreements ' Throughout this chapter, the particle ne is referred to as a final particle since it is the most common term in the existing literature,2 + softening assertions + presenting shared sentiments, and * prefacing disagreements. These politeness functions of the marker observed in the data constitute subheadings of the chapter, and descriptions of the process of creating these politeness functions follow the subheadings. The discussion in this chapter not only supports some results of the previous studies on the particle ne, but also delineates the sequential mechanism of creating various politeness functions through particle placement. It also attempts to relate the pragmatic functions in ongoing talk to the negative/positive politeness dichotomy. Table 4.1 Variants of Ne ir Me —___vowel length a rising ne? (interrogative) ne:? (interrogative) falling ne. (exclamatory) ne:. (exclamatory) (strong involvement) (strong involvement) neutral ne, (continuing) ne:, (continuing) Note, Based on the transcription convention of conversation analysis, a question mark (2) indicates rising intonation; a period (.) falling intonation; a comma (,) neutral intonation; and a colon (:) an elongated vowel. (See Appendix 2 for complete transcription conventions.) Variants and meanings in bold letters were discovered in the analysis of these data and therefore have not been discussed in previous studies.93 Observation of sequential placement includes the examination of the final particle's intonational contour, as depicted in Table 4.1. In previous studies on the particle, the intonation of ne was seldom mentioned. Cook (1992) is an exception. She cites two kinds of ne introduced in a Japanese language textbook written by Jorden (1963): ne with ‘a short vowel and rising intonation (transcribed as [ne?] in the current study) as a ‘question marker, and ne with a long vowel and falling intonation ({ne:.]) as an exclamation marker. Cook then introduces two more variants: ne with a short vowel with falling intonation ({ne.]), and ne with a long vowel and rising intonation ([ne.?]). She relates the rising tone to questions and geminated vowels with emphatic affect, stating that these are not part of the inherent meaning of the particle. That is, she assumes that the meanings of these four variants are the combination of the core meaning of ne and the meaning derived from the sound quality attached to it. This chapter introduces another intonational variant of the particle, namely ne with neutral continuing intonation ({ne,] and [ne:,]). ‘These and other previously introduced variants are depicted in Table 4.1. Moreover, another meaning of ne with a falling intonation marking strong involvement is suggested in this study. It discusses how the sound of these variants contributes to the working of politeness in various sequential environments. Secki Grant This section examines the use of the final particle ne in interactional segments including agreements. These segments usually consist of adjacency pairs in which evaluations, opinions or announcements form the first pair part. This section illustrates that the final particle ne sometimes appears in the first pair part soliciting agreement, sometimes in the second pair part marking agreement, and sometimes in both.94 Frequently, extended segments involve a series of soliciting and granting agreements in which the final particle ne is found at the end of nearly all turns. Before examining the final particle in these segments, I will clarify the meaning of the term “agreement.” Researchers have considered agreement to be a preferred response to an assessment in English conversation (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1987; Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1987) as well as in Japanese conversation (Mori, 1999). Brown and Levinson (1987) introduce the category "seek agreement” as a type of positive politeness strategy which claims a common ground between speaker and hearer. These studies distinguish genuine from token agreements, that is, short agreement tokens prefacing disagreements. Since token agreements are part of disagreements, their delivery mechanism is qualitatively different from that of genuine agreements. For instance, the delivery of token agreements is regularly delayed and they appear with mitigation devices, whereas ‘genuine agreements are offered “on time” at possible transition-relevant places in the previous turns (Heritage, 1984; Levinson, 1983; Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1987), Following this distinction, this section attempts to examine only genuine agreements, Next, I consider another relevant distinction, that between agreement and backchannel. Backchannel is a relatively short response token produced by a listener. Upon receipt of a backchannel from a listener, the current speaker regularly continues without relinquishing the turn. While there are short tokens such as un in Japanese and “uh-huh” in English, which are clearly categorized as backchannels, the decision of whether a longer token constitutes a separate turn or not varies among researchers (Clancy, Thompson, Suzuki, & Tao, 1996; Duncan & Fiske, 1977; Maynard, 1989; Yngve, 1970). To complicate the distinction further, Maynard (1989) includes agreement as one function of Japanese backchannel behavior. In Cook's (1992) study on the final particle ne, she distinguishes between agreements and backchannel expressions, stating that ne following fragments such as post- positional phrases and nonfinal verbal forms may not elicit agreements but can solicit95 backchannels, She defines aizuchi, the Japanese backchannel expressions, as “verbal or nonverbal cues that signal that the addressee is following what the speaker says” (p. $14). That is, she considers a backchannel expression used as a continuer or acknowledgment as izuchi. Other expressions signaling agreement do not seem to be regarded as backchannels in her study. Although a discussion of the rigid distinction between backchannels and agreements is not within the scope of this study, backchannels sometimes signal agreement, and therefore the analysis in this section includes some backchannel expressions as well. However, I consider the meaning of backchannels in discussing of the functions of the final particle ne in agreement-soliciting turns in order to examine Cook's above-mentioned claim that ne following a fragmented segment cannot solicit an agreement. This section first examines the use of ne in tus preceding agreements. Then, the final particle within agreement sequences is analyzed. Even though I examined the final particles in these sequential locations separately for the sake of clarity, in most cases ne appears in both locations in cooperative interactions which extend over several turns. The final part of this section, therefore, focuses on these longer sequences. Soliciting Agreement In the present data, the final particle ne often appears in the turn-final location of an utterance which directly precedes an agreement. Previous studies have discussed the function of ne to solicit the addressee's agreement with the speaker on a piece of information. This section confirms results of earlier studies, and also adds several observations. It introduces and discusses an intonational contour different from that which Cook (1992) introduced. It also examines cases in which the speaker seeks agreement not on a piece of information but on personal evaluation and opinion. It96 discusses how the sequential location of ne and its pragmatic meaning of involvement work together to solicit agreement from the listener. As stated earlier, previous studies have frequently examined cases where the final particle ne solicits listener’s agreement on a piece of information expressed in the talk preceding the particle. Similar usage can be found in the following excerpt. Prior to this segment, Kato, who belongs to the Student Life division? has asked the teachers in the meeting to write their names on a patrol duty schedule form for the summer festival. Since Kato is not sure when he has to submit this schedule to the Student Life division, he is confirming the information with two other teachers who belong to the same division. 1) 1 Kato: 2 3 4 Sasaki: 5S Aoki: [final particle: 20.030] de (.) dooshitemo kono hi ga ii to iu yotee gaan kata wa::(.) and by-all-means this day S good Qt say plan S exist person T saki-ni_umete ludasai. (.2) de ()seekatsushidoo no hoo kara wa advance fill-in please and = Student-Life Lk section from T konshuutyuu tte koto da_ yo ne? kore ne? within-this-week Qt thing Cop FP FP this FP (And those who have some plans on specific dates, please fill in the table in advance, and, the Student Life division wants it done by the end of this week, ne, about this, me. [factual information + ne]) |: $00 (.) ano juuichi-nichi ni(.) hora(.) are _yaru node, yeah well eleventh on youknow that have so (Yeah, wel, on the eleventh we are going to have it, you know, so...) i: sore madeni tte koto de= that by Qt thing Cop-and (itis due by that time.) 2-The Student Life division consiss of two to three teachers from each grade level who are in charge of the behavioral aspects of school life,7 6 Kato: =desu ne,3 (.2) jaa konshuutyuu-ni_wa onegai-shimasu. Cop FP then within-this-week T please (Itis so, ne. Then, by the end of this week, please.) In lines 2 and 3, Kato's question about the due date is presented in a plain form, indicating that it is a side sequence which is not officially addressed to everyone at the meeting,4 Specifically, it is addressed to two teachers who also belong to the Student Life division and, therefore, possess the information in question. Kato's use of ne as an involvement marker indicates the speaker's assumption that the information is shared, and the rising tone questions this assumption. Following Kato's solicitation, the two teachers cooperatively grant agreement by stating the exact due date (lines 4 and 5). Upon receiving the agreement that confirms the date, Kato completes the sequence by repeating the previously offered request in line 6. In the above example, the locus of agreement is a piece of information, the due date for the schedule submission, which is shared by speaker and addressee. Previous studies have discussed this function of ne to solicit the addressee's agreement with the speaker on a piece of information proffered by the speaker (Cook, 1992; Ishikawa, 1988; Kamio, 1979, 1990; Kuno, 1973; Maynard, 1993; Tsuchihashi, 1983; Ueno, 1971). Some of these studies have presented an account of why the particle has this function. Kamio (1979, 1990) maintains that the particle ne is a type of evidential marker indicating the territory of information. He claims that ne marks the speaker's assumption that the content of his utterance exhibits a mutually shared piece of information between speaker and hearer (i.¢., the speaker's and hearer's shared territory of information), or information held by a hearer (i.e., the hearer’s territory of information). Similarly, in comparing the ‘two final particles yo and ne, Maynard (1993) states that ne is used when the speaker has less access to the information than the listener has. She also claims that the interactional 3 The final particle ne here functions to present the prior statements as a collective idea. This function of ne will be discussed later in this chapter. 4For a discussion on plain form predicates, sce Chapter VI.‘aspect of talk, rather than its information exchange, is foregrounded in the utterance followed by ne. That is, the "level of accessibility to and/or possessorship of information" (p. 202)~where the listener has more accessibility to the information--plus the speaker's relatively strong interactional motivation create the solicitation of agreement. Cook's (1992) explanation confirms the above account. Maintaining that the direct indexical meaning of ne is to mark affective common ground, she claims that the particle marks the assumption that the information is shared, and the rising intonation accompanying the particle asks whether that assumption is correct (p. 521). However, the use of ne is not limited to cases in which the agreement concerns a piece of information. In my data, the final particle frequently accompanies a speaker's opinions and evaluative statements. In fact, information-focused statements and opinions/assertions may not be distinct categories. Rather, there seems to be a continuum with information-focused statements at one end and opinions or assertions at the other end. However, they are different in terms of whether the speaker or hearer has greater ‘access to the content of utterance. That is, when a speaker seeks agreement in an information-focused statement, he assumes that the information is shared by the interactants and that the addressee has greater access to the information (Kamio, 1990; Maynard, 1993). On the other hand, when the speaker solicits agreement on his own opinions or assertions, he does not assume that the addressee has more access to the information since the opinions or assertions are usually expressions of the speaker's own volition. While earlier studies have primarily examined the use of ne to solicit agreement on a piece of information expressed in talk preceding the particle, I also examine a similar function of the same particle in another type of sequence, namely opinion statements. ‘Consider [4-2] in which Seki's opinion statement ends with ne, soliciting a subsequent agreement. Before this segment, the teachers were discussing the topics they should report to the students’ parents at an upcoming PTA meeting. When Kato, who99 will present the report at the meeting, asks other teachers to give him more topics, Seki ‘mentions a positive side of the students’ behavior that she observed recently. [4-2] {final particle: 60.203] 1 Kato: ja i, then besides (Then, what else?) 2 Seki: jisshuusee ga kita kara tte betsuni sawagashii koto mo nakatta student-teacher $ came so Qt especially noisy Nom also Cop-Neg (Even though the student teacher came, the students were not particularly noisy, me. [evaluation + ne]) 4 Kato: un jugyoochuu mo (.) nani (.) kyooryokuteki? uh-huh in-the-classes also what cooperative (Yeah, they were also, what's the word? cooperative in the classes.) 5 — Seki: un(.) sotozura wa((laugh)) ii no yo ne, uh-huh outer-mask T good Nom FP FP (Yeah, they behave well when they are with outsiders, ne. [evaluation + ne}) 6 Kato: honto sotozura dake wa ne, really outer-mask only T FP (Really, only with outsiders, ne.) In lines 2 and 3, Seki states that the students behaved while a student teacher was visiting the school. The final particle ne, with a neutral continuing tone, appears at the end of the opinion statement. Kato's next utterance is delivered "on time" without a noticeable pause. Moreover, his utterance not only acknowledges the prior opinion with un ("uh- huh"), but also elaborates the content of the opinion by referring to the students’ specific behavior. These two features, timing and elaboration, qualify Kato's utterance as an agreement. However, the rising tone at the end of the utterance (line 4) and the hesitation100 marked by nani or "what" in line 4 indicate that Kato doubts his choice of the word kyooryokuteki, which means "cooperative," to describe the students’ behavior. Upon receiving this moderately hedged agreement, Seki delivers a qualification of her former evaluation, stating that the students behave better with outsiders. She is implying that they do not behave well when they are with their own teachers. Seki's presentation of the qualification may be a response to the hesitation Kato exhibited in the prior tum. When Kato receives this qualification, he further elaborates on it by stating that the students behave well only when they are with outsiders. The function of Seki's second utterance in line 5 can be assessed sequentially in two ways. It exhibits agreement with Kato's prior utterance in that the qualification complies with the hesitation observed in the preceding turn. In this sense, the final particle ne, as well as the turn-initial agreement token un, marks compliance.S On the other hand, the utterance is followed by another agreement and elaboration by Kato. In this light, the final particle ne may function to solicit agreement. Thus, in this example, the final particle functions to solicit and mark agreement. Next, I examine the intonation of the final particles in example [4-2]. All three ‘occurrences of the final particle ne in this example are delivered with a neutral continuing intonation: they do not have the rising intonation which indicates an interrogative meaning. Without a rising intonation, the function of seeking agreement in this example cannot be explained by the confirmation-soliciting mechanism, as presented by Cook (1992), in which ne marks the speaker's assumption of sharing information and the rising intonation asks whether the assumption is correct. In her analysis of opinion-negotiation sequences, Mori (1999) claims that "the speaker's proffering of an opinion or evaluation provides the relevance for the recipient's delivery of his or her agreement or disagreement in the following tum" (p. 49). That is, the act of assertion alone, without ne soliciting an agreement, may create the opportunity SThe use of ne as an agreement marker will be examined later in this section.101 for the addressee to issue an agreement. Therefore, the agreement-soliciing function of ne in the current example is not as evident as it is in [4-1], where the rising intonation clearly indicates the interrogative nature of the utterance. Here, the neutral intonation of the final particle following the opinion statements highlights the relevance for turn transition and projects an opportunity for entry into the current turn. Thus, in this example, the three interacting factors--core meaning, sequential placement, and intonation of the particle account jointly to work for "soliciting" agreement. That is, the core meaning of the particle may signal both the speaker's assumption that the proffered opinion may be shared by the addressee, and the speaker's wish to involve the addressee in the interaction. The sequential placement at the end of an opinion statement and the neutral intonation project an opportunity for the addressee to take the next turn. Excerpt [4-3] provides another example of the final particle ne at the end of an opinion statement. The topic under discussion here is also the upcoming PTA meeting. Kato suggests that they should include the issues of students’ clothes and hairstyle.6 [4-3] [final particle: 60.343) 1” Kato: ano fukusoo to kaminoke no koto waichioo konaida no sangakki er clothes and hair Lk thing T once the-other-day Lk 3rd semester 2 no owari no hogoshakai demo itta n da kedo maikai _itta-hoo Lk end Lk PTA-meeting at also said Nom Cop but every-time saying 32 gai kamo ne, $ good probably FP (Er... [also talked about the issue of students’ clothes and hair at the last PTA meeting at the end of the third semester, but maybe it is better to tell them every time, ne.) SMiddle schools in Japan usually enforce a set of strict rules concerning student life. Rules for students’ clothes and hairstyles are among those which need constant reinforcement since students always invent new and creative ways to ignore these rules.102 4 Seki: un maikai —iwamaito ne, uh-huh every-time say-Neg-if FP (Yeah, if we don't say every time, ne.) s Miki: kokontoko medatsu = kara, these-days conspicuous so (It has become too much these days, $0...) 6 Kato: ja iu tte koto-de kamito fiukusoo(..) hokani arimasu ka then say Qt thing-and hair and clothes besides there-is Q (Then Til talk about hair and clothes, and, is there anything else?) Kato’s first turn ends with kamo, a truncated form of kamoshirenai or “probably,” followed by the neutral ne. Though this truncated form is often used in conversation, it makes the tum structurally incomplete. Seki's following tum in line 4, which equivocally solicits and marks agreement in the same way as her tum did in line 5 of excerpt [4-2], also exhibits similar structural incompleteness. Here, the range of possible endings of this tum, which consists of a fo-clause equivalent to the English if-clause, is much wider than Kato's prior turn, leaving the entire main clause unstated. These occurrences of ne exemplify that the neutral ne may highlight tum transition relevance places even at the end of incomplete structures. Thus far, we have observed two variants of ne: one with a rising intonation and the other with a neutral continuing intonation. Another variant of ne observed in agreement-soliciting sequences is one with a falling intonation and emphasis. Previously, ne with a long vowel and falling intonation has been associated with exclamation (Jorden, 1963). The examples in this section indicate another function of this variant, namely, marking stronger agreement solicitation and agreement than other variants. Consider the next excerpt in which Seki expresses her opinion on how teachers should deal with difficult situations. Prior to this segment, the teachers discussed an incident in which a group of unruly students challenged the teachers and created a commotion. At that time,103 while most of the teachers were seriously trying to stop the students, some were too hesitant to take any action. Seki quotes the teachers with an indecisive attitude and accuses them in the next segment. [44] [final particle: 10.941) 1 ‘Seki: maamaa tte iu no dake wa yamete hoshii ((laugh)) tte iu calm-down Qt say Nom onlyT stop want Qt say 2 i-ga-shite (.) maa sonnani (laugh) koohun shinaide toka tte iu hhave-e-feeling-and hush so-much excite dont etc. Qt say 3 no wa.) koohun shite iin desu. (Cust) ne: NomT — excite can-do Cop (What I want them to stop saying is "calm down," that's how I feel, saying something like "calm down, don't get so excited." I think it is OK to get excited, ne. [opinion + ne]) 4 Okada: soo-na_ n a r= (laugh) so Nom Cc (That's right, ne.) 5S Seki: we (laugh) (..) demo ninensee no-hoomo —taihen _rashikute but second-year Lk also troublesome seems-and (Ne, but the second year teachers also seems to have a lot of troubles and...) Seki's strong opinion is accompanied by ne with a falling intonation and an emphasis. The subsequent two turns by Okada and Seki also exhibit the same variant of the particle, displaying strong cosolicitation and granting of agreement. The strong involvement indicated by this variant of ne may be equivalent to English tag questions with falling intonation. Without the rising intonation, the particle does not exhibit an interrogative quality. Instead, the meaning of the final particle, the wish for involvement, is emphasized by the germinated vowel and falling intonation. This section has explored the use of the final particle ne in agreement-soliciting segments. The excerpts introduced in this section have demonstrated how the core meaning, intonational characteristics, and sequential location of the final particle work104 jointly to achieve the interactional goal of seeking agreement. We have also observed three intonational variants of ne, with a neutral, rising, and falling intonation. The neutral ‘variant seems to project an opportunity to enter into the current turn, while ne with a rising intonation adds an interrogative nuance to the utterance. The emphatic ne with a falling intonation appears to indicate strong involvement, compared with the other two variants. ‘We have observed that the final particle ne is used in the joint process of cosolicitation and granting of agreement. Depending on its sequential placement, the final particle may function equivocally to mark agreement to the prior utterance as well as to solicit next-turn agreement. The next section focuses on the other half of the cosolicitation process and examine the working of marking agreement. Marking Agreement ‘Thus far, we have observed cases in which speakers engage themselves in soliciting and granting agreement. In this section, I examine similar examples focusing on the ways in which speakers deliver agreement with a prior turn, either with a piece of information or an opinion, The speaker's frequent use of ne as an agreement marker is delineated through an analysis of their sequential placement and intonation. Related to the sequential placement of ne, I also explore the manner in which the content of the talk preceding ne relates to the prior turn in various examples. The delivery of agreement is considered to be a form of positive politeness which claims shared knowledge, opinions, or empathy between speaker and hearer (Brown & Levinson, 1987). The final particle ne well serves the purpose of achieving this interactional goal with its core meaning of involvement and mutual alignment. The particle's pertinence to agreement can be observed in the relatively free placement of the particle in agreement turns. In the case of agreement-soliciting tums, the placement of ne is fairly restricted to the tum-final positions. When marking agreement, ne occasionally105 of intra-turn positions. Consider excerpt [4-5] in which Honda ‘marks agreement with turn-initial ne. Before this segment, Honda reported that one gym teacher who had to substitute for another absent gym teacher did not make a necessary announcement and the students did not know what to do. That teacher was reluctant to substitute because he thought it was unfair to do extra work when others, including Kimura and Honda, could take the day off for a school trip. In this segment, Kimura and Honda jointly state that their compensatory day-off and the responsibility for ‘appears at turn substitution are separate issues. [45] [final particle: 80.353) 1 Kimura: choosee nanka wa betsuni ne. compensatory-day-off like T not-particularly FP (Things like the compensatory day-off are not particularly... ne.) 2 —> Honda: pe: kankee nai= FP relation Cop-neg We, it is not related.) 3 —) Kimura: =kankee nai to omou kedo ne’. relation Cop-Neg Qt think but FP (I think it is not related, but, ne.) 4 —) Honda: ge. FP (Ne) 5 Kimura: demo kyoo mitainine —girigiride © ‘Konranshichauto ne, are but today like FP at-the-last-moment be-confused-when FP that da kara Cop so (But when the students are confused at the last moment like today, itis troublesome, so...) ‘As Kimura offers an opinion in an elliptical form followed by ne in line 1, Honda initiates her response with the particle ne and then states kankee nai ("it is not related"), an106 ‘expression which can possibly constitute the continuation of the prior elliptical statement by Kimura. In the subsequent turn in line 3, Kimura, in fact, repeats the expression provided by Honda and completes the opinion statement. In this turn, the final particle ne functions bidirectionally to mark and solicit agreement. Following the complete opinion statement, Honda's next turn consists of ne without any other elements. The solo appearance of the particle is reported in Cook (1992), who describes its function as an attention-getter and an index of shared feeling. The analysis of the current example expands the scope of observation, demonstrating how the cooperative co-construction of a speech action is formulated through the placement of ne as a marker of a possible tum transition relevance place. In this example, the two speakers jointly create an opinion ‘statement by signaling the transition relevance places with the final particle of involvement. In the last example, agreement was displayed with either a final particle alone or a combination of the particle and a supplementary expression to the prior incomplete utterance. As observed in previous studies (Cook, 1992; Maynard, 1989, 1993; Okazaki, 1993), the final particle ne frequently appears at the end of agreement tokens such as soo desu ne, soo ne, and soo da ne, all of which are equivalent to the English “that's right." Similarly, the data in this study indicated that the agreement sequences accompanied by ne often paraphrase the prior turns or recycle a part of the expressions offered in the prior turns. ‘Consider the next excerpt in which the speaker demonstrates her agreement with the prior speaker by paraphrasing his utterance. The teachers are discussing the introduction of a small scale internship program to the eighth grader curriculum. When Sasaki explained his plan in which students can experience various jobs in shops and small companies within the school district, Honda expressed her doubts about canceling classes in order to execute the plan. In the excerpt, Sasaki presents supportive arguments for his original plan, while Honda displays a partial agreement accompanied by ne.107 [46] (final particle: 80.243] 1 Sasaki: un boku waironna no ga mirareru dake demo isshuukan uh-huh IT various ones S able-to-see only even-if one-week 2 iku koto ni-kanshite waimi gaara nn janaikatte ki-wa-suru go Nom concerning T meaning S exist Nom Tag Q Qt have-a-feeling 3 a desu kedo ne, Nom Cop but FP (Yeah, even if it is just for seeing various jobs, I fee! that it is worthwhile for the students to go there for a week, but, ne.) 4 Honda: °uun =—uun® uh-huh uh-huh (Ub-huh, uh-huh.) 5 Sasaki: amarinimo heesateki da kara gakkoo tte(.) au otona mo wareware dake too isolated Cop so school Qt meet adult also us only 6 da shi. Cop and (It's because the school is isolated too much, we are the only adults the students encounter and...) 7 —) Honda: soo otonatte oya to kyooin igai —awanai kara me ano right adult Qt parent and teachers other-than meet-not so FP those 8 hitotachi. people (Right, they don't meet any adults other than their parents and teachers, so, ne.) In lines 1 to 3, Sasaki presents the first supportive move for his plan by stating that it is worthwhile for the students to see various jobs. His reason is accompanied by the final particle ne attempting to solicit agreement. Honda's next tum in line 4 provides only & minimum reactive token with lower amplitude, which suggest an incipient disagreement (Heritage, 1984; Levinson, 1983; Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1987). Prompted by the potential incipient disagreement, Sasaki offers another supportive argument in which he108 tefers to the isolated nature of schools in which the only adults students meet are their teachers, implying that students should encounter other adults during their internship program (lines 5 and 6). Honda exhibits agreement with this second supporting argument. Her agreement is marked by the final particle ne, the turn-initial agreement token soo (“right”), and the content of the turn which rephrases the prior supportive move by stating that the only adults students encounter daily are parents and teachers. Brown and Levinson (1987) indicate that agreement may be stressed by repeating part or all of the prior utterance (pp. 112-113). However, rephrasing or repeating a part of the preceding turn may not always mark the speaker’s compliance with the one who offers the prior utterance. In fact, when addressed in a rising intonation, the repetition may function as a next turn repair initiator, requesting repetition or clarification of the prior utterance (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977). In this example, the final particle marking mutual alignment, the agreement token soo, and intonation of the turn work jointly with the rephrasing content of the utterance to create the interactional goal of marking agreement. ‘The next excerpt presents an utterance accompanied by ne that recycles a part of the prior utterance to display compliance. When Sasaki suggests that they report on the ‘bullying behavior among students in the upcoming PTA meeting, two teachers display ‘agreement in subsequent turns in which the final particle ne appears. 47] [final particle: 80.115] 1 Sasaki: ato ijime mo maa namsewatokuni dasanai on da karasa and bullying also well name T especially expose-not Nom Cop so FP (And also about bullying, since we will not especially expose who did it.) 2 ( ) un uh-huh (uh-huh)3 Sasaki: kooiu —_—koto shiteru ko ga iru n_ desu tte ittara doo kana this-kind thing doing child $ exist Nom Cop Qt say-if how FP (How about saying that there are students who are doing this and this?) 4 — Maeda: un ittoitachoo ga ii kamo ne, uh-huh saying S better maybe FP (Uh-huh, it may be better to say that, me.) 5 — Kato: nandemo itta-hooga ii yome,nannimo nai — to omowaretemo everything saying S better FP FP anything not-exist Qt be-thought 6— komacchau mono ne, be-in-trouble because FP 7 (It is better to say everything, ne, because we'll be in trouble if they think there is no trouble at all, ne.) Notice that Sasaki delivers the suggestion in line 3 using ittara doo kana ("how about saying"), a relatively irresolute suggestive expression. Maeda's turn, which immediately follows the suggestion, contains the agreement token um ("uh-huh") and the final particle ne (line 4). Moreover, the structurally encoded suggestive force of the utterance is. stronger than the previously proffered suggestion. That is, itfoita hoo ga ii, which is equivalent to "it is better to say" or "we'd better say,” sounds stronger even with the accompanying hedging expression, kamo ("maybe"). Subsequently, Kato’s tum in lines 5 and 6 exhibits an even more forceful suggestion. The hedging marker is replaced by the particle yo which expresses a strong resolution of the speaker, and the act is supported by ‘a supportive action providing the reason why they should talk about bullying. ‘These instances of escalation in suggestive force encoded in the structural enactment of suggestions create the effect of elaboration, a feature suggestive of genuine agreement. Equipped with these features, both utterances may be understood as agreement without the accompanying final particles. In her analysis of English discourse markers, Schiffrin (1987) accounts for the varying contributions of the markers as follows:110 ‘The fact that other devices...do much of the same work as markers not only reduces the contribution of the markers which do occur, but makes it unnecessary for additional markers to be used. Thus, in general, the more the discourse works toward conveying its own meaning and structure, the smaller the contribution of the discourse marker, and the more the marker is likely to be absent. (p. 322) The smaller contribution of the final particle ne to the total pragmatic function of marking agreement may thus be explained by the presence of "other devices," namely, the structural encodings of elaboration in the agreement sequences. Excerpt [4-8] presents another case in which rephrasing and elaboration of a proffered statement is displayed jointly, accompanied by the final particle ne. Miki has presented a report on an education counselor, with whom the mother of a troubled student in Miki's class consulted, The mother was discouraged by the meeting and repeated to Miki what she was told in the counseling session. Miki expresses her surprise in line 1 which in turn spurs a series of emphatic agreements from other teachers. [4-8] [final particle: 10.894] 1 Miki: gonna koto o iwareta tte iu no ne, de HEE? tte omotte that-kind thing O be-told Qt say Nom FP and what? Qt think-and (The mother said she was told that kind of thing, and I thought "whaaat?* and...) 2—) Seki: mattaku {ne completely FP (its completely, ne.) 3 — Kato: okaasan komacchan janai ne::. ‘mother be-in-trouble Tag FP (The mother must be in trouble, ne.) 4 — Aoki: kyooikusoodan ni nattenai yo ne:= ediuational-counsling to become-not FP FP (You cant call it educational counseling, ne.)6 — Seki: 7 — Miki: 8 — Aoki: 9 Miki: 10 — Seki: 11— Aoki: 12— Miki: ut : soko itte sooiuhuuni iwaretanja nanna no ttene::. there go-and that-way be-told-if what Nom Qt FP (When she goes there and is told that sort of thing, she would think "what is it?", we.) sekkeku ita noni ne: with-trouble went though FP (Even though she took trouble to go there, ne.) i: [me FP (Ne) i: [jikanno muda da yone: time Lk waste Cop FP FP (It is a waste of time, ne.) : Kekkyoku mukoo mo soodan suru hoo mo yoky __wakattensi after-all they also counseling do side also very-well understand-not n — janai ka tte- Nom Tag Q Qt (I wonder if, after all, they, the counselors also don't understand very well.) hakkiri ite ner. frankly say-and FP (Frankly speaking, ne.) mukoo mo ne:. that-side also FP (They also, ne.) un wakatte-naidesu yo ne, uh-huh understanding-not FP FP (Yeah, they don't understand, ne.)112 Miki expresses her opinions three times in lines 1, 5, and 9. The other agreement sequences are provided as an elaboration, a paraphrase, or a supplementary remark to the proffered opinion sequences. For instance, Seki’s turn in line 2 consists of an intensifier and the final particle ne, while the subsequent two turns (lines 3 and 4) proffered by Kato and Aoki explicate the reason for Miki's surprise, which was expressed previously in line 1 with an interjectory expression—heee with rising intonation equivalent to the English *whaaat?” As Miki rephrases her opinion, framing the situation from the viewpoint of the mother in line 5, the other two teachers jointly elaborate the statement: Seki's utterance emphasizes the burden of going to the counseling sessions (line 6), while Aoki presents the time-wasting nature of the session (line 8). Miki's third opinion sequence in line 9 speculates on the reason for the counselor's incompetence, surmising that he does not understand the student's problem very well. The following three tums, including Miki's turn in line 12, rephrase the prior speculating statement (line 9) in a relatively forceful manner with an intensifier, hakkiri itte or "frankly speaking,” and the final particle yo to mark the speaker's resolution. Similar to excerpt [4-7], the tightly structured construction of the co-constructed sequences seems to result in a smaller contribution from the final particle ne. That is, the turns can be identified as agreement even without the final particle. However, the frequent placement of the particle and its emphatic tone indicate that the final particle plays an important role in this segment. The role is related to the nature of the co- constructed interactional act performed in this segment as an indirect complaint. An indirect complaint is an emotionally charged, solidarity-building social action. The participants engage in a joint production of a complaint directed to someone outside the interacting group of people. The emphatic use of the final particle of involvement and mutual alignment serves well the purpose of performing this social action. Each participant contributes a relatively short tum, accompanied by an emphatic variant of ne, to jointly produce the social action.13 The last segment demonstrated how the emphatic use of the final particle ne contributes to the joint production of an indirect complaint. The next example explores ‘the functions of ne in another instance of the co-construction of a different type of social action, the delivery of disagreement. When many people contribute short turns accompanied by ne in the co-construction of an indirect complaint, the affect of mutual alignment and solidarity among participants is emphasized. In the delivery of disagreement, the effect of co-construction is more complicated. Since co-construction indicates a mutual alignment among those who jointly proffer the disagreement, it also intensifies the disagreement. That is, a disagreement that is delivered jointly increases the face threat of the act, indicating that more than one participant shares noncompliance. On the other hand, by distributing the burden of delivery, each speaker benefits from the need for a minimum contribution to the face-threatening act. Consider the next excerpt in which several teachers express their noncompliance with the proposed assignment for the summer vacation, Before this segment, Kato presented a plan for a special assignment for the eighth graders in which students report ‘on their daily life in detail, in addition to a similar schoo!-wide assignment that is given by the Student Life division. 9) [final particle: 20.440] Honda: chotto aremo-koremo ninaranakutemo ii tte kanji mo- alittle this-and-that to become-not good Qt feeling also (Lalso have a feeling that it is good not to make them do this and that.) 2 Aoki: watashi mo katee no seckatsu made ((laugh)) I also familyLk life as-far-as (L also think, not so far as their family life..) 3 Honda: nanya yuuto ne, ((laugh)) this-and-thet say-if FP (If we say this and that about it, me.)114 Chiba: maa shoojiki-ni wa kakanai daroo shi ne, well honestly T write-not probably and FP (Well, and what's more, they probably won't write honestly, me.) yeah (Yeah) Honda: demo kore wa ichioo dasu hookoo-de ittenu wake — [desho? but this T once assign direction going it-is-that Cop (But the Student Life division plans to assign students this one, right?) Dewa: (ha. yes (Yes) Aoki: sore kakudake de ne, that write only Cop-and FP (lust writing that is.., ne.) Honda: un yeah (Yeah) Chiba: kakanai yatsu mo ne, write-not person also FP (There are also those who wouldnt write, ne.) (5) moshiku wa are da ne(.)maa(.) ninensee dake no ichimai then or T that CopFP well second-year only Lk one-sheet tsukutte-moratte toka ... attach-and like (Then, alternatively, what about this, well, we can ask them to attach something like one sheet of paper only for the eighth graders )1s ‘As Honda expresses her noncompliance in a hedged incomplete sentence in line 1, Aoki takes a turn and initiates another reason for noncompliance, namely that the assignment concerns the students’ family life. She is possibly implying that it is not necessary to know so much about their family life, or that the assignment may invade the students’ privacy (line 2). Honda reformulates the prior utterance in a fo-clause, whose meaning is equivalent to an English if-clause. She attaches the final particle ne at the end of the clause without providing the subsequent main clause. In line 4, Chiba contributes another reason why the special assignment is not necessary, stating that the students will not write honestly anyway. Since this new observation concerns both the special assignment in question and the one provided by the Student Life division, Honda asks one of the members about the plan of the Student Life division (line 5). When it becomes clear that the school-wide assignment will be assigned, Aoki expresses his opinion that the school-wide assignment is more than enough by using a truncated form accompanied by ne (line 8). In the next turn, Chiba repeats his former position, also in a truncated form ending with the final particle. In this segment, the final particle ne serves the dual purpose of positive and negative politeness. First, the particle solicits and/or marks agreement and indicates in- group alignment among those who express noncompliance with the proffered assignment. ‘At the same time, the particle functions to highlight the tum transition relevance places at the end of truncated disagreements. Delivering disagreement can cause a grave threat to face. The placement of the final particle indicating the possibility of yielding the current tum enables a speaker to terminate his or her tum without completing disagreements. This section has examined various ways in which the final particle ne functions in the joint interactional process of soliciting and delivering agreements. The core meaning of the particle to indicate in-group alignment and conversational involvement serves well the purpose of achieving these interactional acts. We have explored how various factors interact with the core indexical meaning of the particle to achieve the interactional goal of116 seeking and granting agreement. Among these factors are the intonational characteristics of the particle, the sequential placement of the particle in ongoing interaction, the tight working of surrounding discourse displayed with other elements of talk, and the types of interactional actions co-constructed by the participants. This section has also examined the roles of the three intonational variants of ne, those with neutral, rising, and falling intonation. While the neutral variants ([ne,) and [ne:,]) seem to project an opportunity to enter into the current turn, ne with rising intonation ([ne?] and [ne:7]) adds an interrogative nuance to the utterance, while the emphatic ne with falling tone ([ne:.]) seems to indicate strong involvement, compared with the other two variants. Most of the examples have shown that the final particle may function equivocally to mark agreement with the prior utterance as well as to solicit next- tum agreement. This would depend on the combination of the intonational characteristics and the sequential placement of the particle. The contribution of the final particle to the total pragmatic effect of the discourse ‘sequence may vary in different discourse environments. This section has occasionally presented a discourse segment so tightly structured that the final particle is not necessary to mark agreement. The frequent use of the particle even in these tightly structured ‘segments indicates that its contribution is mainly on the affective rather than the structural level. In other words, the particle contributes to the interactional goal of mutual alignment rather than the structural tightness of the sequence. Softens ' ‘Thus far, we have examined the final particle ne in sequences in which interlocutors participate in the interactional process of soliciting and granting agreements. In these sequences, the speakers’ tums frequently exhibit themselves as a series of fragmented structures, in which the interactional particle ne appears a1 junctures.7 ‘Sequentially, the final particle marks a tum transitional relevant place in current talk, while it checks on and/or indicates the interactional alignment among speakers. This section focuses on the use of ne in a different set of sequences of monologic assertions where the particle does not necessarily solicit or mark agreement. On these ‘occasions, the particle appears to have the function of mitigating assertions. Brown and Levinson (1987) introduce the final particle ne in the section "Hedges on Illocutionary Force," citing Lakoff’s (1972) work which maintains that the particle ne “suspends the sincerity condition on assertion” (p. 147). The sincerity condition is the requirement marking the genuine intention of a speaker to count an utterance as a certain speech act Hedging in assertions, therefore, means modifying or softening the “assertiveness” of the utterances. In a number of sequences, the final particle ne follows an assertion. Among the commonly used utterance-ending structures including ne are "...kedo ne" and "...yo ne," in which kedo is a contrastive conjunction particle whose meaning is equivalent to “but,” and ‘yo is a final particle of assertions which adds a moderate emphasis. The analysis of the final particle in these compound endings must account for these other elements as well. In particular, when the particle ne appears with another hedging marker, the joint interactional effect cannot be attributed entirely to either one. Since I will discuss the combined use of different markers in Chapter VII, however, the analyses in this chapter focus on the effect of the final particle ne. In the following monologue (ie., an extended turn of one speaker), the speaker's evaluative assertions are accompanied by the final particle ne. Before this segment, the teachers discussed an incident in which a group of unruly students from other schools forced their way into the school and created a commotion. Neither the principal nor the vvice-principal contacted the police when the students came, even though they were supposed to do so. As a result, the commotion triggered a physical conflict between a