Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Sumiko Iida
October 2005
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my great appreciation to my first supervisor, Dr. Rod Gardner,
who constantly gave me countless valuable comments and feedback on my thesis in the
field of Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis, and patiently guided me to
complete the thesis. Had I not met him, this thesis would not have existed. His
question, “Where is the evidence?”, will be with me for the rest of my academic life.
I also thank my colleagues in the Department of Japanese and Korean Studies for their
constant support, and Dr. Scott Kiesling who helped me in constructing the prototype of
the thesis.
I must also mention the University of New South Wales Equity and Diversity Unit for
financial support provided to me as a “PhD Writing up Grant.”
Finally, I would like to thank my dearest daughter Viola for her invariable
encouragement and love, and my parents in Japan who always warmly watch over my
life.
i
Abstract
ii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgement i
Abstract ii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1. Introduction 10
3.2.1 Amae 26
4.2.1 Overview 48
iii
4.2.2 Beginning of language and gender studies: 50
Jugaku and Ide
5. Conclusion 58
Chapter 3: Data 61
1. Introduction 61
2. Natural data 61
6. Conclusion 71
1. Introduction 73
iv
5. Classifying overlaps 114
6. Conclusion 140
1. Introduction 143
v
4.1.2.2 Interruption 194
4.4 Types of overlap that are not discussed in this study 221
5. Conclusion 221
1. Introduction 224
vi
2.2.2 Participants’ social distance and overlap 241
4. Conclusion 304
1. Introduction 308
4. Conclusion 350
1. Introduction 352
vii
2. Definition of overlap and its classification 353
6. Gender 362
Bibliography 366
Appendix
1. Reference of Overlap functions 382
viii
List of Tables
Chapter 6
Table 6.5 Overlap frequency per function in H-2 and H-3 239
Table 6.9 Participants' aizuchi frequency towards their social distant 246
Table 6-13 Number of overlaps per participant in Academic Meeting (H-1) 256
Table 6.14 Number of overlaps per participant in Café Chat (H-2) 257
Table 6.16 Total number of overlaps per person per minute 261
in Business Talk (Sa-1)
Table 6.17 Total number of overlaps per person per minute 261
in Family Talk (Sa-3)
Table 6.21 Detail of Harue's cooperative overlaps other than aizuchi 267
Table 6.22 Overlap onset of aizuchi that initiates speaker shift 283
Table 6.23 Aizuchi frequency when Bob talks in English (H-1) 296
ix
Table 6.24 Number of aizuchi frequency in Japanese talk 298
in the Academic Meeting
Chapter 7
Table 7.2 Main topic contents initiated by Sachiko and Masao 311
Table 7.5 Number of floor shift with cooperative and competitive overlap 321
per participant
Table 7.8 Topic contents initiated by the participants (Family Talk) 334
Table 7.9 Number of floor shift with cooperative and competitive overlap 335
per participant
Table 7.10 Masao and Sachiko's overlapped floor shifts in Business 336
and Family Talk
Table 7.14 Sachiko and Masao's non-floor holder's overlap frequencies 349
in the three conversations
x
List of Figures
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
List of Charts
Chapter 7
Chart 7.1 Floor shift in topic 9.3 (UniLodge) introduced by Sachiko 319
xi
Transcript Conventions and Abbreviations
~ inbreath or inhalation
rising intonation
falling intonation
n | o | o | ne | th | ou | s | a | n | d |
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 (second)
hearing.
: or :: or ::: etc.
sound stretch. : is equivalent of one mola (or syllable in English)
xii
utterance bold utterance indicates it is uttered at a louder amplitude
HON: honorific
xiii
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 Introduction
structure, and usage are deeply related to society and culture. This assumption, which
has been argued by many researchers, is well represented by John Gumperz, a linguistic
talk to produce sentences, no matter how well formed or elegant the outcome, does not
by itself constitute communication" and "only when a move has elicited a response can
competence: that is, of social and cultural experiences or socio-cultural norms. They
knowledge, an utterance can be no more than an aggregate of words, which does not
produce any meaningful message. Such norms vary from culture to culture or society to
different ways. Even within the country where the same language is spoken, the way
people communicate may be very different from one sub-culture to another (Tannen,
1981).
In the past few decades, as science and technology have enabled us to move around the
world with more ease, opportunities have increased to interact with people from
1
Chapter 1
speakers of Japanese, research has been mainly focused on Japanese and American (e.g.
Hayashi, 1988, 1996; Klopf, 1991; Maynard, 1986, 1989, 1993, 1997; Szatrowski,
1993; Watanabe, 1993; Wetzel, 1991; Yamada, 1992, 1997) and in the case of
been investigated (e.g. Maynard, 1993; Murata, 1994; Yamada, 1992). In these studies,
Since the late 1980s, during which Japan achieved record-breaking economic boom, the
foreign population residing in Japan, and the population of Japanese living abroad have
increased. As a result, learning the Japanese language has become very popular, not
only in Japan, but also in many other countries, including Australia. Consequently
research into Japanese language education,2 and into communication styles of the
become quite popular (e.g. Fukazawa, 1999; Ijuin, 2004; Matsuda et al., 1995).
1 Although these terms are often interchangeably used with a different meaning by researchers, I follow
Hashimoto et al (1993) and Matsuda et al (1995) for the definition of these two terms: Cross-cultural
communication studies which investigate the similarities and differences in the organisation of
communication by looking at different speech communities, and comparing them to each other;
Intercultural communication studies which look at communication in a native speaker - non-native
speaker contact situation.
2 A variety of studies on Japanese language education are published in Nihongo Kyooiku (Journal of
Japanese language teaching)
2
Chapter 1
While the level of the foreign population in Japan has increased, the population of
observe Japanese people and hear them talking in Japanese in many countries
In regard to the Japanese language that those communities use, what needs to be
considered is that the Japanese speakers’ communication take place within a different
culture/society than their own. Given that language and culture/society are closely
related, a question arises: what happens to the language when it leaves its original
It could probably be said that, for short-term residents who have lived in the country for
less than a year, the language of Japanese individuals may not become so affected by
the country for a certain period, their life style may be affected by the culture, and their
Studies on styles of one’s first language (i.e. Japanese) in her/his second culture have
mainly focused upon lexical choice (i.e. loan words from one’s second language)
(Hibiya, 2000; Kuyama, 2000; Masumi-So, 1983). These studies report different styles
of long-term residents’ Japanese in terms of loan word use. However, regarding their
participation style in conversation, although there are studies that investigate Japanese
communication style shift from Japanese to English (e.g. Itakura, 2001; Ohara, 1997),
3 According to the bureau of Statistics in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the
population of Japanese overseas residents (including permanent and long-term residents) in 1995 was
about 730,000, which had increased by 110,000 from 1980. In 2003, it had further increased to 930.000.
3
Chapter 1
few studies investigate the Japanese communication style in the second culture (e.g.
Krause-Ono, 2004). Murata (1994), in her study of interruptions in the UK, observed
one of her Japanese informants’ discourse style, which she speculates was influenced
by British culture, but this was not backed up by the data. In other words, the issue has
yet to be empirically explored. Thus, this study aims at investigating participation styles
in conversation in the first language within a second culture. The second culture here
refers to Australia, to be precise Sydney, where the researcher has lived since 1989. The
the time of data collection.4 The Japanese population is concentrated in a few areas,
including northern Sydney and the eastern suburbs. Together with tourists and short-
term residents, in these areas and the city centre, there are more opportunities of
In this study, I will investigate participation styles in Japanese living in Sydney, and
discuss this from two dimensions; gender and overlap. Gender differences in a
language (most clearly viewed in spoken interaction), which have been constructed
within the society and culture, are observed in most languages (Abe, 1998). Among all
languages, Japanese is one of the languages in which gender differences appear most
distinctively (Abe, 1998). The gender differences in the Japanese language, unlike
English, are semantically (e.g. lexical choices such as first and second person pronouns)
and syntactically (e.g. sentence-final forms) marked. More recently, some studies
(Ehara et al., 1984; Iida, 2000; Itakura, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1995; Uchida, 1997) argue
4 According to the Census in 2002, which was taken 4-5 years after the data was collected for this study,
the population of Japanese residents was 15,000 out of a total population of 4,150,000 in Sydney.
4
Chapter 1
that the differences are also observed at the discourse level. Such differences have been
language that women are expected to use is far more limited than men. Thus, when a
Japanese occurs when it is spoken within a different culture/society that does not
restrict women from using certain communication styles to the same degree as in
Japanese culture/society.
Regarding language and gender studies in the Japanese language, compared with the
studies that discuss the issue at the semantic or syntactic levels, there are few studies
that focus upon the discourse level or participation style. It is probably because, in
Japanese, gendered differences at the discourse level are not as clearly marked as at the
semantic and syntactic levels, hence they are less obvious on the surface. However, as
previous studies argue, gender differences have been observed at the discourse level,
The second key dimension, overlap, is a common phenomenon that is observed in daily
language to language, and culture to culture (e.g. Cowie, 2000; Deng, 1998; Mullan,
2001). In the case of Japanese, due to its syntactical order (i.e. SOV) and conventional
5
Chapter 1
1993; Tanaka, 1999).5 On the other hand, overlap has also been discussed for its
gendered features; e.g. frequent cooperative overlaps by females (e.g. Coates, 1996;
Honda, 1997), and more interruptions6 by males (e.g. Ehara et al., 1984; Matsuda et al.,
1995; Uchida, 1997; Yamazaki and Yoshii, 1994; Zimmerman and West, 1975). Thus,
Japanese conversations, that is, although there have been a number of research projects
the form of overlap (Clancy et al., 1996; Horiguchi, 1997; Ikeda, 2004; Komiya,
1986;Matsuda, 1988; Maynard, 1993; Maynard, 1986; Mizutani, 1988; Sugito, 1987;
Szatrowski, 1993), or overlap itself (e.g. Fujii, 1997; Honda, 1997; Ikeda, 2004; Ikoma,
1996), there has been little concrete agreement between researchers regarding the
Japanese conversation has been discussed only in part by focusing on a certain form or
function, and, hence its comprehensive analysis in terms of quantity and quality has
been somewhat lacking. With these reasons in mind, in order to pursue the overlap
5 See also Ikeda (2004) who discusses lack of overlapping listener responses by non-native speakers of
Japanese in a Japanese conversation.
6 Though there are interruptions that do not appear as overlap (“silent interruption” by Ferguson (1977)),
the majority of them take the form of overlap.
6
Chapter 1
Bearing in mind the above discussion, I set the objectives (or research questions) of the
study as follows:
conversation by:
their classification.
conversation to explore:
conversational aspects.
appear.
7
Chapter 1
For the analysis frame, due to the large socio-cultural involvement in one’s style of
been developed by Gumperz (1982), Goffman (1974, 1981) and Tannen (1989).
However, in order to avoid more subjective observation, the data will be transcribed as
Before concluding this chapter, I present the chapter organisation for the rest of the
thesis. In Chapter 2, I will discuss the background of the study, by first outlining the
Thereafter, I will review previous studies on language and gender in Japan. It should be
noted that there are slight differences between the Western and Japanese views of
language and gender issues. With this in mind, I will briefly look at the research in
Western countries, primarily the United States, where language and gender studies
began, and then examine the research in Japan. In Chapter 3, I discuss the methodology
of the study by focusing on the data in terms of its significance, the method of
collection, participants’ profiles and the details of each conversational data set. Chapter
4 and 5 discuss overlaps from a theoretical basis. In chapter 4, I discuss the theoretical
frame of analysing overlaps in this study, first by defining key terms including turn,
8
Chapter 1
floor and overlap, and second, by discussing how overlap has been discussed in English
discourse and Japanese discourse in the research body. In Chapter 5, grounded on the
classification, which has been constructed by analysing all overlaps in the complete
data set one by one (i.e. bottom-up method), and I discuss individual function, using the
data. Chapter 6 and 7 summarise a number of observations and analyses from the
divided into two parts. The first part discusses quantitative observation of overlaps in
the data; first, I discuss how overlaps are distributed in each function, then, I investigate
the relation between overlap frequency and a number of factors that may affect one’s
communication style. The second part discusses, from a qualitative perspective, some
overlaps and participants’ discourse styles in terms of their strategic use and the effect
three conversations in which one of the two informants participated, I discuss the
discourse styles of the informant and the other participants and their style shift from one
conversation to another in two phases; first, their floor management when taking a floor
holder’s role, second, their participation as non-floor holders. Then I compare their
discourse styles with the literature that discuss gender and communication styles in
Japanese. The final chapter (Chapter 8) briefly summarises the study and presents a
9
Chapter 2
1. Introduction
This chapter discusses the theoretical framework of the current study by reviewing the
literature. The aim of the study is to investigate participation styles of the Japanese in
and “gender.” Overlap has been discussed broadly speaking from two perspectives.
One is analysing overlap itself, i.e. how overlap occurs and/or what happens after
overlap takes place (Jefferson, 1973, 1975, 1983; Schegloff, 2000, 2002). The other is
focusing on the point of overlap onset, which distinguishes interruptions from overlaps,
and discusses the communication style of the participants in the talk. The latter type of
study mostly contrasts the different communication styles of the participants, and
attempts to reflect the difference in the power relationship between the participants (e.g.
communication styles of males and females (e.g. Beattie, 1981; Cameron, 1992; Cowie,
2000; Dindia, 1987; Ehara et al., 1984; Ferguson, 1977; Itakura, 2001; Marche and
Peterson, 1993; Matsuda et al., 1995; Murray and Covelli, 1988; Nordenstam, 1992;
Smith-Lovin and Brody, 1989; Uchida, 1992; Uchida, 1997; West and Zimmerman,
1983; Zimmerman and West, 1975). However, the findings of these studies vary, which
results in different conclusions from study to study. The reason for such arbitrary results
may be due to methodological differences (James and Clarke, 1993). For example,
10
Chapter 2
cooperatively to the current speaker. Apart from methodology, it should also be noted
that the participants’ culture needs to be considered, since there are cultures where
overlap (or interruption) is more frequently observed than other cultures (Cowie, 2000;
Deng, 1998; Mullan, 2001). As this study focuses on the communication style of the
Japanese, it falls into the latter type of the above mentioned overlap studies.
Considering methodological problems and the cultural issues raised in these studies, a
concrete and fair methodology needs to be established to explore the research topic.
Thus, in this chapter, I will review literature that I believe to be essential for the
foundation of the methodology of this study. There are four issues that are the focus of
that look into Japanese discourse—and the technical method of overlap analysis.
Among these issues, “overlap” will be fully discussed in the next two chapters as an
analytical framework. Thus, this chapter discusses the other three issues, each of which
builds a number of crucial frames of reference for overlap analysis in the Japanese
discourse.
In the rest of the chapter, I first summarise one discourse analysis framework,
the analysis of conversational data in this study, since it extensively takes account of the
culture that underlies their participant discourse. I will first review its literature by
focusing on Gumperz (1971, 1982, 1996) and Goffman (1967, 1974, 1981), then will
discuss the feasibility of the approach to discourse in this study. Secondly, I will review
how the communication style of the Japanese has been discussed in literature. In early
literature (e.g. Benedict, 1954; Doi, 1971, 1973; Nakane, 1967, 1973), the Japanese and
11
Chapter 2
Japanese culture were discussed as unique and homogenic, which is not observed in the
West, with several key notions such as uchi/soto (inside/outside), giri/ninjoo (social
However, more recent literature (e.g. Sugimoto, 1997; Tai, 2003) points out that the
discussions in the early days do not precisely apply to contemporary Japan due to its
internationalisation. Rather, they argue that contemporary Japan is diverse and dynamic,
being multi-cultural and heterogeneous. While admitting this, it is also true that those
key notions have not completely disappeared. Indeed, among the collected data for this
study, reflections of these notions have been observed. Thus, I consider it to be worth
presenting them in this chapter. In this section, I will also review several studies that
will review the literature in language and gender studies. Language and gender studies
flourished in the United States and other Western countries along with the feminist
movement. In the case of the Japanese language, language and gender studies were not
necessarily engaged with feminism. Due to the nature of the language where gender
differences are more obviously marked lexically and syntactically, the language of
women has been studied in the history of literature (e.g. Morino, 1975). Japanese
language and gender studies based on empirical data appeared in the mid-1980s (e.g.
Ehara et al., 1984; Ide et al., 1986). Since then, studies in this field have been
developed. However, compared with the studies in the West, the number of language
and gender studies in Japan is still few. Particularly, research on participation styles in
conversation, in terms of gender differences based on actual discourse data, are yet to be
noted by a number of scholars (Mizutani and Mizutani, 1987; Kindaichi, 1988). In the
12
Chapter 2
gender section, I will review how language and gender studies have been developed,
and will discuss particularly the studies that focus on participation style in conversation.
The analysis of the recorded conversational data in this study mainly follows the
relation to the participants’ culture and society when analysing discourse. It combines
sociologist Erving Goffman. Their ideas have been employed and extended by linguists
such as Brown and Levinson (1987), Tannen (1989) and Yamada (1992). Interactional
sociolinguistics has as its basic axiom that the meaning of language use in any
only in the context of interaction (Yamada, 1992). In other words, the meaning is
situated (Garfinkel, 1986; Sacks, 1986). In this section, I present a number of principal
sentence but also contextualise the meaning of the utterance. It has been only a few
work founded interactional sociolinguistics, claimed that the meaning, structure and use
13
Chapter 2
signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language usage"
(Gumperz, 1971:114). Gumperz focuses not only on macro level analysis with social
and cultural emphasis, but also looks into individual expression, and later, in his
infer unsaid meanings from each other's utterance so that they can successfully reach
their communicative goals. But in what way do people infer the context of an utterance?
Gumperz argues that there are signals in the surface features of a message by which
listeners interpret "what the activity is, how semantic content is to be understood and
these signals as "contextualisation cues," which could be any feature of linguistic form
(e.g. intonation, speech rhythm, choice among lexical, phonetic and syntactic options).
Gumperz shows the following example of a contextualisation cue, in this case a rising
intonation:
Teacher: Well, if you don't want to try someone else will. Freddy?
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Chapter 2
Freddy: Pen.
(Gumperz, 1982:147)
In this exchange, the teacher interpreted James' "I don't know" not only as its literal
meaning but also as his lack of interest in the question. However, Gumperz notes that in
the African American community from which James comes, "I don't know" said with a
Unfortunately, the teacher who was not from the same community as James, missed
interpreting James' rising tone accurately and gave a turn to the other student despite
As the above example shows, through contextualisation cues, people obtain or miss
clues about how to decode the meaning of the utterance, which Gumperz calls
such cues? They use means of "understanding" to make a presupposition. Such means
conventional standards. Gumperz states that similar past experiences motivate similar
interpretive frames. Thus, if the participants of the conversation share the same
interpretive frames, the communication becomes smooth and successful. On the other
side of the coin, if they do not share such frames, there may be communication
1 The term “frame” is first used and discussed by Bateson (1972), in which he demonstrates
communication is not possible without reference to a metacommunicative message or metamessage about
what is going on.
15
Chapter 2
ordering of talk with accurate transcripts), and discusses it in depth (Gumperz, 1992,
1996). While admitting the interpretation of conversation always depends upon how
acts are positioned within the stream of talk, Gumperz argues that positioning alone is
not enough and stresses the significance of reference to shared frames or common
ground to assess the propositional content of even a short utterance (Gumperz, 1996).
a socially and culturally constructed symbol system that is used in ways that reflect
macro-level social meanings (e.g. group identity, status differences) and create micro-
level social meanings (i.e. what one is saying and doing at a moment in time)"
(Schiffrin, 1994).
Although his approach is different from that of Gumperz, Erving Goffman also focused
his research on social interaction. His analysis of forms and meanings in relation to
that is diffusely located in the flow of events in the encounter and becomes manifest
only when these events are read and interpreted for the appraisals expressed in them"
16
Chapter 2
investigate in this study, of these concepts I particularly focus on "frame," "footing" and
"participation framework." These are not independent concepts, rather they are
Although the term "frame" is used by a number of scholars in slightly different senses,2
interaction. Goffman argues that such a frame is socially situated. Thus, in daily
infer what the speaker means by her/his utterance. The following exchange is an
A tourist walked into a jewellery shop, looked at a jade bracelet, and asked the
manager:
(Goffman, 1974:497)3
In this exchange, the tourist misunderstood the actual price of the jade bracelet by
taking the manager's "one fifty" literally. The cause of misunderstanding can be
explained, first, by the tourist not knowing how price is stated in daily shopping
situations, which is generally known to those who live in the country, second, he does
17
Chapter 2
not seem to possess any knowledge of jewels nor be aware of the status of the jeweller.
In other words, the tourist used her/his own frame to interpret "one fifty," and failed to
understand what the manager meant by "one fifty." This is an example of intercultural
In relation to the notion of frame, Goffman introduced the term "footing." Footing is
the way in which framing takes place in verbal interaction. It concerns "the alignments
we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way we manage the
footing is another way of talking about a change in our frame for events" (Goffman,
rhythm or lexical or syntactic cues and it often involves code switching (or code
2. At ten o'clock we'll have assembly. We'll all go out together and go to
the auditorium and sit in the first two rows. Mr. Dock, the principal, is
going to speak to us. When he comes in, sit quietly and listen carefully.
The first is a claim on the children's immediate behaviour, the second is a review of
experiences to come, and the third is a side remark to a particular child (Goffman,
1981).
18
Chapter 2
footing is central in understanding the change in frame. Another device used to analyse
(1981) defines several types of hearer and speaker. He points out that among hearers of
the same utterance, there might be only one or a few direct addressees. Goffman defines
such hearers as "ratified participants" and those who are hearing, but are outside the
context. Thus, he emphasises that "in any case, the whole social situation, the whole
surround, must always be considered" (1981:144). For speakers, he argues that the first
person pronoun "I" uttered by a speaker could refer to three distinct roles: "animator,
author, and principal." The animator produces talk as a "sounding box," the author
creates talk by selecting sentiments and words that are being expressed, and the
principal is someone whose position or beliefs are presented. It is often the case that one
person takes all three roles but there are cases in which they are not (e.g. quoting
Animator, author and principal are constituent of what Goffman calls the "production
format" of an utterance. This format conforms with the status of the recipient of the
utterance. Thus, the relation between speakers and hearers takes on a significant role in
"participation framework." The status or stance of the participants changes all the time
during an interaction: ratified hearer could become unratified hearer or vice versa, or the
production format which the speaker selected may change as the interaction proceeds.
Such changes in the participation framework index changes in footing. Thus, to look at
19
Chapter 2
these shifts in interaction is essential to understanding its context. To sum up, Goffman
focuses on the self and social context, and suggests a framework for describing and
participation framework, we can further analyse the context of interaction and reach an
So far, I have presented some of the key ideas of Gumperz and Goffman which have
extended by other researchers for analysing interaction. For example, Brown and
Levinson (1987) took Goffman's notion of face and applied it to build a theory of
Maynard (1989), Yamada (1992, 1997) and Watanabe (1993), who have followed the
In their analyses, they particularly focus on "context" and "interpretive frame." Maynard
context of the conversation as they interact" (1989:4). She terms this ongoing process of
4 Gumperz (1981) discusses "conversational involvement" as being fundamental to inferring what the
conversation is about.
20
Chapter 2
"contextual interpretation" in which the participants understand "the actual signs and
ideas to suit each situation of talk by transforming information to conform with the
who also tries to analyse the mechanism of meaning in context, deconstructs it into
three spheres: the "cultural context," through which people historically inherit
conceptions or knowledge about life, and which is at the core of interactional context;
the "context of encounter," in which "interactants experience and make use of their
spheres are intricately linked to each other and people dynamically use them in
interaction.5 Thus, she stresses the importance of the analysis of these spheres to define
Following the notion of "frame" by Bateson (1972), Goffman (1974), Gumperz (1982)
and Tannen (1984, 1986), Watanabe (1993) discusses a cultural aspect of framing by
investigating Japanese and American students in their framing of one speech event, the
group discussion. She suggests that frame analyses of various speech events are useful
5 Yamada exemplified the three contexts in a short exchange between two American bank officers
(1992:14).
21
Chapter 2
situated meaning of what is said differently due to different expectations about how to
interact.
Japanese speakers are involved. Although the communication style of the Japanese will
be discussed in depth in the next section, Japanese is one of the languages that is used
extent than communication in English. In order to decode the meaning of the message,
one has to rely on socio-cultural conventions, which have accumulated through history.
There have been a number of discussions about the behaviour of Japanese speakers
reflected in their communication (Benedict, 1954; Doi, 1971, 1973; Nakane, 1967,
Japanese discourse strategies (e.g. frequent back-channel use) encourage and facilitate
6 Here, I use the term "intercultural communication" rather than using the term Watanabe (1993) used as
"cross cultural communication" in her original text. See the definition of "intercultural communication"
and "cross-cultural communication" in Chapter 1.
22
Chapter 2
contextualisation and develops the notion of relationality (i.e. the “mutual relationship
situational context” (1997:17)), by which she discusses how clearly Japanese language
and thought reveal their characteristics when being examined in terms of the mutual
influence shared with the social context. Considering this, I believe it to be useful to
discourse and its feasibility to analyse Japanese communication. While the approach is
suited to Japanese discourse analysis in terms of the participation style of the Japanese
in communication, there lies an analytical problem in this approach. That is, how could
people who belong to the same culture or community may interpret the utterance
differently (Levinson, 2003). This argument seems to strike at the weakest point of the
interactional sociolinguistics approach. It points out the danger of using cultural frames
to interpret an utterance without any evidence from the actual interaction.8 Given this,
discussion in this study will be thoroughly data-driven; any discussion will be backed
8 In the Ethnography of Communication approach, cultural scripts of Japan, proposed by Goddard and
Wierzbicka (1997), are made not by basing them on the actual conversational data but by thoroughly
relying on literature. Thus, it seems to be problematic to use such scripts to decode Japanese utterances.
Note, however, as previously mentioned, more recent studies by Gumperz (1992, 1996) employ a
Conversation Analysis approach for a clearer focus on evidence to back up his argument.
23
Chapter 2
up by the evidence in the data. There are, of course, utterances that seem to be culturally
framed. However, unless there is any evidence to prove it, they will be left out of the
discussion. In order to achieve the task in this manner, it is essential to describe what
was going on in the interaction in the transcript as accurately as possible. Thus, the
transcripts for the study were carefully made to present the details of the conversation in
terms of pause, overlap onset and resolution, phrase or sentence final intonation,
stretching sound and so on. The transcribing method will be discussed in Chapter 3.
Bachnik (1994) argues that Japanese is a language that is more indexical than referential
in her discussion of uchi/soto, or inside and outside, through which self and society are
the Japanese, which relies on pragmatic meaning relatively more than English
Character in the post-war period (e.g. Benedict, 1954; Doi, 1971, 1973; Nakane, 1967,
1973) are closely related to domestic and international politics and power relations
(Kubota, 2003). For example, Benedict’s study (1954) was commissioned by the US
government for the purpose of ruling Japan after WWII. Nihonjinron in the 60s and 70s
focused on the uniqueness of the Japanese that was believed to be the source of Japan’s
economic success (Kubota, 2003). Also, in the 80s, Nihonjinron became “a nationalistic
pursuit of maintaining Japanese identity against the tide of internationalisation that had
been penetrating into everyday life in Japan” (Befu, 1983 cited in Tai, 2003). Under
24
Chapter 2
ethnicity, and homogenic and harmonic culture/society, has been emphasised from time
always shifting and reshaping itself into new forms (Kubota, 2003), it is important to
keep in mind that Japanese culture is now seen as diverse, unbounded, dynamic and
national education system (Tai, 2003). Being in a small island country, the whole
nation is in the same time zone, hence they watch the national news or other nation-
wide programs at the same time. In this way, media promote the rapid circulation of the
same information. Also, the national education system strongly focuses on the
curriculum guidelines under which all Japanese primary and secondary schools teach
the same content to children/students. Nihonjinron through quick media distribution and
the national education system, seem to influence the Japanese to behave in certain ways.
Thus, although the rest of the discussion in this chapter may be partly stereotyped or
out-of-date and mostly discusses the dichotomy between Japan and the West (namely
the US), it is still useful for understanding and analysing the Japanese way of
interpersonal relations in Japanese society and how they affect the communicative style
25
Chapter 2
interpersonal relations and their styles of communication. Kitade points out that there
are several key concepts which describe the characteristics of Japanese interpersonal
relations, which ground the communication style of Japanese. Among these concepts,
or vertical-horizontal" are the most obvious and have been discussed by many scholars.
Japanese society and amae and giri-ninjoo are somewhat difficult to translate to other
languages. Following Kitade (1993), I present a brief description of each concept and its
3.2.1 Amae
The concept of amae was raised and discussed by a psychiatrist, Takeo Doi (1971,
1973), and it has been frequently referred to by many anthropologists, sociologists, and
The word, amae does not have a direct translation in to English9. It comes from the verb
amaeru, which roughly means "to behave like a baby" or "to depend on others'
9 Rosenberger (1994) uses this term as it is, even add “ing” to the term—“amaeru-ing.”
26
Chapter 2
in the psychology of the infant in its relation to its mother. When the infant's mental
development has reached the stage at which it realises that its mother exists
and tries to depend on the mother. Doi argues such a baby's want of dependence on the
mother is amae. In this sense, amae should be universal. But Doi points out that its
application to the relationship between people other than a mother and baby may be
particular to the Japanese. According to Doi, the mother understands the baby's want
through the notion of amae and responds accordingly. This mother's psychology has
been shared by the people in Japanese society, and the notion of amae has come to take
an important role in maintaining interpersonal relations. Doi mentions that the creation
of the term amae is due to this unique phenomenon in Japanese society. Doi
societies, where the notion of amae plays no role in quotidian life. Doi (1971) presents
an example of how amae underlies Japanese behaviour from his own experience in the
United States. At a house of an American he visited for the first time, he missed an
opportunity to eat an ice-cream because he deferred the host’s offer. Doi recalls that
when he deferred the offer of ice-cream, he held a feeling of amae towards the
American host that he would understand the Japanese socio-cultural norm to defer the
first offer, and relied on the host's kindness to push him into having ice-cream.
However, the American host did not understand Doi's amae. Instead, the host took Doi's
reaction literally and did not press the offer. If this exchange had taken place with a
Japanese host, it would have been no problem for Doi to receive ice-cream, since
Japanese culture publicly approves one's feeling of dependence upon the others. Thus,
the Japanese host would have immediately understood what Doi wanted and offered
him ice-cream one more time so that he could accept it in a more deferential manner. As
27
Chapter 2
the notion of amae and because it is not readily understood by people who do not share
this culture10 (i.e. Western culture represented by the United States), it often results in
ninjoo or "social obligation" - "human feeling,"11 which are also not easy to translate to
explain giri even in Japanese, despite the fact that they use the term quite often in daily
life. The definition of giri is also ambiguous even in comprehensive dictionaries. Thus,
there have been various discussions and arguments about the concept of giri and its
behaviour, Kitade (1993) follows the idea of Minamoto (1969: cited in Kitade, 1993).
Minamoto discusses the original types of giri as: 1) to return a favour; 2) to respond to
another’s trust; 3) face-saving. According to Kitade, although the second and the third
type of giri are becoming less common, the first type of giri is still commonly observed
in contemporary Japanese society. The first type of giri is, for example, if one does
somebody a favour, the one who receives the favour feels that s/he has to return it. At
the same time, the one who does a favour has some expectation that the receiver will
return the favour. According to Minamoto, this was a convention in ancient farm
villages where people worked in cooperation with their neighbours. This feeling of
10 Doi (1971) emphasises that amae is unique to Japanese, however, recent studies recognise that this
notion is shared by other collectivist cultures (e.g. other Asian cultures and some Latin American
cultures) (Ho, 1998;Markus and Kitayama, 1991;Triandis, 2000).
11 John Bester’s (1973) translation.
28
Chapter 2
returning a favour became a social obligation, which still remains in current Japanese
society. As for ninjoo or human feeling, Minamoto argues that it is "to understand
somebody's sorrow, feel for the person, and sympathise with the person" (1969: cited in
Kitade, 1993:28).
There are various views of the relationship between giri and ninjoo. Some scholars
argue that one is contrary to the other (Ariga, cited in Kitade, 1993; Benedict, 1954) and
some argue that they are based on the same ground (Doi, 1971, 1973; Itasaka, 1969;
Kitade, 1993; Minamoto, 1969). The former argument is to see them as incompatible
notions because giri is "public" and ninjoo is "private." The latter argument is that in
maintaining relations with others, giri is the norm and ninjoo is the feeling of one's own
to support giri (Minamoto, 1969: cited in Kitade, 1993). In other words, giri and ninjoo
complement each other, and maintain smooth social relations (Itasaka, 1969). Doi
(1971, 1973), who discusses the notion of amae discussed above, also looks at giri and
ninjoo in the same way. He argues that both giri and ninjoo have their roots deep in
amae: although many people do not realise it, amae is the central emotion in ninjoo, and
towards amae. "To emphasise giri, on the other hand, is to stress the human
relationships contracted via amae" (Doi, 1973). Doi further argues that if the term amae
"dependence" and giri binds people in a dependent relationship. Based on this notion,
Doi categorised the interpersonal relationship of the Japanese in three concentric circles
as Figure 2.1 shows. The world of ninjoo, in which amae naturally occurs (e.g. family
members), is the centre circle. The world of giri, in which ninjoo is artificially brought,
is the middle circle, and the world of tanin or "persons unconnected to oneself," to
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Chapter 2
which neither giri nor ninjoo reach, is the outside circle. Communication in Japanese
culture always takes place in one of these circles. It is, thus, significant to observe in
behaviour.
World of tanin
World of giri
World of ninjoo
Although Benedict points out that giri is a moral obligation that is peculiar to Japan, it
is also observed not only in other Asian societies but also in Western societies (e.g. buy
studies (Kikuchi, 1975; Ishii, 1985: cited in Kitade, 1993) proved that giri-ninjoo
The third key concept of Japanese communication style is based on the social structure
30
Chapter 2
interpersonal relations, Nakane (1967, 1973) presents two contrasting criteria: shikaku
attribute which distinguishes one from others. It is acquired not only by birth (e.g.
family roots, or caste) but also by achievements such as academic background, social
status, occupation and so on. And ba is, contrary to shikaku, a locality, an institution or
a particular relationship (e.g. industry, university, club etc.), which binds a set of
individuals into one group. These criteria are used to identify the individuals in the
University of New South Wales. Here, "lecturer" and "postgraduate student" are shikaku
and "the University of New South Wales" is ba. Nakane argues that in any society,
individuals are gathered into social groups or social strata based on these shikaku and
ba, in which they establish and maintain their relations. However, in some societies, the
function of these two criteria is not well balanced, in other words, one of them is more
valued than the other. Nakane cites a case of India as an example, where shikaku is
more valued within the caste system. She then argues that Japan is the society where ba
is more esteemed than shikaku. When the Japanese identify themselves, they always
introduce what ba they belong to (e.g. I am Sumiko Iida from the University of New
South Wales). For the Japanese, what one does is not as important as one’s institutional
belonging to their group, and this promotes a strong sense of unity, and strengthens
group solidarity. Nakane (1967, 1973) further argues that, theoretically, human relations
can be divided, according to the ways in which ties are organised, into two categories:
12 The English translations of these terms are from Nakane’s (1968) original translation, "Japanese
Society" (1970). To distinguish the meaning of the "frame" from what I have been discussing as the key
notion of the interactional sociolinguistics, I use the Japanese term ba hereafter.
31
Chapter 2
tate or “vertical” and yoko or “horizontal.” For instance, the "parent-child" relation or
Nakane argues that within a group of ba, members are tied vertically into a delicately
graded order. In the case of Japanese society, this order is based on seniority, which
means the longer one serves the group, the more power and benefits s/he gets. Even in
horizontal relations, when necessary, members are ranked according to their seniority.
Since Nakane (1967), Japanese society has changed dramatically due to the economic
transition that has brought a new family structure (i.e. more women working after their
marriage, housework is shared more with husbands, and young couples tend to have
separate households from their parents) and a new management system (e.g. voluntary
lifetime employment, and the seniority system is shifting towards a merit payment
system, a qualification system and so on.13 Considering this, the tate society which
Nakane discusses may not apply to current Japanese society. However, according to
Nakane (1967, 1970), the longer history the society has, the larger the population and
the higher the population density, the stronger the persistence of its social structure. She
argues that it is because the society itself is highly integrated with high quality, this
makes its structure persist further. If this is the case, then, with a population in Japan of
over 120 million and over 1600 years (since unification by the Yamato Imperial Court)
of history, Nakane's theory is perhaps still valid when discussing Japanese interpersonal
relations.
32
Chapter 2
I have so far discussed three key concepts used to understand the way the Japanese
communicate. There are, of course, more concepts to describe the Japanese, such as haji
no bunka or "shame culture," and the notion of uchi and soto or "inside" and "outside,"
and so on. However, what we need to bear in mind is that even though each key concept
can be explained separately, they are not independent. Rather, they are overlapping and
dependent upon each other. For example, giri and ninjoo have already been discussed in
relation to amae. As for haji no bunka or "shame culture," which describes the Japanese
as those who do good deeds as a way of showing shame, its origin can be seen in the
notions discussed above. Showing shame towards others comes from the strong
Japanese identity as a member of ba. Thus, to commit a sin means to betray the other
members of the ba. However, if everybody in the ba does the same thing, then nobody
feels shame for whatever they do. This could be exemplified by a popular comic poem,
everybody does). Also, the ba in which one feels shame often exists within a circle of
giri where one cannot hold a feeling of amae towards anybody (Doi, 1971). Contrary to
the circle of the parent-child relation, where amae is naturally observed and where sin
and shame are tacitly forgiven, in a circle of giri, shame could lead to a loss of face for
the other member of the same circle and easily cause a breakdown in interpersonal
relations. The notion of uchi and soto or "inside" and "outside" could also be explained
consciously or unconsciously labels the other party as a member of their inside group,
or not, by putting herself/himself in the centre of the uchi circle. From the viewpoint of
14Bachnik (1994) argues that all of these terms are indices of self and society but uchi/soto is the most
basic in describing indexical organisation, since it is most explicitly associated with the deictic anchor
point.
33
Chapter 2
amae, the inside circle is the area where the members can hold a feeling of amae, and
outside this circle is the area where one cannot hold it. After assigning the other party,
s/he decides the most appropriate communicative strategy for the situation.
Interestingly, the distinction between uchi and soto shifts depending on the situation.
For instance, when someone is interacting with their company senior, they regard the
senior as a member of the outside circle, based on the fact that the senior is in a higher
position than they are. Then they show their politeness in their communicative
behaviour. On the other hand, when such a person and the same senior represent their
company and carry out a negotiation with their client, the border of uchi and soto for the
person shifts. This time both this person and the senior become a member of uchi as
representing the same company, and make a distinction between themselves and their
client as an outside member. Thus, in their communication with their client, whatever
their relationship is, they show respect towards their client, a member of the outside
group, by putting down themselves and their other company colleagues as they are
regarded as in-group members. This border shift, I argue, comes from strong Japanese
ba-oriented society where group identity or group harmony takes precedence over
individual freedom.
Based on these key concepts, Japanese interpersonal communication style has been
(Kindaichi, 1975; Kitade, 1993; Mizutani, 1979). Kindaichi (1975) also suggests that
people traditionally believe that displaying one's opinion too much may offend the other
party, which may cause trouble in interpersonal communication. Thus, it is best to say
less. And if one has to speak, one tries to be as brief as possible. Kindaichi (1975) also
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Chapter 2
argues that the Japanese tend to avoid direct and decisive expressions for the same
reason. Such a preference for indirect expression is also mentioned by Mizutani (1979).
Mizutani points out some15 Japanese use of “gurai/hodo” or “about” to indicate the
quantity of something that does not require the term to indicate approximation in a
shopping situation (e.g. “apple” in “Could I have about 5 apples?”). Declining the offer
While the message sender is sending such a short and indecisive message out of enryo,
the receiver considers (sasshi) what the sender encoded into the message by using all of
her/his knowledge gained from his/her own experience. In doing so, the receiver
decodes the sender’s message and reacts promptly, even in a complicated situation
where the speaker says the contrary to what s/he actually thinks in order to avoid direct
conflict with the other party. In the example of in 3.2.1 above, the reason Doi did not
The reason why this kind of ambiguous oral communication has worked without any
problem in Japan can not just be rooted in its culture in which people depend highly
message (e.g. high-context culture argued by Hall (1976)), but can also be linguistically
grounded. Bachnik (1994) criticises the traditional ideology of language that focuses on
reference and puts indices aside, and discusses the significance of the indices that relate
referential meaning to the social context. Bachnik especially paid attention to the
indexical terms uchi/soto in Japanese and argues that indexical meaning should be the
primary focus in the case of Japanese communication. Maynard (1997) similarly, but
more linguistically, discusses the issue. Maynard suggests the term “relationality,”
15 Mizutani (1979) emphasises that there are individual and regional differences in the use of “about.”
35
Chapter 2
which refers to “the mutual relationship that language – as well as thought— comes into
contact with in socio-cultural and situational contexts” (1997:17). She argues that, in
general, the Japanese are “society-relational,” meaning that self is directed by society in
relational,” meaning that they focus more on exercising individuality than learning to
language that endorses the idea that Japanese people are “society-relational.” She points
(2) that frequently uses nominalisation and nominal predicates that propel
communication;
(3) in which some verbs, like giving/receiving, explicitly indicate how the
relationships;
The Japanese mode of linguistic expression requires that the speaker (1) place
himself or herself as an observer of the event and (2) assume the role of
36
Chapter 2
conveying his or her response to the event. In ordinary language use, Japanese
speakers cannot escape from identifying themselves in relation to their context.
This contrasts with American English, which encourages the speaker to (1)
identify himself or herself as a human agent and (2) express himself or herself as
one who constructs a propositional structure. (…) In Japanese the information is
viewed through the eyes of the experiencer-speaker more extensively than it is
in English. (1997:132)
utterance by kyowa16 or jointly constructed talk are among them (see also pp139 in
Chapter 4). The Japanese's high frequency of aizuchi17 and overlaps18 shows the hearer's
active participation in communication, which helps the speaker to proceed the talk
smoothly. Kyowa may be categorised as a kind of aizuchi, but its function is for the
make it a complete utterance. In order to supplement the speaker's utterance, the hearer
uses sasshi (consideration) for the speaker and attempts to choose the most appropriate
word or phrase. When a Japanese speaker is sending a message, while paying due
respect to the other party, by using these strategies, s/he has a strong expectation that
the other party will understand what s/he means as a member of the same group, the
Japanese society.
The characteristics of the Japanese communication style become more obvious when
37
Chapter 2
students and compared them to an American student group. She observed that Japanese
talked about the order of turns and the discussion procedure at the beginning, they
cooperated with each other and avoided confrontation during the actual discussion, and
concluded the discussion after having assured themselves that the discussion had been
completed. Throughout the discussion, she recognised their tendencies towards group
orientation and social hierarchy in the systematic organisation of discussion. She found
American students, on the other hand, immediately started the discussion and stated
their opinions concisely and discussed freely to get to the point. Watanabe argues that
the differences observed between the Japanese group and the American group are
discussion. Consideration of group orientation and social hierarchy are "always in the
minds of the Japanese when communicating among themselves, whatever the situation"
taken by other researchers: Yamada (1992, 1997) and Maynard (1989, 1993) compared
organisation, head movement and so forth. Although their target informants and
research methods are different, they both show communication style differences
between the two cultures. Yamada, who analysed the discourse of Japanese and
American business meetings, argues that the communication style of the Japanese is
“non-confrontational”: they opened and shifted the topic collectively, distributed their
talk relatively evenly and arranged exemplified points only so that everybody could
participate in the discussion under the sharedness of their experience. On the other
they talked most about their own business matters by individually delivering the initial
38
Chapter 2
Maynard (1993), who focused on “self-contextualisation,” argues that the Japanese are
telephone conversations of 13 Japanese, and compared the results with Drew (1984) and
situation in which there is a possibility for the other party to decline the invitation. No
matter how much expectation the inviter has for the invited to accept the offer, a
Japanese inviter shows sympathy for the invited by not pushing her/him too much, and
creates an atmosphere for the invited to reject the invitation without suffering (e.g.
saying some demerit that the invited may face in case of accepting the offer).
Szatrowsky contrasts the Japanese style of invitation with the English style of
invitation, referring to Davidson (1984). In English, even after the inviter notices the
invited is unlikely to accept the invitation, the inviter continues inviting (subsequent
invitation.
19Of 16 interactions, 7 are Japanese-English dyads, 7 are Japanese-Japanese dyads and 2 are English-
English dyads. Informants are 7 English learners of Japanese. They conversed with one of the two
39
Chapter 2
Japanese speakers and British English speakers. She observed that there are more
result, Murata suggests the different conversational styles reflect two different cultures:
that is, to use interruptions as a vehicle to show high involvement, solidarity and
cooperation in English on the one hand, and to avoid interruptions, deferring more to
the “territorial imperative” in Japanese, on the other. Klopf (1991) summarises several
Japanese use less emotion, avoid controversy, dominate conversation less, are less
inclined to talk and are less assertive. From these results, he concluded, "silence or
reserved and restricted communicative behaviour is prized in Japan and the fundamental
values on which such feelings are based will probably remain unchanged" (1991:138).
Although the research base of the above studies is different, it is obvious that their
results are all reflecting the key notions of Japanese communicative behaviour.
Considering these studies reflect ideas that appeared during the late 1960s and the early
1970s, it is arguable that despite the rapid changes in economics and society, Japanese
socio-cultural norms such as amae, giri-ninjoo and tate-yoko still appear to be persistent
I have so far discussed the persistent Japanese socio-cultural norms which affect their
communication style. But what happens to the communication style of the Japanese
Japanese postgraduate students and one of the two British postgraduate students as a fixed partner. For
English- English dyads, two more British postgraduate students are involved.
20 See Chapter 3 for how Murata understands interruptions.
40
Chapter 2
when they are involved in other cultures? Does their communication style change? This
There are two types of Japanese communication that involve cultures other than the
with a non-Japanese person in any language. In the case of Japanese language being
communication style for the other party, who is a non-native speaker of Japanese, by
slowing down the rate of talk, using more simple expressions, and avoiding topics
which are taboo in the other culture etc. This is referred to as “foreigner talk” (Matsuda
et al., 1995). In intercultural communication, there are also cases where Japanese
Maynard, 1993; Murata, 1994; Yamada, 1992). Maynard (1993) and Klopf (1991)
misunderstanding with the other party by transferring their native communication style
to English conversation (e.g. frequent aizuchi use), though their arguments are not
based on empirical data. On the other hand, Yamada (1992) and Murata (1994) observe
that Japanese participants adjust their communication style to an English style. Yamada
(1992) found that Japanese bank officers used both Japanese and American
speakers of Japanese. She suggests "the subjects somehow adjusted their conversational
style to that of English" (1994:392). There are also some studies that consider the
41
Chapter 2
participants' gender apart from their cultural background (Matsuda et al., 1995; Ohara,
1992, 1997). These studies also report the participants' cultural adjustment, but I will
The other type of Japanese communication that involves cultures other than the
Japanese is a native situation, where the Japanese communicate with other Japanese in
the Japanese language, but the communication itself takes place outside Japan (i.e.
another country). Thus, the culture of the country where the Japanese participants live
communication have been focused on the use of loan words from the language of the
country, mainly by the first generation of Japanese immigrants to the country in the late
19th to mid 20th centuries (e.g. Hibiya, 2000; Kuyama, 2000). For the communication
style of Japanese long-term residents who came to the country more recently, few
studies have been done empirically, but see Masumi-So (1983) and Krause-Ono (2004).
Masumi-So (1983) investigated the use of English words in the speech style of Japanese
residents of Australia whose lengths of residency vary from a few years to over 10
comparison to their short-term residency counterparts. Both studies assumed that the
longer the person lived in a culture, the more cultural influence would be observed in
her/his speech style. However, the results were not what had been expected and were
supported the assumption, there were two participants who did not use English words
much despite their long-term residency. Further, in Krause-Ono (2004), while German
42
Chapter 2
(i.e. more frequent use of listener responses in their German discourse than their short-
residents of Germany, in terms of aizuchi frequency, were much the same as the
Following Masumi-So (1983) and Krause-Ono (2004), in order to clarify such complex
results, more empirical studies are required, particularly as in Krause-Ono (2004) the
In Australia, which is a country of cultural diversity where over 200 languages are
spoken, there has been a number of studies that investigate community languages in
terms of language shift and language maintenance (e.g. Clyne, 1991, 1997; Clyne and
Kipp, 1999). These studies concentrate on relatively major community languages such
as Greek, Polish, Dutch, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and German. Japanese migrants to
Australia became more noticeable since mid 1990s (Clyne, 1997), hence the studies on
this issue have only recently begun for Japanese communication in Australia. For the
Australia than in comparable situations in the country of origin, which is due to the
communication. In the same study, Clyne also mentions the use of “danke, thank you”
43
Chapter 2
of a similar offer). However, these arguments are not endorsed by quantitative data nor
qualitative exemplification, though Clyne states that the study is based on the actual
recordings of 860 pre-war and post-war migrants of German and Dutch origin and their
children, including those who were born in Australia. In Clyne and Kipp (1999), which
investigates Spanish, Arabic and Chinese, changes in the community languages after
In this sense, the current study, which investigates communication styles of the
The previous section focused its discussion on Japanese communication style in general
in relation to Japanese society and culture. There are a number of aspects that construct,
or are constructed by, the society and culture. Of these, this section concentrates on
gender issues, which is another focal point of the analysis in this study.
Language and gender studies bloomed in the 1970s, following the second feminist
movement in the United States. Such studies gradually spread to the rest of the world.
The noticeable women’s liberation movement in Japan, led by Hiratsuka Raicho, first
emerged in the early 1920s (Danaher, 2003). However, it has only been in the last few
decades that attention to language and gender issues has become a focus of
sociolinguists in Japan. In this section, first, I will briefly review how it has been
discussed in the United States, then look at its application and development in Japan.
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Chapter 2
To begin with, language and gender studies were deeply related to the second feminist
movement in the United States in the late 1960s. In this movement, not only the unequal
treatment of women in society, but also the existing socio-cultural norms, which were
seen to be the cause of sexual inequality, were criticised. Language was amongst them.
In this case, this was limited to American English. The English language was said to be
covers woman and the representative pronoun of human being is "he") in which sexual
This particular feminist movement had a great impact on linguists who began studying
language and gender. Before feminism, academic research had been carried out through
the male’s point of view. This fact was taken seriously by female linguists and they
began to review the studies from the female view point (Ide, 1992). Among these
linguists, Robin Lakoff (1973, 1975) erected a monumental landmark in language and
gender studies. In this work she discusses how women are viewed in society by looking
at a number of daily expressions which are particularly used by/for women in American
English. Lakoff arrays the differences of men's and women's speech at the lexical,
syntactic and intonation levels, as well as examining expressions used about women and
men, with which she emphasises women's low status in society reflected in their
language use. Although a number of criticisms of Lakoff have been raised due to her
unsystematic methodology based not on empirical data but merely on her observations
(e.g. Dubois and Crouch, 1975; O'Barr and Atkins, 1980; Reynolds, 1985; Uchida,
21 For further discussion of the "he-man" issue, see Lakoff (1975), Coates (1986) and Nakamura (1995).
45
Chapter 2
1992), her study made a great contribution in breaking the ice for language and gender
studies subsequently.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, language and gender studies were extended to the area of
use between men and women. The approaches to language and gender studies are
roughly divided into two streams: the difference approach and the dominance
approach. The "difference" approach proposes that males and females belong to two
different cultural groups, since they have learnt their conversational styles by interacting
with same-sex peers during childhood and they carry these over to adulthood. Thus,
members of different cultural groups bring their own communication rules to the
by Maltz and Borker (1982), and is deeply associated with Tannen (e.g., 1990, 1993b).
differences in communication styles and their power relations in society. It claims that
male dominance in the social structure is not only reflected in male and female language
use, but the differences in their language use to maintain male dominance in society.
Amongst those who hold this view are West and Zimmerman (1983, 1997),
Zimmerman and West (1975) and Fishman (1978). However, both of the approaches
have problems. For example, Uchida (1992) argues that the concepts of gender, power
and culture are intertwined, hence it is not possible to discuss language and gender
issues from just one perspective (i.e. either difference or dominance). Cameron (1992)
also points out that these concepts are so rigid that they prevent the researchers from
46
Chapter 2
researchers who follow the difference approach do not negate the dominance approach
(Coates and Cameron, 1988; Tannen, 1993a, 1994). There are also suggestions that
language and gender issues should be viewed holistically by looking at every aspect of
gender, power and subculture rather than these two different and independent premises
Nakamura (2001) argues that historical language and gender studies mentioned above
Following such criticisms of the approach of historical language and gender studies,
most recent approaches to language and gender studies have been shifting towards
individual identity do not simply exist but are socially and historically constructed, and
discourse largely contributes to it (Nakamura, 2001). Thus, gender identity does not
innately exist, but is produced and reproduced in a “community of practice” (Eckert and
follows:
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Chapter 2
women, men to men (Wodak, 1997). In other words, gender is not a given, but is
performed (Butler, 1993; Mills, 2003). Thus, as Weatherall (2002) points out, the
importance of the treatment of cultural beliefs and values about women’s and men’s
speech is something distinct from, but influential on, the language used by women and
ideology in discourse.22
4.2.1 Overview
I have so far discussed the history of language and gender studies in the West. The
movement towards language and gender studies in relation to feminism quickly spread
from the US to other Western countries. However, this was not the case in Japan. The
feminist movement also came to Japan in the early 1970s, but it did not grow as
issues deeply discussed. Several reasons for this have been discussed. Ide (1997) argues
that there is a strong ideology in Western society that the individual deserves equal
rights regardless of gender. Thus, it is understood that differences (of the language use
22 See Kiesling (1997), Mills (2003), Cameron (1997) and studies in Gender and Discourse in Wodak
(ed) (1997) for more information.
48
Chapter 2
the individual rights are deserved, one's right is preserved within a social role of the
individual in relation to others. The role of men and women is recognised to be different
in Japanese society. Thus, while the notion of "women = inferior" does not exactly
apply to Japanese society, nor is the insistence on gender equality in obtaining equal
rights as in Western societies very strong (Ide, 1992, 1997). On the other hand, Yukawa
and Saito (2004), who criticise Ide, stress that there were active movements to change
sexist language practices in the 1970s, but lack of development in language and gender
studies is due to the failure of sociolinguists to shift their research focus from abstract
sex differences to examining language in actual interaction through which gender and
In relation to the above argument, Yukawa and Saito (2004) point out that, until quite
recently, language and gender studies that are based on the tape-recorded data of social
interaction and their detailed analyses have hardly ever been undertaken, but they rely
due to the nature of the Japanese language in which gender differences are syntactically
Japanese. Thus, in language and gender issues in English, the relativity of use of certain
expressions or strategies between men and women are discussed. Such gender
easy to shift and be neutralised if they are considered to cause gender inequality in the
society. However, in the case of the Japanese language, which has absolute gender
49
Chapter 2
the Japanese language in relation to gender equality has not been actively discussed.
For the above reasons, Japan deviated from the Western mainstream of language and
gender studies in the 1970s. Linguists and feminists have recently focused on language
and gender studies due to a rapid change of the role of women in Japanese society.
Language and gender studies in Japan are thus 10 to 15 years behind Western countries,
hence the number of available studies is relatively small. However, I will summarise
below how language and gender studies have been discussed in Japan so far.
One of the first publications about Japanese language and gender in the 1970s is Jugaku
(1979). Jugaku discusses how the language of women reflects women's life in Japanese
society by looking at various phenomena such as speech tone, expressions for women
appearing in songs or magazines, address terms and so on. It is more of an essay for the
general public than research focused on a specific field. But by bringing attention to
these phenomena, Jugaku casts a question over a stereotypical image of the Japanese
women which may prevent them from greater freedom in life. In this sense, this work
seems to have been influenced by the feminist movement in the 1970s, and although
Jugaku does not mention Lakoff (1973,1975), some common discussion points are
observed between the two studies. However, as mentioned above, Jugaku's work did not
stimulate linguists much to pursue language and gender studies further, in confront to
Lakoff’s work. Research on language and gender based on empirical data began in
earnest in the mid to late 1980s. One of the studies that took the initiative in the research
on language and gender is Ide, et al. (1986). Ide, et al. studied women's politeness as a
50
Chapter 2
part of a national project supported by the government.23 The study focused on women's
language use based on an enormous amount of data (but not based on the conversational
data as mentioned above). As this kind of research on women's language had never been
carried out on such a large scale, it caught other researchers' attention and inspired them
to follow. Since Ide, et al., language and gender studies in Japan have gradually become
more popular.
Gender differences in language can be categorised into two types (Bodine, 1975). One
is "sex-exclusive difference," which means there are expressions that are used only by
pronouns such as “boku” and “ore” are sex-exclusive since they are allocated only for
male use. Some young females may use them for addressing themselves but it does not
mean they do not know these terms are for male use (Satake, 1998). On the other hand,
a sentence-end particle that shows the speaker’s intention towards the listener, such as
“no” in “iku no” (I am going/you are going etc.) is sex-preferential since it is used by
both males and females, but it tends to be used more frequently by females. Since such
23 In this study (1984, 1985), Ide, et al. study the mechanism of women's politeness in Japanese society.
It was concluded that the reason why women are more polite than men is not because they are inferior to
men but their role in the society (to socialise with neighbours) is different from men's role (work). This
study negates the universality of the stereotypical notion of "women as subordinate to men" proposed in
the United States. However, note that the targeted informants in the study are limited to housewives.
24 There are several other terms such as "absolute gender differences" (Ide, 1997) or "male/female
exclusive use" (Ozaki, 1997) to refer to the same type of gender differences in language.
51
Chapter 2
differences in language use have been conventionally preserved as if they are sex-
listener. Traditionally, "wa," "no," "yo," "wayo," "noyo" etc. are regarded
as female and "ze," "zo," "daze," "dazo" etc. are regarded as male. 27
e.g. first person pronoun: "ore," "boku," "washi" etc. for male
25See Kubota (2002, 2003b), Kubota et al. (2003) and Ohara and Saft (2001) concerning this issue.
26See Okamoto and Sato (1992) and Okamoto (1995) for further examples of male/female speech
differences.
27See also Mizutani and Mizutani (1987) for the male/female styles of sentence ending in a familiar
speech.
52
Chapter 2
These features are so obvious that not only sociolinguists but also teachers and learners
of the Japanese language are aware of them immediately when they are asked about the
gender differences in Japanese (Iida and Thomson, 1999; Thomson and Iida, 2002).
Among studies of language and gender in the Japanese language, some analyse the
function of these features (e.g. sentence-end particles) (McGloin, 1991, 1997; Usami,
1997), but most studies look at current use of these features in different age groups
when investigating the validity of the traditional categorisation (e.g. Abe, 1994;
Miyazaki, 2004; Okamoto, 1995; Okamoto and Sato, 1992; Ozaki, 1997). These
studies find that the traditional paradigm of male/female language has gradually
changed and the above mentioned gender distinctions have become less obvious,
especially in the younger generation.28 However, this may not simply lead to the
conclusion that few gender differences exist in contemporary Japanese language use. In
recent studies discuss how gender is constructed under the social and cultural ideology
of Japan in daily communication (e.g. Ohara and Saft, 2003; Okamoto and Shibamoto,
2004).
As mentioned above, language and gender studies in Japan are still premature compared
with research in the West, and there are many research areas in this field that are yet to
28Matsumoto (2004, 2002) observes variation in the use of gendered form in conversations among
middle-aged, middle-class Japanese women.
53
Chapter 2
be explored. Among available studies, there have been a number of studies that
investigate gender in lexical and syntactical features in communication. Apart from the
studies already mentioned, these studies explored the use of honorific expressions
(Endo, 1997; Katagiri, 1990), syntactic ellipsis and inversion (Shibamoto, 1987, 1990;
Smith, 1992), lexical choice to describe women (Endo, 1997), and so on. However,
compared with studies of gender in communication in terms of lexicon and syntax, the
communication is very small. These studies include pitch level analysis (Ohara, 1992,
1997, 2004), laughter (Hayakawa, 1997), topic orientation (Itakura, 2001; Usami,
1994), topic shift, topic floor (Ehara et al., 1984; Itakura, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1995),
backchannels (Ehara et al., 1984), overlap (Honda, 1997) and interruptions (Ehara et al.,
1984; Itakura, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1995). Apart from these studies, which are based on
natural conversational data, there are studies that investigate talk on TV variety shows
membership category analysis and sequential structure (Ohara and Saft, 2003). The
the context of the situation. Language and gender studies in this perspective have
analysis" and "discourse analysis." Compared to the studies of language and gender in
terms of syntactical and/or lexical use, many of these studies seem to show not just
gender differences, but gendered features that are more clearly built on socio-cultural
ideology. For example, Ohara (1992, 1997), who compared voice pitch level of
bilingual Japanese women and men, finds that while the pitch of Japanese men did not
vary between the two languages, the female voice pitch of females is higher when
54
Chapter 2
speaking Japanese than when speaking in English. From this she argues that Japanese
women are expected to show femininity through a high-pitched voice under the
Japanese socio-cultural norms.29 Ehara et al. (1984) find that in Japanese conversation,
men tend to dominate the floor by interrupting, asking questions which lead to the topic
of their preference, and remaining silent (i.e. not uttering aizuchi) when not interested.
For interruptions, similar findings are reported by Matsuda et al (1995). On the other
hand, Itakura (2001), who compared conversations of eight same, mixed-sex dyads in
dominance between male and female, finds that there is no obvious male dominance in
Japanese conversation, and men become even less dominant in English conversation.
Among studies that analyse TV variety shows, Ohara and Saft (2003), by employing the
Analysis, demonstrate how the sequential structure of the interaction is used by the host
women in Japan (i.e. it is a woman’s job is to take care of the home; women have to
maintain their attractiveness for men), and to shift responsibility for all the problems to
women.
Whatever the approach, the significance of the studies of language and gender from
Japanese language with studies in Western countries, mainly in English. Since English
does not have such obvious grammatical gender differences as Japanese, gender
29Ohara (2004) further investigated the issues in daily interactions of the Japanese men and women, and
found that usage of voice pitch by men and women is both dynamic when speaking in Japanese, but
women (not men) used a considerably higher pitch when speaking to customers than when talking to
acquaintances. From this fact, while suggesting voice pitch is not just related to femininity but also to
politeness, Ohara stresses that in that particular situation, when interacting with customers, it is women
who are expected to use a high-pitched voice to express politeness.
55
Chapter 2
differences in language have been discussed mainly from the perspective of sex-
this field is available. In contrast, for the analysis of gender differences in Japanese
discourse strategies (or participation style), as presented above, there is still much to
explore. It would be interesting to compare the results with other countries to see
whether gender differences in language are universal or not. From previous studies,
tendency to take the part of the listener in conversation with men). However, in order to
In this section, I have reviewed how language and gender studies have developed since
the 1970s in the United States and Japan. There were significant differences in people's
approaches to language and gender studies were also different. Because of the existence
of sex-exclusive differences in Japanese language, and not much concern about the
language from a feminist perspective, language and gender studies in Japanese did not
grow as much as they did in the West in the 1970s. However, the economic growth in
the late 80s and the introduction of Equal Employment Opportunity Law between men
and women have made an impact on the society to reconsider the social role for women.
This has also brought about a new research field in Japan, that is, “gender studies.”
Gender studies sections started to appear at bookstores in the 1990s, and courses on
30 For the universality of gender differences in language, although different language is used, common
phenomena are observed in countries where Western culture is shared. But for languages other than those
from Western cultures (e.g. Asia, Africa), it may not be the case. At the moment, due to the lack of data,
it is difficult to discuss this fully. For discussions of the universality of women's language, see Holmes
(1998) and Ide (1997).
56
Chapter 2
gender studies are now available at most universities. With this movement, studies on
language and gender in Japanese also became more active. However, compared to the
West, fewer studies on language and gender are available to this day. In particular,
studies on the participation style of the Japanese in interaction in relation to gender have
overlap in interaction. Both in the West and in Japan, overlap has been discussed from
time to time as interruptions in language and gender studies to investigate the power
relation between men and women. While significant numbers of studies of overlaps or
interruptions are available in English interaction, where various results and discussions
came out (i.e. men interrupt women more than women interrupt men; women interrupt
men more than men interrupt women, no significant gender differences), studies on
overlaps and interruptions in terms of gender are few in Japanese interaction. A few
available studies (e.g. Ehara et al., 1984; Itakura, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1995) discuss
discussed in the previous section, the structure of the language and a socio-culturally
established communication style (e.g. ellipsis of the main verb, frequent use of
than in English communication. Thus, the study of overlap in Japanese has not been
necessarily linked to gender issues. In other words, there seem to be many overlaps that
may not be interruptions, which makes it difficult to explore this field of study. This
study, thus, first clarifies the function of each overlap, then investigates how gender is
related to this feature of discourse. I believe the study will contribute to the insight of
57
Chapter 2
5. Conclusion
In this chapter, I have discussed, first of all, how people encode and decode a message
from a sociological viewpoint, then from language and gender studies view point. From
this review, it is argued that one's communication style is constructed in the context of
Both cultural studies and gender studies can be discussed independently: people from
holistically, these two perspectives sometimes conflict with each other (Matsuda et al.,
1995). For example, the claim that American women are more cooperative than men in
incompatible with the claim, found in cross-cultural studies, that Americans try to
Japanese cooperative communicative style (e.g. Watanabe, 1993; Yamada, 1992, 1997).
Matsuda, et al. (1995) argue that this incompatibility is due to the different points of
focus in the analyses; cultural analyses which focus heavily on cultural differences miss
out on gender issues, and vice versa. Indeed, in reality, one's communication style is
governed not only by culture or gender, but also by a number of factors (e.g. age, social
status, context of situation, objectives, role, setting, genre etc.). They are intricately
58
Chapter 2
looking at more than one factor. However, such studies are few.31 Waldron and Di
Mare (1998) took notice of it and reviewed previous studies on language and gender, in
Japan and in the United States, in intra-cultural and cross-cultural situations, in order to
combination of both that best accounts for differences in communication between Japan
and the United States. The study found that previous studies showed few gender
Mare argue that the result is attributable to the partial methodologies used in language
and gender studies (e.g. American scales were used for measuring Japanese gender
roles, nearly every study used college students to get samples, and mistook culture as
nationality) and stress the necessity "to be more sensitive to the cultural and contextual
different cultural backgrounds communicating in other than their first language (e.g. a
Japanese woman talks to a French man in English). Thus, Waldron and Di Mare's points
need to be seriously taken into account when studying communication with the
59
Chapter 2
section 3, I have discussed how the Japanese do make some adjustments to, or they are
affected by, the second culture in their communication styles. I will apply this to the
Australian context and look at the Japanese communication styles in their mother
tongue in relation to the Australian culture. Unfortunately, few studies discuss one’s
Australia is a young country with numerous immigrants from various countries, it may
Australia. However, it is certainly different from Japanese culture. Thus, if Waldron and
Di Mare's (1998) argument, that gender issues are sensitive to culture and context, is
valid, then the result of Japanese language and gender studies in Australia may be
Communicative style is not constructed by a single factor, but by multiple factors that
are intertwined with each other. Thus, to analyse communicative style from these
understand it, are the most effective and significant in investigating communication
styles in the current internationalised society. Because gender and culture are vital
variables in constructing one's communicative style, and have been discussed actively
by many scholars, I believe the combination of these two will cast a new light on
communication studies.
60
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 Data
1. Introduction
This chapter presents the data used in this study. First, it discusses natural data and its
efficacy for this study. Information relating to the informants, methods of data
collection, the type of each of the conversations used, and participants’ profiles will be
presented accordingly. Finally, the transcription method and data processing will be
presented.
2. Natural data
When analysing spoken discourse, one of the first issues to consider is the data that is
most appropriate for the study at hand. Depending on the objectives of the study, the
feasibility of the data may change. For the investigation of social interaction of human
However, what type of talk is regarded as natural raises issues. Have (1999) describes
“natural data” as, from a Conversation Analysis perspective, interaction that has
the interaction without observation (i.e. the researcher’s physical attendance to observe
the interaction or even setting the audio-recorder can be a provocation).1 Have goes on
to discuss how “artificial” data, in which the researcher provokes its content, can be
feasible “depending on the way it is analysed” (1999:49).2 Regarding the method of data
collection, apart from using publicly available data (i.e. recording TV or radio
1
See also the discussion on the “observer’s paradox” in Labov (Labov, 1972a, 1972b).
2
Have presents an example of Shegloff’s data that looks artificial since participants mention being
recorded during the talk. According to Have, Shegloff regarded this as natural, for the participants seemed
to talk in an ordinary fashion.
61
Chapter 3
interaction), there are basically two types of methodologies that are commonly used.
The one is recorded in a laboratory setting, where the researcher calls in the informants
and records their talk. The other data type is that the researcher leaves the recording
facility (which is usually a portable small tape-recorder) with the informant for a certain
time to record conversation any time s/he likes. Both methods have drawbacks and
advantages in terms of the resultant data, The former method allows the researcher to
concentration upon a certain variation that is directly linked to the research objective.
For example, if the research objective is to explore discourse style differences in age,
the researcher can select the informants who have the same profile (e.g. gender, place of
birth, occupation, social distance etc.) apart from age, thereby making the research
result more reliable (i.e. it is not affected by other variables of the participants, but only
by age). On the other hand, although researchers try their best to cater for a relaxed
atmosphere for the participants to obtain more natural data, a laboratory setting is more
artificial and the informants may feel odd or they may hesitate if they are asked to talk
on whatever they wish to a person whom they have never met before.
With the above in mind, the latter method, that is to leave the recording facility with the
being influenced by a third party observing them, though they may be conscious of
being recorded at the very beginning of the recording. On the other hand, relying
entirely on the informant for the recording, the researcher may not obtain the data
required for the study at hand. For example, there may not be a sufficient number of
62
Chapter 3
number and their profile (e.g. gender, age, social distance etc.) may vary from one
conversation to the other. As a result, with this method, the researcher may not be able
to obtain a reliable result due to the involvement of a number of variables. Thus, in the
end, it is up to the researcher whether s/he is emphasising more the naturalness of the
In the case of this study, as it investigates overlaps in daily interaction, I have assumed
the availability of the data, including a variety of overlaps, would increase in a more
natural setting. Thus, I chose the latter method of data collection, that is, to leave the
different conversational settings. Thus, a range of conversational data per informant was
required for this study. For the informants, I looked towards recruiting Japanese
working women, as it could be the case that other groups of women, such as non-
interaction within the Japanese community. Japanese working women, on the other
hand, a) are likely to have to have more Australian cultural contacts through work, and
b) their daily interaction is likely to have more variety (i.e. talk at work, talk at home,
who were working and could cooperate with the study. Furthermore, there were cases
where an informant agreed to participate, but the other people with whom the informant
63
Chapter 3
would interact refused to be recorded, leading to the person deciding to cease their
involvement with the study. It has been observed that many Japanese have particular
context. Having noted that Gendai Nihongo Kenkyuu kai (Research group of
collection from the work place, the difficulty of Japanese conversational data collection
appears to be quite common. With the number of difficulties as such, I only obtained
four informants.
For each informant, in order to avoid her becoming conscious of her particular
discourse style (i.e. overlaps), I explained only that I was going to analyse conversations
in which working Japanese woman were involved. After receiving agreements through
the individual informants signing the consent forms, I left them with an individual small
tape-recorder (with a built-in microphone), a few audio cassette tapes and a small
microphone (in case the informants wanted to use it), with the request that the
informants record any conversation where convenient. I also left the informant a
recording log to fill in the date and time, venue, participants’ names or pseudonyms and
brief profiles of the participants (i.e. gender, age and number of years residing in
Australia).
Two weeks after this briefing, I contacted the informant and asked how the recording
had been progressing. Then, depending on the circumstances, I either collected the
recordings or scheduled more time for further recording. The recordings took place
during 1997-1998.3
3
All conversational data is collected under ethics clearance by University of Sydney, where I was
enrolled in MPhil in Linguistics.
64
Chapter 3
When the tapes were returned from each informant, I listened to all of the recorded
conversations and selected a few conversations with different genres or settings, each of
conversations were much more lively, with a greater variety of overlaps, than dyadic
Given this, two of the informants, who had exclusively recorded dyadic conversations,
were excluded from further analysis, leaving the remaining two informants’ discourse
conversations contain over 2000 overlaps (2385) altogether and twelve different
speakers, it was considered satisfactory for this study. The profiles of the two
Informant 1
Name: Sachiko
Age: late 40s
Period residing in Australia: 8 years
Occupation: Managing director of a Publisher of a major monthly
Japanese
community magazine.
Live with family: Yes
Informant 2
Name: Harue
Age: early 30s
Period residing in Australia: 10 years
Occupation: University Academic
Live with family: No
4
To protect the participants’ privacy, all names of the informants and participants have been changed to
fictional names.
65
Chapter 3
In addition to the above two informants, another 10 individuals (including the author)
4. Conversational data used for the study and their participants’ profiles
As mentioned in the previous section, three conversations from the total number of
recorded conversations by each participant were selected, and total of six conversations
Participants:
Name Sex Age group Years in Australia Relation to Sachiko
Sachiko (informant)
Masao M late 50s 8 years husband and colleague
Yoshida M mid 30’s unknown client (real estate broker)
Participants:
Name Sex Age group Years in Australia Relation to Sachiko
Sachiko (informant)
Masao M late 50s 8 years husband and colleague
Chie F mid 20s 8 years daughter and colleague
Participants:
Name Sex Age group Years in Australia Relation to Sachiko
Sachiko (informant)
Masao M late 50s 8 years husband
Eiji M late teens 8 years son
66
Chapter 3
Participants:
Name Sex Age group Years in Australia Relation to Harue
Harue (informant)
Bob M late 30s n/a (Australian) Senior colleague
Natsuki F late 30s 10 colleague (casual)
Suwako F late 30s 9 colleague
Fumie F mid 40s 17 colleague
Participants:
Name Sex Age group Years in Australia Relation to Harue
Harue (informant)
Suwako F late 30s 9 colleague
Fumie F mid 40s 17 colleague
Participants:
Name Sex Age group Years in Australia Relation to Harue
Harue (informant)
Eri F early 30s 4 colleague (casual)
Natsuki F late 30s 10 colleague (casual)
Keiko F early 30s 2 colleague (casual)
Recording date: April, 1998 Venue: Office for casual teaching staff
This section presents the methods by which the recorded conversations were
first being the “vertical” or Jefferson system, where utterances by each participant
67
Chapter 3
i) Vertical style
2 M: N
whatQ
what (did you say)?
4 (0.6)
6 (1.0)
7 Sa: Aa aret=
EX that
Oh that one.
11 E: [Zurui naa.
cunning FP
You are cunning.
The second is “column,” where each participant is assigned to a column in which their
5
The example used is from Sa-3 (Family talk at home with breakfast).
6
As the translation is presented in the “vertical” transcript, it is omitted for this style of transcript and the
next one.
68
Chapter 3
Sa M E
The column style of transcript may be effective for comparing the individual
participant’s style of talk, amount of talk or floor held. This transcript style is used by
researchers such as Bloom (1993) and Hayashi (1988, 1996).7 However, as in the above
example shows, with this style, it is difficult to follow the flow of talk or overlapped
talk.
The third transcript style is referred to as “partiture,” where each participant is allocated
to a line on which her/his utterances are presented from the beginning of the talk until
the end, and each participant’s line as such is presented along with the others’ lines as in
M: N
7
However, the format used by these researchers is not exactly the same. In the case of Bloom, the
recorded conversation was electronically stored, hence the computer is used for data output. In the case of
Hayashi, the pause is shown only in one of the participant’s columns whom she believed it belongs to.
69
Chapter 3
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 (0.6)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa:
M:
E:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 Sa: = otoosan yada yada tte tteta kara.
E:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7 Sa:
M: = [nai
E: [/zurui/naa.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Although this style of transcript consumes more space than the other styles, and it is
“less easy to refer to particular turns in a transcript” (Have, 1999:89), for a conversation
presenting overlapping talk as well as who is or who is not talking. Thus, this type of
Researchers, including Labov (1972b), Coates (1996), and Eckert (1993), have made
use of this system for analysing chat among friends. As for Japanese scholars, Ehara et
al. (1984) has used this transcript style for dyadic conversations.
As this study not only focuses on overlaps, but also investigates multi-party
conversations, the “partiture” style is used extensively. However, in the case of one
particular conversation, Sa-3 Family Talk, the “vertical” style (i.e. Jefferson system) has
70
Chapter 3
been used. The reason for this is that this talk contains of relatively fewer overlaps and
All of the transcripts were originally made in the language the participants used (i.e.
mostly Japanese, with some limited use of English). The total of six transcripts made
with the “partiture” style are not only too large per se to present in the Appendix, but
also take enormous amount of time to convert all transcripts to their Romanised version
with translation. Thus, I have decided that the part of transcript in focus for discussion
will be Romanised and presented together with a grammar translation (i.e. morpheme
by morpheme glosses) in the line below the Romanised transcript, and vernacular
translation of the utterance into English on the third line, as in the example of the
“vertical” style above. Also, for each extract, the context in which the extracted talk
took place is presented above the transcript. For the convenience of presenting overlap
onset and its resolution accurately, the “Courier New” font, which presents each letter
in fixed width, is used for the transcription, but the “Time” font is used for its
translations in order to distinguish them from the main transcript line. The participants’
names in the transcript are presented by their initials only, to save space on each line,
and are referred to by their names in the discussion. The transcript conventions and
abbreviations I used in the transcripts are presented at the beginning of this thesis (see
6. Conclusion
This chapter has presented the details of the data used in this study. First the nature of
the data required for the study was presented, along with discussion on “natural data”
by Have (1999) (section 2). Then, the methodology of data collection including method
71
Chapter 3
by which the informants were recruited was discussed (section 3), followed by detailed
information on each conversation selected for the investigation (section 4). Finally, the
transcription methodology used for the study was considered by comparing three styles
of transcript discussed by Edwards (1993) and Have (1999) (section 5), which is
transcripts.
Using the transcripts, overlaps are analysed on the basis of who overlapped whom.
Then overlaps caused by each participant are classified and summarised in a table (see
Appendix 2 for full tables). For theoretical discussion of overlaps and their
72
Chapter 4
1. Introduction
This chapter discusses how overlap is understood in this study. The data for the study is
following exchange.
Embezzlement
5 F(f): Yappari.
as expected
I thought so.
73
Chapter 4
12 Yumi: Damare!
silence COM
Shut up!
Shirabeteta no
was investigating FP
15 ABCDEFG(f)H(f): Ooryoo
embezzlement?
Note: “f” stands for female and “m” stands for male.
This is an extract from a scene in a mystery drama,1 in which nine people (Yumi, the
main character and persons A-H) were talking at a Karaoke bar about their colleague
Ohshiro, who is a murder suspect. We, as the audience of this drama, might accept this
because the audience concentrate more on the story and are trying to discover who the
murderer is. However, if we observe this scene solely from a scholarly point of view, we
The reasons for its unnaturalness can be viewed from two aspects: the participants and
1 Originally from "Depaato gaaru tantei [ Depertment store girl detective]" (2000), Kinyo entateimento
[Friday Entertainment], Fuji TV inc. Japan.
74
Chapter 4
the setting in relation to the topic of the conversation. The first aspect to look at is the
number of conversational participants. There are actually nine people involved in the
conversation. Although two of them, persons G and H (both are females and not the
principals) are only taking listener roles, the other seven obtain an equal number of
speech turns without any overlap up to Yumi’s talk in line 14, to which everyone reacts
simultaneously in line 15. Considering Sacks et al.'s (1974) observation of the turn-
taking system, that during a conversational exchange, only one person talks at a time,
conversation, the more participants involved, the harder it is for the individual
than one person starting to talk at the same time, or one person overlapping another who
is currently talking. In so doing, they compete for the chance to speak (Kennedy and
Camden, 1983), and such "talking at the same time" continues until one of them
Secondly, the topic and the setting need to be considered. Obviously, the topic in the
talk seriously about such a topic in an informal setting such as a Karaoke bar, we could
accept the scene as natural if we take the participants to be gossiping. When people are
gossiping, they are commonly excited in talking about somebody and try to be highly
involved in the conversation (Eggins and Slade, 1997). However, we observe this
conversational example as not as lively as one might expect. Although the actors (the
participants) are using facial expression and gesture in order to be more natural in the
situation, the flow of their discourse does not seem to fit this well. Despite there being
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such an exciting topic, there is no aizuchi (or brief listener responses, backchannels2),
nor are there any overlapped utterances, which is believed to show the participants' high
involvement (Coates and Cameron, 1988; Tannen, 1984) until line 14. In contrast, in
line 15, eight people abruptly produce an utterance in unison.3 They are reacting to
what Yumi said in line 14 by repeating the key word, "ooryoo" or embezzlement. This is
particularly intended to show the participants surprise as if it was a bolt out of the blue.
But this is unrealistic since it is very rare for such a high number of people to utter the
same word at the same time without being cued by another.4 From these points of view,
it is not difficult to reach the conclusion that the above conversational exchange, which
is meant to resemble authentic talk, is actually quite artificial, and dissimilar to that
I have, so far, looked at one scene from a TV drama and discussed its artificialityas
discourse. A conversation with regular speech turns, no brief listener responses and no
speech overlap somehow gives us an impression that the communication itself is far
from realistic, or even if such a conversation were to exist, we would no doubt feel it is
not lively communication. But if phenomena such as overlaps and listener responses are
crucial to construct a natural conversation, then what are their roles or how do they
function in the conversation? From here I will focus on "natural" conversations and will
look closer at the mechanisms of the phenomena that make a conversation natural, and
The focus of this study is overlapping talk in natural conversations. In this study, I
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utterances without any script. Thus, for example, TV talk shows are not “natural” in this
narrow sense, since any TV/radio program has its script and there is always a producer
to control the participants’ verbal and non-verbal talk, although the degree of control
varies.
For the rest of this chapter, in section 2, I will first discuss the notion of “turn” and
“floor,” which, together with turn-taking, becomes the foundation of overlap discussion
in this study; second, I will present a definition of their terms in section 3; finally I will
the final section (i.e. section 5), I will critically review previous studies on overlap in
When analysing talk from the perspective of interactional structure, "turn" and "floor"
are often discussed. In Discourse Analysis (DA hereafter) work, we often observe
section.5 However, often they are simply shown numerically without sufficient
explanation. The purpose of presenting the number of turns is to show how much the
individual participant has talked in the conversation. Thus, if one participant's number
of turns is greater than another’s, then it is suggested that s/he has talked relatively more
than the other participant(s). On the other hand, the purpose of presenting the floors
(e.g. number of floors taken, length of floor held, topic floor etc) is to show how much
the individual participant became the centre of the talk. Thus, the one who has a large
5 The way they are presented vary from total number of turns to number of turn per minute.
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number of floors (or who holds the floor for a long time) is perceived as having
controlled the conversation more than the other(s). However there are fundamental
problems here. First, not much research focuses on both turn and floor. Often, turn
seems to be the focus more than floor, or these two are simply confused. Second, what
the terms turn / floor mean is not clarified in most research. Even if they are, definitions
vary from study to study, thus, it may not be feasible to compare them quantitatively
from one study to another, unless one has an understanding of how the turn / floor is
defined in each study. Since these terms have been essential units in discussion of
overlaps, it is an important task to clarify their meaning. In this section, first I will
review how “turn” and floor” have been understood in the literature. I first look at the
early literature in 1970s and 1980s by focusing on Sacks Schegloff and Jefferson (Sacks
et al., 1974) and Edelsky (1981, reprinted in1993), then I will look at more recent
studies on the same topics, i.e. (Ford and Thompson, 1996;Hayashi, 1988, 1996;Tanaka,
1999).
Many DA studies use the term "turn" in discussions of "turn-taking", which shows the
participants' talk distribution in the conversation. One of the most famous studies on the
turn-taking system is Sacks et al.'s paper, “A Simplest Systematics for the Organisation
of Turn-Taking for Conversation” (1974). In the paper, the authors present a number of
grossly apparent facts in terms of turn and turn-taking, which are observed in any
conversation,6 and discuss how technically the talk is distributed in orderly fashion
6 In regards to “any conversation,” the authors note that cross-cultural validity of the listed observations
can be settled only empirically, and present a few examples of cases from other languages. In the past
thirty years since the publication of this paper, many studies have empirically examined the validity of
these observations in other languages than English.
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among the participants. Their definition of turn is "a right, duty, or opportunity that
language.7 In Sacks et al. (1974), the length of one person's talk at a time means one
turn, which consists of one or more "Turn Constructional Unit(s) or TCU(s)". The
possible point of speaker change comes at the end of each TCU. In the discussion of
the turn-taking system, this notion is essential. However, when discussing one's actual
turn (not TCU) itself, there seems to be a problem. According to Sacks et al., TCU
includes sentential, clausal, phrasal and lexical constructions. This means, for example,
utterances such as "reading (one lexical TCU)" in response to somebody's question such
as "what's your hobby?" is one turn, and a story telling (a number of sentential TCUs,)
is one turn (though it is referred to as multi-unit turn (e.g. Shegloff, 1990:lecture 9)) as
using the number of turns, it is possible for the one who has talked a lot to produce only
a few turns and the other who has talked less but uttered a number of short utterances to
The problem is greater than just this; one of Sacks et al.’s (1974) observations of turn
and turn-taking as grossly apparent facts is that, overwhelmingly, one person talks at a
time. In the same explanation of gross facts, they also refer to overlap as common but
regarded a turn as something that "consists of not merely the temporal duration of an
utterance but of the right (and obligation) to speak which is allocated to a particular
speaker" (Zimmerman and West, 1975:107). Based on this understanding of the turn,
many studies have picked up examples of overlap that deviate from the gross facts (i.e.
overlap that takes place other than at the speaker transition) and have discussed them as
7 Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (1971) cited in Edelsky (1993).
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interruptions, which they believe intervene into the current speaker’s territoriality of
number of listener responses from participants who take a role of listener to show their
support of the current speaker and high involvement in the conversation (Jefferson,
1983; Jefferson and Schegloff, 1975; Schegloff, 2000, 2002).8 Then, questions have
been raised on this kind of overlap, which deviates from Sacks et al.’s (1974)
observation on turn-taking, but does not interrupt the current speaker’s turn in the local
context: whether they are turns or not, or how they should be treated in DA. In order to
explore these problems, another dimension to look at in discourse, “floor,” has come to
be considered separate from turn when analysing discourse. That the one who has the
floor has the right to talk is a general understanding. However, compared to “turn,”
more notional, and it is sometimes difficult to judge who has the floor. Hence, even with
researchers who consider it locally in their analyses, “floor” itself has mostly not been
thoroughly discussed.
Edelsky (1993) is one of the few and one of the earliest researchers9 who extensively
discuss “floor.” During her analysis of discourse with transcripts, Edelsky noticed that
what is described in the transcript did not reflect what actually happened, in terms of
who is the centre of the talk.10 She presents an example where the current speaker stops
in the middle of the turn, which is taken by the other, but continues her/his talk by
overlapping the person who took the turn through self-selection. This incident is
8 It is well known that Zimmerman and West (1975) included backchannel utterances in their analysis of
interruptions.
9 Note again that Edelsky’s “who’s got the floor” was originally published in 1981 (Language in Society
10:3 pp383-421).
10 Edelsky herself was one of the participants of the talk she was analysing.
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described as the first speaker overlapping or even interrupting the second speaker to
take a new turn in a vertical style of transcript. But, Edelsky argues that the first
speaker’s overlapping talk over the second speaker is merely a continuation of her
original turn which had stopped previously, hence the first speaker had only one turn
rather than having two separate turns in this case. While trying to explore the best way
turn is not necessarily having the floor. Edelsky’s criticism of studies on turns or turn-
taking through the one-at-a-time view in those days, takes up the following two main
points:
i) many of the studies that extensively use the concept of “turn” depend
Regarding i), since 1981, when Edelsky first published the article, there have been a
conversations and/or naturally occurring conversations (e.g. Ford and Thompson, 1996;
Schegloff, 2000, 2002; Tanaka, 1999) in a reflection of Sacks et al (1974). Also, with
the advance of technology in the past few decades (e.g. smaller but high quality
recording systems), even in a controlled setting, the recorded conversations are expected
to be more natural than they used to be. Thus, the problem she claimed seems to have
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been resolved. Regarding ii), what concerns Edelsky can be exemplified in the
The participants are talking about the naming of an Australian born Japanese child. Isamu(I), who is the
father to be, is giving his opinion, where Mamiko (M), his wife joins the talk.
Isamu’s talk in line 3 and Mamiko’s talk in line 4 are overlapping. When Mamiko
begins to talk, although Isamu has not completed his turn, he has reached the end of a
TCU. Thus, Mamiko seems to have misjudged Isamu’s turn completion. But right after
she starts talking, she should realise that Isamu is still talking and it was her mistake to
judge that he had already completed his talk. Then, she could have stopped talking and
let him finish his talk. But she does not and, instead, continues talking. From this
However, Mamiko is actually showing her strong alignment (soo, aru n da yo; yes, it
11 These data are from my own collection for the pilot study (Iida, 2000)
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From Isamu’s talk, which is smooth without producing any hitches or change of
volume,12 he does not seem to feel he is being interrupted. Contrary to this example, the
following transcript contains an exchange that does not at first sight seem to have a
Suwako(S) and Mamiko(M) are presenting their views of naming the baby, in which they disagree with
each other.
4 mo hen ja nai?
P strange not
6 M: =Watashi ga omou ni wa
I P think P P
I think that
8 S: [a- - - - - - ]=
aizuchi
(continuer->understanding)
11 = <talk continues>
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In this excerpt, Suwako, who had been talking about her negative opinions on giving a
Japanese child an English-like name, is first interrupted by Mamiko in line 3.13 Suwako
negates what Mamiko said in line 5. She attempts to continue her talk, but this time she
is latched by Mamiko’s counter argument in line 6. Their talk in these two lines
represents “one speaker at a time,” since they are not overlapping. But it is obvious that
Suwako intends to continue her talk, when she is latched by Mamiko (i.e. Suwako’s talk
is incompleted when it ends with yappari, or “still” which usually requires some
continuation). As a result, she temporally yields her floor to Mamiko by uttering a long
aizuchi, “a----------“ to Mamiko’s talk in line 8. This aizuchi continues until the end of
Mamiko’s talk, then immediately after Mamiko finishes, Suwako continues what she
was going to say before Mamko’s latch, in line 9. But this is also overlapped by
Mamiko to support her argument further using the example of her acquaintance, though
this time Suwako does not yield her turn but completes it.
Edelsky’s argument is that some overlaps and non-overlapping talk, as in the above
examples, have not been dealt with properly in the studies that analyse data based on the
view that one-at-a-time equals smooth speaker shift. In this way, she stresses the
intentional sense” (1993:201), and there she discusses the rationale for considering floor
in discourse analysis. Based on her argument, she redefines “turn” and “floor.”
According to Edelsky, turn is "an on-record 'speaking' behind which lies an intention to
she tries to distinguish it from "off-record" talk, which is addressed to one or some
13 I define this overlap as interruption, since Suwako had more to say at the time of the overlap onset as
is discussed below. See she repeats the word “yappari,” “still” in line 5 and line 9 to complete her turn.
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persons within a group rather than to all participants of the conversation (“side
functional, Edelsky excludes listener responses (or "encouragers" as her term) such as
mhm, yeah etc from turns, since, according to Edelsky, they are not referential but
merely feedback towards the ongoing speaker, though she carefully adds that such
backchannel utterances also could be turns depending upon the context of the exchange
and how it is said (e.g. volume and tone).14 After presenting her definition of turn,
time / space” (1993:209). By "what's going on", she means the development of a topic
developed either singly by one person at a time or collaboratively by more than one
participants, a “side comment” is, once again, not regarded as floor holding.
Furthermore, Edelsky discusses having the floor as not necessarily being the same as
taking a turn or talking by showing some cases of turns without floor taking (e.g. a
question which attempts to clarify for the speaker what's going on) or holding one's
floor without talking (e.g. non-verbal action in the midst of one’s talk which is regarded
The above summary of Edelsky’s discussion on “turn” and “floor,” however, seems to
hereafter) represented by Sacks et al., for its structural treatment of “turn” (i.e. in terms
14 For instance, she argues that "That's right" is a turn if it was said with a certain loudness and intonation
pattern so that it would be heard as "I agree with you (conveying a referential message)" but it is not a
turn if it was said more like "'ts right" which would be heard as "go on."
15 Edelsky takes an example from her data (academic meeting) in which one floor holder who has been
reporting about students, stops talking in the midst of her report and starts to count papers, which did not
cause yielding her floor since her non-verbal action was also regarded as a part of her report.
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“turn.” Edelsky’s criticism comes from the treatment of the above mentioned talk that
previous turn, which has been cut off by other participant’s talk. Edelsky understands
that CA, based on Sacks et al.’s one-at-a-time, would treat it as a separate turn which is
independent from the speaker’s previous turn. However, in CA, one-at-a-time talk is not
(1990:lecture 11) excludes continuers, congratulations, laughter and greetings from one-
at-a-time; and the talk such as the above mentioned example given by Edelsky, is
independent turn in CA. Also, most studies on interruptions using Sacks et al’s (1974)
turn-taking discussion as research frame, consider the function of overlapping talk (i.e.
whether the content of the overlapping talk is supporting the current speaker’s talk or
not), hence they do not automatically regard overlapping talk as interfering with the
current speaker’s talk (e.g. Drummond, 1989; Goldberg, 1990; Murata, 1994). Second,
However, recent studies (Deng, 1998; Drummond and Hopper, 1993a, 1993b; Gardner,
1997, 2001) show that backchannels or listener responses (or “acknowledgment tokens”
is their preferred term) are not merely feedback in the style of “go on”, but clearly carry
a certain message and influence the topic development. Thus, regarding them as merely
encouragers and excluding them from the turn would be problematic. Third, and the
most problematic issue in Edelsky’s “floor” discussion, is the method by which floor
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judged by others than the speaker herself / himself? Edelsky herself admits that she had
problems in distinguishing single floors from collaborative floors, and ended up relying
on her intuition from having been one of the participants in the data. This implies a
conversation, one still needs to rely on one’s intuition to judge floor boundaries, hence
Overall, Edelsky’s view on “floor” shed light on certain issues in DA at that time, in
terms of paying more attention to the content/context of talk. However, at the same
time, it carries several problems as mentioned above. Over two decades since Edelsky
first published her discussion on “turn” and “floor,” There have been more DA /CA
studies on “turn” and “floor,” which have enhanced the notion of “turn” and/or “floor”
from the early days. I will present and discuss a few more recent studies on “turn” and
This section discusses more recent studies on “turn” and “floor.” There have been a
number of studies on “turn” in the past few decades, among which I focus particularly
on Ford and Thompson (1996) and Tanaka (1999) to present the discussion. These
studies investigate how speaker shift takes place in conversation and try to explore what
a turn consists of by analysing samples of actual talk. Ford and Thompson's primary
interest is in the TCU within a turn-taking system. Their study is not just technically
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understanding what the turn is. Tanaka (1999) applied Ford and Thompson’s findings to
Studies that extensively discuss “floor’ are not as numerous as studies on “turn.”
Hayashi (1988, 1991, 1996) is one of the few researchers who have contributed a
thorough discussion of “floor.” Following Edelsky and others who discuss “floor,”
Hayashi, who further develops the definition of “floor” and has revised it a number of
times, claims that it is “a dynamic cognitive entity that links the interactants together
socially and psychologically” (1996:32), and discusses how floor functions from
utterance level to discourse organisation level. These studies are not directly related to
this study. However, they are useful resources for establishing the definitions of “turn”
In the rest of the section, I first consider the discussion of turn by Ford and Thompson
(1996) and its application by Tanaka (1999), then I review the “floor” discussion by
Hayashi.
Like other West Coast functionalists, Ford and Thompson (1996) focus their study not
on a definition of turn but on the turn-taking system, in which they try to find out at
what point of one's speech the actual speaker shift may occur: in conversational
interaction, how the participants recognise the current speaker's completion of her/his
speech to start a new turn has been a question. Sacks et al. (1974) suggest that one's
speech turn is constructed from one or more TCUs, and at the end of each TCU there is
a possible speech completion point where speaker shift may occur. Sacks et al. call this
point a Transition Relevance Place or TRP and argue that TRPs are predictable, since
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CA researchers, by what cues such a completion point is recognised has not been agreed
upon fully: Sacks et al.'s primary concern was with syntactic cues,16 other analysts also
consider the possibility of lexical, prosodic (e.g. intonation), or rhythmic cues at the end
of TCU and so on.17 Following one of these researchers (Levelt 1989, cited in Ford and
Thompson), Ford and Thompson propose that a TRP is not recognised by syntactic cues
solely, but by a combination of syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic cues, and they
point where speaker shift took place. What should be noted here is, as they also
mentioned, that while prosodic and syntactic completion can be judged technically,
pragmatic completion has to rely on the researchers' intuition. However, they dared to
include it to the analysis since they admit the importance of pragmatics in the
point of a combination of syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic completion. They call this
point Complex Transition Relevance Place (CTRP hereafter). From this finding, it is
suggested that one's speech turn is constructed by one or more units, which is
out is how they treated backchannel utterances in their analysis. Edelsky, as discussed in
the previous section, claims that backchannel utterances are basically not turns, which is
conversational participant who takes a listener's role, Ford and Thompson term them as
"backchannel turns" and distinguish them from "full turns" which belong to the person
16 It has to be noted that Sacks et al. (1974) also discuss lexical, phrasal and clausal as well as sentential
completion.
17 See Ford and Thompson (1996) for the previous discussions of possible completion cues.
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who has primary speakership. That being said, these two types of turns are treated
equally in the study, since, according to Ford and Thompson, they seem to be involved
more or less in leading to next speaker onset. This view of the backchannel utterances is
quite interesting, as many DA studies treat them differently from "full turns" in Ford
after the analysis of Japanese turn-taking system using Ford and Thompson’s frame,
Tanaka found that in Japanese conversation, there are not as many syntactic completions
as are observed in English conversation. She also found that apart from the CTRP,
a pragmatic completion. She argues that it is because of the different syntactic order of
the sentence between the two languages: while English verbs tend to appear early in the
turn, which makes turn completion projectable, projectability of turn completion is not
easy in Japanese, where the verb appears at the end of the sentence. Thus, Japanese rely
on the current speaker’s pragmatic completion to recognise turn completion more than
As this study looks at Japanese conversation, Tanaka’s findings may partly answer why
18 However, a number of CA studies (e.g. Drummond and Hopper, 1993a;Gardner, 1997, 2001;Jefferson,
1984) discuss backchannels, such as “mm hms,” “uh huh,” “yeah” etc in relation to turn transition and
speaker incipiency.
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Edelsky, she understands “floor” to be totally different from “turn” from the beginning.
exists at a higher level of conversational structure and it is not at the level of turn or
move (1987 cited in Hayashi, 1996). Hayashi therefore defines floor as “a form of
efforts when more than two persons interact with each other” (Hayashi, 1991), which is
further claimed as “a dynamic cognitive entity that links the interactants together
context of situation as well as the cultural and historical context that underlies their
interactional dimensions, from micro level, such as utterance, to macro level, such as
the cultural and social levels. Based on this notion, Hayashi proposes the types of floor
as shown in Figure 4.1 below. The multiple conversational floor includes what Edelsky
discusses as “side comment,” which indicates there may be more than one floor in a
19 There is no English-Japanese comparative study in terms of overlap frequency. Although the majority
of the overlaps (55.7%) are aizuchi and other utterances that function as aizuchi, this study found that
there are still quite large number of overlaps other than aizuchi. See Chapter 6 for the discussion of
overlap frequency.
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Prime-time
at a time
floor
Less-active
interaction
Single Speaker&
Single person supporter Active interaction
Conversational floor floor
floor
Non-propositional
floor
Floor
Ensemble
Collaborative floor
Joint floor
While Hayashi describes active interaction in a single person floor as involving not just
supportive feedback such as backchannels, comments and questions but also more
overlaps and simultaneous talk which do not interfere with the flow of the on going
conversation, she argues that there is considerable simultaneous talk, overlap and
recognises the participants’ effort in achieving the same goal more in a collaborative
floor, these descriptions do not seem to be much different from each other. Given that
very difficult to clarify whether a part of the conversation is a single person floor or
out to whom the floor belongs and where the floor boundary lies.
Another problem is that, compared with “turn” which is often recognised based on a
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speaker shift and therefore more straightforward, in Edelsky and Hayashi, “floor” is
discussed more cognitively. Thus, too much focus on floor may miss smaller
interactional elements. For example, according to Hayashi, Tsutomu is the floor holder
in the conversation among four people below. Hayashi argues that Fumiko’s talk in
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As Hayashi does not mention the context of the talk or what was going on before this
exchange, it is hard to find who has the floor by only looking at the extract. Perhaps the
topic on dialect was initiated by Tsutomu, and Fumiko’s talk in lines 1-5 is a comment
to Tsutomu who has talked immediately before line 1, and Tsutomu may continue after
Masanori’s backchannel signal in line 14. However, when looking at this extract alone,
as Fumiko also replies to Yuki’s question, it appears hard to argue that Fumiko does not
hold the floor at this point. Given that Fumiko shares knowledge of the Hokkaido
dialect with Tsutomu, she may also hold the floor collaboratively with Tsutomu. This
once again brings us back to the question about what the floor is, and how to recognise
it. Hayashi’s argument on floor seems to be conclusive per se.20 However, for the
current study of overlaps, which is immediately concerned with the talk of the involved
participants, and requires them to be analysed in their local context, Hayashi’s cognitive
As discussed above, there are various ways of understanding turn and floor. It is
unfortunate that there is no universal understanding of them, but, in the end, which
notion would be best may depend upon the aims or methods of the particular study.
Considering the nature of this study, which looks at overlapping talk in daily
conversations, I now set my definitions of “turn” and “floor” together with other
20 For example, Iwasaki (1997) fully applies Hayashi’s notion to develop his definition of “floor” for his
study of “loop” sequence in Japanese conversation.
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Before defining “turn” and “floor,” I clarify a few terms that are frequently used in this
However, if one intentionally performs such physiological actions to send a signal to the
other party (e.g. a mother coughs to warn her child to behave well in public), then it
meaning in interaction.
Hesitation markers and aizuchi (listener responses, or backchannels) also fall into this
category, since they convey a linguistic message, although there may be a different
from talk, and should be discussed separately, since it does not convey any linguistic
message, even though it has a number of functions. Often talk is confused with speech,
but in this study, speech is understood more as a monologue-type talk that takes place in
As I use the notion of floor to define “turn,” I define “floor” prior to the definition of
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“turn.” As the purpose of defining these terms is for the analysis of overlaps in
conversations, “floor” is defined more locally and narrowly than Edeslky and Hayashi.
Hence it is:
“floor holder,” who holds the right to talk, which is publicly acknowledged.
In regard to the above definition, there are a few points to note. First, the term “public
exchanges between some others amongst the participants, as in Edelsky (1993) and
Hayashi (1996). Following Hayashi, I will refer to this non-floor holding exchange as a
“side-floor,” which may possibly take over the main floor, which has been the main
Second, as Edelsky and Hayashi discussed it, floor can be shared and developed by
more than one person (mostly by two persons). This type of floor is referred to as
“collaborative floor” or “shared floor.” The persons who share the floor are a main
floor holder, who initially introduced the floor, and a sub-floor holder, who joins the
floor introduced by the main floor holder. See section 4.2 for further discussion with
examples.
Third, a floor is not topic-oriented. In other words, floor shift is not necessarily the same
as topic shift. It is common to observe a number of participants talking about the same
21 Hayashi introduces a dyadic conversation in which one participant suddenly starts verbally spelling out
some words she has been typing while talking.
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topic. If the topic in some talk does not directly reflect the main topic, but is nonetheless
In sum, “floor” in this study is limited to what is locally organised talk in public, which
acknowledges the person in the centre of the talk as having a right to talk. The concept
of the floor at a higher level than this, which involves one’s psychology, culture and
Any utterance which conveys a substantial message. The end of each turn is
Note that one speaker can produce more than one turn coming to a CTRP without
is not regarded as a full-turn, but as a part of the speaker’s previous turn. Aizuchi are
also regarded as turns, since they also convey a linguistic message. As they are non-
floor holder's turns, following Ford and Thompson (1996), I define them as "aizuchi
turns" and distinguish them from "full turn," which is a floor-holder's turn. Forms and
laughter without other vocalisations can act as a turn, as Ford and Thompson (1996)
suggest, in this case, laughter should also be treated accordingly in the same manner as
backchannel (i.e. aizuchi) turns. However, due to their non-linguistic nature, with
various forms and functions, although this study looks at laughter that is observed in
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overlapping talk in the data, only laughter that carries a function of feedback or
This section first looked at some literature that discusses “turn” and/or “floor,” then
presented a definition of these terms used in this study. Although many researchers
seem to understand that the one who has the turn has the floor, there are cases of taking
a turn without taking the floor, such as the participants’ utterances towards the current
floor holder that function as supporting and/or clarifying contributions to the current
speaker’s talk. To make a clear distinction between “turn” and “floor” for analysing
overlapping talk is especially crucial, since non-floor holder’s overlap in the current
floor holder’s turn and the current floor holder’s overlap on non-floor holder’s turn
The term “overlap” is interpreted and used differently from study to study. In this study
“When more than one person’s utterance is heard at one time, regardless of its
length, from the starting point to the ending point of that phenomenon is
laughter. However, coughs, sneezes and other vocal sounds that are produced
When an overlap takes place, unless two or more speakers start simultaneously, there is
one person who has been talking, and another person starts talking while the former
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Harue has been talking to Suwako and Fumie about a sushi restaurant in the city which she had visited
before.
1 H:
S:
In example (1), there are two overlaps (line 2). In the first overlap, Harue overlaps
Fumie by responding to her question early, whereas, in the second overlap, Fumie
shows, the individual who is overlapping or the individual who is being overlapped is
not fixed in a conversation; it changes frequently depending upon the context of the
conversation.
The talk that overlaps the other is not necessarily uttered by a non-floor holder. For
instance, it is frequently observed that a floor holder overlaps the aizuchi of a non-floor
example.
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In this example, Harue is a floor holder and a clarification (line 2) of her previous talk
When more than one person simultaneously start talking at the current speaker’s turn
Harue has been talking to Suwako and Fumie about what sort of flatmate she wants.
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = omou kara.
think since.
I think.
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 (0.8)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: [un demo]
Yes but
Yeah but
S:
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5 H:
S:
F: =
uttari toka (…)
sell etc
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a case in which more than one person has self-selected to be the next speaker at
TRP, according to Sacks et al. (1974). At line 4, Harue and Fumie start their turns
simultaneously after a 0.2 sec pause. When such a case occurs, one of the speakers
usually stops talking very soon after onset (Levinson, 1983;Sacks et al., 1974) and the
floor is ceded to the other person. In this example, Harue cedes the floor to Fumie.
general terms. Whatever the number of participants, each participant takes either a role
obvious who is talking to whom, since there are only two participants. However, in a
determine the target of an utterance is targeted. An utterance may be targeted at the rest
individuals within the group. Concerning the floor, although it is most likely that there
is one participant who holds a current floor and the others become non-floor holders, it
is possible that more than one person can take the floor in a multi-party conversation.
participants, they may cooperatively construct a floor in order to inform the other
participant(s) who do not share the same information. Also, when a conversation
involves more than three people, there may be a case that, within the main stream of the
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organise a smaller group and talk within the group temporarily without pulling
above, this talk in a smaller group is referred to as a “side-floor.” Depending upon the
conversation (i.e. the more participants, the greater the possibility for more side-floors).
of a side-floor taking over the current floor is observed in my data in which one of the
participants had to pull herself away from the conversation because of a phone call
inquiring about her flat (see extract 4 above), as she was looking for a new flatmate at
that time. After she finished the phone call and rejoined the main conversation, the main
important to look at who holds the floor and who does not, and who is talking to whom
at the time each overlap takes place. The rest of this section discusses a number of
overlaps that are specific to a multi-party conversation. The examples used here are
from the collected data of multi-party conversations in which three or more persons
participate.
In a multi-party conversation, the most likely scenario is where one person talks as a
floor holder and the others, as non-floor holders, respond (or react) to the current floor
holder. For example, this can be observed when one person conveys information that is
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new to the others, or gives an opinion on a topic which concerns the rest of the
participants. Non-floor holders’ reactions are mainly represented by their aizuchi and
often such aizuchi overlap in various ways. In the following extracts, Harue is a floor
Harue has been telling Suwako and Fumie about her experience of missing out on the student discount fee at
the UXX car park.
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = agenai todame nanda tte:
Give CON no good COP QUOT
it (the parking fee) will not be discounted.
S: [yaadaa:
dislike COP
Oh No!
F: [honto
true Q
Really?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an example in which the two overlapping evaluations (Suwako and Fumie) are
uttered immediately after the current floor holder (Harue) ends her turn. But there are
cases when such overlapping aizuchi further overlap the current floor holder’s speech,
Harue explains to Suwako and Fumie how she went to a sushi bar, Tokyo Roll. The following extract
follows exchange (3) above, where Fumie asks whether Harue went there by car.
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S: [u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
F: [u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In the above extract, both Suwako and Fumie seem to assume Harue’s talk is
approaching the end of TCU and utter aizuchi. In this case, after the particle ni, which is
a location marker to indicate the preceding noun/noun phrase as the location (i.e. QVB
ka nanka, QVB or something), it is easy for the non-floor holders to assume what verb
follows (i.e. parked), hence there was no need for them to listen until the end of Harue’s
talk. The point of their overlap onset seems to be what Jefferson (1973, 1983) discusses
as “not too early not too late.” It is quite interesting to see how non-floor holders judge
the point to start their reactions towards the current floor holder in the same manner.
The examples (6) and (7) are cases in which the non floor holders utter aizuchi at the
same time. Apart from these types of overlaps, there are also cases where non-floor
holder’s aizuchi are not uttered simultaneously. Below is one of these cases 23:
Harue has been explaining how the residents of her block share the laundry lines.
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
23 More examples of overlapped aizuchi include the one in which each aizuchi utterance starts and/or
terminates at different points.
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S: [u - n ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
F: [u - n ]
aizuchi
(understanding / aizuchi follower)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When non-floor holders’ aizuchi are uttered simultaneously, as in examples (6) and (7),
they can be regarded as incidental overlaps. However, in cases like (8), it may not be the
case. Although non-floor’s aizuchi are targeted at the current floor holder, the one who
utters aizuchi later than the other(s) may not just be reacting towards the current floor
holder, but may also be following the other non-floor holder to maintain the rhythm and
harmony of the conversation. For example, Fumie’s aizuchi utterance in line 2 above,
which started a while after Suwako’s aizuchi, concludes at the same time as Suwako’s
aizuchi. Furthermore, their aizuchi, which overlap Harue’s talk, also rhythmically
conclude at the same time as Harue reaches the end of TCU of her talk. As a result,
Harue, who does not need to wait for the aizuchi of the others, was able to continue her
talk immediately after the overlap resolution with her reconfirm, “soo.” Here in this
exchange, the non-floor holders’ finely timed aizuchi as well as Harue’s immediate
While there are cases when talk targets all of the other participants, there are also cases
in which talk targets a specific person in a conversation. Such talk sometimes overlaps
other participant’s talk, or causes others to overlap. This section discusses some cases of
this kind of overlapping talk. But first, consider the following exchange:
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Observing Fumie buying a big meal, Suwako wonders whether Fumie has had lunch.
1 H:
S: [u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
This is a case where the current speaker selects the next speaker by her/his name
the right to speak next is reserved for Fumie. Thus, Harue remains silent even though
there is a long pause of 1.3 seconds, and Fumie answers accordingly. Although this
conversation in which the participants talk about the laundry stands that are shared with
Harue has been talking about a problem in sharing the laundry line with other residents in her block of
four units.
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1 H: [u – n] [u n]
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (continuer)
S: [u – n]
aizuchi
(continuer)
In lines 1-3, based on her assumption that Harue’s place has only one laundry stand,
Fumie is trying to explain that, even with two laundry stands, the amount of laundry for
a family of four can be enormous. However, before she completes her turn, Suwako
points out, in overlap with Fumie, the number of laundry stands at Harue’s place is also
immediately. Upon Suwako’s question, the right to speak next is reserved for Harue.
Nevertheless, Fumie also starts her turn at the same time as Harue (line 4). The reason
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for Fumie’s talk here seems to be due to the function of Suwako’s turn. Although this is
remembered there are two laundry stands at Harue’s place from the talk earlier in this
conversation. As Fumie does not seem to recall that Harue also has two laundry stands,
In other words, Suwako’s utterance has a double function in that it confirms with Harue
Suwako’s question. Thus, although the talk of Harue and Fumie in line 4 is uttered in
aizuchi to show her acknowledgement of the new information24 towards Suwako, but at
the same time it also functions to confirm the information with Harue.
As in Suwako’s talk in the above exchange, the talk which targets a specific person is
most obviously recognised when it takes a question form. However, it is not always the
case that the current speaker directly addresses the selected next speaker’s name. See
The participants are talking about Harue’s attempt to find a new flatmate, since her current flat mate has
just left. Suwako has suggested prior to this exchange a student whom she indirectly knows as a potential
flatmate for Harue. There is a 0.9 second pause before the exchange starts.
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S: [u - ]n ne[e
yes FP
OK Is that all right?
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fumie starts her turn in line 1, then is overlapped by Harue. However, Harue withdraws
her turn quickly to hear Fumie, who agrees with Suwako that it would be good to offer
the flat to a student. Then Harue overlaps Fumie again when Fumie has nearly reached
her turn completion, to continue her previous talk (note that Harue’s first piece of talk in
conditional form of a verb, i.e. “kyoomi are ba, if interested in” in her second talk in the
same line). It is interesting to point out that Harue’s second piece of talk in line 1
consists of two separate parts; the first part “un” is uttered towards Fumie’s suggestion,
to show her acknowledgement, and the rest of her talk, which goes on to the end of line
2, is uttered towards Suwako. The girl who might be interested in Harue’s unit is
Suwako’s acquaintance, therefore it is obvious that Harue’s talk targets only Suwako in
asking to pass the message (to inspect her unit) to the girl. Having understood this
There are also cases in which the intention of the current speaker (in regard to the next
speaker) is not understood by the others immediately, which was the case in example
(11) above. The following extract is from a conversation that comes about a half minute
The participants are talking about Harue’s former flatmate, Miyako, who is leaving Australia for good.
This topic has branched off from the main topic, Harue’s search for a flatmate, as seen in extract (5)
above. Just before this exchange starts, Harue completes her turn followed by a 0.8 second pause.
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1 H:
S:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: [un dakara isogashii to omouyo] [u-n ku[ruma mo=
aizuchi so busy QUOT think FP aizuchi car also
Yeah so I think she is busy (agreement) as she also
S: [u - =
aizuchi
(agreement)
S: = to[koro].
place
flat H?
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this extract, Fumie introduces a sub-topic about Miyako who would be very busy
finalising everything before leaving the country. Upon Fumie’s introduction of this sub-
topic, Harue expresses her sympathy for Miyako (in lines 2-3). As Harue is the person
who is most familiar with Miyako among the three participants, it is quite natural for
her to take up the turn after Fumie’s topic initiation. However, Fumie’s talk starting at
the end of line 2 (and ending in line 3) is not necessarily spoken only to Harue, since it
is common knowledge that moving is not an easy task. Also, given that Miyako is
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known to all of the participants, it is not unnatural to think Suwako is also a qualified
participant for this particular topic. In contrast, Suwako’s turn in lines 3-4, though it is
overlapping Fumie, is meant to target Harue solely. Although Suwako does not directly
addresses Harue, the question asks how much Harue charges in weekly rent to her
flatmate. However, this question is not answered immediately. This is because in the
midst of the current topic on Miyako being busy, Suwako suddenly tries to pull the
others back to the main topic, “looking for a flatmate,” by asking about the rent. This
abrupt topic shift resulted in 0.5 second pause. Suwako, therefore ends up addressing
Harue by name so that she realises the question is directed to her. As with Suwako’s
talk in this extract, although two utterances overlap, it is not necessary for each of the
utterances to respond towards the other. In other words, overlapping talk can be targeted
at a person who is not involved in the overlap. Suwako’s overlap in line 3 is targeted not
This is a case in which two persons share information / knowledge / interest regarding
the current topic and they try to convey / seek the information as much as possible to /
from the rest of the group by cooperatively constructing the floor with each other.
When two persons are sharing a floor, one of them becomes a main floor holder who
conveys the main information, and the other becomes a sub-floor holder who
supplements the information brought by the main floor holder, but these roles can be
switched within the same floor. Although floor sharing mostly involves two persons,
theoretically it is possible that more than two persons can share a floor and take the role
of floor holder.
The following example is from a business conversation in which two persons share the
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floor.
Sachiko and Masao, who are representing the same company, explain to their client Yoshida how they are
involved in promoting the accommodation, Uni Lodge.
1 Sa: [un
aizuchi
(agreement)
Y: =
[desu[ka.
zuchi
standing)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: = [uchi ga ]ano [ano: Nihon kara] ee.
we P HES HES Japan from REC
We, Um Um from Japan yeah
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, Sachiko and Masao cooperatively construct a floor by uttering aizuchi
to each other (i.e. Sachiko’s “un” in line 1, and Masao’s repetition of the word
“sookyaku, sending guests” in line 3), and clarifying the information about Uni Lodge
to each other (i.e. Sachiko further explains about what they do with Uni Lodge in line 2,
and Masao clarifies the term, “sookyaku” in line 3) so that they can convey the
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establish who takes the main floor holder’s role. Masao is the main floor holder in line
1. At the end of line 1, Sachiko takes it over to provide further information about Uni
Lodge to Yoshida. And in the middle of line 3, with the hesitation “ano,” Sachiko is
searching for an expression, at which point Masao takes over the main floor holder’s
role, then Sachiko extends Masao’s floor and so forth, so there is frequent serial change
There is also a case where two participants seek information from a certain person, as in
Fumie introduces a new topic about a laundry line at Harue’s place, with which Harue seems to have had
trouble before.
1 H:
S:
F: =
ano[ [anoo koko ni tomecha
HES HES here P park
um um the one who said that you should not park
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: [babaa supotto][d e shoo ]
hag spot COP Q
The hag’s spot, you mean?
S: [doo natta]
how becameQ
How did you go with her?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this example, Suwako and Fumie, who know that Harue has had a problem with her
neighbour, are cooperatively constructing a floor that asks Harue to tell them how the
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line 3, Suwako is showing her participation in Fumie’s floor. After Suwako completes
her utterance, Fumie repeats what Suwako has just said, and completes her own turn.
This seems to indicate that Fumie also accepts Suwako as a co-constructor of the floor.
In this section, I have discussed several features of overlaps that are specifically
conversation, especially in informal talk where people speak freely, who has the floor
and to whom the talk is targeted are more complicated than in a dyadic conversation.
The talk may target all other participants or only a specific individual. Depending upon
the case, overlapping talk can be intentional to a certain person but incidental to the
others as in the example (5) discussed in Section 3 above. Also overlapping talk may
take place as a result of two parties sharing the same floor. Sometimes an utterance has
dual functions that convey different messages to the individual participant. Thus, when
5. Classifying overlaps
they appear in a variety of forms and functions. Thus, for a clear discussion of overlap
overlaps. How to classify overlap varies among researchers. Many studies that discuss
overlap or interruption focus on the point of overlap onset for its classification.
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be applicable to Japanese conversation, due to the different nature of the languages, not
all methodologies may be entirely appropriate. So in this section, I will first discuss
some features of the Japanese language that may cause more overlaps in comparison to
discuss their problems. I then move on to review a few studies of overlap classification
in Japanese conversation.
The major contrast between Japanese and English appears in their syntax. Compared to
Japanese syntax employs post positional (or head-last) or predicate final sentence
structure in which a verb or predicate appears at the end of a sentence (see for
order of the constituents that precede the predicate, and sometimes these components
may even appear after the predicate in spoken Japanese. In addition to these points, in
spoken Japanese discourse, ellipsis of various speech parts (e.g. subject, object, particle)
is frequently observed. With these syntactic features, Tanaka (1999) argues that
compared to English, where syntax facilitates an early projection of the type of turn
being produced, “turns in Japanese do not necessarily project from their beginnings
what their ultimate shape and type will be” (1999:141). For example, see Harue’s
During the previous night, being so tired from work, Eri fell asleep without turning off the light, which
caused a small fire in her bedroom. As a result, her long-loved teddy’s arm was burnt, but she was safe
since she woke up before the fire spread. The other participants (Harue, Natsuki and Keiko) believe if she
had not woken up, she would have died.
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1 H: [u n ]
aizuchi
(continuer)
E: [u n]
aizuchi
(continuer)
K:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: [u n ii n da [yott samete na]kat tara=
aizuchi good N COP FP wake did not CON
(agreement) it’s good. If you had not waken up,
E:
E: [sonomama moo ] [u n]
as it is already aizuchi
(She would have been poisoned) without waking up (continuer)
N:
K: =
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: = sutoobu toka [de ne~ yoku mado koo akenai[de: yattete]=
heater etc P FP often window likethis open not P do and
(when using)a heater, often,(we hear)do (studying) without opening windows,
E:
N:
K: [u - n [u - n]
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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E:
N: u - n] [soo [yo: ]
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (agreement)
K: [u - n] [u - n]
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (continuer / follower)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 H: = are wa na: honto [chooji]kan [kakete [saa] fut te]tte=
that P really long time take FP suddenly QUOT
that actually takes a long time, and does not
happen
E: [u n ] [u n]
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (agreement)
K: - n u n] [u
aizuchi
(agreement)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7 H: = iu n ja [nai karaa~ [choo-jikan kakete [s o o]=
say VN COP not since long time take REC
suddenly. So it takes a long time.
E: u - n
aizuchi
(agreement)
E: [u - n]
aizuchi
(agreement)
N: = s u t teru] [u - n=
breathing aizuchi
(one) is breathing (CO2) (agreement)
K:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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9 H:
E: [u - n]
aizuchi
(agreement/follower)
In this excerpt, Natsuki starts to comfort Eri (line 1). Even before Natsuki has
completed her turn, Harue starts uttering aizuchi of agreement, “un” with Natsuki in
line 2, and starts her preparation for the upcoming very long turn (i.e. starting with
“yoku saa,” “often, you know”) in line 3. This preparation consists of two TCUs: the
first is to agree with Natsuki (i.e. “un iindayott, yeah it’s good”), and the second is to
provide the reason for her agreement (i.e. hadn’t she waken up, she would have been in
danger). Then, without any gaps (or with self-latching) Harue’s long new turn starts,
which turns out to be a multi unit turn. In this long stretch of talk, we would not
recognise that the talk of the first three lines (line 3-5) are the grammatical subject of
the talk until the talk reaches the subject marker, “wa” in “tte iu no wa” or “that ~ is” at
the end of line 5. The predicate comes immediately after the subject marker in line 6 as
“are wa honto choojikan kakete saa” or “that it takes long time to get poisoned.” As the
predicate ends with final particle “saa,” it appears thatHarue has eventually finished
her turn. But she extends it by giving an example which does not apply to the case (i.e.
“Fut te tte iun janai kara, It is not like (being poisoned) suddenly”), and further she
repeats the initial predicate, “it takes a long time” in line 7. This time, she utters a
reconfirming “soo” towards Natsuki, who accompanies Harue to support her talk, which
generally indicates giving up the turn, according to Imaishi (1994). However, contrary
to what Imaishi discusses, Harue further stretches her talk in line 8. At this point,
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because of the conjunction “dakatt (dakara)” or “so,” we recognise that she has now
reached her conclusion or the main point of the talk, and realise that her talk up to this
project how the turn will be constructed, from its onset. According to Tanaka (1999),
elements (e.g. final verb suffixes, copulas, final particles and so on)” which highlight
Tanaka observes that once the next speaker recognises that the current speaker’s talk has
reached utterance-final elements, they often begin their turn at the onset of the current
speaker’s utterance finals without waiting for the turn to be entirely completed.
Looking at excerpt (15) again, aizuchi by Eri, Natsuki and Keiko towards Harue are
indeed observed at or near TRPs. But they utter aizuchi at other places as well. There
are two types of aizuchi that appear at points other than TRPs. The first one is a place
where Harue seems to check the others if they are following her talk and expect their
response, by stretching and/or stressing phrase endings such as “toka gaa” in line 5 or
rising intonation as “de ne ” in line 4 or directly calling for others’ attention as
Natsuki’s interjection “hora” or “see” in line 1. These places are not TRPs, but are
phrasal completion points. The other place where we observe aizuchi is not related to
the current speaker’s prosody or syntax of the talk (e.g. Eri’s “un” in line 1, Eri’s first
“un” in line 6). Clancy et al. (1996) report that such “midstream” reactive tokens25
(therefore overlapping the current speaker’s talk) are observed more often in Japanese
aizuchi is to show the recipients’ support work towards the current speaker, in my data,
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some of the occurrences of aizuchi are observed to be used as a trigger to take the next
turn without incurring much conflict with the current speaker. Thus, aizuchi that appear
at other than the expected place in the current speaker’s talk have a potential to develop
into a full turn, which may result in speaker change. Given this, for a multi unit turn
with a number of TCUs in Japanese, due to the difficulty of projection of the turn
construction and completion at early stage, participants are likely to utter aizuchi at or
near every possible TRP as well as at the end of phrasal unit, where the current speaker
checks whether the other participants are with her/him by making a brief pause and/or
using final particle such as “ne” with a rising tone. This may be a cause of the high
and their equivalent in English conversation. In this excerpt, it is interesting to note that
most of the aizuchi at or near Harue’s TRPs in her long multi-unit turn are “u-n,” which
primarily show agreement with what she has said in this particular talk, but this aizuchi
form can also function as continuer. Thus, it seems that non-floor holders are also
monitoring the current floor holder’s talk and attempt to project the actual turn
With these structural and discourse style differences, it is perhaps more useful to
establish a clear set of overlap classification for the analysis of Japanese conversation in
seem to be problematic. Thus, in the next sub-section I will review the previous studies
on overlap in terms of how they are classified and clarify their problems.
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Overlaps have been discussed from a variety of perspectives. Some studies (e.g.
Jefferson, 1973, 1983;Jefferson and Schegloff, 1975) discuss their orderliness using a
in order to find out gender differences that reflect gender inequality in society. Among
This sub-section focuses therefore on the studies of interruptions in which overlaps are
Whatever the grounds, most of the research on overlaps stems from Sacks et al.’s
(1974) discussion of turn-taking organisation. Sacks et al.’s paper has had such an
impact in the field of communication analyses that it is not an exaggeration to claim that
few studies of interruptions / overlaps have not referred to the paper since then.26 As
mentioned earlier in this chapter, their argument for turn-taking organisation is that an
utterance consists of one or more “Turn Constructional Units” (TCU). The TCU is a
syntactically complete unit that is often intonationally marked, and at the end of each
TCU comes a “Transition Relevance Place” (TRP), where a speaker shift may take
place. Thus, a speaker shift that takes place at or near a TRP is regarded as a smooth
speaker shift. In other words, if the next speaker starts her/his turn well before TRP,
26 According to an Editorial in the journal "Language" titled "Reviewing our Contents" (Language,
79(3):463), the article is “by far the most-cited article from Language, based on the citation indices, and
is near the top of both the JSTOR list for 2003 and the LSA reprint-request list.”
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(1974) did not directly discuss “turn-taking violation” per se, based on their argument,
such violations, namely interruption, often involving more than one party’s utterance
being overlapped,27 have been investigated by many researchers since then. In studies
that take place at a point which is far from a TRP, e.g. two syllable(s) away (West and
Zimmerman, 1983). The majority of researchers nowadays agree that amongst these
utterances, there are some that function to support the current floor holder. For
example, it is obvious that backchannel utterances, such as “yeah” or “uh huh,” which
show acknowledgement towards the current floor holder are not interruptions, although
they may be uttered well before a TRP. Hence they are usually excluded from
interruptions. A number of scholars (e.g. Goldberg, 1990; Kennedy and Camden, 1983;
Murata, 1994; Smith-Lovin and Brody, 1989) argue that it is not only backchannel
utterances (as presented above) that support the current floor holder’s talk at non-TRP.
In order for a clear analysis of interruptions, these scholars have attempted to classify
these non-TRP utterances. However, the method of classification varies from study to
study: some focus on their function (e.g. Goldberg, 1990) and others focus on their form
conclusions among similar studies. James and Clarke (1993) critically review the
literature of gender and interruptions and argue that inconsistent results of male/female
interruptions (i.e. males interrupt more than female or vice versa) are caused by
27 Note, however, that not all interruptions are observed in a form of overlap. See James and Clarke
(1993).
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types. The first is to classify them by means of their form (whether the speaker-switch
took place) and reaction of the participants to the incident (e.g. whether the current floor
holder completed her/his turn after being overlapped). Ferguson (1977) devised a
Question-Answer formatted binary flow chart to narrow them down to five categories
interruption). Roger, Bull and Smith (1988) critically revised Ferguson and developed a
more detailed flowchart that led to seventeen categories. However, perhaps due to the
complexity of Roger et al.’s system, Ferguson’s method seems to have been employed
more commonly by researchers who use this type of classification (Beattie, 1981;
Marche and Peterson, 1993; Matsuda et al., 1995). The second type of classification of
interruptions / overlaps is to look at the content of the talk starting at a non-TRP and
classify it in terms of its function, i.e. whether it is supportive or negative. For example,
(1994) and others. As these two types of classification focus on two contrastive aspects
of non-TRP starts, it is difficult to judge which one is more legitimate than the other.
Indeed, some researchers attempt to employ both types of approaches (e.g. Fukazawa,
grounds that it is very hard to compare the results of similar studies. However, the most
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holder’s overlapping utterance that does not intrude into the current speaker’s right of
talk as “overlap,” and the one that intrudes the speaker’s right to talk as “interruption,”
and thereby make a contrast. However, this kind of binary classification is problematic.
As Bennett (1981) argues, these categories are “of logically different types”; that is, the
“simultaneous speech” which are purely technical and neutral terms, the term
if this is the case, then “overlap” should include “overlapped utterance that takes place
the nature of these terms tends to have been ignored and strangely, the term “overlap”
technically, and the term “interruption” has been understood more technically to be
picked up as a non-TRP starter than functionally. It is then obvious that the terms such
since they are compound words of two contrastive terms, i.e. the term with
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support the flow of discourse, and Ehara et al. (1984) define the non-floor holder’s reply
that is overlapping the current floor holder’s extended talk, and non-floor holder’s co-
construction of the floor or early response as interruption, and argue that males interrupt
more often than females in different sex dyads. So it is obvious how arbitrary the
communication. Using the term “interruption” for describing “support work” seems to
be odd and confusing. Thus, support work should be clearly distinguished from a face-
term “overlap” in this study is a technical term, and “interruption” is viewed as one
function of overlaps28 as shown in Figure 4.2, and should only reflect a negative, and
Overlap
interruption
In the previous two sections, I reviewed how researchers have understood overlaps in
studies of interruptions. However, there are studies that do not focus on interruptions
but purely on overlaps. The aims of such studies are not to prove disproportionate
28 This once again connotes the existence non-overlapping interruptions (i.e. silent interruption), hence
the interruption circle in Figure 4.2 crosses the border of overlap circle.
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power relations between the participants upon which the ideology of current society is
reflected, but to uncover orderliness in their appearance (Jefferson, 1973, 1975, 1983),
1997; Hayashi, 1988, 1996; Honda, 1997; Ikoma, 1996; Tannen, 1981). Honda (1997),
Fujii (1997) and Ikoma (1996) in the latter type of study focus on Japanese
different typologies of overlap. Although many studies indicate that there are more
overlaps in a Japanese conversation than English (Clancy et al., 1996; Hayashi, 1988,
1996; Horiguchi, 1997; Tanaka, 1999), the studies that discuss overlap thoroughly using
Japanese conversational data are few and much is still to be explored in this field. In
this section, I will review three studies that discuss overlap in Japanese conversations,
and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of approaches adopted by the authors of those
studies. This will assist in the discussion of the categories of overlap used in this study.
informants for one hour, in which 10 minute extracts are used for the data analysis.
Honda defines “overlap” as a phenomenon in which voices of more than one participant
eating/drinking, walking etc. are excluded. Honda also excludes laughter, talking to
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“continuer”) from the analysis, and classifies all overlaps into 6 categories based on the
This is caused by the current speaker’s inverted structural order of the talk or
extended talk after a possible completion point (“kekkyoku” in A’s talk in the
example below), which is not predicted by the next speaker. The next speaker
starts talking at the point where s/he judges the current speaker to have
Example:31
= tteiu no wa nande i / ? /
QUOT VN P by what
how are (the tourists?) transported?
(Honda, 1997:201)
30 Original Japanese terms are shown in italics and my translation to English are in brackets. Explanation
of each category is according to Honda.
31 The original transcript is presented in Japanese with the author’s own transcription convention, which
is not commonly used in DA/CA. There is no context given for each exchange, nor does the author
explain how commas are used. Overlap onsets are given but their resolutions are given only in the talk by
the person who overlaps. Hence, the transcription conventions used in this study have been applied to this
transcription (e.g. overlap onset, unclear utterance etc).
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This takes place when a non-speaking participant predicts what the current
speaker is about to say and completes her/his talk at the same time as the
current speaker completes her/his talk. Although Honda does not refer to him,
misinterprets the current speaker’s talk and says something opposite to what
the current speaker was going to say, which cannot be defined as a “joint
completion.”
This is a case by a delayed second part of an adjacency pair that overlaps the
This overlap is caused either by one speaker starting to talk or reacting to the
v. warikomi (interruption)
This type of overlap takes place when a current non-speaker ignores the current
speaker and starts talking for the purpose of introducing a new topic or on a
matter not related to the content of the current speaker’s on-going talk.
This means more than one speaker starts talking simultaneously at the current
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the conversationalists, whereas the other types of overlap somehow concern “turn-
shift.” However, in the latter types of overlap, Honda argues that “delay” may not
contribute to the construction of cooperative talk, but it is not against it either. Also she
argues that “simultaneous start” may develop “cooperative talk.” The largest numbers of
overlaps in her data were “early start/reaction” type. Thus, while considering different
relations to each other, age and so on, Honda argues that a moderate number of a certain
indicate a person’s higher degree of empathy, understanding and interest in the current
From the results of her data analysis, Honda criticises previous studies that regard most
classification of overlaps. First, despite her definition of “overlap,” Honda does not
refer to an overlap that takes place at a TRP. Whether this kind of overlap is treated as
an “early start” type or not is unknown. If this is the case, then it turns out that Honda
does not seem to consider the issue of TRP. It is obvious that these two overlaps are
different types. Overlap that takes place at a TRP is often observed in a process of
smooth speaker shift. But an early start at well before TRP does not contribute to
smooth speaker shift in cases where it triggers speaker shift, hence should be discussed
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separately. However, Honda appears to neglect this in favour of an argument that “early
However, whether talk is cooperative or not depends more upon the context of the
communication and how the current speaker reacts towards the overlapping talk. Thus,
Second, Honda argues that “inversion / tag” type of overlap is related to speaker shift.
However, it may not always be the case. For example, a clarification question type of
utterance, which does not function to take the floor, may take place in this form.
current floor holder’s turn completion point. Additionally, the incoming speakers often
do not design their turn as a bid for the floor. Since the current speaker may continue
her/his speech turn, it cannot be argued that this type of overlap is observed in a speaker
Third, Honda defines “early completion” as talk that completes what the current speaker
was just about to say at the same time as the current speaker completes her/his talk.
However, “early completion” does not always take this form. For instance, it may take
place without overlap (cf: “silent interruption,” Ferguson, 1977) or the current speaker
may stop talking after being overlapped. Whether these cases are regarded as
separately. Also, as Honda herself (1997) and Horiguchi (1997) point out, there is a
case when a listener misinterprets the current speaker’s intention and wrongly
completes her/his speech by overlapping. In that case, the current speaker usually
corrects it immediately after the incident. In regard to this, Honda claims that for early
required; in other words, it is hard for these kinds of overlaps to take place without
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participants’ shared knowledge. However, this claim is not supported by the data, hence
lacks authenticity. Considering that these overlaps may function in a negative manner
(i.e. threatening the current speaker’s right to talk), Honda’s argument that “early
completion” contributes to cooperative talk once again seems to have been made a bit
too hastily.
These problems seem to be rooted in the same ground. As her core argument, i.e. most
few previous studies, ignores this issue, which weakens her argument.
their occurrence. However, she does not examine the variations of individual categories
in depth, nor does she present a clear view of a mechanism of speaker shift which
becomes a key to her discussion, thus it would have to be pointed out that her
in single sex groups (male/female groups) of varying length (i.e. 4-7 minutes), as well
overlap classification is very different from Honda’s (1997). The most notable
difference is that she first looked at the point of each overlap occurrence and classified
32 Fujii collected the data in order to find out how setting affects overlaps. As this section focuses on
overlap classification, her discussion of overlaps in terms of setting is not presented.
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them into three groups: “shuuryoo minashi gata (turn-completion predicted overlap)33”,
“warikomi gata (interruptive overlap)”, and “dooji kaishi gata (simultaneous start).”
Fujii recognises that “turn-completion predicted overlap” and “simultaneous start” take
start a turn. Also, in her data, the most frequently observed overlap type was
interruptive overlaps (61.1%). Thus, Fujii excludes incidental overlaps together with
short aizuchi that merely function as “continuers” (e.g. uun, fuun) and focuses her
analysis only on the “interruptive overlap.” Fujii further divides the interruptive
i) choowa-kei (harmonic)
1988) in her analysis. Following Mizutani’s argument that the speaker, while
which supports her/his current talk, Fujii places short utterances including
conversational topic and the current floor holder’s floor is maintained thus
allowing the current floor holder to complete her/his turn after being
overlapped.
clarification question) or adjusts what has just been said (e.g. repair /
33 This takes the form of terminal overlap, where the next speaker overlaps the very last syllable (or two)
of the first speaker’s talk.
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may slightly change but the current floor holder’s floor is maintained. Fujii
adjustment at the end of turn. Floor bidding such as “iya,” “dakara” etc. and
This type of overlap causes floor shift (from the current floor holder to the
person who has overlapped). Longer utterances of summarising the topic, new
topic introductions, and utterances that move the conversation back to the
previous topic are included in this type. According to Fujii, they tend to be
uttered slowly at higher volume with floor bidding signals such as “dakara,”
“demo,” “ano ne” etc. These overlaps therefore appear to give a negative and
reports that most of this type of overlap (over 70%) are suggestions/summaries
/ offers that can be beneficial to the current floor holder, hence, they are
positively accepted.
Given that the Harmonic and Adjusting overlaps cover over 80 % of the total number of
overlaps in this interruptive overlap category, and that among the approximately 20 %
conversation, Fujii argues that in informal conversation among friends, the majority of
the overlaps shows the participants’ solidarity, and function to promote and facilitate the
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Compared to Honda (1997), Fujii’s overlap classification, which consists of two stages
focusing only on one of the overlapping forms (i.e. interruptive overlap), Fujii seems to
avoid a number of problems that are observed in Honda. However, some points may
of more than one speaker self-selecting to be the next speaker, though they can be
competitive for the next floor once it happens. But there are doubts about whether
overlap occurrences, Fujii uses this term to indicate terminal overlap. However,
considering how she labels this type of overlap, she may have included overlaps that
take place earlier than at the very end of the current speaker’s turn. If so, then there is a
greater possibility that the participant who overlaps the current speaker has strategically
started early in order to take the next floor without producing any conflict with another
speaker. In other words, smooth speaker shift does not merely occur incidentally. It may
not be an exaggeration to say that the participants who want to say something are
always seeking a chance to start talking while actively listening to the current speaker.
The best way to take the floor is in a form of smooth speaker shift. Thus, this kind of
overlap may well be intentional. Unfortunately, Fujii’s examples are not from the actual
data but ones that she created, and she does not discuss this type of overlap any further.
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in the previous section, the term “interruption” carries negative connotation. Hence,
best avoided.
Third, Fujii argues that most of the independent overlaps are beneficial to the current
speaker, hence, they are positively accepted. A question then arises how people feel
when being overlapped? As Fujii argues, is it the case that most individuals welcome
overlap?
There may be the case that participants compete for the next floor with overlaps that
look perfectly supportive on the surface. As Ehara et al. (1984) and Yamazaki and
Yoshii (1994) point out, people are often not conscious of “interrupting” or “being
interrupted” in daily conversation, as such acts are often socially embedded.34 However,
the social structure that conditions people to automatically process such unnoticed
cases in which a person expresses something or does continue her/his speech turn but is
the time.
Ikoma (1996) investigated overlaps in three informal dyadic conversations (two hours
long in total) between female friends (six participants in total). Her approach to
onset initially. Similar to Fujii, Ikoma proposes three types of overlap onset;
34 The point of their discussion is that Japanese society is male dominated, which also reflects people’s
daily communication, such as females tending to be interrupted more by males, communication often
being controlled by males and so on. Furthermore, and the most problematic issue, is that people do not
recognise such discriminative interaction between males and females, rather they feel the communication
to be quite natural.
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simultaneous starts, starts at the end of the current speaker’s talk, and starts in the midst
of the current speaker’s talk. While Fujii focused only on the overlap that occurs in the
midst of the current speaker’s talk (i.e. interruptive overlap in Fujii’s term), Ikoma
looked at all of these types of overlaps. After classifying overlaps according to the point
of their onset, Ikoma further divided them into three groups in terms of the overlapping
that takes place without the overlapping participants predicting it; predictive overlap is
an overlap for which the overlapping person more or less has perceived that her/his start
would cause overlap prior to her/his start; and involuntary overlap is an overlap which
is caused by the overlapping participant’s talk, but does not claim the turn, hence,
Following the two steps of classification, Ikoma presents nine categories of overlap,
each of which she further labels in terms of the overlap function as shown below35:
1. guuhatsu-teki (Incidental)
I simultaneous start
*Simultaneous start
*misjudging TRP
35 Translated from the original with some modifications. The original is presented in a table.
36 This is what Honda refers to as “toochi or inversion of structural order of the talk” or “fuka or
addition” which takes place after the grammatical completion of the current speaker’s talk. Thus, the
overlap takes place by the overlapping participant’s misjudgement of the current speaker’s turn
completion, and nothing appears different from “misjudging TRP.”
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2. yosoku-teki (Predictive)
I simultaneous start
*interruption
speaker’s talk
continues afterwards.
3. muishiki-teki (involuntary)
I, II, III Overlap that does not claim the next turn.
*backchannels
*talk to oneself
Given that the majority of overlaps in Japanese are aizuchi, which Ikoma regards as
involuntary overlaps, in order to focus her study on conscious overlap (i.e. predictive
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overlap in her term), Ikoma excluded aizuchi from the analysis, but there were still a
total of 414 overlaps in her data set. Though Ikoma shows a number of overlaps in each
category, she does not analyse overlaps quantitatively. Rather from her qualitative
analysis, she suggests that there are two types of overlap that affect the flow of
predictive overlaps in this type, apart from ones that are intervening in the current
speaker’s talk. The other type of overlap negatively affects the flow of conversation in
which Ikoma lists misjudging the TRP and simultaneous start, which often stops a
current speaker’s talk or causes competition for the right to talk. From the large number
of overlaps and the friendly atmosphere of the conversations, Ikoma confirms the
claims made in previous studies (e.g. Sasaki, 1994 cited in Ikoma, 1996) that overlaps
contribute to the construction of rapport among the participants, and she argues that
even an occurrence of overlap that negatively affects the flow of conversation may
findings are similar to Fujii’s and Honda’s, that observe overlap to function positively
However, we need to note that this study is once again limited to informal conversations
among close friends. Ikoma reports that she did not find any overlap that intervenes in
the current speaker’s ongoing talk in her data, which seems to be possible considering
the nature of this type of conversation. However, it also seems to be due to her
classification of overlaps. First, Ikoma does not clearly state what is regarded as an
intervention in the talk. She defines a category of overlap that gives priority to starting
one’s own talk over current speaker’s ongoing talk. This kind of overlap ignores the
37 Ikoma also mentions “neutral overlap” which does not affect the flow of the ongoing conversation. She
includes an addition of optional talk and talk to oneself in this type.
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current speaker’s intention, hence possibly intervenes in her/his ongoing talk. Second,
Ikoma does not exemplify simultaneous starts with the purpose of intervening in the
simultaneous starts are considered to occur incidentally. However, Ikoma does not
mention such cues, thus it is unclear what cases she thought of for this category.
Furthermore, what she defines as simultaneous talk also seems to be unclear, since one
there is a small gap between the two utterance beginnings. Without any examples, it is
hard to come to a full understanding of the nature of the overlap category, and this lack
One other concern with her study is once again the omission of aizuchi from the
analysis. Although Ikoma argues that aizuchi are uttered involuntarily, she does not
clarify what she defines as aizuchi, and however she defines it, it is doubtful whether all
aizuchi are involuntarily uttered. The function of aizuchi in Japanese varies (Horiguchi,
1991, 1997; Matsuda, 1988; Maynard, 1986; Maynard, 1993; Szatrowski, 1993) and it
is likely that some aizuchi are uttered intentionally (Nagata, 2004).38 If such a case is
and consistent.
In this section, three studies of overlaps in Japanese conversation were reviewed. The
approaches taken by Honda (1997) and Fujii (1997) are different from each other;
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Honda considered almost all overlaps, whereas Fujii targeted only “interruptive
overlaps,” but they both followed the notion of Mizutani’s “kyoowa” or cooperative talk
as one of the characteristics of the Japanese conversation39, and they both reached the
assumed that a large number of overlaps observed in a Japanese conversation are due to
cooperation (i.e. a current speaker expects hearer(s) to react after a short interval by
keeping on the same conversational track). To find out whether these overlaps always
contribute to the smooth flow of the conversation requires further analysis. For instance,
when categorising overlaps, not just their forms (e.g. early start) or positions of
occurrences (e.g. terminal overlap) but their functions (e.g. evaluation) and effect on the
floor (e.g. whether floor shift took place or not) need to be considered. It may also be
6. Conclusion
This chapter began with a consideration of the nature of natural conversation. Natural
conversation is not like what we observe in TV drama, where each character talks in
39 This does not mean there is no or little cooperative talk in English. Indeed a number of studies in terms
of co-participant completion in English are available (e.g. Lerner, 1991). However, due to different
syntax organisation (i.e. clauses in Japanese conversation are build bit by bit) , co-participant completion
in Japanese take the form of “terminal item completion” rather than form the second part of the
syntactically defined two parts (i.e. If X, then Y). Thus, turn-projection is done bit by bit, which produces
more co-participant completion. This seems to make the researcher point out the characteristics of
Japanese conversation as cooperative talk. See Hayashi(1999) for the discussion of Japanese co-
participant completion in comparison with English.
40 Fujii ‘s study is limited to an informal chat. Honda also looked at the conversations at work related
meeting, but does not seem to find any difference from informal chats.
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turn, rather it includes various types of vocal sounds apart from the main talk (e.g.
listener responses, laughter, coughs, sneezes etc.) and they often appear as a form of
overlap. Analysing such units of talk forming overlap is the aim of the study. In order to
analyse overlaps in a natural conversation, the first task was to define the terms “turn”
and “floor,” since it is crucial to clarify the ownership of each overlap (i.e. who overlaps
whom) to discuss its function. Unfortunately, although “turn” has been discussed by
many researchers in various ways, “floor” has not been discussed much, and many
researchers seem to confuse these two terms, which usually means that who has the turn
these terms, such as Edelsky (1981), Hayashi (1988, 1996), Sacks et al.(1974), Tanaka
(1999), “turn” and “floor” were defined in order to make a clear distinction between
them. The definitions of these terms, however, are aiming at the overlap analysis, hence,
“floor” has been defined locally in terms of the speaker’s right to speak, and “turn” has
Based on the definitions of “turn,” “floor,” and other terms used in the study, section 3
defined “overlap” as a technical phenomenon where more than one utterance is heard
Section 4 focused its discussion on overlaps that are specifically observed in a multi-
several complicated overlap types caused by, for example more than one aizuchi uttered
at the same time, an utterance being targeted at a specific party, a floor being shared by
two participants and so on. These observations indeed extended the categories of
overlaps in this study. Section 5 reviewed how overlaps had been understood and
classified in the previous literature. A problem with the previous literature is that the
majority dealt with “overlap” at the same level as “interruption.” Since “overlap” is
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solely a technical term, it can not be in a binary relationship with “interruption,” which
is a functional term. Due to this very basic misunderstanding, overlap has been
variously understood and classified differently from study to study. Studies on overlaps
Based on the discussion in this chapter, I will present the classification of overlaps
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1. Introduction
In Chapter 4, I discussed how overlaps have been understood and analysed in previous
(Fujii, 1997; Honda, 1997; Ikoma, 1996) have been reviewed. Although they reached a
lively conversation and promote participants’ rapport, their classification methods vary.
One of the reasons for the lack of consistency in overlap classification seems to lie in
the different focus placed upon the different overlap features. Some studies primarily
focus on where overlap occurred while others focus more on the function of overlap.
overlaps that take place in the midst of the current speaker’s talk. Ikoma (1996)
investigated overlaps from both their position of occurrence and their function.
However, some categories are not exemplified and all aizuchi (listener response tokens)
are excluded from her analysis since she believes them to be uttered subconsciously.
Honda (1997) discusses overlaps from the point of view of what causes them. However,
there is some inconsistency in that some categories are more focused on their function
(e.g. interruption) and some are more focused on their position of occurrence. Also, the
current speaker’s talk, and is not discussed from the point of “the right to speak” or
“floor.” Similar to Fujii, Honda excluded aizuchi from her analysis. To be precise, Fujii
states that she excluded aizuchi that functions only as a “continuer,” and Honda defines
a short utterance that functions as a “continuer” as aizuchi. In other words, while Fujii
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seems to admit the existence of other aizuchi than “continuer,“ Honda does not seem to
allow aizuchi to have other functions than “continuer.” This is due to inconsistent views
among researchers in their understanding of aizuchi in terms of form and function. This
raises the importance of clarifying the definition of aizuchi when discussing overlaps.
As I will discuss later in this chapter, aizuchi largely contributes in promoting the flow
of conversation in Japanese. The function varies and even aizuchi that looks as if it is
Thus, rather than ignoring their occurence, it would be more beneficial to treat aizuchi
communication.
Although looking at its form (including the position of occurrence) and its function are
both important when classifying overlap, for clearer and coherent classification, the
primary focus should be given only to one of these two. Overlap classification in this
study primarily concerns its function. The rest of this chapter discusses first, the
classified. The individual category will be explained with an example from the collected
data.
This section discusses the relevance of focusing the criteria of overlap classification
primarily according to function. Although the form / position of their occurrence also
needs to be considered, the function of an overlap seems to precede its form in terms of
understanding what is actually going on in the interaction, with which the participants
are first and foremost concerned in conversation. To validate this argument, I will
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present a few examples below. First, the following example concerns overlap that took
place at the end of the first current speaker’s talk, which is Suwako’s turn in line 3.
Harue is talking to Suwako and Fumie about her former flatmate Miyako who will be temporary staying
at her unit before leaving the country and Miyako’s current position at work will be taken over by Asako
who is also an acquaintance of Harue and Suwako.
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = niwa kanojo ga uchi ni [shi shibaraku kuru no] wa[katten=
P P she P home P for a while come VN know VN
I know that she will be staying at my place for a while
S:
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S: [fu - n ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
F: [un un u n ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this excerpt, Harue is the main floor holder, and Suwako and Fumie have the roles of
listeners. The problematic case is Suwako’s utterance in lines 3-4. The utterance takes
an interrogative form. Suwako is asking whether Asako is the person who used to study
Law at the institution where the three participants work. The question is whether this
predicted overlap” and would therefore not be considered by her. How Honda (1997)
dealt with a case like this is unknown, since she does not discuss speaker shift in
regards to TRP. I assume she would have dealt with such case as an “early start.”
predictive overlap.” Perhaps the issue here concerns the notion of floor and turn again.
Although Suwako’s utterance is a full turn and speaker shift takes place smoothly in the
form of terminal overlap, she does not seem to compete against Harue over the
information about Asako. In other words, Suwako takes a turn without claiming the
floor.1 In fact, upon Suwako’s question, Harue replies and subsequently continues with
the floor. Thus, this utterance is more appropriately labelled as a “clarification question”
which encourages the current floor holder (Harue) to confirm and explain further for
1 Of course, at the beginning of Suwako’s talk in line 3, it is not possible for the other participants to
recognise whether her turn is a floor. It is only recognised at the end of her talk that this is a clarification
question as it ends with a rising tone.
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adjusting overlap” in Fujii (1997). As this example has shown, we may need to
recognise that utterances that appear as smooth speaker shift may not be a floor holder
shift but can have different functions. Suwako’s talk in lines 3-4 functions to support
Harue’s current floor, rather than to claim the floor. But there is also the case that this
form of overlap (i.e. one that takes place in a TRP) is regarded as smooth speaker shift,
but does not actually support the current speaker’s floor. Masao’s talk in the following
Sachiko and Masao, who run a community magazine, are at a business meeting with Yoshida, who is
representing a real estate agent. They have been talking about how they encourage Japanese people to
invest in a property in Australia. Sachiko says that people want to invest but do not know how to start.
M: [Soo [shira=
aizuchi know
(agreement) (they)don’t
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Sa: Minasa[n ] Shiranai [doo] yatte=
everyone know not how do
Everyone (they) don’t know how to do it.
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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4 Sa: [u - n ]
aizuchi
(continuer)
Y: Hai
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Masao’s second utterance in line 3 starts by slightly overlapping with the end of
Sachiko’s utterance. When looking at this utterance by focusing on the overlap onset, it
looks as if smooth speaker shift has taken place. However, if we focus on the content of
Masao’s talk in that utterance, it turns out that it is not directly cohesive to what
Sachiko said right before Masao started his talk. Sachiko ‘s point was that since people
want to invest but do not know how to start, it would be beneficial to inform them about
it, though the latter part has not been said due to Masao’s overlap. Before this exchange,
there is a moment when Yoshida shows a slight concern for his name being published,
since he has disclosed some dubious tricks in terms of property investment. Thus, both
Masao and Sachiko have been encouraging Yoshida to cooperate with them for the
article. Sachiko’s talk in lines 1-3 is thus part of the encouragement. However, Masao
does not directly align with Sachiko, but introduces a new topic about a person in
Nagoya who seems to be very rich and may be interested in the investment. After this
exchange, Masao says that he informed this person about Yoshida and their project (i.e.
introducing an article about how to invest in their magazine). Although both Sachiko
and Masao are trying to explain to Yoshida how beneficial their project would be, their
approaches are totally different: Sachiko’s approach focuses on public interest and
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Masao focuses on one individual’s interest. This difference is made not by Sachiko, but
by Masao, who talks after Sachiko. Considering Masao’s accelerated number of aizuchi
(i.e. “shiranai yo,” “shiranai mon,” “ett” and “ee” in lines 1-3, it can be assumed that
Masao is conveying that what Sachiko has said is already known to him (see his
emphasising ending such as “yo” as well as “mon”), hence is not in Masao’s immediate
interest. Note also how Masao’s aizuchi shift from the one that carry a specific
linguistic meaning (i.e. shiranai yo and shiranai mon, (they) do not know) to the form
of aizuchi term (i.e. et and ee), which may also suggest his interest in the topic becomes
weaker, and that he is waiting for the opportunity to take the next floor with these
Sachiko.
Similar to this example, some terminal overlaps or overlaps near turn completion point
turns to what the previous speaker is saying. In order to understand what is actually
investigate an overlap onset and its conclusion, and terminal overlaps and overlaps near
turn completion are regarded as taking place in a process of smooth speaker shift, hence
a closer examination is often neglected. But focusing only on their formal features and
relationship between participants and the conversation itself. Therefore, though taking
account of the formal features of overlap (or position of overlap occurrence), it seems to
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3 Method of classification
As mentioned in the previous chapter, overlap involves two or more persons: one who
overlaps and the other who is overlapped, or simultaneous start. This study focuses the
former type of overlap, and the categories in this study set out from the viewpoint the
person who overlaps, since a function of overlap is engendered by the one who overlaps
rather than by the one who is overlapped. It tends to be thought that overlaps are caused
by one or more non-floor holders who are listening to the current floor holder.
However, overlap can actually be caused by either current floor holder or the non-floor
holder, or even by both simultaneously. Cases of current floor holder overlapping non-
floor holder include for example current floor holder extending her/his turn after a brief
pause during which a non-floor holder speaks, reacting to non-floor holder’s listener
responses, or attempting to hold her/his floor in the face of competition for the floor and
so on. Thus, I first sorted all overlaps according to the overlapping person’s current
situation in terms of the ownership of the floor (i.e. whether the person holds the floor
nor not). For simultaneous starts, most cases are either simultaneous start at TRP with
more than one speaker selecting themselves as the next speaker, and/or two non-floor
always involve the same number of participants; not all of the utterances in the
simultaneous start seem to carry the same function). As a result, there seemed to be no
consistency in their classification. Thus, whether the overlap took place between the
floor holder and non-floor holder or not, I have counted them but have excluded them
from the analysis. However, if the overlaps with simultaneous onset overlap the talk of
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other participants, then each of the overlaps will be analysed. For example, in the case
Suwako and Fumie will not be analysed as a simultaneously started overlap, but each
Harue explains to Suwako and Fumie how she went to a sushi bar, Tokyo Roll. The following extract
follows exchange (3) above, where Fumie asks whether Harue went there by car.
S: [u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
F: [u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
After sorting all overlaps into either non-floor holder’s overlap or floor holder’s
classifying overlap. That is, rather than setting categories based on previous literature
and examining their feasibility by applying them to the data, I analysed all overlaps in a
conversational data set and sorted them according to their functional features to set out a
number of categories. For this task, I first chose an informal multi-party conversation of
about 20 minutes, in which 569 overlaps are observed. After setting up categories of
overlaps from the selected conversational data, all overlaps in the remaining five
conversations in the data set were analysed and sorted into each category.
During this classification process, there were, of course, overlaps that did not appear to
fit with any of the set categories. Such overlaps were marked and reanalysed, and when
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common features were observed among a certain number of overlaps, a new category
was created. This procedure was repeated until the classification was finalised. For
some functions that are realised by more than one form of overlap, formal categories are
Although there are exceptions, I observed that there are basically two major types of
overlap that contrast with each other: the first is where a speaker cooperates with the
person being overlapped, and the second is where the speaker competes with the person
being overlapped for the floor. For overlaps that concern neither cooperation nor
competition (e.g. misjudging turn completion), I have also set a “neutral” category.
Utterances that have been initially excluded from the analysis, such as laughter, or if the
number of a certain function is extremely small (i.e. less than three), these are classified
as “others.” For the rest of this chapter, I will discuss each category with some examples
4. Overlap category
I start with overlap by non-floor holders, since these overlaps are more often observed
than ones by a floor holder in a multi-party conversation, and there is also a greater
range of functions. Below, I first discuss cooperative types of overlap that support the
current floor holder’s talk. This type of overlaps includes “aizuchi,” “clarification
question,” “and information supply,” “early reply” and “other completion.” Then I
move on to competitive overlap that causes the involved party to compete for the floor.
This type of overlaps include “floor bidding” and “interruption.” And finally, I will
introduce a neutral category including “misjudging of turn completion” and “new turn
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at TRP.”
There are functions that are generally understood as cooperative but can also be
competitive. However, such overlaps will be discussed in the next chapter, and in this
4.1.1.1 aizuchi
A typical example of cooperative overlap is one caused by one or more non- or sub-
floor holders’ aizuchi towards the main floor holder. Though I have already used the
term aizuchi a number of times for a Japanese translation of brief listener responses or
backchannels, I hereby clarify aizuchi in terms of its definition and its role in
conversation.
Unlike “backchannels,” this term was not created by a linguist, but has traditionally
been recognised and widely used in Japan. “Aizuchi” means “hammering (tsuchi)
together (ai).” The origin of the term comes from the work of smiths who work in pairs
to make swords by hammering iron in turn. Differences in the establishment of the term
for reference to such listeners’ short utterances in Japanese and English may be
higher than their equivalent in English (Clancy et al., 1996; Maynard, 1986; Maynard,
1989, 1993; Ohama and Nishimura, 2005; White, 1989). As previously discussed,
Aizuchi do not necessarily overlap the current floor holder’s speech as in the following
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In a business meeting, Masao explains to his client Yoshida how much Japanese people are currently
interested in real estate in Australia.
1 Sa:
Y: un
aizuchi
(continuer)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Sa:
Y: u-n
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa:
In this Business Talk, Yoshida’s aizuchi tends to appear without overlapping the current
floor holder’s talk. This may due to the social distance between him and the couple,
which may have made Yoshida interact in a polite manner such as listening to the other
party’s talk carefully. However, due to lack of data, its universality cannot be argued.
As this example shows, although there are overlaps that do not overlap the current floor
holder’s talk, many aizuchi do appear as overlaps. As this study focuses on overlapping
speech, aizuchi that do not overlap are excluded from the aizuchi category in this study.
There are a variety of functions in aizuchi and some aizuchi may have more than one
function or may be used strategically (e.g. to initiate a floor shift). However aizuchi
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here are classified in their primary function, that is to support / cooperate with the
current floor holder. Those strategically used aizuchi will be discussed in Chapter 6.
What utterances are specifically regarded as aizuchi varies from study to study.2 The
term aizuchi in this study is used in a broad sense that includes “aizuchi term” and other
utterances that function as aizuchi. The form of aizuchi-term includes short utterances
hai, ee, un, fun / soo / sooka, haa, hee, hoo, fuun /nn, aa / soo desu ka, soo desu
Many of these terms convey various meanings depending upon the context of the
ongoing conversation and their tone and intonation. Their meaning will be discussed
under each function. Because of the lack of direct English equivalent for many of these
aizuchi is presented in the transcripts for these aizuchi. Other utterance formations that
function as aizuchi include i) repetition; ii) paraphrasing; iii) unison; and iv) echo. A
i) Repetition
“Repetition” refers to an utterance that repeats a part or whole of the current floor-
holder’s turn, as in Harue’s, “Mienai ka” towards Fumie in the following exchange;
Fumie is talking to Harue and Suwako about her linen that was taken by one of her neighbours. She
explains that she asked the neighbours about the linen without realising that it had been put on the
laundry line again, since she did not go down to the laundry line before knocking at their doors.
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1 H:
S:
S: [Soo da yo ne]
So COP FP FP
That’s right.
F:
= [kara ne] un.
since FP REC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, Harue repeats Fumie’s part of talk, “mienai,” “cannot see.” In Fumie’s
talk, this “mienai” is the most critical part of the message being conveyed to the other
two. Given that, while Suwako takes an aizuchi form to support what Fumie said, Harue
repeats the key word to confirm her understanding before producing aizuchi. As in this
example, the repeated part may not be exactly what the current floor holder said. It often
“ka” etc.
ii) Paraphrasing
floor holder’s turn, as Y’s utterance, “katate,” “single hand” for Sa’s “itte,” “one hand”
The participants (Sachiko, Masao and Yoshida) are talking about how much commission a real estate
broker receives upon selling a property in Australia in comparison with Japan.
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1 Sa:
M: ee
yes
Yes
M: So[o ]
yes
Yes
Y: [ H a i ]
yes
Yes
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Sa: = ne [De kocchi wa:u ano itt itte [deshoo]
P and here P HES one one hand COP
And it comes from one side in here, isn’t it?
M: [s o o ][o
yes
Yes
Both “itte” and “katate” can be translated to as “one hand.” However in this context,
“katate” is a more appropriate and common expression to use than “itte.” As Yoshida is
a professional real estate broker who seems to be more knowledgeable on this topic than
Sachiko, he paraphrased her term “itte.” 3 Then Sachiko picks up and repeats Yoshida’s
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particular part of the exchange between Sachiko and Yoshida, and the conversation
flows smoothly. This possibly indicates that there is no intention for Yoshida to point
out Sachiko’s wording, rather such paraphrasing occurred naturally from his
professional nature as a real estate broker, and it is also naturally accepted by Sachiko.
“Paraphrasing” requires the speaker’s concrete interpretation of what the current floor
iii) Unison
of the current floor holder’s turn uttered simultaneously with the current floor holder, as
After the incident of the small fire in Eri’s room, she believes putting a plant in there would be good to
decrease the amount of carbone dioxide in her room, when Harue mentions the differences in how people
breathe between day and night. Then the participants start joking that rather than giving a plant to Eri,
they should just lend it to her for half day or something.
N:
K:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = ne / ? / Sekkaku=
FP thanks
Right? I thought
E: [/ ? /nai to ikenai<laugh>
must
must do / ? /
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: = kureru to [omotta nonii toka tte ne.
give QUOT thought but etc QUOT FP
it would be given to me! (you) say like this.
N: u – n
aizuchi
(agreement)
K:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In lines 3, Eri and Harue produce in unison “omotta nonii toka tte,” “I thought
something like” right before Harue’s sentence-end particle ne. Eri listens to the
beginning part of Harue’s talk, “sekkaku kureru to,” “thanks it will be given to me,”
which gives Eri a clue to understand what is going to follow after that. So she utters
what she assumes Harue will say next (the predictable completion) which matches with
what Harue continues. Eri’s utterance that is cued by the current floor holder Harue’s
first part of the turn is referred to as “hikitori unison” or choral completion (Kushida,
1997).4 Unlike other early predictable completions, hikitori unison does not disturb the
current floor holder’s turn, rather, such rhythmical utterance through the unison
contributes to build solidarity between the participants. Though relatively longer unison
like this is not very often observed in daily communication, unison proves closeness and
mutual understanding between the participants. The majority of unison (except the ones
appear among non-floor holders’ simultaneous start) appeared under the “other
completion” function, and there is only one example of unison that appears as aizuchi in
the data of this study, in which only sentence-end particle “nee” overlaps.
4 Lerner(2002) refers to this type of completion as “choral co-production” for in English discourse.
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iv) Echo
The term “Echo” is used by Fujii (1997) to explain the following exchange.
Topic: The two participants are talking about a quarrel between husband and wife:
(1997:2705)
Fujii does not label B’s utterance as “echo” but merely describes it as “like an echo.”
Thus, it is unknown whether she uses “echo” as a specific term to label a certain group
of overlap. However, she argues that utterances such as this, as well as “unison”6
discussed above, emphasise the participants’ sharing of the same time and same context
Following Fujii, in this study an utterance that repeats the current floor holder’s talk in
the manner of an echo is defined as “echo.” Echo may be confused with “repetition”
because of their similar form.7 However, they are different in their appearance; while
“repetition” starts after the completion of the key word/phrase by the current floor
holder, “echo” starts before the current floor holder completes her/his turn and it
shadows the current speaker’s talk. The following is an example of an “echo.” See
Suwako’s utterance, “Terawaki Reiko san ne,” “Ms Terawaki Reiko, Oh I know” that is
5 The participants’ initials have been changed in order to avoid confusion with the participants in my
data.
6 However, Fujii does not refer to the term “unison” in her paper.
7 It is uncertain whether Fujii distinguishes these two types of overlap.
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In an academic meeting, Natsuki has been telling of her experience (to Harue, Bob, Suwako and Fumie)
about studying Spanish for beginners in her undergraduate days when her acquaintance, Reiko, who used
to be a casual staff member whom all participants knew, advised her to learn Spanish before enrolling in
the course, since the majority of the students had knowledge of Spanish even in the beginners course.
1 H: [a - - =
aizuchi
(understanding)
B: [a - - =
aizuchi
(understanding)
S: [a - -
aizuchi
(understanding)
F: [a - - =
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = - - - - - -
B: = - - - - - - - -
F: = - - - - - - -
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, all participants knew Reiko with whom they had worked some years
previously. This is demonstrated by there being a similiarity in tone of the aizuchi of all
these speakers to address each other by first names. Thus, though the hearers somehow
knew Reiko by her first name, it is doubtful as to whether everyone could state Reiko’s
full name immediately. Natsuki then reconfirms it is that particular Reiko by stating her
full name, when Suwako follows her with a delay of a few tenths of a second. Natsuki’s
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very first utterance of Reiko’s full name triggers Suwako to recall Reiko’s full name,
and she immediately follows her to confirm. Suwako’s echoing utterance would have
been very difficult to produce if she did not know Reiko. As this example shows,
produce an echo. This is whatis different from “repetition,” where such shared
knowledge may not be required in its production. Note that “Unison” is similar to echo
in terms of shared knowledge requirement. However, they are formally different; while
“unison” referts to two identical (or almost identical) utterances start simultaneously,
“echo” refers to an utterance that is identical (or almost identical) to the current floor
So far, the above four utterance formations are presented as a kind of aizuchi. Note,
however, that these formal utterances do not only appear as aizuchi, but may carry other
functions as well. For example, repetition and paraphrasing with a rising tone is
regarded as a question for clarification of what the current floor holder has just
talk upon non-floor holder’s aizuchi. When echo/unison is uttered by a sub-floor holder,
overlap classification in this study primarily focuses on its function, these formal
categories appear within a functional category. In other words, these formal categories
appear in several different functional categories (see the tables in the Appendix 2) and
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terminology is used, they appear to generally agree that the functions of aizuchi are: i)
to encourage the current floor holder to continue her/his talk; ii) to claim understanding
of what the current floor holder has just said; iii) to claim agreement with what the
current floor holder has just said; iv) to show an emotional reaction towards what the
current floor holder has just said. Other functions of aizuchi such as disagreement,
claiming for the next floor, or filler (to fill in the pause until somebody takes the turn,
e.g. nanka, somehow, or ano ne, you know) are also discussed by some researchers,
however, there is no consensus among researchers on these functions. Thus, this study
i) Continuer
Szatrowsky, 1993).” Since all aizuchi emphasise that non-floor holders are listening to
the current floor holder’s talk, to avoid confusion, the term “continuer”8 is used for this
function. The example of aizuchi with this function is observed in the following
exchange.
Sachiko looks at the information on Uni Lodge near Central Station. Yoshida is just about to explain how
convenient the location of Uni Lodge is.
8 The term originally used by Shegloff (1982), but the function of continuer in this study is closer to
Maynard(1993).
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M:
Y: =
n[e e] Sentoraru eki made aruite go fun de[shoo]
you know Central station to on foot five minute COP
You know that it’s only 5 minutes to walk to Central Station, don’t you?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, Sachiko’s first aizuchi in line 2 functions as continuer, since Yoshida
has just started to talk with “Moo nee,” “you know.” This exchange is the very
beginning part of a business talk between two representatives (Sachiko and Masao)
from the publisher of a community magazine and their client (Yoshida) who is a real
estate professional. As the conversation has just begun, Sachiko and Masao, who are
Australia for an article in their community magazine, try to warm up the conversation
by showing their stance as hearers. Upon Sachiko’s continuer, Yoshida, who has just
started a new turn at the end of line 1 with a prologue type of expression, “moo nee,”
“you know,” confirms his taking of the floor and continues. Continuers occur not just as
aizuchi terms but also as a form of repetition or paraphrasing, though there are not many
ii) Understanding
This function is to signal that the non-floor holder understands what the floor holder
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understanding of the content (of what the speaker said)” (Maynard, 1993), and so on.
Matsuda (1988) explains that it includes the signal of understanding the information
given by the speaker, speaker’s feeling as well as showing her/his knowledge is shared
with the current speaker. Following these definitions, understanding in this study
indicates understanding of what the current floor holder conveyed to non-floor holders
in context. This function of aizuchi has a variety of forms (e.g. un, u-n, ee, honto, fuun,
soo, and variation of soo such as sooka, soo nanda etc.) compared with continuer,
which mostly appears in a form, “un,” or “u-n,” or “ee.” One problematic issue
regarding this function is how we identify the forms of aizuchi such as “un” or “u-n” or
“ee” that are shared by more than one function. For example, note the following
exchange:
Harue is talking to Suwako and Fumie about how her flatmate hunting has been going so far.
1 H: Hitori mini kite nu: henji konai keredo[mo mata sono ko wa=
a person see come reply come not but again that girl P
A girl came for the inspection, but has not replied. But I think
S: [u - =
aizuchi
(understanding)
F:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = zettai koto]waroo kana [tte iu atashi ke]k[koo] sereku[shon]=
absolutely decline VOL wonder QUOT say I seriously selection
I (think) that I will definitely decline her. I am thinking of selecting (a flatmate)
S: = n ]
F: [a t t s o o ] [ n ] [ n ]
aizuchi aizuchi aizuchi
(understanding) (continuer) (continuer)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: = shiyoo kana tte [omotte:] <talk continues>
do VOL wonder QUOT think
seriously.
S:
F: [un un ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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In this exchange, Suwako and Fumie produce aizuchi towards Harue’s talk. It is not
difficult to identify the function of Fumie’s “att soo” as understanding from its form.
The problematic ones are the rest of aizuchi. As the English translation shows, Harue’s
talk has three possible turn completion points (i.e. keredomo in line 1 and kana tte iu in
line 2, and omotte: in line 3). However, she continues talking without any pause or even
breathing in. Interestingly, both Suwako and Fumie utter aizuchi at or near Harue’s
possible turn completion points: first by Suwako (u-n in lines 1-2), then by Fumie (i.e.
att soo in line 2, and un un in line 3). As the information given is new to Suwako and
Fumie, these aizuchi function to claim understanding of what Harue said. However, at
the same time, there is no evidence that these aizuchi do not carry continuer funcion.
Among the researchers mentioned above, while other researchers take examples from
other forms than these ambiguous forms, Horiguchi (1997) explains this function using
B: ee
B: ee
B: ee
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According to Horiguchi, all of these aizuchi are understanding aizuchi. Though she
points out that many of these aizuchi are hard to distinguish from continuers, she
explains that B in this exchange understands the content of A’s talk up to the point of
A’s clause ending, hence, the functions of these aizuchi are understanding. In other
aizuchi production, and further information is required to understand A’s talk, then the
function of aizuchi is continuer. This means that understanding may also carry a
function of continuer if the aizuchi is produced during the current floor holder’s turn,
but not vice versa. Given this, I define understanding aizuchi further as aizuchi that is
most likely to be produced at or near the current floor holder’s possible turn completion
(CTRP) to signal at least the content of her/his talk up to the point is understood as new
information. This function may also include continuer as its sub-function, but the study
Going back to Exchange (24) above, based on the above interpretation of understanding
aizuchi, aizuchi other than Fumie’s “att soo” are recognised as labelled function. Note
that Suwako’s aizuchi at Harue’s first possible turn completion in line 1 is stretched and
almost reaches Harue’s second possible turn completion; i.e. “koto]waroo kana tte iu,”
“that I will decline her.” It seems that once Suwako reaslised that Harue is still
continuing to talk, by stretching her aizuchi, she makes an adjustment to her aizuchi to
show her understanding of not just what she has heard prior to her aizuchi onset, but of
what she is currently hearing while uttering aizuchi. On the other hand, in a similar
occasion to this, Fumie uses more than one aizuchi (i.e. line 2). Upon Harue’s talk,
“kotowaroo kana tte iu,” “that I will decline her,” Fumie appears to predict that Harue
might end her turn and utters “att soo,” “I see.” However Harue still holds the floor and
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starts providing new information about “serious selection.” Once Fumie has noticed that
Harue has not stopped, she quickly adjusts her reaction towards Harue by switching her
aizuchi function from understanding to continuer and prepares to listen to Harue’s new
information.
Understanding aizuchi appear mostly as aizuchi terms. However, they also appear as a
form of repetition, paraphrasing and echo of the current floor holder’s talk. Though
these forms of understanding aizuchi are few in number compared with continuers, they
appear more frequently in this function. Line 2 of the exchange (19) above shows an
example of understanding aizuchi that takes the form of a repetition, and there is an
“echo” in line 2 of the exchange (22), which takes up the understanding function. An
The participants are talking about a small fire incident Eri had on the previous night. Eri explains the
others (Harue, Natsuki and Keiko) how she went to sleep before the incident took place.
1 H: [un u - n ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
N:
K: /un/
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: [u - n a - =
aizuchi
(understanding)
K:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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3 H: = - - ]
E:
K:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In line 2-3, Natsuki paraphrasing Eri’s words “kuzure chatta no,” “I collapsed” as
“sonomama nechatta no,” “you fell asleep as you were,” then immediately after this she
utters the aizuchi term “un” to claim her understanding of Eri’s explanation of how tired
she was and how she fell asleep. As this example shows, it is not uncommon to observe
iii) Agreement
The definition of agreement aizuchi varies slightly among researchers. Generally they
concur that its function claims agreement and empathy for what the current floor holder
says. Among agreement aizuchi, soo or a series of soo (e.g. soo soo, soo soo soo etc.)
aizuchi above, aizuchi terms such as un and ee are once again problematic in terms of
their interpretation. Horiguchi (1997) points out some difficulties in assigning aizuchi
understanding of the current floor holder’s talk. Thus, she argues that sometimes it is
aizuchi.
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Harue is talking to Fumie and Suwako about her experience at a sushi shop in the downtown area in
Sydney.
F: [un]
aizuchi
(agreement)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = tachi[gui mitai da yo patto] taberu shi nanka.
buffet like COP FP quickly eat and AP
it’s like a buffet since people eat quickly.
S:
F: [u - n ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, however, it is known that Fumie was familiar with the sushi shop
about which Harue had been talking. Thus, Fumie’s aizuchi functions to convey her
aizuchi, agreement aizuchi may also carry a function of continuer depending on its
position. For example, Fumie’s aizuchi in line 1 in the above exchange can also be
recognised as a continuer. Fumie may be indicating both that she agrees that the sushi
shop is at the bottom of Centre Point, and urging Harue to continue at the same time.
Agreement aizuchi with other forms than aizuchi terms include repetition, echo,
paraphrasing and unison. However, once again the number of aizuchi terms is the most
frequently observed in this function. Among the other four types, repetition is the most
frequently observed and the least observed is unison (only one case) in the data of this
study. Comparing their numbers with the ones in understanding aizuchi, while
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paraphrasing appeared the same number of times in the two functions (6 cases),
information, agreement aizuchi are uttered in response to the floor holder’s information
that non-floor holders can share because of her/his experience. Thus, the participants’
involvement in the exchange may become more enthusiastic. Aizuchi formation such as
soo or multiple soo per se conveys stronger agreement than “ee” or “un.” But by
repeating, echoing or even uttering the same talk at the same time as the current floor
iv) Evaluation
Evaluation is a relatively short utterance that reacts to what the current floor holder has
said with some kind of emotively coloured judgement or response. Japanese researchers
in order to limit them to the ones that are uttered as a reaction towards what the current
floor holder has said, the term “evaluation” is used in this study. The following
honto(really?)
Judgement: hidoi (awful), erai (good), iyada (no), kimochi waru (yuk)
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Compared with other type of aizuchi, evaluations include a number of terms that carry
an independent specific linguistic meaning (see the translation in the brackets next to
the word in italic). Whether these terms are to be regarded as aizuchi or not may be
argued. However, considering that the non-floor holder who utters an evaluation
generally does not subsequently take the floor from the current floor holder, it is more
Suwako was telling of her experience that her clothes were dropped off the laundry line by her
neighbours. Fumie agrees and tells similar experience she had.
1 H:
S: [u n ] [soo yo
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (agreement)
F: =
nee [yaru] tameni [watashino] wo gu:n nan[te yatte =
FP do for mine P MIM QUOT do
their own laundry They shoved mine aside.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: = koto suru [no:] [uso: -
thing do FP lie
They would do such a thing? unbelievable
F: =
shiwashiwa toka [saa].
ruck up etc. FP
Mine became rucked up.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Evaluation, especially of the surprise type, is often uttered at a higher volume, as in this
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exchange (in bold). Harue’s utterance from line 2 to 3 is relatively long. One may argue
that only the first part, “uso,” is evaluation and the rest is substantial talk. But first,
Harue’s higher volume continues until the end of her talk; and second, once again, she
does not take the next floor (or even turn) with this utterance. Instead Suwako starts
talking, and Harue continues to show her surprise. Thus, though her turn is rather long,
Apart from these utterances, evaluation can be expressed by laughter as in the following
example:
Harue was telling a story of her old neighbour who had a dispute with a Spanish woman in the next block
over a laundry line, in which she ended up calling the police. She tells about the problem of the woman
who sneakingly used the old neighbour’s laundry line, which seemed to be over after the police came. But
there is a punch line after that.
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = at tara mata yobu kara ne” toka [tte itte saa.
happen (con) again call since FP etc. QUOT said FP
I will call the police again, you know, “ or something she said.
S:
S:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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4 H: soo (0.2) soosuto koo “Sono ato doo natta no” tte=
yeah then HES that after how became FPQ QUOT
Yeah Then, um I asked what happened after that
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 H: = kiita no ne Soshitara “moo jibun no koko ni wa=
asked FP FP then anymore self P here P P
you know Then “(The Spanish woman) no longer
S:
F: <laugh>u n
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 H: = kakenaku natta kedo ‘But now she hangs yours=
not hang became but
hangs (her laundry) here, but ‘But now she hangs yours’ “
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7 H: = toka tte <laugh>
etc. QUOT
or something (she said).
S: <laugh>
F: <laugh>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The laughter by Suwako and Fumie in line 7 is triggered by Harue’s punch line. In other
words, Suwako and Fumie reacted towards Harue’s talk by laughing to convey their
appreciation of the humour in Harue’s story. The laughter is therefore regarded as a type
of evaluation. However, as mentioned in the previous chapter, not all laughter need to
be evaluative. For example, Fumie’s laughter in line 5 does not seem to react directly to
what is said by Harue, since her talk to which Fumie reacts is a prelude to her next turn
(i.e. “Then I asked what happened after that, you know.”). Rather, she is likely to
extend her laughing emotion by imagining the old woman’s excessive attitude against
the Spanish woman, as Fumie had said in line 2. Thus, it seems to be more natural to
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This small section has introduced a definition of aizuchi and its four functions and
discussed how they contribute to the conversation. Though there are a few other
functions (e.g. negation by Horiguchi, 1997 and Szatrowsky, 1993; pause filler by
Matsuda, 1988 etc.) which have been recognised by a few researchers, these are either
not agreed on by other researchers (pause filler), or the number of the samples that were
observed in the data was extremely small (negation). They are thus excluded from the
functions of aizuchi in this study. Of the total number of overlaps in the data, the
majority are aizuchi. If non-overlapping aizuchi are included, the number further
many studies from the analysis of the data. However, once aizuchi is understood in a
wider sense, with a number of functions and various formations, it brings about many
In order to seek further information regarding what the current floor holder has said, a
with the current floor holder’s talk, but often do so, as in the following example:
The participants are talking about a number plate which a green grocer attaches to the front of her/his cap
on the occasion of an auction at a wholesaler’s.
1 H:
S:
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: [He e ]
aizuchi
(evaluation)
S: [E ookushon mo soo na no]
EX auction also so COP FP Q
What? Is it also for an auction?
F: =
tsuke n [no yo ne bangoo un ] (0.3)[tsukete n da yo]=
attatch VN FP FP FP number yes attach VN COP FP
You know, the number. Yeah they put it on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: [Ie no [Nan no=
House P what P
For property? For what
S:
S:
Fumie used the term “auction” for auction in general. However, Suwako and Harue
believe that the term is limited to a property auction in Japan, since there is another term
“seri” to indicate “auction” that is more likely to be used for vegetables and fish. So
they wonder whether people at a property auction also wear cap and attach that kind of
number plate on the cap. After this exchange, Harue also asks Fumie whether it is for a
house auction (line 3). As this example shows, a clarification question functions to
avoid misunderstanding the content of the current floor holder’s talk. Perhaps the reason
intention to resolve any problem that may cause misunderstanding as early as possible.
example:
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The participants are talking about Harue’s flatmate. Harue is looking for a new flatmate due to her current
flatmate’s departure. Prior to the following exchange, Suwako told her that she knew a girl who might be
interested in Harue’s flat, then Harue suggested that she should come and see the flat. After the topic
reached a conclusion, a new sub-topic began, which is about Harue’s current flatmate. The new exchange
starts after 1.1 seconds pause.
S: (0.3)
S: A[a soo - - ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
After Fumie asks Harue a question in line 1, there is a 0.3 second pause, which is quite
a long time-gap in normal speaker shift. Due to this pause, it is assumed that Fumie
selects herself to continue speaking and tries to modify her previous talk, when Harue
replied to her question. As a result, Harue and Fumie start talking simultaneously.
However once Harue starts her reply, Fumie stops talking; i.e., after “mada iru,” “still
stays” quickly, and concentrates on listening to what Harue says. At Harue’s first
possible turn completion point; i.e., Harue’s “Kyoo moo dete,” “she has left today,”
Fumie asks for Harue’s reconfirmation by repeating part of Harue’s talk; i.e., “moo
dete,” “has already left,” in a rising tone at the end. However, Harue does not terminate
her talk at that point. Thus, Fumie’s clarification question once again started
simultaneously as Harue’s additional information about when her flatmate had left from
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the end of line 1 to the beginning of line 2. This Harue’s additional information seems
to have answered Fumie’s question. Consequently, she once again repeats a part of
Harue’s talk, “asa deta,” “left in the morning.” But this time Fumie’s talk ends in a
falling tone. Therefore, this is not a clarification question but a non-overlapping aizuchi
to claim her understanding with a bit of surprise (in a larger volume). As the example in
repetition mostly appears in a slightly changed version of the original that is uttered by
the current floor holder. In the data of this study, the clarification question that exactly
repeats what the current floor holder has said is not found. Only 7 cases of clarification
Apart from repetition, clarification questions appear in the form of paraphrasing as well.
However, it seems to be far less frequently observed than in a form of repetition (only 2
Sometimes we observe that a current floor holder searches for a word in the middle of
her/his turn. In cases in which the other participant(s) share(s) the knowledge with the
current floor holder, it is possible for the other participant(s) to support her / him by
supplying the right word / phrase. With this help, the current floor holder can construct
the ongoing floor and may continue her / his talk. Information supply is not necessarily,
Harue has been talking about her former flatmate Miyako who is leaving Australia soon. As she has to
vacate her current apartment very soon, Harue thinks about offering temporary accommodation to
Miyako.
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S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: hitsuyoona wake [yo oheya ttemo sono tomaru] tokoro
necessary reason FP room QUOT P HES stay place
She needs a room. The room, I mean, place for her to stay.
S: [u – nn – nn – nn – nn – n ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: dakatt kanojo ni (0.2) [ mata ] [kite u-n /shite/]=
so she P again come REC do
So (I would like to ask)her to come again yeah
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: = ageru a demo] sore okane morau n janakute <talk continues>
give EX but it money receive VN COPnot and
offer (her). But I don’t mean to receive money from her and
S: = ne u - n ]
FP aizuchi
won't you? (understanding)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, Harue, who is talking about her thoughts on Miyako, is stuck in her
talk and makes a very short pause of 0.2 second, when Suwako supplies the missing
information with “chotto kite,” “call her to your place.” In fact, after the pause, Harue
also starts at the same time as Suwako, but what she is saying is still unclear. Rather, she
listens to what Suwako says, then employs her expression, “kitte,” “come,” to continue
her talk. As for Suwako, no sooner does Harue begin the continuation of her talk, when
she utters aizuchi and resumes her primary role of a non-floor holder, that is “listening.”
Thus, in Suwako’s talk, there is no intention to threaten Harue’s floor, but rather to
support her in constructing her turn. As in this example, information supply by a non-
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floor holder takes place in the current floor holder’s floor. Thus, it is possible for the
non-floor holder to supply information while the current floor holder stops to search for
the word/phrase. Often, the current floor holder continues her/his talk once s/he gets a
clue or hears sufficient. In other words, the current floor holder does not necessarily
listen to the whole word/phrase that is supplied by the non-floor holder. Therefore,
than one person (usually two) hold the floor, information supply may take place
The participants (Sachiko, Masao and Yoshida) are talking about Uni Lodge, some accommodation in
city.
1 Sa:
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Sa: [un] [E [e [a no ] sookyaku shiteru=
aizuchi aizuchi HES sending guest doing
(agreement) (agreement) Well we are sending guests
Y: Hoee
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sachiko and Masao cooperatively explain to Yoshida that they have been associating
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with Uni Lodge by not only putting its advertisement in their community magazine but
also sending guests from Japan there. The term “sookyaku, sending guest” is mostly
used in the travel industry. Thus, after reaching her possible turn completion with the
final particle ne in line 3, rather than terminating her turn, she continues to explain
further about the issue. However, she seems to be still considering how she should
explain it, which is indicated by her two hesitations, “ano.” Masao has been aligning
with Sachiko, since she used the term “sookyaku” in line 2. Masao also seems to be
concerned whether the term is understood by Yoshida. Thus, first he emphasises the
term for Yoshida by repeating it. Then once he realises that Sachiko is starting to search
for an appropriate expression to explain the term (Sachiko’s first ano in line 3), he
promptly provides a description of the term (line 3). Meanwhile, after her hesitations
and immediately after Masao has started to talk, Sachiko resumes her turn. As in
Harue’s talk in line 3 in example (31) above, this time, Sachiko too starts with a word
“kyaku,” “guest,” which was prompted by Masao. This indicates that Sachiko gained an
insight through Masao’s support. But her talk is not a direct explanation of the term, in
the way that Masao’s is, but adds more information to her previous talk, that is, sending
or any other information. However by adding “guests from Japan,” the term becomes
easier to understand. Consequently Sachiko and Masao’s second overlap in line 3 ends
up in carrying different content, but they still function in the same way, that is to clarify
the term “sookyaku.” Interestingly, this overlapping talk concludes at the same time as
if they are uttered by one person. As for Yoshida, he utters an understanding aizuchi,
“hoee,” a variation of hee, right away. Yoshida’s aizuchi makes sense whichever person
he directs it to (or it may have been directed to both of them). Thus, from looking at this
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excerpt (at a micro level analysis), it can be argued that Sachiko could complete her
is observed that Sachko and Masao hold the main floor in turn, and cooperate with each
When a person’s talk somehow expects a reaction from the other party (e.g. a question
expects an answer), it is not uncommon that the response begins before the completion
of the question turn, hence it appears as a form of overlap. This study refers to this as an
“early reply.” Most early replies appear near the turn completion of the question turn,
The participants are talking about buying property “off the plan.” Sachiko thinks Japanese would be
concerned about buying a property without looking at a model room if they are going to live there. Then
Yoshida mentions one of his Chinese clients who recently bought a million dollar property for himself
“off the plan,” which amazes Sachiko and Masao. Following this, Sachiko asked whether the client is
from HongKong.
M:
M:
Y: =
de ne jubun de sumu] tame ni ne.
P FP self by live for P FP
just explained) you know, (he bought it) to live.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, there is no time gap between the turns of Sachiko and Yoshida. She
asks a question, to which Yoshida replies in overlap with the very last question particle
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“ka.” Then Sachiko, without any time gap, utters a very long aizuchi to show her
Early reply also appears slightly before the turn termination but still within the current
The participants are talking about overseas property investment. Sachiko and Masao ask several questions
of Yoshida, who is a real estate broker.
M:
Y: Hai
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Sa: = kazei wa doo natteru n [desu ka] Aa kakaru=
tax levy P how become VN COP FP Q EX take
what is it's the tax levy like? Oh it
M:
M:
M:
Y: =
onnnaji desu.
same COP
it’s the same
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Yoshida’s reply to Sachiko’s question whether one has to pay tax for overseas
investment properties (line 2) begins by overlapping Sachiko’s turn ending part, “desu
ka,” which is copula plus final question particle. This way of overlapping may not be as
well timed as the terminally overlapping example in (33). However it is very predictable
and still does not affect the smooth turn shift between the participants. In fact, after
Yoshida’s reply to Sachiko in line 2, the exchange between the two falls into a rhythm.
Sachiko immediately utters aizuchi by repeating the key verb “kakaru,” “takes,” to
which Yoshida reconfirms once again by repeating the word in terminal overlap (line 3).
adds further information (i.e. “Oosutoraria demo onnnaji desu,” “it’s the same in
The majority of early replies in the data of this study appear to be one of the above
formations. But there are cases when such a reply begins much earlier than the ending
Sachiko mistook the term “off the plan” as “oft plan,” and asked Yoshida whether it is spelled as O-F-T,
and Yoshida and Masao both corrected her misspelling. While Masao is talking to himself that he has to
write down what they are saying, Sachiko sticks to “off the plan” and starts asking whether the system
exists in Japan.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: = [konnano Nihon niwa aru no kashira koo[iu shisutemu
such thing Japan in P exist FP wonder this say system
like this. I wonder if a system like this exists in Japan.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Sa: [Chigau chigai masu yo ne.]
different different COP FP FP
No, It does not, does it?
After Yoshida and Masao told Sachiko the right spelling of “off the plan,” while
Sachiko shows her understanding of her misspelling (line 1), Masao starts to mutter to
himself that he would have to write down what they have just talked about (line 1-2).
Upon Masao’s talk, the topic of “off the plan” seems to have been resolved. However,
the issue clearly remains unresolved as Sachiko starts a new turn regarding “off the
plan” (line 2) in the midst of Masao’s talk to himself. As Masao’s talk is targeting
nobody (i.e. nobody holds a conversational floor at this particular moment), Sachiko’s
new turn is not regarded as an intervention of his turn. However, Masao, who either did
not expect Sachiko to stick to the topic of “off the plan” or did not simply hear what
Sachiko said, immediately reacts to her new turn by asking her back, “ett,” “what?” in
line 3. Then Sachiko repeats her question but makes a slight modification (i.e. from an
informal speech style, “aru no ka na,” “whether (it) exists,” with a pronoun, “konnano,”
“like this” to more formal speech style “aru no kashira” with a clear reference, “kooiu
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shisutemu,” “a system like this”). But to her repeated question, Masao replies early by
According to Jefferson (1973), when overlap takes place, the overlap onset seems to
appear in a certain position of the current floor holder’s talk. Jefferson argues that it is
the point where the non-floor holder recognises that s/he had received enough
information to react, hence she describes this point as to be “not too early, not too late.”
Operator: [yes.
(1973:57)
caller who is reporting a fire. According to Jefferson, the operator understands the
message that the caller wants to convey by listening up to the word, “Food.” As s/he did
not need to hear the rest, s/he started her turn. Jefferson argues that this is the right spot
to start talking since the word, “Fairview,” is not yet giving accurate information about
Having looked at Masao’s early reply in (35) above, he starts right after Sachiko’s
“koo,” “this.” In Japanese, koo can be used independently. But in this case, it is a part of
an expression, “koo iu,” “like this.” In this sense, the point where Masao started may be
9 As Sachiko’s question is structurally inverted its subject-predicate, one may argue it is rather late reply
than early reply. However, Sachiko’s question is repeating her previous question almost in the same
manner, I regard it to be an early reply.
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a bit too early. However, Sachiko has already asked this question (line 2-3) before.
Thus, although Masao is asking her back “ett,” ‘what?” to urge her to clarify her
question, it seems that by the time Sachiko repeated her question more clearly, he had
understood her point, though he might not be confident in what he understood. Thus,
Sachiko’s second question functions to confirm his understanding. Considering this, the
Does early reply ever intervene in the current speaker’s floor? In (35), after Masao
replied to Sachiko’s question by overlapping her, Sachiko still completes her question
turn, then shows her understanding by overlapping Masao’s reply. In fact looking at the
overlap onset (i.e. after Masao’s “sore wa,” “that is,” which calls for a predicate to
follow), and the length of her talk which follows Masao’s talk and ends at the same time
as he does, the way Sachiko reacts to Masao’s reply shows them contributing well to
construct their talk. Therefore, in this case, early reply does not function negatively in
the flow of conversation. Though there does not appear to be an example in the
collected data, I speculate that there may be cases where an early reply functions as true
intrusion into the current floor holder’s turn, especially when it starts much earlier than
the current floor holder’s TRP. Thus, when analysing early reply, the context of the
exchange and how the exchange continues after the early reply needs to be considered.
Finally, though this function is set under non-floor holder’s overlap, early reply is not
necessarily uttered by non-floor holder only. It is also common that the current floor
current floor holder, it seems to be natural to reply to the non-floor holder’s question as
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When a current floor holder talks, sometimes a non-floor holder assumes the rest of the
current floor holder’s talk and completes her/his turn. This verbal action is referred to
as “Other completion” in this study. Unlike information supply, in this case, the current
floor holder does not have any problem in continuing her/his talk. Thus, it often appears
by overlapping the current floor holder’s talk. In other completions, there are cases
where both the current floor holder and the non-floor holder talk and finish at the same
time. “Choral completion,” discussed in “unison” under aizuchi section above, is one of
them. Kushida (1997) seems to include only two overlapped identical talk in the choral
completion. But among other completions where both the current floor holder and the
non-floor holder finish at the same time, there are cases where the two utterances are
not identical in their form but are identical in their content. Consider the following
example:
Harue is on the phone. Suwako and Fumie are talking about a dispute between neighbours. Fumie says
that as Australians frequently move, the problematic neighbour may also move someday.
S: N - u n u n u - n u n mata=
aizuchi aizuchi again
(agreement) (agreement)
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Suwako and Fumie’s second overlapping talk, “shocchuu kawaru mon,” “move often”
and “idoo ga hageshii kara ne,” “move very frequently,” are identical in their content.
Sachiko’s reaction to Masao in line 4 in (35) also belongs to this category. Although this
working well together and greatly contributes to build rapport among the participants.
Thus, this study includes such non-unison type of completion in “choral completion.”
While there are completions that greatly contribute to the participants’ rapport
construction, there are cases that hold up the flow of conversation. See the following
The participants are talking about the tax on real estate when buying and selling. Yoshida is trying to
explain this by taking as an example when he wants to use the term “Consumer Price Index.” But he
wonders whether Sachiko and Masao know the term.
1 Sa: Hai
yes
Yes
M:
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa:
Y: ne
EMP
You know?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In this exchange, upon Yoshida’s question whether Masao and Sachiko know
“Consumer Price Index (line 1),” both Sachiko and Masao reply with a short utterance,
“hai/ee (line 1/2).” After hearing responses from the two, Yoshida tries to continue by
giving them its Japanese translation, (line 2).” But his talk is overlapped by Masao who
hears the beginning of Yoshida’s talk (i.e. “shoo” for “shoohi sha,” “consumer”) and
attempts to give the Japanese translation, which Yoshida did not expect. Thus, he
stopped talking. However, Masao wrongly translated it as “shoohi sha zei,” “consumer
tax),” for “shoohisha bukka shisuu.” Upon Masao’s wrong translation, Yoshida first
accepts it as “ee,” “yes,” then tries to say the correct translation. But Yoshida too seems
to be stuck in finding the right translation by showing hesitation, such as stretching the
ending of shoohi sha, as well as uttering a hesitation marker, “ano (line 2),” and he ends
up providing a wrong translation (i.e. “shoohi sha doo shisuu,” “consumer stream
index.” It is not known whether Yoshida actually knew its Japanese translation.
However, as the term is well known to the general public, it is speculated that it slipped
Yoshida’s mind. Interestingly, Masao, who also should have known the term, actively
agrees with Yoshida’s wrong Japanese translation (line 2-3). Though Yoshida uses the
wrong translation once more shortly after this exchange, the rest of the talk on this
topic, the participants use the English term, CPI. Thus, in the end, as all participants
understand what CPI means, Yoshida’s mistranslation did not really affect the flow of
conversation in the end. Even so, Masao’s other completion in line 2 triggered Yoshida
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to stop talking temporarily, which disrupted the rhythm of the conversation. However,
note that such examples that function negatively to the flow of conversation are few in
the data, and the majority of other completion examples nicely cooperate with the
observed that more than one non-floor holder utter aizuchi to the current floor holder’s
talk. Such multi-aizuchi often start simultaneously, but it is also common that some
aizuchi start later than the other, as in the following excerpt (8), which was discussed in
Harue has been explaining how the residents of her block share the laundry lines.
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = be[betsu no tokoro ni [hoshiteru n da kedo] soo(…)
separate P place P drying VN COP but REC
We dry our laundry at a separate place.
S: [u - n ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
F: [u - n ]
aizuchi
(understanding / aizuchi follower)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As previously discussed, aizuchi like Fumie’s in line 2 above is directly uttered towards
Harue to show her understanding of what Harue has just mentioned. However, it can
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the ongoing conversation. In fact aizuchi by Suwako and Fumie in this exchange end at
the same time, which also coincide with a TRP in Harue’s talk, hence contribute to
create a rhythmical conversation. Such an aizuchi that follows the other’s aizuchi is
referred to as “aizuchi follower” in this study. Since it is not directly targeted at the
current floor holder, it is separately presented from the aizuchi group discussed earlier
other words, the same utterance functions on the one hand as aizuchi towards the
current floor holder’s talk, and functions as aizuchi follower, on the other, for the other
non-floor holder who has uttered aizuchi towards the current floor holder earlier. As this
study looks at the function of each overlap in relation to who overlaps whom, such an
floor holder’s talk, there are overlaps that function to compete against the current floor
holder for the next floor. A typical example of this kind of overlap is an “interruption,”
with which a non-floor holder attempts to take the conversational floor from the current
utterance that signals her/his intention to talk, is included in this category. I will explain
Floor bidding is a non-floor holder’s short utterance that takes place in the midst of the
current floor holder’s talk. It shows a non-floor holder’s intention to start her/his floor.
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Anoo (ah), chotto (a little bit), nanka (somehow), iya (no / well), demo (but), dakara
Suwako is talking about her experience with her clothes on the laundry line being thrown away by her
neighbour.
1 H: [Uso[ - - ]
lie (aizuchi)
You are kidding (evaluation)
F: [na n ka]
AP
Well
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: [ya: <laugh> [So: <laugh>
no so ( aizuchi)
No su(ch a thing) (evaluation)
In relation to the topic Suwako has introduced, Fumie wants to talk about an experience
she had that was similar to Suwako’s. Fumie’s “Nanka” indicates that she has
something to tell. As Suwako continues talking, Fumie waits for her and Harue bursts
into laughter when the floor becomes free, then takes the new floor with her new turn.
As floor bidding merely signals one’s intention to talk to the rest of the party, it is less
competitive than an interruption. The degree of one’s intention to talk by floor bidding
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may be assumed from its volume and its frequency. When it is uttered at a larger
volume and/or it is repeated a few times, then the degree of her/his intention to take the
floor is assumed to be higher. After floor bidding, floor shift may take place smoothly if
the current floor holder recognises it and cedes the floor shortly after the bidding. But if
the current floor holder ignores it, then the floor bidder may end up starting her/his floor
without the current floor holder’s completing her/his turn (i.e. by interrupting the
4.1.2.2 Interruption
holder’s talk that starts in the midst of the current floor holder’s ongoing talk for the
purpose of gaining the floor, thus, it is a threatening action for the current floor holder.
After the purchase of food/drink, Harue, Suwako and Fumie sat around the table at café. Observing
Fumie buying a big meal, Suwako wonders whether Fumie has had lunch.
1 H:
S: [u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 (0.8)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 H:
S: = nan[nimo nai yo ne - ]
anything none FP FP
there is nothing.
F: [un
nee kore shika na]i no.
REC
INT this only none FP
only this one is available.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The two relatively long pauses in lines 2 and 4 indicate that Fumie does not seem to be
interested in the topic Suwako has introduced (i.e. meals). Thus, after the second pause
in line 4, Suwako tries to introduce a new topic about what she did that morning, but her
attempt is interrupted by Fumie who, surprisingly, still sticks to the previous topic. As a
result, Suwako gives up her floor and takes the role of listener by uttering aizuchi
towards Fumie. Fumie’s attitude in this exchange is not regarded as cooperative, since
she ignores Suwako’s delicate attention to the others and her attempts to facilitate the
conversation.
neglect of the current topic. Other causes can be enthusiasm for talk or disagreement /
disapproval of the ongoing talk. Compared with the other causes, one might feel that an
conversation. However, all the same, if it intervenes into a current floor holder’s floor
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When interruption takes place, the reaction of the one who is being overlapped, namely
the current floor holder, varies. As with Suwako’s reaction in this example, one may
immediately give up the floor, or the speaker at least finish her/his turn before giving up
the floor, or also compete back for retaining the current floor. The first reaction may
minimise the conflict among the participants, but the third reaction may interfere with
Among non-floor holder’s overlaps towards the current floor holder, there are overlaps
which do not support the content of the current floor holder’s talk as a non-floor holder
nor compete against the current floor holder for getting the floor. I term these overlaps
as “neutral overlaps.” Neutral overlaps include “new turn at TRP” and “misjudging
turn completion.” Though, neutral overlaps take a neutral stance at the overlap onset,
some may turn to be competitive afterwards. For example misjudging turn completion
can be intrusive if a person, who starts her/his turn by misjudging the current floor
holder’s turn completion, does not stop talking even after realising the current floor
holder’s talk continues. Similarly, although excluded from the data analysis,
simultaneous start can be understood as neutral in this sense, since there will be a
competition betweeh the two speakers for gaining the floor after the overlap onset.
Below are the explanations of “New turn at TRP,” and “misjudging turn completion.”
Turn in this category indicates a full turn that excludes non-floor holder’s supportive
turn for the current floor holder’s talk which have been discussed above. This kind of
overlap exactly follows one of Sacks et al.’s (1974) gross facts that overwhelmingly one
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speaker talks at a time, and speaker transition may take place at a TRP which is
predicted by the non-floor holder (cf. CTRP, Ford and Thompson, 1996). The initial
purpose for the non-floor holder is to start a new full turn, i.e. floor, rather than uttering
a supportive utterance for the current floor holder as a non-floor holder as Suwako’s
The participants are discussing a problem they encounter, that is, students with different proficiency
levels in Japanese communication are enrolled in the same class, which makes them hard to teach. A
suggestion, to distinguish students with some experience of studying Japanese from total beginners, and
teach them accordingly, was raised. But the participants were all finding it difficult to do so and were
starting to express their views:
B:
N:
S:
F: u – n
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: = konpurein deru to hontoni kurasu no naka [de kooiu chigau]=
complaint out QUOT indeed class p inside in this kind of different
complaints will come out, indeed different things in class like this,
B:
N: [u - n]
aizuchi
(agreement)
S: [u - n]
aizuchi
(agreement)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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B:
N:
B: [ u n ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
N: [u - n]
aizuchi
(agreement)
F: - [u
n]
aizuchi
(agreement)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 H:
B:
N:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The beginning of Suwako’s talk in line 4 is overlapping the terminal part of Harue’s
talk. Following Harue’s opinion, Suwako tries to explain how serious the problem is by
telling of her experience in a writing class, since Harue is not involved in teaching these
classes. After this point, Suwako gains the floor and develops her argument. In order to
gain the floor, Suwako does not just wait for Harue until her talk almost reaches a
CTRP, but also utters agreement aizuchi towards Harue prior to her new turn (line 3).
Agreeing with the current floor holder before developing a new argument, seems to
contribute to a smooth floor shift. Although there are new turns starting at CTRPs
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without such a prologue of aizuchi utterances, this way of floor shift may be more
participants’ talk are more expected, than in an informal setting. However, with such a
It is not necessary for a current floor holder to complete her/his turn at CTRP. However,
a non-floor holder often expects the current floor holder’s turn completion when her/his
talk reaches to a CTRP and starts talking. In cases where current floor holder keeps
talking after the CTRP, a non-floor holder’s new turn overlaps the continuation of the
current floor holder’s talk. An example is observed in the following exchange from the
informal chat:
Harue has been telling of her experience that she had to pay more for parking because she missed the
timing of showing her student ID at the gate. Suwako wonders whether it was because the ticket had
already been processed when Harue claimed to be a student.
S: [ d e m o =
but
But
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = j a n a i]
COP not
isn’t it?
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Upon Suwako’s question in lines 1-2, Harue replies that she does not know, following
utterance. Thus, assuming Harue would finish her turn at the end of her reply, Suwako
commences her turn. However, as Harue continues talking, Suwako’s talk turns to
overlap Harue’s talk. In this exchange, Suwako immediately withdraws once she
realises that Harue has not finished her turn, since the floor is still held by Harue. But
contrary to this example, there are cases in which the paticipant who overlaps the
current floor holder by misjudging turn completion, ignores whomever has the floor and
After the participants have heard about Eri’s bad experience with a small fire the previous night, Harue
asks Eri if she feels disoriented.
E: [Hotondo:[nanka ~ dakara:=
almost AP so
Almost, somhow so
K:
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H:
E: = : : u n]
aizuchi
(continuer)
K:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Harue’s question in line 1 is directed at Eri, thus Eri has been selected to be the next
speaker. To Harue’s question, Eri starts answering with “hotondo,” “almost.” However,
she stretches the end of the word as “hotondo:,” rather than immediately continuing her
turn. Natsuki, who judged that Eri’s reply to Harue had been completed (i.e. a lexical
turn), starts talking, but simultaneously, Eri continues her talk. At this point, Natsuki
should have realised that she had misjudged Eri’s turn completion and stopped, since
the floor was still owned by Eri. However, Natsuki does not stop, but continues talking.
As a result, Eri stops once, and tries to restart her turn after an inbreath with “dakara:,”
“so,” but fails to stop Natsuki. Thus, she ends up giving her floor away and taking a
non-floor holder’s role with a continuer, “un.” In this particular case, after Natsuki,
Harue took the next floor, and Eri never regained her floor.
As this example shows (though there are few such cases in the data), misjudging a turn
completion may lead to a competition between the involved parties. Therefore, when
4.1.4 Miscellaneous
For some functions of overlaps, the sample is too small (only a few cases are observed)
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Aizuchi combination consists of two aizuchi. There are only three cases in the data and
all of them start with evaluation followed by other aizuchi. In fact each of them is
followed by a different aizuchi function in the data. Delayed reaction includes delayed
reply and delayed aizuchi. The majority of aizuchi are uttered within the current floor
holder’s turn or right after the turn rhythmically. There were only four cases of delayed
Sachiko and Masao ask Yoshida whether it is possible for the investor to take (a large amount of)
Australian dollars back to Japan.
1 Sa:
M:
Y: Deki masu yo. Tada ano: Nihon itt s tashika issen man=
can COP FP but HES Japan as I recall ten million
Yes you can. But um Japan, as I recall, in the case of taking out
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Sa:
Masao’s “made, “ “up to” at the end of line 2 is the completion of his previous talk.
However, his previous talk, “Nihon wa go-hyaku man,” “Japan is five million” is
actually interrupting Yoshida’s talk. In fact Yoshida stopped upon Masao’s interruption,
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and even utters aizuchi to acknowledge Masao’s talk. Right after this aizuchi, Yoshida
attempts to resume his floor, but Masao’s “made” starts at the same time. As a result,
Yoshida once again stopped talking and restarted after Masao’s completion. The reason
for Masao’s interruption seems to correct Yoshida’s information regarding the amount
of money that requires declaration. Interestingly, Yoshida does not seem to fully
appreciate Masao’s correction, since he merely utters a short aizuchi, “ee,” and
continues his talk. This aizuchi function is understood as agreement on the surface.
However, as Yoshida’s understanding of the amount that can be taken out without tax,
which does not agree with Masao, this “agreement” seems to be only a “social
understanding was correct, then he would probably have uttered stronger understanding
aizuchi such as “aa soo desu ka,” “Oh I see.” Having searched for which of the two is
right, it turned out neither information seems to be correct. Whatever the true case is, at
this particular point, there seems to be some miscommunication between the two
participants, hence the flow of conversation is disrupted. This was the only example
found of non-floor holder’s self-completion11 in overlap with the current floor holder’s
talk.
Hesitation filler is to fill the current floor holder’s hesitation with an utterance that
contextually aligns with the current floor holder. See the following example:
Yoshida is concerned whether his name will also be disclosed when the article based on what they have
discussed in the meeting is published.
11 Thourh non-floor holder self claimed for the next floor upon interruption, the floor is not publicly
acknowledged.
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1 Sa: Waa - u h u
EX <laugh>
Wow
M: Iyat desu=
INT so
Well so
Y: e[e
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: = kana ] [u n]
wonder aizuchi
could do that. (agreement)
Y: ee
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Since Yoshida has been telling Sachiko and Masao a business secret, both Masao and
question, Masao is trying to solve the problem, but could not think of any solution
immediately, hence his very ambiguous reply with “that,” and ends up his talk followed
by a hesitation, “anoo” (line 1-2). Then Sachiko quickly starts her talk (end of line 2) as
if she is filling the space, which is created by Masao’s hesitation. From the way Sachiko
starts, it looks like information supply. However, Sachiko does not really give Masao
the information, rather she is also considering the situation. Thus, Sachiko’s utterance,
“doo shitara ii kana,” “I wonder what we could do” is to show her alignment with
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Yoshida’s question (line 1) is a very sensitive one, it should be more effective for Masao
and Sachiko not to produce any pause, which might give Yoshida an impression that
they are not being considerate. Given this, this type of overlap should be separated from
information supply. However, this is the only example of this kind found in the data.
For negative aizuchi, as Horiguchi (1997) discussed, two different types of aizuchi were
found. One is to show non-floor holder’s humble attitude towards the current floor
Masao has been talking about how much risk would be taken if one takes money (for investment) to
Hong Kong, since its economic situation is currently not very active. He then describes such as risk as
“ultra-high-risk,” which made the participants burst into laughter since the term he created sounds funny
as well as witty.
1 Sa: <laugh> =
M: <laugh> ne ha iyaiya =
INT < laugh> INT
Well
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Sa: = <laugh>urutora hai risuku - =
ultra high risk
M: = ieie<laugh> iyaiya =
no no no no
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: = =
M: ie ~
no
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Sa: =
M: iya iya
no no
Y:
= shimau /n desu/ nee ~
complete VN COP FP
words, aren’t you?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In this example, while laughing over the funny term, “ultra-high-risk,” Yoshida also
admires Masao for being witty in producing such a term. But Masao, who wants to
show his humble attitude towards his client, literally negates it rather than accepting
understanding towards the current floor holder as Suwako’s aizuchi in the following
example:
After Fumie’s unfortunate story about her lingerie being stolen, the participants shifted the topic to a
Japanese black market that sells girls used nickers.
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
12 “Iyaiya”in line 1 is not negation but an interjection, which is common to insert in the middle or at the
end of laughter.
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S: = [de
S: = yaa [da ]
dislike COP
Noooo
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Suwako, who was negated by Harue in regard to the price of girls’ used knickers (line
3) cannot really believe that they are sold for that much. Her aizuchi in line 4, which
presents a different tone from the ordinary understanding aizuchi (i.e. rising ending),
shows her doubt. Suwako also lost her floor through Harue’s silent interruption (i.e.
start of new turn by latching Suwako’s talk in line 3). Thus, after this aizuchi, she
interrupts Harue back by questioning how the price of knickers is decided with an
exclamation, “Yaa daa,” “Nooo.” But despite Suwako’s small resistance, Harue again
takes the floor from her (line 5) and continues talking. As this example shows, this type
of unsatisfactory aizuchi literally approves the current floor holder, though the tonic
Yoshida’s agreement aizuchi, “ee” towards Masao in line 2 also belongs to this type of
aizuchi. It is interesting to note that two negative aizuchi convey totally contrastive
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(Brown and Levinson, 1987;Leech, 1983) (i.e. the negative form for a compliment, and
approval form for counter argument etc.) The only negative aizuchi observed in the
However, there are overlaps that are uttered by the current floor holder. Since current
floor holder’s talk is secured under the publicly approved right to talk, overlaps the
current floor holder causes are mostly non-competitive. However, when a non-floor
holder threatens her/his right to talk for attempting to gain the floor, sometimes the
current floor holder protects her/his floor against the non-floor holder’s attempts to talk,
which causes competition between the two parties for the floor. Thus, in this section, I
will discuss non-competitive overlaps first, then move on to the competitive overlaps.
The term “non-competitive overlap” is used rather than “cooperative overlap,” since
under the right of talking, the current floor holder can lead the ongoing conversation.
However, this does not mean overlaps that the current floor holder causes are not
cooperative. For example, “reconfirmation,” and “self-clarification” are made for the
non-floor holder to understand the current floor holder’s talk better, hence, are
cooperative. On the other hand, to continue talking at non-floor holder’s aizuchi is not
talking may lead to domination of the conversational floor, which is not regarded as
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4.2.1.1 Reconfirmation
There is a case where a current floor holder reconfirms what s/he has just mentioned by
uttering a short utterance towards one or more non-floor holders’ aizuchi towards
Fumie is telling about her experience of missing her linen, which was mistakenly taken by one of her
neighbours. It eventually turned up on the laundry line, and Fumie assumes whoever took it returned it.
1 H:
S:
S: (0.3) Aa [soo]ka [h a a ha a]
aizuchi aizuchi
(understanding) (understanding)
F: =
wake yo. [u n] [hoshite oite] atta wake.
reason FP REC dried put existed reason
put it back (on the line) It was put and left (on the line).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In line 2, by overlapping Harue’s aizuchi towards Fumie, Fumie utters “un,” then
repeats what she has just mentioned to Suwako. As Suwako has already shown her
understanding of what Fumie said by her aizuchi, Fumie’s repetition of the former
utterance is not for seeking Suwako’s understanding but reconfirming what she
and a substantial talk or as an aizuchi term solely. Because of its formation, this
13 See Iwasaki (1997) for the discussion of “loop sequence” in relation to “mutual dependency” in
communication among Japanese.
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backchannel (Iwasaki, 1997).” However, Imaishi (1994) observed in her data that a
speaker shift takes place mostly after this kind of utterance. With this observation, she
argues that it is a signal to give up the floor hence it should be distinguished from
aizuchi. Although my data did not prove it to be a signal to give up one’s floor like
what Imaishi argues, considering the nature of aizuchi, that is a non-floor holder’s
supportive utterance towards the current floor holder, this study consistently uses the
term reconfirmation for this kind of overlap caused by a floor holder and distinguishes it
from aizuchi.
There is an occasion where the current floor holder notices that s/he has just mentioned
something vague or unclear which might not have been understood by non-floor
exchange:
Sachiko and Masao are interested in a tax strategy in the case of a Japanese person making a property
investment in Australia while living in Japan. Yoshida, who is a real estate broker, explains the way,
which is to establish a dummy company and open a bank account for the company.
1 Sa:
M:
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2 Sa: u - n
aizuchi
(continuer)
M: [a a ]
EX
Oh
Y: =
zenbu sono hito no:~ Oosutoraria no da[miigaisha] no=
whole that person P Australia P dummy company P
we put the whole amount in the person’s account for the dummy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: Kooza ni ne a - -
account P FP aizuchi
To the account. (understanding)
M: [Soo ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
Y: =
[kooza] irechau n desu. Soo sure ba uzd kireru=
account put VN COP that do CON HES can cut
company in Australia. In doing so, that with Japan,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Sa: [a - soode[su yo ne] u-n
aizuchi aizuchi
(understanding) (understanding)
M: Soo
aizuchi
(agreement)
Y: =
deshoo Nihon to [no are ga [setten ga] <talk continues>
COP Japan with P that P contact P
can be cut off.. (I mean) the contact (with Japan).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In line 3-4, Yoshida meant to say that contact with Japan would be cut off by using a
bank account for a dummy company. But he could not say the right word, “setten,”
“contact” at first. Instead, he used pronoun, “are,” “that” to refer to this word. Using the
mostly understand what the pronoun refers to out of context. This case is no exception.
It does not seem to be difficult to track down the reference of “are” since Yoshida has
given out enough information to understand the content of his talk. In fact Sachiko
utters understanding aizuchi. But to make sure that Sachiko and Masao understand what
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the current floor holder is not aware of being unclear in her/his talk. Compared with the
This is an overlap caused by a current floor holder continuing her/his talk while non-
floor holder(s) are uttering aizuchi towards herself/himself. There are two types of floor
previous talk that was grammatically incomplete and was encouraged by non-floor
holder’s continuer; and the other is to keep talking after reaching a possible turn
Harue is telling Suwako and Fumie about the day she was stood up by her supervisor.
S: u-[n
aizuchi
(evaluation)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = shiyoo kaeroo kana to omotte kita wake. [De watashi mo=
do VO go home VOLwonderQUOT think come reason and I also
thought what I should do, and I started to think of going home. And I
S: u[ - =
aizuchi
(understanding)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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S: = n ]
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: = kara <talk continues>
since
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In line 1 and 2, Harue continues talking over Suwako’s aizuchi, which functions as her
sympathetic evaluation (note her up and down intonation of her aizuchi) and may well
complete, but they are not pragmatically complete. Harue’s first continuation in line 1 is
overlapping only at the end of Suwako’s aizuchi, whereas, the latter continuation in line
2 overlaps at the very beginning of Suwako’s aizuchi. It is assumed that the latter type
difficult for a non-floor holder to judge whether the current floor holder is about to
The participants have been talking about Harue’s neighbour sneakily using the laundry stand which
belongs to the building Harue lives. Harue compares the neighbour with a Thai family who live above her
flat, and decently use only one side of the laundry stand whether or not the other sides are available.
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = nanka (0.2) Yon Yon men Yon (0.3) shi-hoo aru wake=
AP four four side four four direction exist reason
Something like, four, four sides, it has four sides,
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: = no yo. De ~ daitai] (0.5) re erai hito da na to omotta=
FP FP and originally admirable personCOP FP QUOT thought
And I originally thought that they are admirable.
S: u n u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
F: u - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 H: = no ne.
FP FP
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At the beginning of line 4, Harue seems to have concluded her talk, and the other two
utter understanding aizuchi. However, immediately after the others started their aizuchi,
Harue resumes her talk with conjunction “de,” “and” at high volume, followed by her
breathing in, which seems to declare that she still wants to hold the floor. After
breathing in, Harue starts with “daitai,” “originally” but ceases and causes a relatively
long pause of 0.5 seconds. After the pause, she continues her turn, but the information
given in the talk is nothing new. After this talk, Harue holds the floor quite a while to
talk about the Thai family. So her continuation in line 4 seems to be rather strategic to
keep her floor. However, as the other two merely utter aizuchi, Harue’s action cannot be
regarded as competitive.
Apart from the overlaps discussed above, as I mentioned in the previous section, early
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reply and misjudging turn completion (e.g. towards non-floor holder’s support work
such as a clarification question) are also caused by the current floor holder. Since they
The only competitive overlap caused by the current floor holder is “floor hold.” Unlike
floor continuation, it causes competition with non-floor holder for the floor.
When a current floor holder wants to retain her/his floor upon an occasion when another
participant is about to take it, s/he occasionally signals that s/he has more to say. I refer
to this as “floor hold.” As discussed in the interruption section, “to compete against the
interrupter for retaining the floor” is one kind of floor hold, as in the following example:
Harue is talking about a shadowy business that buys undies from high school girls and sells them to
sexual perverts secretly.
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = sugoi hai benefitto mitaina koto yattete:~ [de tekihatsu=
very high benefit like thing do and and charge
it made a high profit or something and was charged
S:
F: Sono[ato ne :
that after FP
After that you see
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When Harue stopped talking to breath in to continue her story, Fumie takes a new floor
(line 2). Before this topic, the participants had been talking about Fumie’s stolen
underwear, and Fumie’s utterance, “sono (that) ato (after)” indicates “after the incident
of her underwear being stolen.” Although Fumie starts after Harue has stopped, Harue’s
Fumie started, Harue interrupts her and continues her talk. As the conversational floor
was originally owned by Harue, and she has not finished her talk when Fumie started,
Harue’s action was for “holding her ongoing floor” by counter-interrupting Fumie.
Floor hold also takes place without there being interruption. The following example is
from the missing linen exchange, which took place right after the exchange in (19)
above:
Fumie is telling about her experience when she found her missing linen, which was accidentally taken by
one of her neighbours. Before finding it, she asked all her neighbours about it.
1 H:
S:
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Chapter 5
2 H: [u-n un un /de]/
aizuchi and
(understanding)
S:
F: =
[mottetta” tte yutte: so]ide:(0.6)soshite ittara saa pott=
took QUOT said and then wentCON FP MIM
took (it)” And when I went there, suddenly
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: /ji[shin/ga:=
confidence P
But (he was)
S: (0.6)
S:
F: = <talk continues>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
After talking about how she found the missing linen, Fumie stops in line 3. Her
reconfirmation utterance “dakara soo” “that’s it” after 0.6 second pause seems to
indicate the end of her talk, and Harue starts talking. But right after Harue has started,
Fumie repeats the previous utterance with one more “soo,” which makes the expression
stronger. This utterance can be understood as Fumie’s intention to talk further. Harue’s
talk in line 3 and 4 is supportive of what Fumie had said, rather than competing against
her. However, Harue’s turn is long enough to threaten Fumie’s right to talk. As a result,
Fumie once again had to stop in line 4, making another floor hold by repeating “but”
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There are other types of overlap that belong neither to non-floor holder’s overlap
towards the current floor holder, nor to the current floor holder’s overlap towards non-
floor holder. They include a participant’s legitimate start at floor free zone, overlaps
between non-floor holders, and ones where the number of samples in the data is too
In a conversation, there are places where one may start her / his floor freely. I call this
place as “floor free zone.” The most obvious floor-free zone is a pause after the current
floor holder has released the floor. Apart from a pause, there are two other floor-free
zones. One is during aizuchi or reconfirmation after the current floor holder completes
The participants are talking about Fumie’s experience of her underwear being stolen.
1 H:
S:
S: [u -[ n - =
aizuchi
(evaluation)
F: =
nee~ [yonayona ha]ite n no ka[moshire[nai].
FP every night wear VN may
may wear them every night.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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S: = - ]
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: = <talk continues>
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
evaluation by Suwako. Harue utters her aizuchi early and introduces a new floor during
Suwako’s aizuchi towards Fumie. Precisely speaking, upon Suwako’s aizuchi towards
Fumie, the floor still belongs to Fumie. However, since she has obviously concluded her
aizuchi as a floor-free zone, where anyone (except Suwako herself who is uttering an
Another floor-free zone is observed in laughter. There are various types of laughter
talk and so on. The laughter that can be regarded as floor-free is the one that is observed
at the end of someone’s floor (e.g. the floor holder bursts into laughter to which the
others follow or vice versa). The laughter by Harue and Suwako in the exchange (38)
Suwako is talking about her experience with her clothes on the laundry line being thrown away by her
neighbour.
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1 H: [Uso[ - - ]
lie (aizuchi)
You are kidding (evaluation)
F: [na n ka]
AP
Well
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: [ya: <laugh> [So: <laugh>
no so ( aizuchi)
No su(ch a thing) (evaluation)
Since Suwako had already come to the end of her story at which there was laughter, no
more talk is expected to continue. Fumie, who has already indicated her intention to talk
next in her floor bidding, therefore successfully takes this opportunity and starts her talk
legitimately. At the floor free zone, it is also possible for more than one participant to
the followings:
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Chapter 5
*An utterance that is targeted at other than the person who is being overlapped.
The latter overlap includes the sub-floor holder talking to the non-floor holder(s) for the
These overlaps have already been discussed in section 4 in Chapter 4. Overlap that a
non-floor holder targets another non-floor holder will be further discussed in Chapter 6.
Apart from the all presented types of overlaps, there are a few other types of overlaps
that are observed in the collected data but are not discussed in this study. They are: 1.
one’s talk to herself / himself overlapping another’s talk, and 2. one’s laughter
interpersonal utterance, and the samples of this kind of utterance in the collected data
are very few. For laughter, as discussed in Chapter 4, laughter itself is not substantial
talk, and can solely be discussed in deeper level in studies of communication (e.g.
Jefferson, 1984, 2004), hence it is excluded from discussion in this study. However, as
5. Conclusion
This chapter began by pointing out the problem that lies in previous studies of overlap,
that is, exclusion of aizuchi from analysis. As some scholars argue, the majority of
overlaps in Japanese conversation are aizuchi, which is also demonstrated by the data of
this study. There is an opinion that including such a large number of aizuchi, which
merely conveys non-floor holder’s acknowledgement towards the current floor holder’s
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talk, may prevent researchers from analysing non-aizuchi overlap carefully. However,
the form and function of aizuchi vary, and sometimes they function to do more than just
show acknowledgment. Also, what function and form are observed in conversation is
quite interesting. Thus, this study primarily analysed all overlaps in terms of their
function and form. Secondly, the approach and the method of classification were
discussed. In overlap classification, there are two approaches; the one is classifying
overlap by form, and the other is by function. The overlap classification in this study is
part of smooth turn shift and is excluded from the discussion may functionally deliver a
The classification of overlap in this study took has been done by analysing each overlap
in terms of who overlaps whom and how it functions. The overlaps are divided into
three groups; non-floor holder’s overlap towards the current floor holder, current floor
holder’s overlap towards non-floor holder and other types of overlap. The first two
groups are further divided to cooperative overlap and competitive overlaps. Cooperative
overlaps are aiming at supporting the current floor holder’s talk, which include aizuchi,
for the floor holder. Competitive overlaps cause the involved participants’ competition
over the right to talk, which includes “floor bidding” and “interruption” for the non-
floor holder and “floor hold” for the floor holder. It was also suggested that these
overlaps are classified only by their surface function. In other words, some overlaps
may work differently from what would be expected from their surface function. There
are overlaps that are neither cooperative nor competitive in nature, hence neutral (e.g.
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“turn completion misjudgement”). There are also overlaps that neither belonging to
floor holder nor non-floor holder, and that are excluded from the analysis (e.g. talking to
oneself, overlapping laughters etc.) Based on this method, all overlaps in the collected
data are classified. The next two chapters will discuss the conversational style of the
functions. These quantities suggest not just overall tendencies of the participan’s
communication style, but also clarify what elements are related to create overlaps. Then
I will shift the discussion from quantitative to qualitative, and will investigate
by the participants. For this investigation, from a variety of data sources, the first
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1. Introduction
presented the method of classification of overlap in this study. I then discussed each
overlap category with actual examples. From the classification, the following points
were noticed:
ii) Overlaps are not always initiated by a non-floor holder; there are overlaps
iii) Overlaps of both floor holder and non-floor holder include cooperative
overlap type and competitive overlap types, and there are overlaps that are
iv) In a multi-party conversation, the participant’s talk that overlaps the current
floor holder’s talk is not necessarily targeted at the current floor holder.
Based on the classification, all overlaps were classified and summarised in tables. These
tables show each participant’s overlap per function towards the rest of the parties in the
conversation.1 Such tables are presented for each participant in each conversation.
Hence, in total, there are 21 tables from the data (i.e. 3 participants x 3 conversations =
1
These tables are at times complex. The explanation on how to read the tables is in the Appendix 2.
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2
involved). By examining the number of overlaps and functions, this chapter first
discusses the quantitative aspects of overlap in the data. In this first part, I will first
the quantity of each function amongst all the overlaps appearing in the data. Then I will
formality, the genre, the topic and the setting of the conversations. The second part of
this chapter will discuss two issues qualitatively. First, it will focus on a few
this discussion include the strategic use of aizuchi and “third-party approach,” in which
talk cooperatively overlaps the current floor holder, and conveys a message to the other
person at the same time. Second, cultural adjustment and cultural transfer in one’s
discourse style will be discussed using examples from the data. Investigation of overlap
After completing all the tables, the numbers of overlaps in each function were
3
summated. The table below shows the total number of overlaps per function. This
section discusses some trends in overlap frequencies observed in the data, which have
not been discussed much in previous studies. Therefore there will be no comprehensive
2
As there are many tables, they are placed in the Appendix 2 and are referred to when discussed.
3
Note that the total number of overlaps shown in the table does not match the actual number of overlaps
in the data. This is because: a) simultaneous starts have been excluded; b) in cases where an utterance
overlaps more than one person, its function is counted plurally since the function of overlap in this study
is examined on the basis of participant (who overlaps) to participant (who is being overlapped). As this
study discusses overlaps in terms of its function, the number used in the discussion hereafter indicates the
quantity of overlap per function.
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Chapter 6
2.1.1 aizuchi
others 17 0.7
agreement aizuchi T 399 15.4
others 33 1.3
evaluation aizuchi T 15 0.6
others 80 3.1
non-floor holder
clarification Q 47 1.8
info. supply 21 0.8
early reply 72 2.8
other completion early 37 1.4
choral 13 0.5
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As the table shows, the first three major overlap functions in terms of their frequency
are all aizuchi overlaps that take the form of an aizuchi term (1st. 399 agreements, 2nd.
335 understandings, and 3rd. 239 continuers), which total 37.5% of all overlaps. The
next two most frequent overlap functions are aizuchi follower and reconfirmation with
When the numbers of these two types of overlap and evaluations that appear as aizuchi
terms are added to the first three, the total number of overlaps that take the form of an
aizuchi term is 1288, which is 49.7% of all overlaps. This result indicates that Japanese
use a large number of aizuchi terms in these conversations. When focusing on non-floor
holder’s direct aizuchi towards the floor holder, which includes both aizuchi terms and
other forms such as repetition or paraphrase, the total number of aizuchi overlaps
reaches 1120 (43.2%). If aizuchi follower, which is a non-floor holder’s indirect aizuchi
towards the current floor holder, is also included, the number increases by 168 (6.5%)
and reaches 1288 (49.7%), which is almost half of the total number of overlaps. The
Japanese conversation are aizuchi (e.g. Fujii, 1997; Honda, 1997; Ikoma, 1996). The
above quantitative analysis of aizuchi terms and aizuchi functions can be summarised in
Figure 6.1 Proportion of aizuchi (+aizuchi followers) and aizuchi terms used
in total number of overlaps
aizuchi term
reconfirmation
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Chapter 6
Both of the number of aizuchi terms and the number of aizuchi (including aizuchi
follower) are almost half of the total number of overlaps, though aizuchi terms and
aizuchi do not exactly match, as Figure 6.1 shows. Previous studies of Japanese
overlaps have either totally excluded aizuchi or have excluded aizuchi that take the
form of an aizuchi term. Furthermore, overlap that is initiated by the current floor
holder, such as a reconfirmation, has hardly ever been discussed. This is because
and no consensus has been reached among scholars about how to deal with aizuchi (i.e.
what aizuchi is and whether aizuchi is a turn or not).4 Reconfirmation seems to have
been dealt with in such studies as aizuchi. If the number of reconfirmation is also
included in the number of aizuchi and aizuchi follower, then the total becomes 1445
(55.7%). Considering the frequencies of other overlap functions, this proportion is very
large. Thus, it is understandable that scholars remove them from their analyses in order
to place a clear focus on the analysis that involves substantial talk. However, as aizuchi
Japanese conversation. In this regard, I will examine the result of each function of
In the data, aizuchi frequency per function is ordered (from the most frequent to the
4
See the discussion of turn and floor in Chapter 4 and discussion of aizuchi in Chapter 5.
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Chapter 6
2. understanding (352)
3. continuer (241)
Total (1120)
In Table 6.2, the combined number of agreement aizuchi and understanding aizuchi
(784) occupies over two-thirds of the total number of aizuchi. The number of
continuers is also large, but they are much fewer than the first two aizuchi functions. As
for evaluation, the number is relatively small compared with the other functions. This is
probably because evaluative aizuchi is directly related to the non-floor holder’s high
involvement in the conversation, more so than with the other functions, and its
frequency in a conversation varies depending upon what the participants talk about and
how they are involved in the conversation (e.g. whether the topic is attractive/surprising
enough for the participant(s) to utter evaluations). Also, as discussed in the previous
forms. This is demonstrated in the following table that shows the order of aizuchi
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Table 6.3 shows that while the majority of agreement, understanding and continuer
appears in a form of aizuchi terms (see the top three most frequent aizuchi), evaluation
is the only one that appears more frequently in forms (80) other than aizuchi terms (15).
of its appearance in forms other than aizuchi terms is extremely small (2 out of 241;
0.8%) compared with agreement (33 out of 432; 7.6%) and understanding (17 out of
352; 4.8%) aizuchi. This may be explained by the function of a continuer. Continuers
encourage the current floor holder to continue talking in order for the non-floor holder
to more fully understand what the talk is about, or to at least acknowledge that more
talk is to come. In other words, at the time of uttering a continuer, the non-floor holder
is in the process of obtaining information from the current floor holder. Thus, it seems
to be more rational for the non-floor holder to react with a short aizuchi term such as
“un” or “u-n” than with other forms such as repetition or paraphrasing and so on, so
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Chapter 6
that the large number of agreement and understanding aizuchi show the participants’
intention to be involved in the ongoing conversation more actively than just listening to
As discussed in the previous chapter, non-floor holder’s overlap type is divided into two
major functional categories, that is, cooperative overlap which supports the current floor
holder’s talk and competitive overlap by which a non-floor holder competes for the
floor against the current floor holder. Among 14 functional categories of non-floor
holder’s overlap, competitive overlap includes only floor bidding and interruption. The
individual function. Of all overlaps in the data, it constitutes 4.0% of total overlap
overlaps, the frequency goes up to 6.0%, as shown in Figure 6.2. Furthermore, when
the number of aizuchi and aizuchi follower are excluded from the calculation, the
frequency of interruption reaches 24.5%. This means, among non-floor holder’s non-
aizuchi overlap, almost one in four overlaps is an interruption, as Figure 6.3 shows. This
findings may be expected according to whether or not the data includes aizuchi.
Previous studies that exclude aizuchi5 from the analysis suggest that there are few
Fujii, 1997; Honda, 1997; Ikoma, 1996). Rather, they point out that most interruptive
5
Note that the definitions of aizuchi are slightly different in each of these studies.
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Chapter 6
0.9%
Figure 6.2 3.1%
Overlap by non-floor holders
1.6%
6.0%
1.9% aizuchi (65.4%)
clarification Q (2.8%)
info. Supply 1.2%)
9.9%
early reply (4.2%)
early completion (2.2%)
0.8% Choral completion (0.8%)
2.2% aizuchi follower (9.9%)
4.2% floor bidding (1.9%)
1.2% interruption (6.0%)
65.4% new turn at TRP (1.6%)
2.8%
TC misjudge (3.1%)
miscellaneous (0.9%)
3.8%
11.2%
12.6%
5.0%
clarification Q (11.2%)
6.4%
info. Supply (5%)
early reply (17.1%)
17.1%
early completion (8.8%)
choral completion (3.1%)
floor bidding (7.6%)
interruption (24.5%)
24.5% new turn at TRP (6.4%)
8.8%
TC misjudge (12.6%)
3.1% miscellaneous (3.8%)
7.6%
different from study to study. Whether such an interruption is judged as disrupting the
other or as promoting the conversation seems to rely more on one’s subjective view.
There may be a case where a participant feels rather uncomfortable about being
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Chapter 6
interrupted throughout the conversation, although the conversation itself flows actively.
compare the results of this study with previous ones. Despite excluding some
cooperative functions from the data, which are often dealt with as interruptions, the
number of interruptions in the data is large. This number is larger compared with Honda
and Fujii, who also investigated multi-party conversations (12.3% in Honda and 18.7%
non-floor holders increases to 7.9% in all of their overlaps, and to 32.1% in overlaps
without aizuchi overlaps. Apart from the definition of interruption, the reason for the
difference in its frequency seems due to other elements that construct a conversation,
such as setting, genre, participants’ social distance, etc. This will be discussed in section
2.2 below.
The number of overlaps initiated by floor holders is 553 in total, which is about 21.3%
of the total number of overlaps as shown in Figure 6.4 below. This means that
approximately one in five overlaps is initiated by the current floor holder, and it shows
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Chapter 6
5.7%
7.1%
Excluded (5.7%)
65.9%
The overlap function used by floor holders is shown in Figure 6.5 below. The figure
clearly shows three functions that appeared most in almost equal frequency. They are
reconfirmation (157) and two types of floor continuations (155 and 156).
reconfirm what s/he previously mentioned and to accept the non-floor holder’s aizuchi.
This has not been extensively discussed in previous studies, with a few exceptions (e.g.
Imaishi, 1994; Ikeda, 2004; Iwasaki, 1997). Thus, it is assumed that reconfirmation is
regarded as one of aizuchi. The proportion of its frequency in the floor holder’s
overlaps (28.4%) may suggest a certain conversational style of Japanese. That is, even
when holding the floor (i.e. having the right to talk), while proceeding with her/his talk,
the current floor holder constantly monitors non-floor holder’s reactions to check
whether her/his talk is being followed by the non-floor holder, and actively interacts
discuss that the floor holder claims non-floor holder(s) for aizuchi. However, the floor
holder’s signal towards non-floor holder’s aizuchi has not been discussed much until
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quite recently (Ikeda, 2004;Iwasaki, 1997).6 It is, thus, interesting to see in the data the
11.6%
reconfirm (28.4%)
28.4%
self clarification (1.6%)
two types: that is, to continue talking in order to complete previous talk (shown as NC,
i.e. not completed), and to continue one’s floor by introducing another turn after
completing her/his previous turn upon which the non-floor holder uttered aizuchi
(shown as C, i.e. completed). While a non-floor holder expects the current floor holder
to continue after her/his aizuchi in the former type of continuation, it is not always the
case in the latter type of continuation (see 4.2.1.3 in Chapter 5). Hence, the latter type of
continuation sometimes causes competition against a non-floor holder who believes the
current floor holder’s turn is over and tries to start a new turn to take the next floor.
Coincidentally, the frequency of the two functions in the data turned out to be almost
the same (155 and 156). However, the two types of floor continuations do not
6
As presented in the previous chapter, Iwasaki (1997)refers to the floor holder’s signal as back-
backchannel and extensively discusses interactional sequences, or “loop” in his terms, by the participants.
Ikeda (2004) also discusses it as “three-turn sequence.”
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necessarily appear with similar frequency. The proportion of their appearance varies
After the three main functions used by the floor holder, floor hold is the next most
frequent function (64, 11.6%), though it is not as frequent as the previous three
functions. Floor hold is a current floor holder’s action to retain her/his floor when a
non-floor holder starts a full turn before the current floor holder has completed her/his
floor. Floor hold can be compared with floor continuations in terms of the floor
appears in the midst of the other party’s full turn. Where the number of floor hold is
added to floor continuation (C), which may cause competition against the non-floor
holder, the number is 220 and 39.8% of total overlaps by floor holders. This ratio
reflects the floor holder’s attempts to talk for a long time. However, the number does
affected by a number of variables that construct the conversation (e.g. topic, number of
Overall, how floor holders act in conversation can be observed from the data. Though
these observations are limited to the conversational data in this study only, they suggest
that the floor holder does not just say what s/he wants by taking advantage of holding
the current floor, but constantly monitors non-floor holders’ reactions and deals with
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The previous section discussed overall frequency of overlap in the data. However, as
that construct conversation. These variables include the number of participants, social
distance of the participants that creates a level of formality, the setting (in a meeting
room, at a café etc.), the genre (e.g. interview, informal chat, buying and selling,
business meeting etc.), the topic, and the individual’s style of participation. This section
data.
any side floor.7 Thus, whether it is cooperative or competitive, any overlap will always
take place between the same participants. On the other hand, in a multi-party
conversation, it is possible that more than one person self-selects to be the next speaker
when the current floor holder does not select the next speaker. This may cause overlap
between the self-selectors. Thus, it is assumed that overlap frequency increases with the
number of participants. Honda (1997) reports in her data that overlaps in a multi-party
conversation with three or more participants appeared more than twice as frequently as
in a dyadic conversation. As dyadic conversation is not included in the data set for this
study, two multi-party conversations with a different number of participants are used to
investigate the relation between the number of participants and overlap frequency. To
minimise the affect of other factors, two conversations with a similar genre (i.e.
7
For example, one of the participants starts verbally counting number of pages, or order drink to the
waiter at the café while talking to the other party.
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Chapter 6
informal chat among colleagues) and similar participants were chosen. They are the
second informant’s (Harue) two informal chats with her colleagues (conversation H-2
and H-3). Though there are differences in some of the variables that construct the
conversations, these two have been chosen because they are the most similar in the
collected conversational data. The following table shows the detail of the conversations
Harue participated in both of the conversations. However, the same colleagues did not
participate in both conversations. The topic of conversation in H-2 varies, but it mainly
focuses on a dispute with neighbours in which Harue was involved. The topic of
one of the participants, Eri, the previous night. Although the topics of each conversation
are different, they are similar in terms of their focus on one person’s unwelcome
number of participants between the two conversations is one. The table shows two
different total numbers of overlaps: the one with the asterisk shows the raw number of
overlaps, including simultaneous starts; and the other numbers in the shaded cells show
the functional overlap frequency (see footnote 3 in this chapter). As duration of the two
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conversations is substantially different, these overlaps were recalculated per minute and
The overlap frequency for both categories is larger in conversation H-3 than in
conversation H-2. This result indicates the relation between the number of participants
and overlap frequency. Looking at the increasing rate of overlap from conversation H-2
(three participants) to conversation H-3 (four participants), the raw frequency of overlap
increases by 62.4% (from 23.7 to 38.5 per minute) and the frequency of functional
overlaps increases by 109.3% (from 23.7 to 49.6 per minute). To show more detail,
overlap frequencies in the two conversations were summarised per function as in the
following table.
in which the number of overlaps has increased by over 50% include aizuchi, other
cooperative overlaps (i.e. clarification question, information supply, early reply and
early and choral completions), reconfirmation and floor holder’s competitive overlaps
(i.e. floor hold). Among these functions, the rate of increase is particularly high in non-
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floor holder’s other cooperative overlaps and aizuchi followers. This indicates not just
non-floor holders’ more cooperative overlaps with the current floor holder, but also
note that competitive overlaps did not increase as much as cooperative overlaps.8
Another thing to point out is the low rate of increase of floor holder’s overlaps in floor
conversation, there is only one floor holder (or two in the case of a shared floor). Thus,
the number of floor continuations by the current floor holder is not affected by the
number of participants. However, this may not be the case for reconfirmation, since it
more complicated, since the more people involved in the conversation, the larger the
number of non-floor holders. Hence, there will be more cooperative overlaps including
aizuchi directed at the current floor holder, as well as more aizuchi followers to other
non- floor holder’s aizuchi. However, the number of competitive overlaps does not
overlaps. In her discussion of the number of overlaps, Honda (1997) only distinguishes
dyadic conversations from multi-party conversations, and is not concerned with the
number of participants in multi-party conversations. Thus, the result of this study may
however, this formula may not always apply to any multi-party conversation, since
8
Although the number of floor holder’s competitive overlaps has increased by 60%, their overlap
frequencies are very low. Thus, this ratio is not feasible for any argument. This also applies to floor
holder’s other non-competitive overlaps (i.e. early reply and self clarification).
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Chapter 6
there are multi-party conversations that take place in the form of formal meetings,
where a convenor controls turn-taking or summarises what has been discussed, and so
on. In such a case, there will be less overlap. Thus, the result is most likely to be
applicable for informal chat, which is not officially controlled by any of the
participants.9
communication. Although those elements are intertwined, researchers argue that the
communication style of the Japanese is primarily concerned with the participants’ social
participants’ social relation (e.g. age, status etc.), and argues that it is this distance that
primarily determines one’s communicative action. Usami (1994) also argues that the
social status or the age of the participants that creates power in relation with others,
the level of formality or politeness. Both Uchida and Usami report salient
socially superior people when communicating with a person who is younger than, or
With this in mind, I make an assumption that there is a difference in the number of
overlaps between conversations with a person who is socially distant, and talk to a
person who is socially close. However, unfortunately, in my data the majority of the
9
See Drew and Heritage (1992) for discussion of “institutional talk,” where organisation of interaction is
different from ordinary conversation.
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Chapter 6
participants’ social distance is close or relatively close (i.e. family members and
colleagues who have known each other many years) to the informants. There is only
one person who is regarded as distant to one of the informants, namely Yoshida, who
husband Masao. In the conversation, Sachiko and Masao seek information from
Yoshida for an article to be published in the next issue of their magazine. This small
section examines the participants’ overlaps in this triadic conversation. The three
make a clear contrast, only cooperative and competitive overlaps were focused on, and
other types of overlap (e.g. misjudging turn completion, miscellaneous and others) are
excluded from the table. Floor holder’s floor continuations may not precisely fall into
any of the two overlap types, hence are marked as “neutral” in the tables. However, they
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In Sachiko’s overlap (Table 6.6), the most prominent number is her aizuchi towards
Yoshida (130). When this number is recalculated per minutes, Sachiko utters aizuchi
towards Yoshida 4.3 times per minute, or every 14 seconds. Compared with other
participants’ aizuchi frequency per minute, which is about 2 in the Academic Meeting
and 3+ in the lively conversation among colleagues (i.e. H-2 and H-3), this number
indicates a very high frequency of aizuchi. When the number is combined with other
further increase to 141. This number is a clear contrast to her overlap towards Masao.
She overlaps Masao 69 times, which is less than half the amount of her cooperative
overlaps towards Yoshida. Sachiko’s competitive overlaps as a non-floor holder are not
many. But still, the number of her competitive overlaps towards Yoshida is half of her
overlaps to Masao. As a floor holder, there is not much difference in her cooperative
overlaps to the other two participants. Sachiko’s cooperative overlap towards Yoshida
(6) are slightly more than her overlaps towards Masao (2). However, looking at her
competitive overlap, Sachiko, when holding the floor, does not overlap Yoshida
her floor. From these numbers, Sachiko’s communication style to Yoshida, who has a
certain social distance to Sachiko, is more cooperative and less competitive than her
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practice towards somebody who is socially distant, Masao’s overlap data is also
examined. Being a married couple and company colleagues, the relationship between
Sachiko and Yoshida is regarded to be comparable to that between Masao and Yoshida.
Yoshida (91) more cooperatively than he does Sachiko (68), which is approximately 1.3
times more frequently. As for competitive overlap, his overlap frequency towards
Yoshida (11) is less than half of that to Sachiko (26). Thus, it can be argued that
On the other hand, his overlap pattern as a floor holder is slightly different from
cooperative overlap frequency towards Sachiko (32) well exceeds that to Yoshida (10).
by Masao and Sachiko, and the number of floor continuations. Both Sachiko and
Masao’s non-aizuchi cooperative overlaps show more frequency to each other than to
Yoshida. This seems to be due to their role in the conversation. They both represent the
same company and share the most information passed on to Yoshida. What Sachiko and
each other indicate that they talk to Yoshida more than talking to each other. This is
because the purpose of the talk for Sachiko and Masao was to get information from
Yoshida for their next publication, hence their talk mostly goes two ways rather than
three ways as in the following figure. The thick arrow indicates the direction of the
main talk.
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Masao
cooperate Yoshida
Sachko
Note: Thick arrow: direction of the main talk (i.e. between the couple and Yoshida).
Thin arrow: direction of talk for building the main talk (i.e. between Masao and Sachiko).
Broken arrow: direction of talk between the individuals, (i.e. between Masao and Yoshida, and Sachiko and
Yoshida).
The thick arrow is slightly closer to Masao because he mainly talks to Yoshida by
representing the couple. Thus, the larger quantity of their cooperative overlaps with
each other rather than to Yoshida is due to their cooperation in building up more
concrete information or queries for better communication with Yoshida. For this reason,
cooperative overlap frequency does not seem to be directly related to the participants’
social distance. Given this, and with only one competitive overlap to Yoshida, it is
feasible to say that Masao’s overlap style to Yoshida is also more cooperative and less
competitive.
For Yoshida, both Sachiko and Masao are socially distant. In order to find out how he
communicates with the two of them, his overlap frequency is now examined. Since
social distance between Yoshida and Sachiko is the same as between Yoshida and
Masao, if a more cooperative/less competitive style is feasible for the socially distant
person, then it can be assumed that Yoshida’s overlap frequency towards the two people
would be similar. However, as Table 6.8 above shows, the reality does not meet this
expectation. Apart from his competitive overlap quantity (zero) as a non-floor holder,
Yoshida’s overlap frequencies towards the other two participants are uneven. The
reason for these uneven frequencies once again seems to be related to the amount of talk
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assigned to each individual participant. For example, Yoshida’s larger number of floor
Yoshida’s larger quantity of aizuchi towards Masao matches Masao’s larger quantity of
floor continuations to Yoshida. Thus, these numbers do not seem to be directly related
to their social distance either. However, his zero quantity of competitive overlaps as a
non-floor holder seems to suggest a less competitive style to the person who is socially
distant.
From these participants’ overlap styles, it is suggested that for a person whom one
uttering more cooperative overlaps and fewer competitive overlaps (rather than
decreasing the overall number of overlaps) to show her/his politeness. For cooperative
politeness. The breakdown of the participants’ aizuchi frequency towards their socially
First, apart from understanding, Yoshida’s aizuchi frequencies are small. As already
explained, the reason for the low quantity seems to relate to his amount of talk (i.e. he is
a provider of information what the couple seek throughout the conversation). Thus,
putting aside Yoshida’s data, discussion concentrates on Sachiko and Masao’s aizuchi.
In this table, Sachiko and Masao’s frequency of use of continuers is striking. Indeed,
among all participants’ data belonging to continuer use, these are the top two
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frequencies.10 Sachiko’s understanding and Masao’s agreement are also rated amongst
the top frequencies (i.e. Sachiko’s is the second and Masao’s is the fourth) in the same
function among the collected data. However, given that there are other examples of
similar frequency in an informal chat, it cannot be argued that more aizuchi are used for
the socially distant person. In my data, in which 4 out of 6 conversations are informal,
compared with understanding and agreement, there are not many continuers observed.
Although the course each conversation ran needs to be considered (e.g. where there is
more story telling, the frequency of continuers may increase), perhaps uttering
continuers more often may be a kind of good strategy to demonstrate one’s humble
attitude to give the other party freedom to talk. It is assumed that, by this strategy, one
tries to create a more comfortable atmosphere for the other party so that their social
distance becomes closer for better communication. For closer friends whose social
relationship has already been established, such a sensitivity or consideration for the
others would not be needed that much, hence it seems to be allowed to skip this kind of
aizuchi.
This section has discussed how overlap appears in relation to the participants’ social
distance using the Business Talk example. It should be noted that what this section has
discussed are limited to suggestive trends, since it is very difficult to make strong
claims due to the possible influence of social variables such as gender, age, social
status, genre etc. Before concluding this section, one more thing needs to be pointed
out from the data. That is, the couple’s substantial difference of aizuchi frequency to
Yoshida. Both are the same social distance from Yoshida, so what can be the reason for
10
Due to differences of their recording duration, the overlap frequencies discussed here are recalculated
per minute.
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such a big difference? Two issues come up. The first is their age difference and the
other is their gender difference. As this involves more gender issues, I will discuss it
Where a conversation takes place also affects conversational style. For example, even
the work environment. Similarly, how the participants participate physically in the
conversation (e.g. seating, physical distance between the participants etc.) may also
affect the style. To find out how conversational style changes in different settings, it is
preferable to investigate two or more conversations with a similar genre and the same
participants, but in a different setting. Unfortunately, the collected data does not
perfectly satisfy these conditions. Thus, here, I chose two conversations among the
collected data that carry the most similar conditions but different settings. They are
Sachiko’s two informal conversations (conversations Sa-2 and Sa-3) in which Sachiko
and Masao are involved. Though they are both informal chats, the genres of these
conversations are not precisely the same, since Conversation Sa-3 is Family Talk, which
recording between the two. However, given that the all participants in the informal Chat
at Work (conversation Sa-2) are from the same family, I regard them to be more
appropriate for the investigation than the other collected data. The frequency of overlaps
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floor holder
No of overlap* non-floor holder (aizuchi) (competitive) (competitive)
Sachiko 10 3(3) (0) 7(0)
Masao 7 6(0) (5) 1(1)
Chie 4 4(4) (0) 0(0)
*total number of overlap - (excluded + others)11
Table 6.11 Number of overlaps in Sa-3 (Family Talk at Breakfast) 9mins 15secs
At first glance, the frequencies of overlap in these conversations look similar. However,
it has to be noted that the length of conversation in Sa-3 (9 mins 15 secs) is almost
double the length of Sa-2 (4 mins 33 secs). Compared with other informal chats in
which the second informant, Harue, is involved (see the tables in the Appendix 2), 10
low frequency of overlap in Sa-3. The reason for such a low frequency of overlap in
Conversation Sa-2, all of the participants were sitting in the office, facing their desks
when they were talking. It is likely that they could not always see the others unless they
moved their heads. In fact, this conversation suddenly concludes without being noticed
by Sachiko and Chie, since Masao abruptly withdraws himself from the conversation
11
For the detail of “excluded overlaps” and “others,” see Chapter 5.
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and starts making a phone call.12 Given this, the participants did not seem to concentrate
just on talking, which may have caused the low frequency of overlap. As for
Conversation Sa-3, at first all three participants were sitting at the dining table and
eating breakfast. However, they left the table one by one soon after they had finished
eating and moved from one place to another for a number of purposes such as washing
plates or tidying up the things around them. This is probably a typical family scene that
is observed in the morning. Each person is engaged in different activities after breakfast
to get ready for the day. Thus, in this conversation too, the participants did not
concentrate just on talking. In contrast, in the two other informal chats in which Harue
is involved, the participants sit facing each other throughout the talk. Thus, it is
assumed that the way one physically participates in the conversation affects overlap
frequency.
One other observation from these conversations is the different conversational styles of
the same person (namely Sachiko and Masao) in the two conversations. For instance, all
of Sachiko’s overlaps as a non-floor holder in the talk at work are aizuchi. On the other
hand, her overlaps as a non-floor holder in the Family Talk records only one aizuchi out
aizuchi as a non-floor holder in talk at work is nil and 5 out of 6 overlaps are
competitive. But his non-floor holder-overlap in the Family Talk includes 3 aizuchi
with 3 competitive overlaps. As a floor holder, though Masao’s stance does not seem to
change much, Sachiko’s cooperative overlap in the Chat at Work drops to nil in the
Family Talk. Because of the uneven and short length of the conversations, it is very
difficult to argue, but it seems that these shifts are related to the venue of the
12
This part of conversation will be discussed further in Chapter 7.
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conversation: the work place, which is regarded to be a public place on one hand; and
home, which is a private place. The ways Sachiko and Masao shift their conversation
are, however, different. This seems to concern their gender, hence the issue will be
In this section I have discussed how overlap frequency is related to the setting of the
conversation using Sachiko’s two informal conversations (Sa-2 and Sa-3). As there is
too little data for a generalisable argument, two things are noted. First, how participants
participate in the talk (e.g. sitting arrangement, involvement of other activities than talk)
which the participants concentrate on just talking, these informal chats produced
extremely few overlaps. Second, both Sachiko and Masao shifted their participation
style, though in different ways, between the two conversations (Sa-2 and Sa-3), which
seems to be related to where the conversation takes place: “home” is regarded as private
The term “genre” is understood in various ways.13 This study uses the term to refer to
what the participants are doing by using a particular communication. The genres of the
collected data include Business Talk, an Academic Meeting, Chats with Colleagues and
Family Talk. Different genres employ different levels of formality and setting. Thus,
one’s conversational style changes, depending upon the genre of the conversation. In
this small section, I will compare the participants’ overlap functions and their frequency
13
It is extensively discussed in Systemic Functional Linguistics. See Eggins (1994).
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in conversations in different genres. For this investigation, I will look at the following
conversation H-1, and the length of the recording time of the two conversations is
similar. Thus, they may present some clear differences in the use and frequency of
overlap. However, the number of the participants in the two conversations is not equal.
In contrast, the two conversations in Set 2 are both triadic. However, the length of the
compare the conversations in each pair, so I will discuss overlap frequency and how
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The following tables show overlap frequencies in Conversation H-1 and H-2.
Others with * include new turn at TRP, Turn Completion misjudge and
miscellaneous
The total numbers of overlaps are 524 in Conversation H-1 (“Academic Meeting”
hereafter) and 569 in Conversation H-2 (“Café Chat” hereafter). The number of
overlaps in these two conversations does not differ much if taking the number of
“others” and “excluded” overlaps shown at the bottom of each table.14 In 2.2.1 above, I
conversation. It is observed that the more participants in the conversation, the more
overlaps are observed. However, having looked at the number of overlaps in the tables,
the number is larger in Café Chat with three participants than in Academic Meeting
with 5 participants. The reason for this apparently contradictory result can be seen in the
two conversations’ contrasting genres, which led the participants to use a different style
of talk. First, regarding the level of formality of the talk, Academic Meeting is socially
14
The fraction of Academic Meeting/Café Chat is 0.92 in total and 0.89 if excluding “others” and
“excluded.”
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regarded to be more formal, but a chat as the one at the Café is understood to be less
formal. Such levels of formality create an immediate social distance between the
participants. For example, in informal talk with close friends or colleagues, there is less
social distance created between the participants. They are regarded to be socially equal
the number of overlaps between the two conversations, it is noticeable that the number
of non-floor holders’ competitive overlaps in the Café Chat (36) is more than triple the
number of competitive overlaps in the Academic Meeting (11), while the number of
though there are individual differences, there seems to be a tendency for participants in
the Academic Meeting to get their talk done through floor continuations (77 in total)
rather than by competing for the floor against the others. These differences indicate the
constructing immediate social distance in order to comply with the genre of the
conversation. That is, one adjusts style for more formal communication (Academic
Meeting), which avoids conflict with the other participants. Although the main concern
in this chapter is overlap, the nature of Japanese language that preserves different levels
pragmatically) should be also noted. Because of this, even among the participants who
are socially close and have a similar social status, more formal speech style is employed
on such a formal occasion (e.g. use of more polite endings, “desu yo, copula + particle,”
rather than informal endings such as “da yo” or “no yo”). Second, in relation to the
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While this kind of chat generally takes place without a generic structure, the Academic
Meeting is strongly structured. For example, a chat such as this normally does not have
any specific goals. The participants just enjoy or appreciate talking as a social activity,
moving from one topic to another freely.15 Hence, it usually concludes when the talk
slows down after a while and one of the participants moves towards closing the
the other hand, a conversation such as an Academic Meeting is almost always more or
less structured. First of all, such a meeting has set goals. Second, the schedule of the
meeting (i.e. time and venue) and the agenda are planned and usually distributed to the
participants before the meeting, which gives them time to prepare what they are going
to say. Third, such a meeting is normally held in a meeting room or a small classroom
Fourth, in such a meeting, one of the participants often takes the role of chair so that the
talk will reach a certain conclusion by the end of the scheduled time. Thus, the meeting
is controlled by the chair. In such controlled talk, it is likely that one participant talks at
a time and others listen to the person more often than in freer conversation, such as Café
So far I have discussed the genre of the talk in terms of total number of overlaps. Next, I
will look into the individual participants’ overlap frequency to discuss how
appropriately the participants fit into the genre of the talk. Tables 6.13 and 6.14 below
Table 6.13, it is noticeable that all of the participants in the Academic Meeting show
very similar frequency of non-floor holder overlap. Also, floor holder overlap
15
One might argue that the goals for a chat like this are something like “maintaining social bonds.”
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frequencies show that, although not all participants hold the floor equally, no person
dominates the floor all the time. In fact, although Fumie’s low overlap frequency as a
floor holder (only 1) reflects her rather passive participation, Bob’s low frequency of
overlap does not depict his participation in the conversation. It is he who called the
meeting and took the role of the chair, hence he participated actively in the
conversation.
Others with * include new turn at TRP, Turn Completion misjudge and miscellaneous
The reason for this incompatibility seems to be due to the language Bob used. In the
meeting, being a native Australian English speaker, he mostly talked in English while
the others, who are native speakers of Japanese, talked in Japanese. Thus, his English
communication style when talking seems to have affected his overlap frequency as a
floor holder.16 Also, Fumie’s passive involvement in the conversation seems to be due
to her lack of experience in the teaching of the course, which the participants discussed.
Otherwise, her overlap frequency as a floor holder may have been different. Given this,
in the end, all participants except Fumie managed to present their opinions during the
16
Although whether English communication produces less overlap than Japanese communication or not
has not been empirically proved, at least differences in the use of “reactive tokens” (equivalent to aizuchi
ih this study) in terms of their frequency and appearance are pointed out by Clancy et al. (1996.)
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meeting. This reflects the nature of such a meeting that is publicly structured17 to give
On the other hand, in the Café Chat, overlaps by the individual participants are not
distributed as in the Academic Meeting, as shown in Table 6.14 below. Comparing their
overlap frequencies as a non-floor holder and floor holder, it is noticeable that one
participant (i.e. Harue) mainly talks and the others mainly listen. Being a free
Others with * include new turn at TRP, Turn Completion misjudge and
miscellaneous
The interesting point here is that all of the participants (Harue, Suwako and Fumie) also
participate in the Meeting. Thus, their different overlap frequencies in the two
conversations indicate their style shift from one genre to the other. In this case, these
conversations took place on the same day; the Meeting in the morning is followed by
the Chat at lunch. All three participants’ overlap frequencies dramatically increase in
the Café Chat (increase by 73.8% for Harue, 51.2% for Suwako and 115.4% for Fumie).
Their frequent overlaps, which are not only cooperative but also competitive, suggest
their relaxed mood after the official meeting in which they were required to focus only
17
“Publicly structured” does not just refer to the convenor’s role but the participants’ acknowledgement
of their equal right and duty of the involvement in the talk.
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on work-related topics. As this example shows, the genre of the talk largely affects
one’s communication style. To look at other examples of genre and overlap, I will
Conversations in Set 2 represent two genres: Business Talk (Sa-1) and Family Talk (Sa-
3). Sachiko and Masao, who are also husband and wife, participate in these
conversations. As in Set 1, the total number of overlaps in the two conversations in Set
2 is summarised in the Table 6.15 below. As the length of the Family Talk (9 mins 15
secs) is about one third of the Business Talk (30 mins 14 secs), total numbers of
overlaps per minute are presented in the bracket next to the number of overlaps.
Others with * include new turn at TRP, Turn Completion misjudge and miscellaneous
Following the presentation of Set 1 conversations, the numbers of overlaps per minute
are also recalculated without “others” and “excluded” overlaps in order to compare the
proportion of overlaps between the two conversations. The total number of overlaps in
the Business Talk is 6.9 times as many as in the Family Talk, and if “others” and
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“excluded” overlaps are removed, it is 8.7 times as many, which suggests a substantial
difference in “others” and “excluded” overlaps between the two conversations (i.e. more
Even after recalculating the overlap frequencies per minute, the difference between the
occupy the majority of overlaps in the Business Talk dramatically drop in the Family
Talk. As non-floor holder overlap, the number of cooperative overlaps per minute in the
Business Talk is 15.5, but it is only 0.818 in the Family Talk. Furthermore, floor-holder’s
cooperative overlap in the Family Talk is zero, while the participants in the Business
Talk produce 2.6 floor holder’s cooperative overlaps per minute. To explain such a
significant drop in overlap frequencies in the Family Talk, the nature of cooperative
overlap needs to be considered. This leads us to the primary question about why we
cooperatively overlap when communicating with others. The reasons for cooperative
overlap are, whether consciously or not, assumed to show one’s involvement in the on-
going conversation, and to create harmony with the other participants or a comfortable
overlapping, the participants show their empathy in order to socially or emotionally get
closer to the others. This is particularly important when the participants have a certain
between Sachiko and Masao, and their cooperative overlaps to Yoshida in the Business
Talk, I demonstrated that cooperative overlaps are produced more frequently to the
person who is socially distant than to the person who is socially close. In the Business
Talk, Masao and Sachiko participated as representatives from the same company, which
18
The formula is (372+97)/30.23 mins for the Business talk and (6+1)/9.25mins for the Family Talk.
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regards them as belonging to the in-group (i.e. uchi) members. Furthermore, they are
husband and wife whose social relationship is even closer than colleagues. Husband and
wife normally may not need frequent cooperative overlaps since they already know
each other by being the closest family members.19 Considering this, it is quite
understandable that there are such low frequencies of overlap in the Family Talk.
20
Similar to husband and wife, a child too is placed in one of the closest positions to self
may be exceptions, perhaps Family Talk is a prototype of the conversation that is fully
built on amae or dependency, where the participants relax the most and do not need any
feeling of enryo or reserve. In the Family Talk, beside the very low frequency of
competitive overlap. When combining all competitive overlaps, the number reaches 17,
which is close to half of the total of overlaps, and the frequency per minute is 1.8
compared with 0.8 in cooperative overlaps. If “others” and “excluded” overlaps are
omitted, the ratio goes up. This numbers suggest that, within the family, even
competitive overlaps are allowed by family members under the umbrella called amae.
One other thing to point out is the shift of overlap frequencies by the couple from one
conversation to the other. Note the following tables that present the individual
19
See uni/soto discussion in “Communicative style of the Japanese” in Chapter 2.
20
As discussed in Section 2, note that the low frequency in the Family Talk is, of course, not just due to
its genre but also due to other morning activities involved.
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Table 6.16 Total number of overlaps per person per minute in Business Talk (Sa-1)
Table 6.17 Total number of overlaps per person per minute in Family Talk (Sa-3)
In 2.2.2 I showed that Masao and Sachiko did not cooperatively overlap each other as
frequently as they did to Yoshida in Business talk, and discussed that this is due to their
close social distance as in-group members (i.e. family members and colleagues).
However, as Tables 6.16 and 6.17 show, their overlap frequency in the Business Talk is
still much higher than in Family Talk. Unlike Set 1 conversations in which both
colleagues participate, these two conversations are different, not just in terms of genre,
levels: another family member, Eiji in the Family Talk, and the couple’s client,
Yoshida in the Business Talk. Involving a soto person in the conversation may have
built an atmosphere where amae that the couple have towards family members lessens
and feeling of enryo increases instead. Being in such an atmosphere, it is quite natural
for the couple to cooperatively overlap with each other rather than exclusively preserve
their amae between them and omit cooperative overlaps, and show empathy only to
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Yoshida. However, in the end, “Business Talk” is a genre that often involves soto
This section has discussed overlap frequency in terms of genre. Though some data
showed differences in overlap frequency depending upon the genre of the conversation,
genre also involves other elements such as participants’ social distance. Also, I have to
point out the danger of regarding any conversations between family members as Family
talk of the kind discussed here. The Family Talk used in the data is a chat at breakfast,
which involves various morning activities while talking (e.g. eating, tidying up the
table, washing plates, getting ready for work, etc.), hence the participants do not just sit
and talk. Obviously, there are other types of family talk, such as discussing a serious
topic (e.g. a child’s problem). The result may have been different if such a conversation
had been analysed. It would be interesting to collect more family conversation and
What the participants talk about in the conversation may also affect the individual
participant’s overlap frequency. If the topic raised by the current speaker is interesting
to the others, then their involvement in the talk is likely to become high with more
overlaps. If the conversation includes a number of story tellings, there should be more
aizuchi by the participants who listen to it, or if one is keener on the current topic than
the others, then s/he may keep the floor longer to explain her/his thoughts on the topic
to which the others would then react. Indeed, half of the conversations used for this
study focus on one of the participant’s recent experiences throughout the talk
(Conversation Sa-2, H-2 and H-3), hence a considerable amount of story telling is
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observed. Also, two conversations are work-related talk (Sa-1 and H-1) in which a
participant who is keener on the subject (not necessarily the same person) talks, thus a
number of extended floor holdings by a single speaker are observed. All of these
conversations show over 100 overlaps per person, except for two cases.21 On the other
hand, Conversation Sa-3 (i.e. Family Talk over breakfast), in which the topic frequently
changes from one to another, shows very low frequency of overlap. Perhaps the topics
talked about over breakfast are generally light and are not the type on which everybody
concentrates, since it is the beginning of the day and a number of activities accompany
breakfast. Thus, to be precise, it is not merely a matter of topic, but in fact the setting
For the former group of conversations with frequent overlaps, I made an assumption
to the amount of talk as a floor holder. In other words, it is assumed that the person who
takes the floor longer would overlap less (especially non-floor holder’s overlap) and
those who take a listener’s role would overlap more. To investigate the feasibility of
and non-floor holder overlaps in these conversations.22 However, contrary to what was
expected, no pattern in the distributions was revealed. In most cases, participants who
mainly held the floor also frequently overlapped as a non-floor holder (though no
person overlapped most frequently). There is only one person (namely Yoshida in
Conversation Sa-1, the Business talk) who took the floor most often and produced the
fewest non-floor holder overlaps. Therefore, the assumption could not be verified from
21
Bob and Fumie in Conversation H-1, see the genre discussion in the previous section.
22
Conversation Sa-2 is excluded due to its shorter length compared to the others.
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the data. Perhaps more data are required to answer this question. However, from my
data analysis, topic is probably the least significant factor to discuss solely in terms of
overlap. Thus, it may be difficult to reach any definite conclusions, even with more
data.
So far, I have discussed several variables that may affect the frequency of overlap. The
final focus is on style. Style is probably the most obvious factor that is observed
“lively” etc. Such descriptions are based on how the person talks in terms of
vocabulary, expression, syntax, pitch level, intonation, volume, speed etc. Overlap is
style from one conversation only. After a number of conversations, if some common
tendencies are noticed in the person’s way of communicating, then we may refer to this
as her/his communication style. This section therefore looks at the two informants’
overlaps in the conversations in which they participated and examines whether there is
any tendency observed reflecting individual style. Thus, I considered the total overlap
frequency of these informants compared with other participants in the conversation. The
following tables show the individual participant’s total overlap frequency in descending
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conversation\order 1 2 3
Sa-1 Business Talk Masao(354) Sachiko(291) Yoshida(229)
Sa-2 Chat with Colleagues Sachiko(17) Masao(11) Chie(4)
Sa-3 Family Talk Masao(14) Sachiko(13) Eiji(12)
conversation\order 1 2 3 4 5
H-1 Academic Meeting Suwako(125 ) Harue(122) Natsuki(112) Bob(85) Fumie(78)
H-2 Chat at Café Harue(212) Suwako(189) Fumie(168)
H-3 Chat with Colleagues Eri(172) Harue(144) Keiko(129) Natsuki(111)
From these tables, we notice that both of the informants overlap either the most or the
second most frequently. However, given that Conversation Sa-2 is very short and only a
small number of overlaps are observed, and that the number of overlaps by the
participants are few and almost the same quantity in Conversation Sa-3, for Sachiko, it
is very difficult to argue that she overlaps more frequently than the others from these
data only. In contrast, Harue’s case seems to be obvious. In conversation H-1, Harue’s
overlap frequency (122) is the second highest. But the most frequent overlapper,
Suwako, produced only three more overlaps than Harue (125). Thus, in the end, their
overlap frequency is almost identical. In conversation H-2, in which Harue is the focus
of the topic, she overlaps most frequently, and in Conversation H-3, in which the main
topic was a small fire Eri had experienced, Harue’s overlap frequency was the second
highest after Eri. From these numerical observations, it is suggested that Harue tends to
overlap relatively more than the other participants in any communication, whether she
is the focus of the main topic or not. The next question is whether Harue has any
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6.20 below. The numbers in brackets show the average frequency of the overlap
function by the participants in each conversation. The numbers that exceed the average
of the function in the conversation are shown in colour, as indicated below the table.
In Table 6.20, many of the functions show more than average frequency (coloured in
blue and pink), though the differences are not that extreme. This means that Harue
overlaps in many functions more often than the other participants, rather than more
average+1~4,9 ->
average+5~ ->
Focusing on her overlaps as a floor holder, she overlaps more often than the average in
H-3, which is 4.3 less than the average overlap frequency. However, examining the
individual participant’s frequency in this function in the conversation, it turns out that
the average frequency is raised by a single person (Eri), who is the centre of the topic of
the conversation (19 overlaps), and the frequencies of the other participants are not that
high (i.e. 1 by Keiko and 6 by Natsuki). Given this, it can be argued that Harue tends to
hold the floor, though not extremely, more often than the others in conversation. This
overlaps, while Harue’s aizuchi frequency goes over average only in one conversation
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(meeting), her overlaps in other than aizuchi function exceed the average frequency in
two conversations (Café Chat and Chat with Colleagues). As “other” cooperative
overlaps include several different functions, I also looked at the detail of her
table.
Only a frequency of 5 and over is presented, with the average in the bracket, and is
shown with colour if it exceeds the average as in the above Table 6.20.
Table 6.21 explains the reason for Harue’s less-than-average frequency in her
cooperative overlap other than aizuchi as a non-floor holder in the Academic Meeting.
It is due to her low frequency of aizuchi follower (5.2 less than average) and,
apparently, her other completion in the meeting is more frequent (7) than average (2.6).
As discussed in the previous chapter, aizuchi follower is aizuchi uttered following the
other non-floor holder’s aizuchi towards the current floor holder. Thus, it is regarded to
be less direct than the other overlaps in terms of cooperation. For this reason, even
though the total number of her cooperative overlaps is less than average in the meeting,
Harue’s more frequent other completion than average suggests her direct interaction
with the current floor holder. Thus, overall, Harue’s communication style as a non-
floor holder is slightly more active than the other participants, in terms of using
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floor holder’s talk early, as well as uttering aizuchi. And it seems that her active
communication style as a non-floor holder also leads her to be an active floor holder
(i.e. more floor holder’s overlaps). The link between non-floor holder overlaps and floor
holder overlap concerns a “strategic way of obtaining the floor.” I will discuss the issue
This small section has focused its discussion on how one’s communication style may
affect overlap frequency in conversation, using Harue’s data. From all of the
conversations she is involved in, it is observed that Harue tends to overlap relatively
functions in Harue’s talk, it turned out Harue tends to overlap slightly more when
holding floor, and as a non-floor holder her cooperative overlaps are more concentrated
style is more active in that she uses more direct cooperative overlaps, such as
clarification question, early reply, and other completion as a non-floor holder, as well
2.2.7 Summary
This section has focused on a number of variables that construct the conversation in
relation to overlap frequency. These are: number of participants, social distance, setting,
topic, genre, and communication style. For the number of overlaps in relation to the
more overlaps than a conversation with four participants. It is interesting to know that
the main function that contributed to the increasing number of overlaps is not
competitive overlaps such as floor bidding or interruption, but cooperative overlap (i.e.
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aizuchi followers). I assumed that a conversation with more participants would cause
more conflict over the right to talk. However, contrary to what was expected, turn-
taking seems to be relatively smooth even with five participants. The participants seem
aizuchi followers, rather than conflicting against each other over the floor. This suggests
communication—is well kept in the collected data. The participants’ overlap frequency
in the Business talk (Sa-1) also suggests a close link between overlap frequency and the
participants’ social distance: aizuchi by Sachiko and Masao (who are in-group members
as family members as well as colleagues) towards Yoshida, who is socially distant from
the couple (as their client) is much more frequent than the couple’s aizuchi to each
other. Genre of the talk, which determines the participants’ communication style (e.g.
formal and informal), and individual participants’ style also showed some link to
overlap frequency. However, for setting and topic, due to lack of data, their relation to
overlap frequency could not be presented clearly. As noted above, these variables do not
are intertwined with each other and contribute in constructing the style of
communication, where some variables may appear more obviously than the others.
There are so many variables and contributing factors in conversation that it is difficult
in terms of these variables when analysing overlaps in naturally occurring talk without
an experimental setting.
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The previous section discussed overlaps quantitatively in terms of what sort of function
is used and how their frequencies are related to a number of variables that construct
talk. The quantitative analyses have already given much information. But there are
section presents several cases of overlap and discusses them qualitatively. First, I will
discuss a few complexities of overlap function in which some overlaps carry more than
their surface function. Then, I will look into the use of particular overlap function,
In Chapter 5, I showed how overlaps are functionally classified and defined each
function. As already mentioned, overlaps are classified according to their surface (or
main) function. The reason for referring to this is because there are overlaps that have
functions other than those that were defined in Chapter 5. Some examples of such
overlaps seem to be used strategically in the data. Though it may be possible for any
overlap to carry more than one function, the focus of the discussion in this section is on
aizuchi that are related to speaker shift, and cooperative overlap that carries another
cooperative function to the person to whom the talk is not directly overlaps, “third party
approach.”
cooperate with the current floor holder. However, sometimes they seem to be
strategically used as a floor bidding. In the data, it is observed that such aizuchi mostly
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convey an agreement function. In other words, by agreeing with the current floor
holder’s talk, one attempts to take the next floor more cohesively (or without causing
much conflict) with the current floor holder’s talk. This small section discusses this
Horiguchi (1997) argues that a floor shift takes place smoothly when the listener begins
with a marker that is linked to what the current speaker said. Such markers include a
repetition of part of the current speaker’s speech, a conjunction that logically develops
the ongoing speech, and aizuchi, although Horiguchi does not discuss it in more detail.
For example, the speaker shift in the following exchange takes place smoothly after
Yoshida has been explaining what “off the plan” is and how the buyers think of it.
1 Sa: [u n]
aizuchi
(continuer)
M:
M:
Y: =
kara [ne.
since FP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: = konsaan yo ne.
concern FP FP
concerned, wouldn’t they?
M:
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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In this exchange, Sachiko indeed agrees with what Yoshida has said. However, there are
also cases where a non-floor holder utters agreement aizuchi to the current floor
holder’s talk even though s/he is not really satisfied with what the current floor holder
has mentioned, or her/his talk is not what the non-floor holder expected, as in the
following example.
Sachiko and Masai are asking Yoshida about tax on foreign investment property. Sachiko asks if one can
avoid paying accession tax by borrowing money from a bank in Japan and buying property in Australia.
1 Sa: nee
REC
M: [seiritsu shimasu]
form do COP Q
Does it work?
M: ee
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Sa: [ee (0.2) tada ~ sono (0.1)go-jibun ga=
aizuchi though HES self P
(agreement) but if one
M:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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M:
Y: hai ha[i
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 Sa: = [te de <talk continuers>
and and
and
M:
Y:[hai
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sachiko’s aizuchi (ee) in line 4 is an agreement with what Yoshida has just mentioned.
introduces something that is the opposite to what has been said. This style indicates that
she is not satisfied with Yoshida’s reply to her question. It seems that she already knew
what Yoshida mentioned and what she wanted to ask him was whether it would work
should one borrow money from a bank without informing them what the money would
be used for. However, due to lack of information in her question to Yoshida prior to his
reply starting in line 1, Sachiko fails to receive the answer she wanted. But rather than
starting her talk negatively in response to what Yoshida had said, Sachiko first agrees,
then starts to modify her previous question to him. This discourse style is regarded to
participants who have a certain social distance to each other. Though this style is also
observed in English communication (e.g. “yeah but”), due to the other-oriented nature
of Japanese communication style,23 “taking the floor with agreement” style seems to be
23
See Chapter 2 for communication styles of the Japanese.
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Chapter 6
is socio-culturally expected.24 For this kind of smooth speaker shift, perhaps we use
Horiguchi) reports that when speakership shifts, or topic change is about to take place,
more aizuchi are observed. This has the implication that a number of aizuchi are uttered
before the current floor holder ends her/his talk and gives away the floor. Such aizuchi
may be regarded to be a strategy for the non-floor holder to take the next conversational
floor without conflicting with the speaker (Iida, 2001). This function of aizuchi has also
been pointed out by Nagata (2004). Nagata, who examined five dyadic conversations by
university students, reports that the proportion of speaker shifts increases when
repetitive aizuchi (e.g. soo soo ) is uttered in the midst of the current floor holder’s turn.
He argues that by utilising the supportive function of aizuchi, a non-floor holder also
attempts to control the development of the on-going talk. Iida (2001) reports that
aizuchi that attempts to take the next floor is mostly agreement aizuchi and there is a
tendency that such aizuchi take a multiple form (i.e. aizuchi xN) as in soo soo soo.
Although Nagata focuses the study on the form of aizuchi (i.e. repetitive aizuchi in
comparison with single aizuchi or the ones that convey a substantial content such as soo
desu ka, or “I see”), he also refers to such repetitive aizuchi as a strong representation of
The participants are discussing the problem of how students with different proficiency levels sit in the
same course. Harue points out that some students’ Japanese proficiency is too high for level 1A but not
high enough to enter level 1B. Then S agrees with her by summarising what H said.
24
Though this tendency may be stronger in Japanese communication than in English, it is not possible to
argue since there is no empirical evidence in English communication to compare with.
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B:
N: = ? /
S:
B: [u n ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
N:
S: [u n ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Following Suwako’s comment in line 1, three participants utter aizuchi at the same
time. All of the participants’ aizuchi functions are agreement. They all continue talking
after their aizuchi to Suwako. But only Harue utters multiple aizuchi which is followed
by another single agreement aizuchi (line 2). Then she successfully obtains the next
floor and continues her talk. This case may suggest that the form of multiple aizuchi is
more powerful than other agreement aizuchi in gaining the next floor. However, it does
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not mean aizuchi other than multiple form are weak as a floor-taking signal. For
example, see how Suwako takes the next floor in the following exchange.
The participants have been talking about Fumie’s experience of missing linen from her laundry line.
Fumie mentions that there are people who steal laundry and sell it.
1 H:
S:
S: [s o o y o]
aizuchi
(agreement)
Suwako first produces an agreement aizuchi, “soo yo” in line 2. It agrees with Fumie’s
previous talk that has reached its turn completion point at the end of “datte,” though
Fumie continues her floor after that without producing any pause. Considering this, the
position of Suwako’s aizuchi, which is produced after Fumie has started her second
turn, does not seem to be precisely placed (i.e. it is late). Furthermore, it is produced in
a high volume. These two points suggest that the aizuchi is used as other than merely
agreeing with the current floor holder. Interestingly, Suwako does not take the floor
immediately after this aizuchi. She produces another one, “soo” in line 3. Up to the
position of Suwako’s second aizuchi, Fumie only added “at a 2 dollar shop or
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somewhere,” and she did not reach the main verb “can sell.” This means that Suwako
produces aizuchi early by predicting what Fumie was going to say next, which is not
difficult since Fumie has already talked about people who sell clothes they have stolen
from a laundry line, in her first turn (i.e. lines 1-2). In addition to this, her second
aizuchi is also produced at relatively high volume. Thus, her second aizuchi seems to
carry a similar function to her first one. Then soon after her second aizuchi, Fumie
completes her turn, and Suwako starts her talk by terminally overlapping Fumie at high
Suwako informs Fumie that she wants to talk while agreeing by producing aizuchi in
high volume; and 2) Suwako waited until Fumie recognises her aizuchi as a floor
bidding and ends her turn by producing such an aizuchi more than once. From this
observation, aizuchi that is not just a multiple form, but also at a relatively high volume,
As I discussed at the beginning of this section and as exemplified by the examples, the
strategy of using aizuchi to take the floor is aiming at smooth speaker shift by showing
strong support and avoiding conflict with the current floor holder. However, in the data,
there are cases in which a small conflict is observed, as in the following exchange that
The participants have been discussing the variation in Japanese proficiency levels among students in class
by reviewing their homework. Natsuki pointed out a few students’ considerably high proficiency level for
the beginners’ course by exemplifying the amount of kanji (Chinese characters) or amount of writing they
submmitted, when Suwako commented that it may be due to lack of accuracy in the instruction of the
homework: students were initially expected to compose 4 to 5 sentences only. Thus, Suwako said that it is
not possible to measure students’ ability only by the amount of writing.
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B:
N:
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = nas[ai tte i[u un a a s o o na da][t a] soo [kaa
COM QUOT say aizuchi auzuchi aizuchi
sentences. (understanding) (understanding) (understanding)
B: [ee: / ? / [u-n]
aizuchi aizuchi
(agreement) (agreement)
N:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H:
B: [And I ] [hahha ]
N:
F: [aa: ] [un ]
aizuci aizuchi
(continuer) (continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: [soo [soo soo ] [un soo [ ne ]ekusupe[kuteeshon]ga=
aizuchi aizuchi expectation P
(agreement) (agreement) (our) expectation was
B: [u – [n [ee
aizuchi aizuchi
(agreement) (agreement)
N: [s o o ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
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N:
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Before this exchange, Suwako was explaining the problem of assessing students only by
their homework. Thus, after responding to Harue’s question in line 1-2, she continues
her talk at the end of line 2 with “tokoroga,” “but.” Then Harue utters aizuchi, “soo soo
soo” in line 4 where Suwako has nearly reached her TRP at “shi.” “Shi” is a particle
that carries a number of functions, such as a reason marker or a listing marker, and it
can also be used as a sentence-end marker in spoken Japanese. Looking at the position
of Harue’s second agreement aizuchi, “un soone,” it overlaps with Suwako’s “shi.” It is
common to overlap one’s aizuchi at the end of the current speaker’s speech turn. Thus,
smooth speaker shift (from Suwako to Harue) was expected here. However, Suwako
starts her talk again at the end of Harue’s second aizuchi with “ex” (for expectation),
which causes a small conflict with Harue who has already started. Suwako immediately
realises this and withdraws her turn by uttering aizuchi to Harue. Although there is not
any serious competition between the two participants, the speaker shift does not seem to
be as smooth as in the previous exchange (56). There is a case of agreement aizuchi not
being recognised or approved by the current floor holder, hence this causes more
serious conflict than the above example. See also the interaction between Sachiko and
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Chapter 6
Masao (occasionally supported by Sachiko) has been telling Yoshida about the problem expatriate
employees face after going back to Japan upon completion of the term of the dispatch, such as being
degraded or sent to one of the affiliated companies, etc. They are thinking of attracting these people to
buy an investment property in Australia. The following exchange starts with Yoshida’s evaluation to what
Masao has explained in a long multi-unit turn.
1 Sa: [u - n] [daka=
aizuchi that’s=
(agreement) that’s
M: [a a ] [e e ]
HES aizuchi
(agreement)
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: = iu iki[kata mo] ari masu [yo tte]iu [yoona sajesu]=
live way also exist COP FP QUOT like sugges-
by suggesting there is also a life like this or something.
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Sa: = [janai kashira ] [u - n]
COP not wonder aizuchi
I guess. (continuer)
Y: [u - n]
aizuchi
(continuer)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
aizuchi, to Sachiko in an attempt to take the floor (lines 2-4), but Sachiko keeps talking
without reacting to his attempt. At the end of Yoshida’s talk in line 1, which is an
extended turn of his previous talk (i.e. kibishii desu ne, “it’s hard, isn’t it?”), Masao and
Sachiko simultaneously overlap Yoshida. Masao’s reconfirmation may indicate the end
of this topic (Imaishi, 1994). On the other hand, with “dakara,” “that is why,” Sachiko
initiates a new topic on how the article (on buying investment property in Australia)
they are planning to publish in their community magazine can attract them. Masao, who
has been mostly initiating the topic, does not seem to have given up his floor yet at the
biddings in lines 2-4. However, due to Schiko’s new topic initiation, he missed the
timing to start a new turn. Thus, his number of aizuchi and floor biddings (i.e. aa,
dakara ne, ano ne) show his struggle to obtain the floor, which is described by his
aizuchi shifting from mild agreement, “ee” to strong agreement, “soo soo,” and this
strong aizuchi is repeated until he finally obtains the floor in line 5. It is interesting that
he produces aizuchi in English as well. Since this is the only example in the data in
which he used English aizuchi, it is not possible to argue. However, given that it has a
linguistic meaning, I assume that it carries stronger agreement than “ee,” but may not be
as strong as the multiple form of aizuchi, “soo soo.” Despite his series of aizuchi and
floor biddings, which become stronger, Sachiko keeps talking until line 5 without
reacting to them. This indicates her strong intention to complete her talk. At the point
where Masao can finally start his talk by overlapping Sachiko in line 5, her talk almost
comes to an end. However, the onset of his talk seems to be at a border between
legitimate start (i.e. within a TRP of Sachiko’s talk) and illegitimate start (interruption),
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which gives an impression that Masao obtained the floor by hastily starting his turn so
that he would not fail this time.25 As this example shows, agreement aizuchi do not
always work for a smooth speaker shift. This is more likely when it is produced in the
midst of the current floor holder’s turn than at around her/his TRP. However, in
comparison with interruption, aizuchi hold a legitimacy of being produced within the
be a better strategy when attempting to take the floor than to simply start talking by
participants, or the talk takes place in a more formal manner such as a work related
meeting, this strategy is assumed to be effective. In order to find out the relation
between the number of strategic aizuchi and formality of talk, I compared the number of
such aizuchi in the Business Talk (Sa-1), the Academic Meeting (H-1), the Chat at Café
(H-2) and the Chat with Colleagues about a small fire (H-3), as shown in Table 6.12
below. Note that the Family Talk (Sa-3), as discussed in the previous section, originally
produced very few aizuchi, which was considered to be due to the participants’ almost
zero social distance (being in the same family), and the length of the Chat with
Colleagues (Sa-2) is too short to analyse (there are few aizuchi as well), hence are
excluded from this analysis. Due to the different length of recording times, each
quantity has been recalculated as per minute (shown in brackets), in order to compare
25
Before obtaining the floor, Masao fails it three times: first, with aa in line 2; second, with dakara ne in
line 3; and third, ano ne.
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Table 6.22 shows a similar quantity of strategic aizuchi in each talk, but it turns out to
be different when they are presented per minute. Interestingly, all of these conversations
show two to three times more aizuchi at the current floor holder’s TRP than in the
middle of her/his turn. Following Horiguchi (1997), this suggests that speaker shifts in
these conversations are smooth by following turn-taking rules as well as using aizuchi,
which contributes to cohesion of the talk by the previous speaker. As for the link
between the level of formality and the frequency of strategic aizuchi use, contrary to
what was expected, the talk which shows most frequent strategic aizuchi (shaded cells
in the table) is the Chat with Colleagues (H-3), in which four people talk about a small
fire experienced by one of them. On the other hand, Academic Meeting and Chat at
Café show a similar quantity per minute, despite carrying different formality levels.
These results indicate no significant correlation between the use of strategic aizuchi to
gain the floor and the level of formality. If not the level of formality, then what factor is
related to the frequency of such aizuchi use? Due to overall low frequency of this type
of aizuchi, it is very difficult to argue anything. But considering the nature of such
strategic aizuchi, which shows one’s intention to the current floor holder, this type of
aizuchi may appear more often in a multi-party free conversation (or a chat), where
topics and speech turns are not controlled. With over three participants, sometimes it
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may be difficult for a non-floor holder to obtain the opportunity to talk in such
uncontrolled talk. Thus, taking the next floor by showing one’s cooperation with the
current floor holder by using aizuchi seems to be a good strategy in terms of its
contribution to maintain the harmony being created by the participants. In this sense, it
is understandable that the Chat with Colleagues, where four people participated,
produced more strategic aizuchi than the Café Chat where three people participated. On
the other hand, in a conversation which is controlled more or less in terms of speaker
shift and conversational topic, as in the Business Talk and the Academic Meeting,
the number of participants may affect the use of such aizuchi as well (i.e. their
frequency is more in the Academic Meeting with five participants than in the Business
Talk with three participants). Apart from these factors, personal conversational style
may also be related to the use of this type of aizuchi. Among all participants in the data,
though the numbers are small, Masao and Harue used relatively more of this strategic
aizuchi (8 by Masao and 5 by Harue) than the other participants. Overall, the data is so
small that these points are limited to my observation and assumption only. In order to
explore this further, more conversational data is needed. However, the frequency of this
type of overlap seems to be very low compared with other functions, hence, their
This section has introduced several examples of aizuchi that initiate a speaker shift. As
Horiguchi (1997) mentions, in general, aizuchi contributes for a smooth speaker shift.
Thus, while the majority of such aizuchi seem to be used subconsciously, it is not
surprising that some seem to be intentionally used to express one’s wish to take the
floor, rather than simply interrupting the current floor holder’s talk, since aizuchi carries
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a cooperative function. Given this, the use of such aizuchi was hypothesised to be
related to the formality level of the conversation. However, the data showed no
distinctive pattern except that the Family Talk, where the number of aizuchi is
previous section, it is related to the nature of Family talk where amae, or dependency, is
allowed and no enryo, or feeling of reserve, is necessary (see the previous section).
Among other conversations (excluding the Chat with Colleagues, Sa-2), the one that
produced this type of aizuchi the most is the informal Chat with Colleagues, in which
four people talk about a small fire experienced by one of them (H-3). Also, their
frequency tends to increase according to the number of participants in both formal and
informal conversations. Furthermore, the use of such aizuchi is limited to a few certain
persons in the data. From these results, though the data is very small, it is likely that the
uses of strategic aizuchi as a floor bidding are more closely related to the number of
participants in the talk, or whether the talk is controlled (i.e. speech turn is mostly
hence sometimes it is more difficult to gain the opportunity to talk), or one’s style, than
Though Nagata (2004) focuses his discussion only on repetitive form of aizuchi for this
function, the data of this study observed that other forms of aizuchi are also used. Also,
it is observed that aizuchi with such a function tends to be presented at a high volume.
Finally, even though there are understanding aizuchi that are used for this function, the
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of its features is talk that is targeting someone other than the person whose talk is being
overlapped. In the case of the example (10) used in the discussion (duplicated below),
Suwako’s talk in line 3, which is directly targeting Harue, is actually interrupting Fumie
who is being overlapped, even though it has a function of clarification for Fumie to
understand the situation of Harue’s laundry line (on her behalf). Thus, Suwako’s
interaction with Fumie is regarded as competitive to gain the floor on the surface
observation.
Harue has been talking about a problem in sharing the laundry line with other residents in her block of
four units.
1 H: [u – n] [u n]
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (continuer)
S: [u – n]
aizuchi
(continuer)
F:
= jiyuuni minna saa sukina toki ni:i [ano]o ~ dakedo sono=
freely everyone FP favourite time P HES but that
Everyone (uses them) freely whenever they like. But that
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H:
F:
= yo-nin de sunderu uchi nante yamano yo[oni aru
four CTR P living house EMP mountain like exist
family of four has piles of laundry.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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overlaps the current floor holder, and conveys a message to the other person (non-floor
holder) at the same time. I refer to this as “third-party approach.” There seem to be two
different conditions in which third-party approach may be observed. The first condition
is that the floor is shared by more than one person (realistically, it is most likely by two
people), as also introduced in Chapter 4. When two people are sharing the floor for the
purpose of conveying certain information to the other(s), as with Sachiko and Masao in
the Business Talk in the data (Sa-1), they cooperatively construct the floor by
convey the information more accurately, clearly or specifically. For example, in the case
(information supply), “Kyaku o okurikomu n desu,“ “we are sending guests (there)”
with Sachiko’s talk in line 3 is actually targeting Yoshida. This is obvious from
Masao’s speech style, that employs the polite ending “desu,” which he does not use
Sachiko and Masao, who are representing the same company, explain to their client Yoshida how they are
involved in promoting the accommodation, Uni Lodge.
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1 Sa: [un
aizuchi
(agreement)
Y: = [desu[ka.
zuchi
standing)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The participant who initiates such a third-party approach under this condition is
The second condition, on the other hand, is the case where the approach is carried by
one of the non-floor holders, who is observing interaction between others (referred to as
a “third-party”), thus, the person who overlaps the current floor holder with a third-
party approach is regarded by the participants as an unratified speaker since s/he is not
holding the floor at the time of the approach. Hence, this kind of third-party approach is
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not predictable by the other participants. This small section focuses its discussion on
third-party approach in the latter condition. The following is the exchange where the
Fumie has been explaining her recent experience of missing her linen that was taken by one of her
neighbours by mistake. While Suwako understands exactly what happened in the process of Fumie
finding her linen, Harue does not seem to follow Fumie’s explanation and produces a number of turns,
which misunderstood what actually happened. In fact, Fumie found her linen after making an inquiry to
the neighbour, which Harue mistook as Fumie finding it before visiting them.
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = wake Kiki ni itte
reason ask P go and
you go” went to ask and
S: (0.3)
S:
S: (0.7)
F: [so o u - n u Yatte= n]
yes yes yes
do and
Rather
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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5 H:
S:
S: (0.2)
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 H: = “asoko ni atta n da ke[do:
there P existedVN COP but
and said “I found (it) there but”
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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From line 1 through to the beginning of line 8, Harue tries to capture what actually
with Fumie, she still misunderstands the fact that Fumie did not know where her linen
was at the time of asking her neighbour. It is partly Harue’s impatience, which caused
two silent interruptions without waiting for Fumie to complete her talk (“kikini itte,
went to ask” in line 2, and “atta kara (…),” “it was (…)” in line 3). On the other hand,
it is also due to unclear information given by Fumie, who incorrectly approves Harue’s
incorrect statement in lines 3 and 4 that the neighbour put the linen back as a way of
doing her a favour. In so doing, miscommunication between Harue and Fumie continues
and reaches its peak when Harue says, “tonton tte itte,” “go and knock (on the
neighbour’s door)” in line 7. This expression is ambiguous since itte can mean “say,”
hence the whole expression can be understood as “said knock knock.” But
problematically, it misses out who said this. From the development of her discourse, it
is obvious that Harue knew Fumie visited the neighbour (see Harue’s talk in line 2).
Fumie. However, Fumie mistook Harue’s words as the neighbour came to her and
talked about the linen, and starts negating Harue’s talk in line 8.26 It is frustrating when
Harue in each turn shifts from mild disagreement, “uuun ano:,” “no um” -> hesitation,
“n”-> yatte kureta tte iuka,” “rather than they did that for me,” to strong disagreement,
“ uuun yutte k o n a i ,” “no, they did not come to say”). Having observed
miscommunication between Harue and Fumie for three exchanges, Suwako realises that
the missing point is where the laundry was. Thus, immediately after she recognises that
26
“yutte” is a colloquial form of “itte.”
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their fourth exchange will also fail, Suwako at last intervenes27 with a clarification
question to Fumie (line 8) that the linen was simply put up on the line. By this
clarification question, rather than urging Fumie to clarify her talk, Suwako seems to
indicate to Harue her misunderstanding by supplying the correct information. Why did
Suwako use such an indirect form to pass the information to Harue, where she could
have directly pointed out the misunderstanding to Harue herself? It is probably because,
first, she did not directly observe what was going on between Fumie and her neighbours
and, second, if she had directly talked to Harue she would have ignored or interrupted
Fumie’s talk. Considering the situation that Harue and Fumie are in the chaos of
misunderstanding for long enough, even interruption would have been acceptable at this
solve the problem without causing competition with either of the other participants.
As in the above example, such a third-party approach seems to be used only in the case
of an emergency (i.e. to rescue the others from the chaos of misunderstanding with each
other), hence it is not much observed in the data. Indeed, it would be unnatural for an
unratified speaker to use this approach where the context of communication does not
need it.
This section has discussed the third-party approach in which two layers of function are
observed: direct supportive function towards the current floor holder’s talk, and indirect
27
Suwako’s talk is not an interruption, since Fumie’s possible turn completion (after “konai,” “not
come”) comes near the overlap onset, and Suwako does not take the floor after this turn.
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floor holder’s talk. However, when one uses the third-party approach, it is probable that
because, realistically, unlike floor bidding aizuchi that involves only a non-floor holder
and the current floor holder, the third-party approach involves one more participant.
Hence it is too complicated to choose it instantly as the most appropriate strategy upon
consideration of the condition of the involved participants. For this reason, I assume the
in favour of avoiding conflict rather than being consciously selected “on line.”
one’s first/second language when involved in her/his second culture, namely, the
majority of the studies discuss how the Japanese communicate in English and not much
studies which are backed up by data are even fewer. As the data of this study found a
few interesting points regarding aizuchi use, this section investigates how the
First, the communication to be focused on for the discussion is the Academic Meeting
(H-1), where one native English speaker, Bob, is involved. Although his Japanese
proficiency level is nearly native, Bob mainly talks in English, while the others, who are
28
Most of the research has been conducted in the US.
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native speakers of Japanese, talk in Japanese. See how the Japanese participants change
The participants are talking about how their students worked on the recent writing homework. They
agreed that there are considerable differences in the amount writing among the students. Some students
mistook the aim of the homework and wrote a dialogue instead of writing a passage.
B:
N:
S: / ? / o / ? /
P
F: [u n ]
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = ka[ra sono: [shuku]dai no moku[teki/to chigau/=
since HES homework P goal from different
So it is different from the goal of the homework,
B:
N:
S: [a - t kanchigai=
EX mistake
Oh, so it was mistake
F: [a - machigae[te ]
EX mistaken and
Oh, so they mistook (it).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: = jana]i [u – n] [zenzen ] u[n] takusan kaite=
COP not REC at all yes much write
isn't it? at all If (they)wrote
B: [u – n]
aizuchi
(agreement)
N: u [n
aizuchi
(agreement)
S: = ne ] [u – n]
FP aizuchi
isn't it? (agreement)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: = ru n dattara mata/ ? /
VN COP CON then
more then enough, then
N:
S:
F: u – n
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 H:
N:
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6. H:
N:
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7. (0.9)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8. H:
N:
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
everybody is actively involved in the talk by using aizuchi. Then, after Harue’s talk in
line 4, Bob, the native English speaker, starts his turn when the others suddenly stop
producing aizuchi. After this extract, Bob continues his talk for almost 2.5 minutes with
(communication took place in English), the number of aizuchi that were produced by
Japanese students were more than twice as many as those produced by American
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native speakers of English in general, then the participants in this data should have
produced more aizuchi to Bob. However, they did not. The following table
The number of aizuchi that are uttered to Bob is 39, including both overlapping and
non-overlapping aizuchi. Its frequency is 9.8 per minute. On the other hand, when the
aizuchi) goes up to 21.4 per minute.29 This large difference shows that the Japanese
aizuchi (33 out of 39) towards Bob are not overlapping his talk, as in the following
1 H:
N:
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
29
The formula is (total number of overlapping aizuchi – overlapping aizuchi to Bob + non-overlapping
aizuchi in Japanese talk) ÷ (total length – the length of English talk), i.e., (248-6+153)÷(22.14 – 3.98)
=21.43
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2 H:
N:
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H:
N: [u – n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
S:
F: u [n
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As aizuchi in (62) show, non-overlapping aizuchi to Bob mostly appear at the end of
Bob’s turn (27 out of 33), which is Complex Transition Relevance Place, or CTRP
(Ford and Thompson, 1996). Clancy et al. (1996) find that English speakers place a
CTRP than Japanese speakers. The aizuchi here are produced in a low, flat tone, thus it
is difficult to know whether they are produced in English “mm” or Japanese “u-n” that
is actually pronounced as “nn.” Whatever they are, taking account of Clancy et al., their
appearance when Bob talks in English is more like an English communication style,
considering that many aizuchi appear to be overlapping the current floor holder in a
Japanese conversation (242 overlapping aizuchi and 153 non-overlapping aizuchi in the
Japanese talk part of the Academic Meeting). Thus, it can be argued that the Japanese
participants somehow shift their communication style in terms of aizuchi use when
30
It is necessary to point out that in the Academic Meeting, Bob is not just the only native speaker of
English but also the only male. Although the Japanese participants’ style shift is more likely to be due to
the language spoken in the communication, there is no evidence that gender may not affect their style
shift.
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participants has been further investigated. The following table summarises aizuchi
Table 6.24 Number of aizuchi frequency in Japanese talk in the Academic Meeting
Table 6.24 presents a few interesting facts. First, though there are individual
differences, while all Japanese participants’ non-overlapping aizuchi are around 20 and
30, Bob’s non-overlapping aizuchi exceeds 50. Second, when comparing individual
participants (except Fumie) show a substantial difference between the two, Bob’s
aizuchi is almost equally distributed to the two types of overlap. This seems to suggest
that whilst shifting his speech style to more Japanese style in terms of aizuchi
frequency, the way of their presentation (i.e. overlapping and non-overlapping) is not
overlapping aizuchi). Third, Fumie, who also shows less obvious difference between the
two types of aizuchi, has lived in Australia the longest (17 years) of the four Japanese
the length of her residency in Australia or not, due to lack of data. However, overall,
the participants’ style shift between English talk and Japanese talk, which is not
Maynard’s informants seem to be university students who are temporarily staying in the
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US,31 all of the Japanese participants in this conversational data are permanent residents
of Australia who have lived in the country for over 8 years. Given this, the difference
between the participants of this conversational data and Maynard’s informants seems to
lie in the length of their residency in English-speaking countries. The longer one stays
socio-cultural norms and pragmatics that are used in communication and apply them to
her/his daily communication. Therefore, it seems that the participants in this data are
able to switch their communication style (but perhaps without noticing much or at all)
between Japanese and English in order to adapt themselves for smooth communication.
On the other hand, though their English proficiency level is high enough to study at the
university in the US, it is assumed that Maynard’s informants had not gained pragmatic
the time the study was conducted. As in Ohara’s (1992, 1997) finding (introduced in
Chapter 2), that bilingual Japanese women speak English in a lower pitch level
compared to their pitch level when speaking in Japanese, such a style switch in terms of
switch their communication style to that of English well, they also seem to adapt some
31
The detail of the informants is not clearly mentioned in her intercultural communication study, except
to say that the informants are close to each other. However, from the transcript and her remark that the
recording took place in a similar manner to her cross-cultural study, it is assumed that the informants are
in their twenties, studying at the university. One transcript presents a talk about changing jobs. Thus, non-
university students may also have participated. But even so, their profiles should not make much
difference to the students’.
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English words instead of commonly used Japanese equivalents.32 Apart from this style,
communication is also observed in some parts of their Japanese communication. That is,
once again, the frequency of aizuchi use by the participants is extremely low in some
Harue has been telling of her unfortunate experience about not getting a student discount on a parking fee
because she showed her student ID to the parking attendant too late.
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 H: = atta no. (0.2) De shiti kyanpasu de ii tte iu kara [sore=
had FP and city campus at OK QUOTsay since that
And (he) asked if we could see in City Campus,
S: [u-=
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 H: = de ii tte].~Hoide~ demo watashi mo okure soo datta kara=
P OK QUOT and but I also late likely COP since
so I accepted. And, but I was going to late, so
S: = - n]
aizuchi
(continuer)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 H: = (0.4) nde (0.3) /sono/ UXX no mae no (0.1) tokoro ni=
and HES UXX P front P place at
So I parked (my car) in front of
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 H: = tometa wake.(0.2) Zoko wa fudan wa juu-go doru toka=
parked reason there P usually P 15 dollars etc.
University XX. That place usually cost 15 dollars or
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
32
See Masumi-So (1983) for a detailed investigation of the use of English words by Japanese residents of
Australia (Melbourne) in their Japanese communication.
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S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7 H: = wakaranai kedo ichi jikan koe tara juu-go doru ka=
know not but one hour over CON 15 dollars or
I don’t know, but if it goes over 1 hour, then it costs
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 H: = nanka nanda kedo (0.7) demo (0.2) UXX no gakusei wa=
AP COP but but UXX P student P
15 dollars or something.. But For UXX student,
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
9 H: = hachi doru ka nanka de ii no yo.sh nana doru ka hachi=
eight dollars or something P OK FP FP seven dollars or eight
it’s only 8 dollars or something. Seven or eight
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
10 H: = doru ka gakusei shoo misere ba ii tte nna kaitatta=
dollars or student ID show CON OK QUOT written
dollars if showing student ID, that’s what (the sign) said.
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
11 H: = wake. (0.2) Dakara maa iiya toka tt omotte (0.3) nde =
reason so its OK etc. QUOT thought and
So it’s OK (to park there), I thougt. And
S:
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
12 H: = (0.8) hode sensei ni ichi jikan matasarete saa [doo=
and teacher by one hour wait CAU FP how
And I had to wait for the teacher for 1 hour. And
S: u-[n
aizuchi
(evaluation)
F:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
13 H: = shiyoo kaeroo kana to omotte kita wake [De <talk continues>
do shall go back wonder QUOT think came reason and
I started to wonder what I would do like going home. And...
S: u [- n
aizuchi
(understanding)
F:
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
The length of the talk from line 1 to 13 is 30.2 seconds, in which Suwako produces only
three aizuchi and Fumie produces none. Fumie’s aizuchi appears another 32 seconds
after this extract, when Harue has reached the conclusion of her story (that one should
show student ID before the parking attendant processes the fee). In other words, Fumie
produced only one evaluation aizuchi, “honto” during Harue’s long talk for over one
minute. For Suwako, she produces another four aizuchi in this 32 seconds. Thus, it
turns out that Suwako produced aizuchi every 8.9 seconds. According to Maynard
Japanese.33 Comparing aizuchi frequency of Suwako and Fumie with the results in
Maynard, the differences are enormous. The tendency to produce less aizuchi is also
looked at Suwako’s aizuchi, it is interesting to see that the differences appear not just in
aizuchi frequency, but in how aizuchi is produced. Six out of seven aizuchi by Suwako
and the remaining aizuchi is the only one that appears by overlapping Harue’s talk.
Such aizuchi use is quite similar to English conversational style. Where do these
differences come from? It is probably, once again, due to the length of the participants’
experience of English culture. Having used English communication and its style after
living in Australia for a while, the participants may have employed their English
33
The results of her cross-cultural communication study and intercultural communication study are
different, and there are also individual differences in intercultural communication. Hence the approximate
frequency is presented here.
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the time of the data collection, Fumie, who had been in Australia the longest of the
participants ( i.e. 17 years compared with 9 years on average for the other two
participants), produced only one aizuchi for over 1 minute of talk. However, it is not
certain how much the 8 years’ difference affects one’s communication style from only
this data. Also, note that what seems to be a socio-cultural transfer is observed only in a
story telling part of this conversation and the Business Talk, by a few participants. In
other words, in the majority of the data, all of the participants produce many aizuchi and
their interactional style does not seem to be any different from what we observe in
Japanese communication in Japan, apart from using slightly more loan words. Thus, the
Whether this deviation will expand to more than story telling in the future (then it will
Japanese residents in Germany, all long-term residents of the country, in their first
Japan show far more frequent backchannels in their German communication than in
communication in Japan. Masumi-So (1983), who investigated the use of English loan
informants’ loan word use is very low despite living in Australia for a long period.34
Masumi-So argues that the cause of their low frequency is their strong networking to a
Japanese community, and/or their desire for maintaining Japanese identity. As the
34
However, among these cases, two had lived in Australia less than 6 years, and there was only one who
had lived in the country for over 10 years.
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research method of these studies, including this study, is totally different,35 it may not be
community, the informants of all three studies have a close link to it. Thus, it seems that
this link largely contributes to their stability in their participation style in Japanese
communication. Also, given that not all participants show this shift, once again
This section has presented two observations regarding the participants’ aizuchi
frequency. The one is the shift of their communication style to adjust themselves to be
socially and culturally appropriate in the language they are using (English and
Japanese). The other is their style of first language communication (Japanese) being
These two observations contradict each other at first glance. But they seem to represent
country who are partly floating between two different types of communication. Note,
however, these are only observations that fall out in the process of data analyses, and
these phenomena are not observed throughout the data but in part of the data only.
Thus, at this stage, these style shifts by the Japanese are yet subtle and further
4. Conclusion
frequencies, a number of interesting points were revealed. First, from the total number
35
Krauze-Ono collected data in controlled conversation and Masumi-So used sociolinguistic interview
for her data collection.
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Chapter 6
fact, aizuchi are used more in agreement and understanding functions than in continuer.
Also, compared with other functions that also appear in form other than aizuchi term,
continuer mostly appears in the form of aizuchi term. Second, compared with the
previous studies’ claims, despite excluding some cooperative overlaps that are
relatively larger. Third, the result shows that overlaps are not just initiated by a non-
floor holder, but also by the floor holder. This indicates that the floor holder does not
just talk, but constantly monitors the non-floor holders’ reactions. Fourth, the overlap
the talk, genre of the talk, topic of the talk, and the individual style. Among these
variables, the relation with setting and topic were not clarified due to lack of data. But
the other variables reveal the following link with overlap frequency,
a) the more participants are involved the more overlaps tend to be produced, but
c) though there are more obvious and less obvious examples, overlap frequency
changes depending upon the genre of the talk. Especially in family talk, where
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Chapter 6
no reserve for the other participants who are family members is necessary,
d) whether producing more or less overlaps seems to depend upon the individual
conversational style.
In the end, these variables intertwine with each other to affect one’s communication
style. Thus, it is not possible to link only one of them to overlap frequency. Yet, by
focusing on one variable of the talk, at least some mechanisms of constructing one’s
The second part of the chapter discussed the data qualitatively. In doing so, a few
functions that did not appear on the surface level are revealed. One is a strategic use of
aizuchi in order to take the next floor. According to the data, such aizuchi mostly carry
an agreement function. For Japanese communication that highly values harmony, this
seems to be a very good strategy to take the next floor cohesively, which avoids conflict
with the current floor holder. The other function is, though specific to a multi-party
talk, third-party approach to the other non-floor holder by overlapping the current floor
holder’s talk. The examples observed in the data were produced for the purpose of
settling down the chaos of misunderstanding of the current floor holder’s talk by the
other non-floor holder. Though this may not be regarded as a strategy, indirectly
suggesting the other non-floor holder’s misunderstanding seems to reflect the Japanese
way of communication well for the same reason for using aizuchi to take the floor.
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Finally, two observations on aizuchi use that seem to be uncommon for a Japanese
communication style were presented. Significantly less use of aizuchi when the talk is
switched to English seems to show that the participants adjust their communication
style to that of English. One’s second cultural affect on her/his first language
communication has not been discussed much. But given that previous studies on
both Japanese and English conversation, this switch seems to be related to the
occasionally. The data found far less use of aizuchi to the current floor holder’s talk in a
few story telling situations. However, more data is necessary to investigate the issue
daily talk. This tells how rich information overlap carries, which gives us clues to
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1. Introduction
In the last chapter I discussed how the participants communicate in general in terms of
their overlap use. The discussion considered several variables that appear to contribute
genre, setting, topic and individual style. However, there remains an additional aspect
style of Japanese women residents of Australia has changed after living in the country
research into language and gender has been more focused on the syntactic and semantic
levels, and research on how people are involved (or acting) in talk has yet to be
explored extensively. With this in mind, this chapter focuses upon the latter, people’s
actions during conversation, to explore whether there are any gender traits observed in
Participation in talk can be viewed from two contrasting roles; that of a floor holder and
that of a non-floor holder. First, the discussion focuses on their participation style as a
floor holder by investigating floor management, including topic initiation and floor
shift, which sometimes accompany overlaps. Thereafter, the discussion moves to their
whether there are any gender differences in the manner by which the participants
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Chapter 7
In order to provide a clear gender contrast, the data of the first informant, Sachiko, all of
which are from mixed-gender conversations, will provide the primary basis for the
following discussion.
This section discusses how the informants participate in each conversation in the role of
floor holder. The style of their participation will be investigated through their floor
management, including topic initiation and topic shift, some of which took place in the
form of overlap.
As stated above, the investigation will focus on the talk in which Sachiko participated.
The flow of topic and floor shift in each conversation is shown in a chart (see the
Appendix 3). The chart shows, i) a list of main topics and their initiators, ii) a list of
sub-topics, if any, and their initiators, iii) floor shift in each topic. Floors that are
cooperatively/competitively overlapped by the next floor holder and floors that are not
The three conversations show totally different flow of talk. As in the overlap
distribution discussed in the previous chapter, the differences also appear to be related
to several factors such as genre, topic, formality and so on. Given that Sachiko and her
the couple’s communication styles by investigating the areas in which the two differ
from one another in each conversation and how they shift their style from one
conversation to another.
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First, the initiators of each topic type (i.e. phatic, main topic and sub-topic) are
The majority of the topics are initiated by either Sachiko or Masao. Given that the
objective of the talk was to obtain information from Yoshida for the purposes of their
writing a special article in the next issue of their community magazine, his significantly
Sachiko and Masao, despite there being a difference in the frequency of sub-topic
initiation, their topic orientations are otherwise almost even. This implies that the two
participants are equally active in leading the talk, and there is no apparent imbalance
between them.
However, a very interesting point is revealed when investigating type of topic they
initiated. Table 7.2 below is a summary of the topics Sachiko and Masao initiated. The
table clearly distinguishes topics into two types: “self-oriented type,” which leads the
topic initiator to become the centre of the talk, and “other-oriented type,” which
encourage others to talk. Interestingly, each type is solely initiated by one participant.
The topics that Sachiko initiates are either targeting Yoshida by questions or
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Chapter 7
From this content, her way of topic initiation seems to follow the objective of the talk,
that is to collect information from Yoshida, in which she shows her politeness by
praising the work of Yoshida and indirectly mentions her opinion by a form of
suggestion. In other words, with her topic initiation, she mainly approaches Yoshida to
seek information, rather than to explain or give her opinion. Thus, her style is other-
oriented. On the other hand, Masao’s topic initiations make a clear contrast with
Sachiko’s. The topics Masao initiated do not include any questions. They are instead
explaining what he is doing or giving his opinions rather than urging his (or their) client
Yoshida to talk. Thus, his topic initiation style is self-oriented. The two contrasting
tendencies are also observed in their sub-topic initiations as shown in the following
Table 7.3.
311
Chapter 7
explanations (9.3) and Masao is asking (1.4), the majority of the topics each participant
introduced are of the same nature as in the individual tendencies shown by their main
topic initiations.
Ehara et al. (1984), who investigated 12 mixed-gender and 20 same gender (10 each)
and female. One of their arguments is that while males tend to concentrate on the topic
in which they are interested, and are less concerned with the development of the talk,
females pay more attention to the development of the talk, and show interest in topics
introduced by other parties through support. Similar observations to Ehara et al. are
also reported by Matsuda et al. (1995). Such communication style differences appear to
represent the male’s “self-oriented” style and female’s “other oriented” style, though the
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Chapter 7
Given that Sachiko and Masao’s communication style in terms of topic initiation is no
different from what Ehara et al. and their followers argue, it seems that Sachiko and
As a second focus, to find out more in regards to gender differences, the floor shifts in
each topic are examined. Number of floors per participant are summarised in the
Table 7.4 Number of floors taken by individual participant under each topic*
Main topic and Sub-topic and its No of floors taken No of floors No of floors
its initiator initiator by Sachiko taken by Masao taken by Yoshida
1(Sachiko) 1.1(Sachiko) 0 3 3
1.2(Sachiko) 0 0 1
1.3(Masao) 0 0 1
1.4(Sachiko) 0 0 1
2(Masao) 2.1(Masao) 2 3 1
2.2(Yoshida) 1 2 1
2.3(Masao) No development
3(Sachiko) 0 2 2
4(Masao) 0 1 1
5(Sachiko) 1 2 3
6(Masao) No development
7(Masao) 2 2 1
8(Sachiko) 8.1(Sachiko) No development
8.2(Masao) No development
8.3(Masao) 3 2 0
8.4(Masao) No development
8.5(Yoshida) No development
8.6(Masao) No development
9(Sachiko) 9.1(Sachiko) 1 2 0
9.2(Sachiko) 2 4 2
9.3(Sachiko) 5 4 1
10(Masao) 10.1(Masao) 1 1 0
10.2(Masao) No development
Total ** 18+9=27 28+12=40 18+2=20
*For shared floor, only main floor holder is counted.
**Total number of topic initiations is added to the total number of floors. Main topic initiator
and its first topic initiator are overlapping hence is counted as one.
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There is another striking feature in the flow of the topic and floor. The shaded topics in
Table 7.4 (four in total1) indicate that they are initiated without being directly cohesive
to the previous topic content. The fact that all of these topics are initiated by Masao
suggests he has less concern about cohesiveness with the ongoing topic.
Interestingly, not all of these topic initiations took place by interrupting the previous
floor holder. Topic 8.6, for example, is initiated in a rather cohesive manner, on the
surface, which seems to be a strategy to move the topic to an area of Masao’s interest,
without causing a conflict with the current floor holder. See Masao’s reaction to
The participants are talking about internationalisation of the Nagano prefecture. Having heard from the
Okaya city, where the council promotes a long-stay holiday program in Australia, which is located in
Nagano prefecture, Yoshida refers to a housing distributor that sells Australian houses, which he believes
attracts the local residents.
1 Sa: [fu - =
aizuchi
(understanding)
M:
M: [ e e ]
aizuchi
(continuer)
Y:
= mo konaida: kaetta toki ni: i][koo to] omotte=
P the other day returned when P go VOL QUO thinking
was thinking of visiting them when I went back to Japan the other day,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1
Masao’s topic initiation in the main topic 10 is overlapping sub-topic 10.1, hence these two are counted
as one.
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Chapter 7
3 Sa: fuu[ - n]
aizuchi
(understanding)
M:
M: [e e ] [Soo nandesu=
aizuchi that COP
(agreement) Indeed
Y: [hai]
aizuchi
(agreement)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Sa: [u [- n]
aizuchi
(agreement)
Y: [ho [ - ]
aizuchi
(understanding)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Sa: un
aizuchi
(agreement)
Y: = he[hee ee
aizuchi
(continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As the extract above shows, before initiating a new topic of interest to him (i.e. about
his personal connection to a powerful politician’s family), Masao first agrees with
Yoshida with a terminal overlap in line 5. Thus, the turn shifts smoothly. However,
despite his strong agreement, “soo nan desu yo, indeed,” the topic initiated by Masao
does not directly cohere with Yoshida’s opinion that the selling of Australian houses
It is interesting to note that such a strategic topic initiation is used with Yoshida but not
with Sachiko. Three out of four full-blown topic changes by Masao took place by either
interrupting Sachiko (2) or ignoring her talk (1). In particular, his initiation of Topic 10
Sachiko and Masao are explaining to Yoshida about UniLodge, which is located near the properties that
Yoshida is dealing with.
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Chapter 7
1 Sa:
M:
M: (0.3)
Y: ha[i hee=
aizuchi aizuchi
(continuer) (continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 Sa: = [tomareru no de] famirii de~ ippaku ni-hyaku doru=
can stay FP and family P one night 2 hundred dollars
can stay. And for a family, at about 200 dollars per night
M:
Y: = -[ - - ]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7 Sa:= gurai de tomareru n desu yo. [Dakara] (0.3) sootoo=
about at can stay VN COP FP So very
(one) can stay. So(it’s) very
M:
Y: hee [ - -]
aizuchi
(understanding)
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Chapter 7
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Sa:= yasui [shi gaku[sei no wa] yasui n da yo ne hyaku-
cheap P student P P cheap N COP FP FP hundred
cheap and <to M> It’s cheap for student, isn’t it? At
M: [ne [c h o tto]
INT little
Hey excuse me
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Sa: = roku[juu k u r a i] de /?/[tomareru
sixty about at can stay
about 160, (one)can stay
It is important to note that the number of times that Sachiko holds the floor in Sub-topic
9.3 before Masao’s new topic introduction in line 8 is five (see Table 7.4), which is
more frequent than in any other topics. This implies that, unlike in the other topics,
Sachiko led the talk as a floor holder in this topic. Masao also held the floor the same
number of times in this topic as in the other topics, but as Chart 7.1 below shows, the
length of each of his floor holds is relatively short, and confined to the first half of this
topic (46 seconds). Masao halts his active involvement as a floor holder in the latter half
of the topic, resulting in Sachiko leading the topic for 47 seconds. Masao cooperatively
overlaps Sachiko only once at the very beginning of the second half, and after inactively
(in low volume) responding to Yoshida’s inquiry, he completely withdraws from the
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Chapter 7
talk and it becomes dyadic talk between Sachiko and Yoshida as shown in the above
extract.
->(Masao)-> (Sachiko)->(Masao)->(Sachiko)->(Masao)->(Sachiko)->(Masao)
46 sec
->(Sachiko)->(Yoshida)->(Sachiko)
47 sec
extract (65)
NB:Underline indicates that the speaker is overlapped by the next speaker. Single underline indicates
cooperative overlap and doubled underline indicates competitive overlap (i.e. interruption).
Throughout the 30 minutes 14 seconds talk, this is the only occasion where Masao
becomes inactive. The reason for him becoming inactive can be either Sachiko’s
domination of the floor or Masao’s lack of interest in the topic. Considering Sachiko’s
low participation in other topics in terms of floor holding, the former does not seem
likely. The key to understanding this is revealed when investigating the content of the
talk when holding the floor. In the first 46 seconds, Masao and Sachiko are
that they had introduced the accommodation to a movie director. It is when Sachiko
provides Yoshida with further details of Unilodge in terms of facilities and floor plan (at
the beginning of the second half of the talk) that Masao withdraws. The virtues of
Unilodge have already been mentioned at the beginning of the topic. Thus, perhaps for
Masao, the topic has already been concluded, hence has lost his interest in detailed
information such as the floor plan or the price of the accommodation. Otherwise, he is
more likely to have been participating more actively, as in the first half of the talk.
informant does not react to his female partner if the topic she introduced does not
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Chapter 7
interest him, and introduces a topic of his own interest after the current topic fades, due
to inactivity. As their data was collected from a pair who had never met before, the
male appeared to show some politeness in having waited until the topic he is not
interested in fades. In the case of Masao in this data, however, he forcibly introduces a
new topic by interrupting Sachiko in the midst of her animated talk with Yoshida. It is
probably the case that Masao thought it would not be problematic to interrupt Sachiko,
as she belongs to the same uchi (inside) group, in this case family as husband and wife
the talk with questions and compliments. From Masao’s talk in lines 8-10 in the above
extract, although he indicates his concern with the organisation of the talk, his
brings the talk back from tangential side-topics, Masao makes direct reference to the
irrelevance of the current talk to their task, and does this even by interruptions. From
these observations, it seems that the communication styles of Sachiko and Masao still
seem to preserve the gendered characteristics discussed above, and traditional amae
Masao and Sachiko’s traditional gendered communication style can also be recognised
by investigating how they take the floor in terms of overlap. The following table
summarises the numbers of floor shifts with cooperative and competitive overlap by
individual participant and the person from whom the floor is taken.
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Chapter 7
Table 7.5 Number of floor shift with cooperative and competitive overlap per participant2
* The arrow indicates who overlaps whom. For example in “X->Y” means X overlaps Y.
** The numbers in the brackets indicate a floor that is not cohesive to the previous floor.
Although both Masao and Sachiko overlap Yoshida a number of times, the frequency is
low. This indicates that Sachiko and Masao have little conflict with Yoshida. In
contrast, frequent overlaps between the couple are observed (see the shaded parts in the
table above). In terms of cooperative overlaps, Sachiko and Masao are not very
different from each other. In terms of competitive overlap, however, Masao overlaps
Sachiko (7) more than twice as frequently as Sachiko overlaps Masao (3). In Sachiko’s
three competitive overlaps with Masao, all of them are made in order to develop the
main talk by moving back from a tangent initiated by Masao to the main topic of the
talk.
One such example is shown below. Note how Masao creates a tangential line by
playing on a word (i.e. creating the word, double-harvesting industry, with self-
satisfaction) in lines 3-6, and how Sachiko copes with that in lines 4-6.
Masao has been expressing his opinion about how society in the near future will be filled with middle and
old aged people, thus selling them a property for foreign investment (for their second life) becomes big
business.
2
The numbers in the table focus on main floor shift only. In other words, if a participant overlaps the
other whose utterance is not regarded as a main floor or not developed to be a main floor (e.g. stops
talking), or when a non-floor holder overlaps the current floor but the current floor ignores it and keeps
talking, these overlaps are not counted, hence the numbers presented in the table do not match the total
number of overlap per category tables presented in the Appendix 2.
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1 Sa:
Y: ee
aizuchi
(agreement)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Sa: huhu Oka=
<laugh> Oka=
Oka=
Y: Ni-moosaku sangyoo<laugh>
double cropping industry
Double-harvesting industry
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Sa:= ya mo kae ba ii no yo [ne.
ya P buy CONgood N FP FP
Okaya could buy it, I guess.
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Y: = hee:
aizuchi
(understanding)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7 Sa: = [kae] ba ii noni ne. [Shi ge shi ga katte
buy CON good P FP city city P buy and
buy I wonder. City, city government buys and
Y: hee[: hee
aizuchi aizuchi
(understanding) (continuer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Sa: [soo i]u no o [sa
that say VN P FP
such kind (of property)
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
After listening to Masao’s word play, which is followed by laughter, Sachiko introduces
a new topic which returns the conversation to the main topic, the property with which
Yoshida is working (starting in line 4). Sachiko starts talking at a floor free zone (i.e.
Masao and Yoshida are laughing, hence nobody holds the floor at that point), which
seems to be a convenient point at which the conversation may be retrieved from the
excited by the word he has created (lines 5-6). As a result, Sachiko has to interrupt
Masao at the end of line 6 in order to reintroduce the new topic. Her other interruptions
also take place in similar situations. It is important to note that Sachiko does not
interrupt Masao earlier in his tangential talk. Rather she first listens to him and only
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when he continues talking off track, does she take action. Thus, her interruptions seem
to be necessary in order to develop the talk and to keep it to the main topic.
holder, as it is possible that s/he may lose the floor and lose the opportunity to say what
s/he wants. However, having observed Sachiko’s interruptions, it seems that, depending
upon the situation (i.e. here Business Talk with limited time), even interruption may
become legitimate in order to meet the objectives of the talk.3 Therefore, it seems that
Sachiko’s communication style in terms of her floor taking, including her interruptions,
is other-oriented.
On the other hand, it appears that Masao’s competitive overlaps are overwhelmingly
due to his desire to talk, or desire to lead the talk, as discussed in relation to (64) above.
This particular communication style of Masao is also observed at line 8 at the end of the
above extract (65), where he attempts to decline Sachiko’s topic initiation about Okaya
by stopping her with “chotto matte matte, wait wait,” to prioritise his desire to write a
note. Thus, once again, his communication style can be described as self-oriented.
This section has investigated the communication styles of Masao and Sachiko in terms
of topic initiation, topic shift, as well as floor shift, and compared their styles with the
communication styles of the couple appear to follow what has been discussed, that is,
women seem to pay more attention to the development of the talk, and men seem to
concentrate on the topic in which they are interested more than on the development of
3
However, once again, this legitimacy thoroughly relies on amae of being uchi, in-group members, and it
would not be legitimate to interrupt one who is socially distant.
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Sachiko seems to concentrate more on the development of the talk by introducing topics
that accord with its objectives and on redirecting the talk if it becomes tangential by
introducing a more appropriate topic for the talk, or even interrupting Masao. In
contrast, Masao seems to be more active in the talk that interests him than in the
developing the talk: he introduces topics of his own interest rather than topics that are
core to the talk, and seems to prefer to lead. As a result, he often tangentially departs
from the main track of the talk, and occasionally interrupts Sachiko, because of his
desire to develop his own talk. From what is shown in their styles of communication,
despite their relatively long residence in Australia, it seems that their communication
Japanese communication among native Japanese in Japan (see Chapter 2), though such
This small section discusses the Chat at Work in which the same couple and their
colleague (who is also their daughter) participate. Compared with the Business Talk,
this talk is very short, and as Table 7.6 shows, there are a total of six topics in which
two constitute side talk. Unlike a business meeting, in which participants tend to be
physically isolated to concentrate on the matter at hand, talk such as this Chat at Work
does not necessarily physically isolate participants from other possible participants,
Among the four main topics, only one topic, which is the focused topic of the talk, is
developed into sub-topics (see the Appendix 3 for the detail of its topic and floor shift).
Although the table shows that Sachiko introduces more main topics and sub-topics than
Masao, the numbers are so small that it is difficult to interpret them. For example, in the
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case of main topic introduction, though Sachiko introduced topics twice as often as
Masao (i.e. Sachiko introduces two, and Masao one), the differences are only one.
Similar to the above, due to the small number of topics in total, it is not possible to
show whether there are any gender traits in terms of the type of topic initiation by
Masao and Sachiko, as it was in the case of the Business Talk. In order to obtain a more
by each participant under each topic are summarised in the table 7.7 below, as was done
Table 7.7 below shows Chie’s extremely low involvement in the Chat as a floor holder
(one floor taking and one topic initiation only) compared with Sachiko and Masao. In
this chat, the main topic is about an old couple in their late 80s who once had a serious
health problem, but they are now healthy and well despite their age. The couple are well
known to Masao and Sachiko, but not to Chie. Thus, the pair are actively talking about
the couple to Chie. As Chie is mostly listening to them, she ends up being a less active
floor holder, but remains involved as a non-floor holder. Such a clear distinction
between the couple and Chie in terms of active participation as a floor holder is not
observed between Sachiko and Masao. Rather, the table shows Masao and Sachiko are
equally involved in terms of the numbers of floors taken (9 each). When the number of
topic initiations is considered, it becomes evident that Sachiko initiates more topics (8)
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than Masao (4). However, the difference between the couple is not that distinct, and it is
not clear enough to argue that Sachiko seems to care about the development of the talk
Table 7.7 Number of floors taken by individual participant under each topic
* Total number of topic initiations is added to the total number of floors. Main topic initiator and its
first topic initiator are overlapping hence is counted as one.
One point that stands out in such a short chat is Masao’s full-blown topic change. Right
after Sachiko starts a new topic about the old couple, Mr and Mrs D4, Masao introduces
Sachiko has introduced a new topic about a healthy couple in their 80s, when Masao suddenly interrupts
her and introduces a totally different topic about his misunderstanding of the date, related to a published
article.
4
The talk before Sachiko starts is not recorded (the informant seems to have erased it), but it is assumed
that the topic related to old age (80) has already been in focus, since it is unlikely that Sachiko would
have started with the conjunction “demo, but” followed by a specific age without any previous context.
Actually, after Masao changed her topic, she reinitiates the topic, and from her talk, it is possible to
assume what the participants were talking about before and what Sachiko was going to talk about.
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C:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Sa: aa
aizuchi
(understanding)
C:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa:
C:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At the beginning, it would appear that Masao was talking to himself. However, his use
of “oi, look5,” obviously shows that he wants to share the information with other
participants (i.e. that he mistook the date of a certain event as October 10 for October 9
and printed it, which ended up working better since October 9 was already fully
booked). It should be noted that while chatting, the participants are sitting at their own
desks. It appears that Masao’s attention is not just focussed on the talk at hand, but also
on the paper document on his desk. Whether he noticed that Sachiko was initiating a
new topic can not be known. However, it is certain that he has been participating in the
talk before the recording started. Thus, if he did not notice Sachiko’s topic initiation, it
seems that he had already lost interest in the topic and paid more attention to the
document on his desk. Whatever the case, Masao happened to interrupt Sachiko and, as
5
Japanese traditional gender-preferential term for calling for attention by male.
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Chapter 7
a result, Sachiko had to stop and switch her role to a non-floor holder and wait for the
After Masao’s topic came to a conclusion, there was a moment of side talk, when
Sachiko (who is followed by the other participants) sent a junior staff member off to
work outside, after which Sachiko successfully reinitiates the topic (topic 4, about the
old couple in their late 80s who are still healthy) that she had attempted to introduce at
the beginning of the above extract. The topic then attracts the others and the participants
start to be involved in the talk actively and develop the topic (sub-topics 4.1-4.7,see the
topic and floor shift of this Chat in the Appendix 3). However, in the midst of the
development of the topic, Masao suddenly withdraws himself from the talk without
informing the others. Note how he withdraws and how the others notice it in the
following extract.
The participants have been talking about an old couple who are still well and healthy in their late 80s.
Masao points out that they are the descendants of a prestigious family.
1 Sa: [u - n ]
aizuchi
(agreement)
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C:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 Sa: = o[ri-ke] to: [moo hitotsu no]
Moori family and more one P
Moori familyand another one is
M: / ? / Eeto/?/=
HES
umm
M:
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
11 Sa: = hah hah
C:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It is interesting that Masao was actively involved in the talk up to the moment when he
called his client, Sato (see lines 4-5). This results in the others having the impression
that he is still with them, even after Masao has been talking on the phone for a few
moments (Masao’s first two utterances in line 6, “hai,” “yes” and “ee” as a part of
hesitation marker “eeto,” can be understood as aizuchi), and when Masao starts to ask
for Sato, Sachiko and Chie come to realise Masao’s abrupt withdrawal (end of line 6 to
a pause in line 7). Due to his unexpected withdrawal, the other participants lose their
eagerness to continue talking and, before long, the talk ceases. Whether Masao
considered what would happen to the talk or not after his sudden withdrawal is not
known. However, given that Chie indirectly accuses him (though in a comical way) for
not informing her and Sachiko that he intended to withdraw (lines 10-11), it seems that
member (i.e. colleague as well as family members in this case where amae is usually
admitted).
As discussed in the previous section, Masao’s self-oriented act as such is also observed
in the Business Talk. Thus, this seems to be an aspect of his communication style.
Although it is not certain whether the style comes from his own personality, the style
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matches closely with what has been discussed by a number of researchers as Male
discourse style.
It is very interesting to point out that the topic and floor management in the Family Talk
is significantly different to that found in the other two conversations as discussed above
from the other two conversations. First, there are as many as 27 topics in 9 minutes 15
seconds of conversation (see the Appendix 3 for its topic and floor shift), in which more
than half of the topics (19) are not cohesive to the previous topic. Second, none of the
topics are developed to sub-topics. As the talk is not goal-oriented, as in the way the
Business Talk is, the participants are free to introduce any topic of their choice.
However, even so, compared with the Chat at Work, which was discussed in the
previous section, the topic and floor management are very different in this talk.
The reason for the differences explained above seems to lie in the venue and time of the
talk. As discussed in Chapter 6, the talk takes place at the participants’ home at the end
of breakfast. In general, the home is a place where one can be at one’s most informal,
and amae, or dependency towards the other family members, is commonly observed.
Also, talk at breakfast would most typically involve number of morning activities, such
as eating, tidying up the table, washing up, getting ready for work or school and so on,
This is a part of the Breakfast Talk, where the topics change frequently.
2 (2.5)
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4 (6.1)
6 (1.6)
9 E: <burping>
10 Sa: A ki[tanaai]
EX dirty
Oh dirty!
12 E: [ haha ]
<laugh>
14 Sa u-n
yes
yeah
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus, most of the topics are activity-oriented, and lack complexity and therefore do not
participants freely introduce these topics one after another without putting thought to
In order to explore whether there are any gender specific topic orientations in the talk,
the topic initiations per participants are summarised in table 7.8 below. As for the
number of topic initiations, Eiji initiates marginally more topics than the other
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participants. However, if his last two topic initiations after Masao’s withdrawal (11-
2=9) were excluded, it turns out that the participants initiate topics almost equally.
Note: Shaded topics are not cohesive to the previously initiated topic.
observed to initiate topics of a particular nature, which contrasts with the Business Talk.
Rather, the content of the topics they initiate are very similar to each other (asking,
accusing, arguing among others), and all participants appear to initiate full-blown topic
changes.
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When comparing the communication styles of Masao and Sachiko in terms of topic
initiations in this talk with the other two conversations, it is interesting to note that,
while Masao’s style appears consistent across all three occasions, Sachiko’s style shifts
dramatically, particularly when compared with her style in the Business Talk. With
regards to this difference observed in Sachiko, it is obvious that the type of topic
initiations made by her are totally different in that she does not appear to display such a
To investigate the couple’s communication style in this Family Talk further, as was
done for the Business Talk, the number of floor shifts with cooperative and competitive
Table 7.9 Number of floor shift with cooperative and competitive overlap per participant
* The arrow indicates who overlaps whom. For example in “X->Y” means X overlaps Y.
** The numbers in the brackets indicate the floor that are not cohesive to the previous
floor.
Overall, as observed in the topic initiation, the Family Talk shows a remarkably
different pattern of floor shifts with overlap from the Business Talk (i.e. few
the length of the two conversations, the differences become even clearer: while there are
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competitive overlaps are observed in the less than 10 minutes of the Family Talk. If we
were to consider only this data, it would give the impression that the participants are
arguing without understanding each other, or are encountering other similar disorderly
relations.
As mentioned above, it seems that the talk in which participants freely interrupt one
Moreover, talk without cooperatively overlapped floor shift is perhaps further limited to
the participants who are at the very centre of an in-group environment, that is Family,
In order to provide a comparison between Sachiko and Masao’s overlapped floor shifts
in the Business Talk and the Family Talk, their data in Table 7.5 and 7.9 above are
Table 7.10 Masao and Sachiko's overlapped floor shifts in Business and Family Talk
Cooperative Competitive
Business Family Business Family
Sachiko->Masao 5 0 3 7
Masao->Sachiko 7 2 7 3
Masao’s overlap frequency in each talk appears more or less balanced in both
overlapped floor shifts. Considering that the length of the Business Talk is
approximately three times that of the Family Talk, the frequency of Masao’s overlapped
floor shifts seems to be similar in the two conversations. In other words, similar to the
style of his topic initiation, Masao’s style and frequency of taking the floor appears
consistent in these two conversations. On the other hand, Sachiko’s floor-taking styles
in the two conversations are completely different. In the Business Talk, as discussed in
1.1, her style is more cooperative and other-oriented when taking the floor. When
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interrupted by Masao, she mostly relinquishes the floor to allow Masao the opportunity
to talk. In the Business Talk environment, even her competitive overlaps had the
conversation. In contrast, in the Family Talk, she takes a floor with as many as seven
competitive overlaps, but not with a single cooperative overlap. In other words,
Sachiko’s floor-taking style seems to have shifted to a self-oriented (i.e. say whatever it
is she wants to say) style in the Family Talk. Furthermore, compared with Masao and
Eiji’s competitive overlap frequencies (5 each, See Table 7.9), Sachiko’s high
proportionally more self-oriented than the other participants. Particularly, her target of
competition is focused on Masao, with 7 overlaps. To further illustrate this point, note
Eiji asked Sachiko whether there are any Italian tomatoes left. Sachiko said there are, when Masao started
his talk.
4 E: [Zurui naa.
cunning FP
You are cunning.
7 (2.1)
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9 yo. Soreni=
FP moreover
Moreover
10 E: un
aizuchi
(agreement)
12 Sa: [Omoikomi
false belief
False belief
As in lines 6 and 12, Sachiko’s competitive overlaps observed in the Family Talk do not
seem to be just for the sake of talking, but to be directed against Masao. Interestingly,
Masao’s superior attitude to Sachiko, which he showed in the Business Talk, is not at all
observed in the Family Talk. Ueno (Buckley, 1997)6 points out that Japanese women
enjoy a certain amount of power within the family home, but this exists in balance with
their powerlessness outside the home environment. Sachiko’s communication style shift
in terms of topic initiation and floor-taking between the Business Talk and the Family
Talk seems to show close correspondence with the idea put forward by Ueno. Although
women executives in listed companies in Japan is a mere 0.73% (Toyo keizai shimpo
sha, 2004), hence, it is still quite clearly the case that Japanese business is
overwhelmingly male-dominated.
6
Ueno answered in an interview, which is reported in Buckley (1997).
7
According to Toyo keizai shimpo sha (2004), the proportion of women executives in listed companies
in Japan in 2004 was 0.73%, which had increased from 0.15% in 1995.
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In the case of Sachiko, despite her higher status in relation to Masao within their
working environment, when they meet with their clients, she holds back and leaves
Masao to lead the talk, as seen in the Business Talk discussed above. According to
Sachiko, whom I had the opportunity to ask several questions regarding the recorded
data (e.g. the context of the talk), business seems to conduct itself more smoothly when
A number of previous studies (e.g. Jugaku, 1979; Reynolds, 1990; Ohara, 1992, 1997)
point out Japanese society’s strong expectations towards women in their use of
language. It is a quarter of century since Jugaku first discussed this issue. Though
women’s language has been changing (Okamoto, 1995) and society itself has shifted
On the other hand, however, Sachiko’s communication style can also be viewed as
powerful, since she indirectly controls Masao in the Business Talk to keep him to the to
the main purpose of the conversation. The Family Talk provides another example in
which she has a power relationship over Masao, which she appears to directly exhibit in
her talk.
It is often said that walking three steps behind one’s husband outside whilst enjoying
some power at home seems to be a typical style of Japanese housewives. In this sense,
socio-cultural norms of husband and wife relations even after living in Australia for 8
years.
8
She mentions that it also applies to an Australian male client. However, the latter case seems to involve
not just gender issues but also ethnic and racial issues.
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The previous section discussed the participation styles of Sachiko and Masao from their
point of view as producers of overlap as floor holders, and investigated, how they
initiate topics and how they take the floor in each conversation. From the data, both
Masao and Sachiko seem to display some traditional gender norms previously discussed
in the literature; that is, female as other-oriented and male as self-oriented in their styles
feel free to use their power at home over their family members. This section will focus
on the participants’ communication style when they are taking a non-floor holder’s role,
and will investigate whether similar gender traits to their participation styles as a floor
holder are observed in their non-floor holder cooperative and competitive overlaps. The
are summarised per conversation9 and will be discussed individually, then Sachiko’s
and Masao’s style shift will be investigated by comparing three data fragments.
In chapter 6, under the discussion of overlap and the participants’ social distance,
discussion was extensively focused on the Business Talk. At the end of discussion, I
pointed out that Sachiko exhibits higher frequency of aizuchi production towards
Yoshida relative to Masao (see Table 7.11 below), despite their both having the same
social distance from Yoshida. In regards to this, I raised two issues that may be
associated with uneven aizuchi distribution; that is, the individual’s age and gender.
9
Note that some of the overlaps with which the participant takes the next floor appeared in the tables
presented in the previous section.
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As discussed by Uchida (1997) and Usami(1994), age is one of the elements that plays a
role in the construction of social relations with others. Socially the more senior
individuals possess more power than younger individuals, hence initiate topic more
often (Usami, 1994), or interrupt more often (Uchida, 1997). If this is the case, Masao,
who is in his late 50s would be in a greater power position than Sachiko, who is in her
late 40s, and Yoshida who is in his mid 30s, hence these age differences may have
There are a few studies that focus on participants’ age in relation to aizuchi frequency
(e.g. Kurozaki, 1987). In regards to power related to age, Mizutani (1988) reports that
the junior seems to utter less aizuchi towards the senior.10 Another study of aizuchi
frequency in terms of social distance (Sugito, 1987), observed more frequent aizuchi in
talk between persons who are socially distant than in talk between persons who are
socially close. Age, power and social distance are linked in terms of politeness (i.e. one
is socially expected to show politeness towards the older, the senior and the person who
is socially distant). In this sense, Mizutani (1988) and Sugito (1987) seem to contradict
one another. Furthermore, if age plays a strong role in aizuchi production frequency,
then it should also be shown in Sachiko’s aizuchi frequency as she is more than 10
10
However, the study does not extensively focus on power relations or age of the participants nor does it
mention how the participants’ hierarchy is defined (i.e. whether by their age or by their occupation).
Thus, it does not go beyond anecdotal observation.
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years older than Yoshida. However, the age rule (if any) does not seem to apply to her,
since she produces an extremely large number of aizuchi. For these reasons, age seems
to be a weak factor in explaining the couple’s uneven aizuchi distribution. Thus, the
Regarding gender and one’s communication style, more research has been produced
than that focused on age, and a number of studies have observed a few similar
tendencies, such as Japanese women being more frequent users of aizuchi than men
(i.e.supportive use by female, and non-supportive use by male) (Ehara. et al, 1984), and
strong social expectations for women to use aizuchi (Ehara, 1984; Reynolds, 1993). The
findings and observations seem to be consistent across these studies, which take the
same stance regarding aizuchi use in relation to gender. For example, a strong social
expectation for women to use more aizuchi (i.e. to be supportive) causes women to use
aizuchi more frequently, and the fact that women utter more aizuchi further confirms
social expectation.
Considering the above, it seems to be more natural and more likely that the substantial
difference in aizuchi frequency between Sachiko and Masao is due to their gender
difference rather than their age difference. If this is the case, then Sachiko’s extremely
style, which is observed in her talk as a floor holder: namely, other-oriented style. On
the other hand, in the case of Masao’s aizuchi, it may not be argued that his
aizuchi very frequently. The style differences in this couple are also observed in other
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cooperative overlaps, the difference between Sachiko and Masao is very small with
Masao producing slightly more (3). Considering the great difference in their aizuchi
overlaps Yoshida slightly more than Sachiko. In other words, although Sachiko shows
with substantial talk (e.g. clarification questions, other completions), hence her
seems to be more keen to join Yoshida’s talk by overlapping him with substantial talk,
and not merely uttering aizuchi, hence his involvement style can be described as “active
high-involvement.”
This style difference becomes even clearer in their use of competitive overlaps. In
competitive overlaps, the couple’s overlap frequencies to Yoshida invert, and the
difference between the couple becomes more obvious (11 overlaps by Masao and 3
competitive, Masao’s active involvement style is so high that it goes to the point where
it involves taking the next floor from Yoshida. Their communication style as non-floor
involvement”) therefore agrees with their style as a floor holder (Sachiko as “other-
Furthermore, in regard to Sachiko and Masao’s different involvement styles in talk with
Yoshida, how Yoshida communicates with the couple is also interesting to view. As
Table 7.11 shows, Yoshida’s involvement style towards the couple is different in his
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difference in relation to their floor continuations, and suggested that the difference in
Yoshida’s aizuchi is due to how long Masao and Sachiko held the floor. However, it
may not simply be a matter of the length of time during which the floor was held but
may also be due to their gender. Of course, when either Sachiko or Masao talks alone,
Yoshida reacts to the current speaker, whoever that person may be. However, when
both Sachiko and Masao talk at the same time, Yoshida tends to react to Masao’s talk
Masao started to talk about how the series of magazine articles should be organised. He wonders when
the article on tax system should be introduced.
1 Sa:
M: Kore doo shiyoo.
this how do VOL
What shall we do with this?
Y:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2 (0.3)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Sa: u n
aizuchi
(continuer)
Y: Aa - [-
aizuchi
(understanding)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
6 Sa: = ga a r i m a s u yo t]te [iu
P exist COP FP QUOT say
there is a way of buying (a property) like this?
regarding the article on the tax system. After suggesting putting it off for a later issue,
Masao was intending to talk of the plan for this coming issue, when he halts and causes
a pause of 1.2 seconds (at the end of line 4) at a non-TRP. Thus, Sachiko’s talk in line 5
is to supply Masao’s truncated talk for his sake, and also for Yoshida, who is keen to
know more about the publishing of the article with which he is involved.11 However,
instead of taking up Sachiko’s attempt at support and continuing his talk about the plan
for this coming issue, Masao abruptly abandons the topic and introduces another one,
that is, the article series must continue (line 5). At the end of line 5, Sachiko tries to go
back to the original topic by repeating what she supplied to Masao, but Masao
simultaneously starts his new talk, which is oriented to a new topic (lines 5-6). Thus, the
The interesting point here is that Yohida’s aizuchi is aimed at Masao’s talk, rather than
that of Sachiko. Of course, compared with Sachiko’s talk, Masao’s talk clearly targets
Yoshida through the use of final particles, “ne” or a direct expression, “onegai shimasu
ne,” “please support us,” However, considering the content of the original topic,
Sachiko’s talk is more valid and should have been useful to Yoshida. Even so,
Yoshida’s attention seems to align with Masao. As a result of her being ignored,
11
Earlier in this talk, Yoshida expresses his concern about how the information he gives to the couple
will be used in the publication. See the extract (44) in Chapter 5.
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Sachiko withdraws from reintroducing the original topic, and the plan for the coming
issue remained undiscussed till the end of the recording of the conversation. From their
communication style as a floor holder, it is clear that Masao is the centre of the talk.
However, even when the topic leaves on a tangent or changes without reaching its
conclusion, as in the above example, the reason appears to be that Yoshida‘s attention is
It could be the case that this is because Yoshida regards Masao as being the authority in
this particular conversational context. If this is so, one must enquire as to what it is that
status at the company is ranked higher.12 Whether Yoshida had the perception for
Masao and Sachiko that males are still regarded as having higher social status than
Table 7.11 shows Yoshida does not have a single competitive overlap with either of
cooperative and less competitive (see Chapter 6). However, when considering Sachiko
and Masao’s competitive overlaps towards Yoshida, while Masao failed only once to
take the floor out of 9 interruptions13 (another two competitive overlaps are floor
bidding), Sachiko failed in all of her attempts (two interruptions and one floor bidding)
12
This reminds me of an incident experienced by my female senior colleague (who is Japanese and
worked as a Head of our department at that time) when she met somebody for the first time for a work-
related issue. At that moment, she was with her husband in her office. When the guest (male) knocked on
her door and came in, without hesitation, he walked towards her husband and started his self-introduction
(n.b. in this case, both her husband and the guest were Westerners, hence a racial issue might have also
been involved in causing the incident. Obviously, underneath the mistake made by the guest, there must
have been an unconscious belief that the person who carries a title as Head would be a male. As already
mentioned in the previous section, this story also suggests that despite recent advancement of women in
society, general perceptions of people with a higher social title seems to be still focused on males.
13
The number includes one in the phatic talk which is not counted in the discussion as a floor holder in
the previous section. See the detail of their competitive overlaps in the tables attached in the Appendix 2.
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Chapter 7
to take the floor. In other words, while yielding the floor to Masao easily, Yoshida does
not seem to relinquish his floor to Sachiko. From these observations, though it is not
that obvious as Masao and Sachiko’s communication style, Yoshida too shows some
communication styles that seems to be related to his gender. The results may have been
more clear if the social distance between Yoshida and the couple were closer.
The following two tables summarise the participants’ overlap as non-floor holders in the
As the tables show, the non-floor holder’s overlap distributions in these conversations
are substantially different from the Business Talk (i.e. the participants hardly produce
overlaps but a small number of competitive overlaps. On the other hand, though there
are few, Sachiko and Chie use aizuchi, but no competitive overlaps. However, due to its
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short length, it is not known whether overlap distributions would have been different
had the conversation been longer. From what is observed in their communication style
as floor holders (see section 2.2 in this chapter), although it may be possible to regard
even such a small body of data as a reflection of their different communication styles,
the participants’ style cannot safely be argued with such a small amount of data.
In regard to the Family Talk, despite its length (9 mins 15 secs), cooperative overlap
frequency by the participants is as low as in the Chat at Work, and there are more
competitive overlaps than cooperative overlaps. As seen in the previous section, when
the participants take the floor through interrupting others, rather than cooperatively
overlapping the current floor holder, which means the participants freely take the floor.
holder. As for the individual overlaps, it is interesting to note that while Sachiko
produces only one cooperative overlap out of her eight overlaps, Masao produces four
cooperative overlaps out of his seven in total. As they do not produce any cooperative
overlaps to Eiji, it indicates that Masao is more supportive of Sachiko than vice versa,
Masao than Masao’s to Sachiko. These style differences are similar to what is observed
in their style of taking the floor as discussed in 2.3 above. Thus, overall in the Family
Talk, Masao and Sachiko’s communication styles are reversed from their styles in the
Business Talk.
The above sections looked at Masao and Sachiko’s communication style as non-floor
holders in each conversation. This section compares their communication style with
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Chapter 7
each other and sees whether they shift their style from one conversation to another.
Following Table 7.10 above, their non-floor holder’s overlap frequencies in all three
conversations are summarised in the following table. In each conversation, the larger
number is shaded, except for cooperative overlaps in the Business Talk, in which
Table 7.14 Sachiko and Masao's non-floor holder's overlap frequencies in the three
conversations
Cooperative Competitive
Business Chat Family Business Chat Family
Sachiko->Masao 69 2 1 7 0 6
Masao->Sachiko 68 0 4 26 4 2
From Table 7.14, Masao and Sachiko’s contrastive style shifts are observed. First, in the
Business Talk, they produce almost equal numbers of cooperative overlaps to each
other, which is assumed to be related to the genre of the talk and the involvement of a
overlaps are substantially larger in number than those of Sachiko, which implies that the
business world is still male-oriented. Though the length is very short, Masao’s self-
oriented style is observed in the Chat at Work, where he does not show his involvement
as a non-floor holder when Sachiko talks, and interrupts her when he wants to talk.
However, in the Family Talk, he shows his support of Sachiko and interrupts her less. In
contrast, Sachiko is still cooperative with Masao, but her style shifts to be more
competitive in the Family Talk. Considering that the length of the Family Talk (9 mins
15 secs) is approximately twice that of the Chat (4 mins 33 secs), Sachiko and Masao’s
approximately the same proportion of overlap frequency (i.e. for excample, if the
frequency in the Chat is doubled, the occurrence of cooperative and competitive overlap
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Chapter 7
become even more comparable). It is interesting to point out that their contrastive style
shift as such is not observed in their topic initiations or floor taking. This may be
because Masao’s style in the Family Talk represents men’s domestic attitudes towards
4. Conclusion
This chapter has investigated the same data as was used in the discussion in Chapter 6,
but has been more focused on the communication styles of Sachiko and her husband
Masao in three different conversations to explore whether there are any characteristics
that may be related to gender, as has been discussed in the literature. First, their styles in
floor management were investigated in terms of topic initiations and floor shifts. From
their topic initiations and floor taking style, Masao’s style in the Business Talk and the
related to his interests and participates in the talk if ongoing talk is of interest to him.
oriented, since she pays close attention to the development of the talk by introducing
topics that seek information from the other participant (i.e. Yoshida) or that would
interest the other participants (in Chat at Work), and returning the talk from tangential
topics (in the Business Talk). Their communication styles follow the male/female
communication styles discussed in previous studies (Ehara. et al, 1984; Matsuda.et al,
1995).
In contrast, in the Family Talk, though Masao’s style appears consistent with his
style. This seems to be represent Sachiko’s authority within the in-group, i.e., family, at
home where no reserve is required. Sachiko’s style, that is, standing behind her husband
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Chapter 7
outside and enjoying her authority at home, is observed to be what Ueno says (in
Second, their communication styles were investigated from their overlaps as a non-floor
holder. From their overlap frequency, not just similar trends are found to their floor
management again, it is also observed that Masao’s style shifts slightly towards other-
oriented from the Business Talk and the Chat to the Family Talk, which made a clear
The observations of Sachiko and Masao’s communication styles suggest that Japanese
traditional gender norms seem to be preserved between husbands and wives even after
living in Australia for some time. Of course, this is the only example available in this
study, hence it is not possible to claim its application to all Japanese couples in the same
situation. Indeed, Sachiko and Masao are in their 40s and 50s, and have spent four to
five decades in Japan before coming to Australia. Considering the Japanese historical
trends over the past 50 years, it is not difficult to presume that the society and culture in
which they lived in their youth had more emphasis on the hierarchy and gender
distinctions. Thus, if the investigation had been of the communication styles of younger
couples (in their 20s), who have not experienced old Japanese society and culture, the
results may well have been different. If this is the case, then a similar study to this will
probably bring different results in 20 years time, when they reach their 40s and 50s.
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Chapter 8 Conclusion
1. Introduction
This study was motivated by the question of how Japanese long-term residents of
issue mainly by focusing on lexical use (i.e. use of loan words in one’s first language)
(Hibiya, 2000; Kuyama, 2000; Masumi-So, 1983), but studies that discuss the issue
through one’s participation style in conversation are few (e.g. Krause-Ono, 2004). Thus,
this study focused on the latter, and investigated speakers’ first language
communication style in the second culture, namely in Sydney, Australia, and discussed
this from two key dimensions: gender and overlap. In Japanese, where gender
discourse level are not clearly marked. However, as some studies claim (Ehara et al.,
1984; Iida, 2000; Itakura, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1995; Uchida, 1997), the gender
differences are also observed at the discourse level. Such differences have been
preserved as one of the Japanese socio-cultural norms, hence it was assumed that they
culture/society.
Furthermore, overlap has been discussed for its gendered features, such as frequent
cooperative overlaps by females (e.g. Coates, 1996; Honda, 1997), and more
interruptions by males (e.g. Ehara et al., 1984; Matsuda et al., 1995; Uchida, 1997;
Yamazaki and Yoshii, 1994; Zimmerman and West, 1975). Thus, analysing Japanese
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notable observations. In light of this expectation and the importance of exploring a new
research field, I found several Japanese female residents of Sydney who tape-recorded
their talk with other Japanese residents. Two informants’ six multi-party conversations
people participated, were selected for the analyses (see Chapter 3). However,
problematically, there has been little concrete agreement between researchers regarding
the definition of overlap and its functional classification, so that analysis of overlap in
Therefore, in order to conduct the study, a fundamental frame of overlap definition and
Following the objectives of the study set out in Chapter 1, I will first summarise the
5). I will then summarise the findings from the investigation of the participation styles
overlap use (Chapter 6) and its application to gender (Chapter 7). Finally, I will discuss
Chapter 4 discussed how overlap is understood in this study in relation to turn and floor
by critically reviewing the literature. When analysing overlap, who overlaps whom is
the researchers’ primary focus. This is also the case with this study. Overlap, however,
has been discussed mainly in the study of interruptions. Following one of Sacks, et al.’s
gross facts that “overwhelmingly one person speaks at a time,” many researchers regard
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a turn that starts earlier than the current speaker’s Transition Relevance Place (TRP
hereafter) as “interruption,” because it intrudes into the current speaker’s right to speak.
These researchers leave overlap for overlapping talk other than “interruption.”
hence the labelling of these two are not commensurate (c.f. Bennet, 1981). Furthermore,
in reality, overlapping talk other than at TRP is not always intrusive on the current
speaker’s talk. Rather, many overlaps are uttered to support the current speaker’s
ongoing talk, rather than attempting to take over the right to speak from her/him. This
suggests that having a turn is not the same as having the floor (Edelsky, 1993). Thus,
when analysing overlap, who has the floor of the ongoing talk and what function the
overlap carries has to be taken into consideration. Given this, the first task was to define
“floor” and “turn.” Based on Edelsky (1993) and Hayashi (1996), I defined “floor” as
and “floor holder” as “the person who is in the centre of the floor and holds the right to
talk, which is publicly acknowledged.” Also, based on Ford and Thompson (1996) and
Tanaka, I defined “turn” as “any utterance which conveys a substantial message and its
pragmatic completion (which includes aizuchi),” and distinguished it from the “floor.”
While defining overlap itself from its formal properties (or in a more technical manner)
as “more than one person’s utterance uttered at one time,” functions of overlap need to
be labelled according to who has the floor, or who has the right to talk. This was the
second task.
Based on the notion of overlap in relation to “floor” and “turn,” which was discussed in
Chapter 4, Chapter 5 demonstrated how overlaps are classified into each functional
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category. Using one conversation (i.e. H-2), every single overlap was identified, and
based on who overlaps whom, it was first sorted into either “floor holder’s overlap” or
“non-floor holder’s overlap.” Each group of overlaps were then further sorted into a
certain function. In doing so, the study came up with a set of functional categories of
In regard to the classification of overlap, there are a few things to note. First, as the
above classification shows, there are many overlap functions, which indicate the various
holder and floor holder can be sorted into “cooperative,” “competitive” and “neutral”
Previous studies of overlap in Japanese conversations exclude aizuchi (in the form of
aizuchi terms, such as un, aa, fuun etc.) from the analysis since they merely signal that
the current floor holder is continuing the talk (Fujii, 1997; Honda, 1997) or they are
uttered involuntarily and including such aizuchi in the analysis would distract from its
focus due to their large number (Ikoma, 1996). However, as discussed in Chapter 4, this
study regards aizuchi as a “turn.” Furthermore, from the above functional categories, it
is obvious that aizuchi do not just function as continuers but convey a variety of
meanings. For these reasons, the study includes aizuchi and analyses them qualitatively
as well as quantitatively.
A second issue that has hardly ever been discussed in previous studies of non-floor
holder’s talk but at another non-floor holder who utters aizuchi towards the current floor
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holder’s talk. In other words, aizuchi follower follows another non-floor holder’s
aizuchi uttered at the current floor holder. Of course aizuchi follower also functions as
aizuchi towards the current floor holder (hence it has a double function), but when its
start is delayed and overlaps another non-floor holder’s aizuchi towards the current
floor holder’s talk, it can be interpreted as following the other’s aizuchi to cooperate in
creating harmony among the participants. In fact, many aizuchi followers rhythmically
Third, as exemplified above, overlap is not just initiated by non-floor holders, but is also
aizuchi, or early reply and self clarification that may have been understood as
immediately rather than waiting for completion of her/his talk) in cooperation with the
non-floor holder(s). At the same time, it also becomes clearer that what has been
discussed as interruption is in fact floor hold, with which the current floor holder tries to
retrieve the floor that was taken over by one of the non-floor holders illegitimately (in
3. Overlap frequency
The first half of Chapter 6 presented the results of quantitative analysis of overlap in
terms of its frequency and discussed some trends that had been little discussed in
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studies, aizuchi accounts for a very large proportions of overlaps: 43.2% of the overlaps
were aizuchi. When focusing on the number of aizuchi terms, which includes aizuchi
follower and the floor holder’s reconfirmation, the number reaches almost half (49.7%).
understanding (352) and continuer (241). The least frequent aizuchi function was
also function as continuer, from these results, it is suggested that aizuchi carries more
than continuer function. The large number of agreement and understanding indicates
the participants’ intention to be involved in the ongoing conversation more actively than
floor holder’s overlap. In non-floor holder’s overlap, more than two-thirds of the total
overlaps (65.4%) were aizuchi. However, when excluding aizuchi from the data,
larger than previous studies have reported. Furthermore, if another competitive function,
floor bidding, is included, the ratio goes up to 32.1%, which means almost one in three
conversation (Fujii, 1997). However, given that this study did not view such overlaps as
interruptions, this proportion becomes even larger. Whilst it may be thought that the
increased competitive overlap found in this study would be the result of cultural
influence for Australian English, it needs also to be remembered that the data for this
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Chapter 8
study includes different number of participants, genres, settings and so on, which are
As for floor holder’s overlap, almost equal distributions are observed in reconfirmation
and two types of floor continuations (about 28% each), followed by floor hold (11.6%).
Having the right to talk, floor continuations are observed to be a common participation
style for the current floor holder. However, the proportions of reconfirmation and floor
hold indicate that the floor holder does not just say what s/he wants by taking advantage
of holding the current floor, but constantly monitors non-floor holder’s reactions and
deals with them accordingly, whether it ends with cooperation or competition. In fact,
the data of this study shows that approximately one in five of all overlaps (21.3%) were
initiated by the current floor holder, which demonstrates that overlap is not just from
non-floor holders, but is also used by the current floor holder to show her/his active
participation in conversation.
conversation, participants’ social distance, setting, genre, topic and style. From the
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iv) genre of the talk is largely related to overlap frequency (e.g. both
participants’ overlap frequency. Rather, they are intertwined with each other and
contribute to constructing the style of communication, where some aspects may appear
more obviously than others. There are more contributing factors in conversation than
just these, which makes it difficult to determine which one is more closely related to
overlap production.
which some overlaps carry more than their surface function. First, I focused on aizuchi
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that are used as floor bidding. Using aizuchi is a good strategy to take the next floor
without causing conflict with the current floor holder, as it constructs a cohesion with
the ongoing talk and maintains harmony with other participants. Aizuchi used for this
purpose are mostly agreement aizuchi. Nagata (2004) reports that the proportion of
speaker shift increases when repetitive aizuchi (e.g. soo soo) are uttered in the midst of
the current floor holder’s turn. This study also observed a number of cases of strong
agreement aizuchi, but not always repetitive aizuchi, being used in the middle of the
current floor holder’s turn in attempting to take the floor. Given that aizuchi carries a
cooperative function, using them as floor bidding was hypothesised to be related to the
formality level of the conversation. However, the data showed no distinctive pattern
except that the Family Talk, where the number of aizuchi is extremely low, showed
almost no strategically used aizuchi. This was assumed to be related to the nature of
Family Talk where amae, or dependency, is allowed and no enryo, or feeling of reserve,
is necessary. On the other hand, among other conversations, such aizuchi use was more
frequently observed in Chat with Colleagues. Also, there was a tendency that the more
participants are involved, the more frequent strategic aizuchi appear regardless of the
formality level of the conversation. Furthermore, the use of such aizuchi is limited to a
few certain participants in the data. From these observations, it is suggested that
strategic aizuchi use is more likely to be related to the number of participants in the
conversation, or whether the talk is controlled or not (e.g. Academic Meeting vs Chat
overlaps the current floor holder, and conveys a message to the other non-floor holder at
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the same time without causing a conflict with other participants in terms of turn-taking
organisation. Third-party approach can be carried out by one of the floor holders when
the floor is shared by two persons as well as by one of the non-floor holders for the sake
of another non-floor holder. The latter case is likely to take place in order to rescue the
observed much in the data. This approach by a non-floor holder seems to be a very
approach is intuitive of the part of the participant, rather than being carefully chosen as
a strategy, since it is too complicated to select this as the most appropriate strategy upon
Chapter 6 also discussed Australian English cultural adjustment and cultural transfer of
English, is involved, there are a number of cases in which the Japanese participants’
aizuchi pattern shifts when Bob talks in English from when they speak in Japanese.
Namely, a number of long pauses are created, the frequency of their aizuchi decreased
markedly, and a few aizuchi appear at the end of Bill’s turn (at Complex Transition
(Clancy et al., 1996). This suggests that the Japanese long-term residents of an English
speaking country gain an understanding of the socio-cultural norms and pragmatics that
are used in communication in English and are able to apply them to their daily
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Chapter 8
despite their long-term residency. The only exception seems to be the non-floor holders’
minimal aizuchi use during story-telling. However, in the majority of the data, all of the
participants produce many aizuchi and their interactional style does not seem to be any
6. Gender
conversations in which the first participant, Sachiko, is involved (Sa-1, Sa-2, Sa-3), the
participation styles of Sachiko and Masao, who are wife and husband, were investigated
in terms of their floor management and overlaps as a non-floor holder. The couple’s
floor management was analysed by their topic initiation and floor shift. In Business
Talk (Sa-1) and Chat at Work (Sa-2), it is observed that while Masao’s style in terms of
topic initiation and floor shift is “self-oriented” (i.e. introducing topics that are his
interest, and participating in the ongoing talk if the topic is of his interest), Sachiko’s
style in these two conversations is “other oriented” (i.e. paying attention to the
development of the ongoing talk by introducing topics that are directly related to the
objectives of the conversation or that are other participants’ interest, and by returning
the talk from tangential topics). In contrast, in the Family Talk, although Masao’s style
is not different to his style in the other two conversations, Sachiko’s style shifts
dramatically towards “self-oriented” style. From the analysis of their styles in terms of
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overlaps as a non-floor holder, not only are similar trends in their floor management
observed, but Masao’s style is also observed to be shifting slightly towards “other-
oriented” compared to the other two conversations (i.e. more cooperative overlaps),
which marks a contrast to Sachiko’s style shift. From these observations, the couple’s
the communication style of husband and wife in Japan. That is, while standing behind
her husband outside the home, the wife enjoys her authority at home (Ueno, 1997 in
preserved between husband and wife even after living in another culture (Australia) for
as long as 8 years. However, it should be noted that their styles may also result from
their age—Sachiko is in her 40s and Masao is in his 50s— and it is likely they spent
their youth in a society and culture where gender hierarchy was more strongly
emphasised.
Japanese long-term residents of Sydney, despite my assumptions, it turned out that their
communication styles were not very different to the styles we commonly observe
between native speakers of Japanese in Japan. This result follows Krause-Ono (2004),
Germany in terms of aizuchi frequency does not differ from the Japanese in Japan.
Although this study did not investigate the communication style shift of native speakers
German long-term residents of Japan use more frequent backchannels in their German
communication than short-term residents, suggests that the participation style of the
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Chapter 8
Japanese in their first language communication is rigid under any culture. However, as
discussed in Chapter 6, although there are a number of aspects and variables that
construct one’s communication style, at this stage, it is still premature to argue the
universality of the rigidity. In order to pursue the issue further, I would like to focus the
generations.
residents of Australia.
The reason for i) is the exclusion of “simultaneous start” from the analysis in this study
due to difficulty of its classification. However, “simultaneous start” would also provide
study looked at a middle-aged couple’s discourse style only, whether the discourse
styles of other generations (particularly younger generations) would follow this result or
not is unknown. Thus, age variation is necessary in data for further investigation of this
research topic. Finally for iii), in order to find out whether the stability of
communication style of the Japanese in their first language is greater than for speakers
cultures also needs to be investigated. To make a contrast with this study, it would be
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study, it is extremely difficult to obtain Japanese subjects due to their sensitivity about
disclosing their conversations. For more data access, it may be beneficial to work in
cooperation with other researchers. Also, use of some of the latest technologies (e.g.
digital audio recording that can be installed in computer for analyses) would be
365
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Appendix
Appendix 1
page
function explanation reference
continuer to encourage the current floor holder to continue. 163
understanding to show understanding of what the current floor holder has
aizuchi
said. 164
agreement to claim agreement and empathy for what the current
floor holder has said. 169
evaluation
to react what the current floor holder has said. 171
clarification
to seek further information regarding what the current floor
question
holder has said. 175
to support the current floor holder's talk to construct the
information supply ongoing floor by supplying word/phrase. 178
to reply the current floor holder's question turn before its
non-floor holder
382
Appendix
Appendix 2
C: completion of turn
Eng: in English
para: paraphrasing
rec: reconfirmation
383
Appendix
rep: repetition
to the other: talk that is targeted at other than the person who is being
overlapped.
others 4(rep=1) 1 5
clarification Q 2(rep=1) 2
info. Supply 1 1 2
early reply 5 5
other completion early 3 1 4
choral
aizuchi follower 16 2 18
floor bidding 1 1
interruption 7 2(failed=2) 9
new turn at TRP 1 3 4
TC misjudge 2 2
miscellaneous 2 2 4
reconfirmation 1 5(rep=1) 6
self clarification 1 1 2
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC) 2 8 10
floor continuation
(at C ) 3 3
floor hold 12 12
floor free 3 6 9
others to the other 3 3 6
excluded 5 8 13
Total 106 185 291
384
Appendix
others 4(rep=1) 4
clarification Q 1 1 2
info. Supply 6 1(failed) 7
early reply 2 2 4
other completion early 2 7 9
choral 1 2 3
aizuchi follower 13(+ft=1) 1 14
floor bidding 13 2 15
interruption 13 9(failed=1) 22
new turn at TRP 5(failed=1) 2 7
TC misjudge 2 2
miscellaneous 5 5
reconfirmation 32(+ft=1) 10(rep=1/+ft=4) 42
floor holder
self clarification
early reply
385
Appendix
others echo=1 1
agreement aizuchi T 8(+ft=1) 13(+ft=1) 21
others para=1 rep=1 2
evaluation aizuchi T 1 1
non-floor holder
others rep=1 1
clarification Q 2 2
info. Supply 1(attpt) 1 2
early reply 6 7 13
other completion early 1 1
choral
aizuchi follower 4 5(rep=1) 9
floor bidding
interruption
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge 2 2
miscellaneous 1 1
reconfirmation 14(rep=2/=ft=4) 10(rep=1/+ft=4) 24
floor holder
self clarification 2 2
early reply 1 1 2
floor continuation (at NC) 31 9 40
floor continuation (at C ) 23 6 29
floor hold 1 6 7
floor free 13 13
others to the other 2 1 3
excluded 3 3 6
Total 125 104 229
386
Appendix
Sachiko’s overlap towards the others (Chat with Colleagues/Family members at work)
function form to Masao to Chie total
continuer aizuchi T
others
understanding aizuchi T
aizuchi
others
agreement aizuchi T 2 2
others
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 1 1
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply
other completion early
choral
aizuchi follower
floor bidding
interruption
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 4(+ft=1) 4
floor holder
self clarification
early reply
floor continuation (at NC) 1 1
floor continuation (at C ) 2 2
floor hold
floor free
others to the other 1 1
excluded 3 3 6
Total 7 10 17
387
Appendix
Masao’s overlap towards the others (Chat with Colleagues/Family members at work)
function form to Sachiko to Chie total
continuer aizuchi T
others
understanding aizuchi T
aizuchi
others
agreement aizuchi T
others
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply
other completion early
choral
aizuchi follower
floor bidding 3 3
interruption 1 1 2
new turn at TRP 1 1
TC misjudge
miscellaneous
reconfirmation
floor holder
self clarification
early reply
floor continuation (at NC)
floor continuation (at C )
floor hold 1 1
floor free 2 2
others to the other 2 2
excluded
Total 10 1 11
388
Appendix
Chie’s overlap towards the others (Chat with Colleagues/Family members at work)
function form to Sachiko to Masao total
continuer aizuchi T
others
understanding aizuchi T 1(+ft=1) 1
aizuchi
others
agreement aizuchi T
others
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 3 3
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply
other completion early
choral
aizuchi follower
floor bidding
interruption
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge
miscellaneous
reconfirmation
floor holder
self clarification
early reply
floor continuation (at NC)
floor continuation (at C )
floor hold
floor free
others to the other
excluded
Total 4 4
389
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T
others
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 1 1
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply
other completion early
choral
aizuchi follower
floor bidding
interruption 6 1 7
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge 1 1
miscellaneous
reconfirmation
floor holder
self clarification
early reply
floor continuation (at NC)
floor continuation (at C )
floor hold 1 1
floor free 1 1 2
others to the other
excluded 1 1
Total 11 2 13
390
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T 1(+ft=1) 1
others echo=1 1
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 1 1
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply
other completion early 1 1
choral
aizuchi follower
floor bidding
interruption 2 1 3
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge
miscellaneous
reconfirmation
floor holder
self clarification
early reply
floor continuation (at NC)
floor continuation (at C ) 1 1
floor hold 1 1 2
floor free
others to the other
excluded 4 4
Total 12 2 14
391
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T
others
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 1 1 2
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply
other completion early
choral
aizuchi follower
floor bidding
interruption 2 2 4
new turn at TRP 1 1
TC misjudge 1 1
miscellaneous
reconfirmation
floor holder
self clarification
early reply
floor continuation (at NC)
floor continuation (at C )
floor hold
floor free 1 1 2
others to the other
excluded 2 2
Total 5 7 12
392
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T 1 7(+ft=2) 9(+ft=4) 1(+ft) 18
others rep=1(+ft) rep=1(+ft) 2
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others
clarification Q 2 2
info. Supply 1 1
early reply
other completion early 1 5(failed=1) 1 7
choral
aizuchi follower 4 2 2(+ft=2) 8
floor bidding 1 1
interruption 3 3
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge 1 1 2
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 1 2 2(rep=1) 1 6
self clarification
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC) 3 2 4 5 14
floor continuation
( at C ) 1 2 1 2 6
floor hold 3 3
floor free 1 2 2 2 7
others to the other 1 1
excluded 2 3 5
Total 17 41 49 15 122
393
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T 1(+ft=1/Eng) 7 17(+ft=1) 3 28
others rep=1 1
evaluation aizuchi T 1 1
non-floor holder
others 1 1
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply 1 1 2
other completion early 1 1
choral 1 1
aizuchi follower 6 3(echo=1) 1 1 11
floor bidding
interruption 1(failed) 1
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 1 1
self clarification
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC) 1(Eng) 1
floor continuation
(at C ) 2 1 2(Eng=1) 5
floor hold
floor free
others to the other 1 1
excluded 1 1 2
Total 21 20 36 8 85
394
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T 11 4(+ft=1) 12(+ft=2) 2 29
others rep=1 rep=1 2
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply 1 1(+ft) 1 3
other completion early 1 1 2
choral 1 1
aizuchi follower 3(para=1) 5 4(rep=1) 3(rep=1) 15
floor bidding
interruption 1 1
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge 1 1
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 2(echo=1) 1 2 5
self clarification
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC) 2 6 4 3(+rec=1) 15
floor continuation
(at C ) 4 3 5 5(+rec=1) 17
floor hold 3 3
floor free 1 1 1 3
others to the other 1 1
excluded 1 1
Total 38 22 34 18 112
395
Appendix
others 1 2 3
clarification Q
info. Supply
early reply 2(+ft=1) 1 3
other completion early 1 1
choral 1 1
aizuchi follower 2 3(+ft=1) 3 6 14
floor bidding 1 1
interruption 2(failed=1) 1 3
new turn at TRP 2 2
TC misjudge 1 1
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 3 2 3 2 10
self clarification
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC) 7 1 1 9
floor continuation
(at C ) 1 5(+rec=2) 2(+rec=1) 2(+rec=1) 10
floor hold 3 1 4
floor free 2 2 1 5
others to the other 2 1 1 4
excluded 1 5 2 8
Total 48 12 39 26 125
396
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T 1 1 9(+ft=2) 11
others
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 1 1
clarification Q
info. Supply 1 1
early reply
other completion early 2(+ft=1) 2
choral 1 1
aizuchi follower 7 2 4 5 18
floor bidding
interruption 1 1
new turn at TRP 1 1
TC misjudge 1 1
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 1(echo) 1
self clarification
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC)
floor continuation
(at C )
floor hold
floor free 3 1 1 5
others to the other 3 3
excluded 1 2 1 4
Total 24 5 20 29 78
397
Appendix
others rep=1 1
agreement aizuchi T 10(+ft=5) 16(+ft=11) 26
others echo=1(+ft) rep=1/para=1 3
evaluation aizuchi T 2(+ft=1) 2
non-floor holder
others 5 3(+ft=1) 8
clarification Q 4 10(rep=1) 14
info. Supply
early reply 7(+ft=3) 7(+ft=5) 14
other completion early
choral
aizuchi follower 2 2 4
floor bidding 3 3
interruption 2 5(failed=3) 7
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge 4 6 10
miscellaneous 1 1
reconfirmation 7(rep=1/+ft=4) 7(+ft=2) 14
self clarification 1 2 3
floor holder
398
Appendix
others para=1 1
agreement aizuchi T 8(+ft=3) 20(+ft=1) 28
others 1 para=1/unison=1/echo=1 4
evaluation aizuchi T 2(+ft=1) 1 3
non-floor holder
others 5(+ft=3) 5
clarification Q 5(rep=1) 2 7
info. Supply 1 1
early reply 2(+ft=1) 2 4
other completion early 1 1
choral 2 2
aizuchi follower 5 5
floor bidding
interruption 6(failed=1) 5 11
new turn at TRP 1 1 2
TC misjudge 5 1 6
miscellaneous 1 1
reconfirmation 7(rep=1) 1 8
self clarification
floor holder
399
Appendix
others 6 1 7
clarification Q 6(rep=3/para=1) 6
info. Supply
early reply 3(+ft=2) 1(+ft=1) 4
other completion early
choral
aizuchi follower 1 12 13
floor bidding 3 3
interruption 10 2 12
new turn at TRP 3 3
TC misjudge 5 4 9
miscellaneous 2 2
reconfirmation 4(rep=1/echo=1) 7(rep=4) 11
self clarification
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC) 3 6 9
floor continuation
(at C ) 2 5 7
floor hold 3 3
floor free 2 6 8
others to the other 2 1 3
excluded 1 4 5
Total 100 68 168
400
Appendix
others rep=1(+ft) 1
agreement aizuchi T 5(+ft=2) 6(+ft=1) 1 12
others rep=1(+ft) 1
evaluation aizuchi T 1 1
non-floor holder
others 9(rep=1(+ft)) 1 10
clarification Q 5 5
info. Supply 3 3
early reply 5(+ft=2) 1 6
other completion early 1(failed) 1
choral
aizuchi follower 4 4 6 14
floor bidding 2 2
interruption 4(failed=3) 2(failed=1) 1 7
new turn at TRP 2 2
TC misjudge 4 4
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 2(rep=1) 2
self clarification 1 1
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC) 3 2 2 7
floor continuation
(at C ) 1 1 1 3
floor hold 2 1 3
floor free 6 9 5 20
others to the other 2 1 2 5
excluded 3 3 1 7
Total 87 37 20 144
401
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T 10(+ft=3) 6(+ft=2) 5(+ft=1) 21
others
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
402
Appendix
others para=1 1
agreement aizuchi T 10(+ft=5) 11(+ft=2) 1 22
others echo=1 1
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 1 4 5
clarification Q 1 3(rep=1) 4
info. Supply
early reply 2 2
other completion early 1 1
choral 1 1
aizuchi follower 2 1 5(rep=1) 8
floor bidding 2 2
interruption 1 2 3
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge 2 1 3
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 2 1 2 5
self clarification 1 1
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC)
floor continuation
(at C )
floor hold 1 2 3
floor free 4 3 1 8
others to the other 2 2 4
excluded 8 4 5 17
Total 44 48 19 111
403
Appendix
others
agreement aizuchi T 7 10 8 25
others rep=1/para=2 3
evaluation aizuchi T
non-floor holder
others 5 12(+ft=2) 2 19
clarification Q 2 2
info. Supply
early reply 1 1
other completion early 1 1 2 4
choral 2 2
aizuchi follower 1 1 6 8
floor bidding
interruption 2 2
new turn at TRP
TC misjudge 3 3
miscellaneous
reconfirmation 1 1
self clarification
floor holder
early reply
floor continuation
(at NC)
floor continuation
(at C )
floor hold
floor free 1 2 4 7
others to the other 4 2 6
excluded 11 6 5 22
Total 43 55 31 129
404
Appendix
Appendix 3
Charts of floor and topic shifts in the conversations Sachiko is
involved
Numbers:
Topic : shaded topic is not cohesive to the previous topic (i.e. full-blown topic)
405
Appendix
3. Commission <Sachiko>
->(Yoshida)->(Masao)->(Yoshida)->(Masao)
4. The objective of the article -> Bringing foreign currency back to Japan <Masao>
->(Yoshida)->(Masao)
5. Off the plan <Sachiko>
->(Yoshida&Masao)->(Sachiko)->(Yoshida)->(Masao)->(Yoshida)
6. Economic Crises in Hong Kong <Masao>
406
Appendix
Topic and floor shift in the Chat with Colleagues/Family members at Work (Sa-2)
5. (Masao abruptly makes a phone call and starts talking, which is not realised by
Sachiko and Chie)
6. Accusing Masao of his sudden withdrawal from the talk and phone call <Chie>
407
Appendix
408
Appendix
409