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Japanese hypothetical enactment as a response to third-party complaint

  • Yuki Arita

    Yuki Arita is an Assistant Professor of Japanese in the Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages at San Diego State University. She studies linguistic and non-linguistic resources which conversation participants employ to accomplish various social actions during Japanese talk-in-interaction. Her current conversation analytic research focuses especially on enactment, reported speech, turn-initial particles, and turn-final expressions.

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Published/Copyright: June 13, 2022

Abstract

This study examines Japanese enactment, an interactional phenomenon wherein participants in conversation act out themselves or others by utilizing specific designs of lexis, grammar, and prosody, as well as body movements. While these enactments can often be observed when a speaker depicts what someone said, did, or thought in the past, this article explores hypothetical enactments. Unlike enactments that are designed as representing real utterances and/or body movements performed in the past, hypothetical enactments are designed with linguistic and contextual features that indicate that they are fictitious. The data were drawn from a collection of video-recorded ordinary conversations in Japanese. Employing Conversation Analysis as its analytical framework, this study focuses on how Japanese speakers use hypothetical enactments to respond to co-participants’ complaints about a third party who is absent from an ongoing here-and-now interactional site (i.e., third-party complaints). The findings reveal that complaint recipients may produce hypothetical enactments as jokes or advice. When complaint recipients provide hypothetical enactments as jokes, they depict an improbable situation sarcastically. When complaint recipients provide hypothetical enactment as advice, they often demonstrate taking an alternative approach toward an antagonist. These enacted hypothetical scenarios may or may not be collaboratively extended by other participants, depending on how those participants treat the proposed scenarios.


Corresponding author: Yuki Arita, Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Dr, San Diego, CA 92182, USA, E-mail:

About the author

Yuki Arita

Yuki Arita is an Assistant Professor of Japanese in the Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages at San Diego State University. She studies linguistic and non-linguistic resources which conversation participants employ to accomplish various social actions during Japanese talk-in-interaction. Her current conversation analytic research focuses especially on enactment, reported speech, turn-initial particles, and turn-final expressions.

Appendix

1. Transcription symbols

[

the beginning of overlapped talk

(.)

micro-pause

(1.0)

length of silence

::

noticeably lengthened sound

=

latched utterance

-

cut-off

?

rising intonation

,

continuing intonation

.

falling intonation

shift into especially high pitch

shift into especially low pitch

( )

unintelligible stretch

(word)

transcriber’s unsure hearing

(( ))

transcriber’s descriptions

hh

audible outbreath

.hh

audible inbreath

(hh)

laughter within a word

> <

increase in tempo

< >

decrease in tempo

˚   ˚

quieter than the surrounding talk

CAPS

relatively high volume

2. Abbreviations

COM

complementizer

COP

copula

FP

final particle

LK

nominal linking particle

N

nominalizer

NEG

negative morpheme

O

object marker

PAST

past tense

TAG

tag-like expression

TP

topic marker

Q

question marker

QT

quotative marker

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Received: 2020-06-04
Accepted: 2022-01-31
Published Online: 2022-06-13
Published in Print: 2022-11-25

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