The use of particular lexical, semantic and pragmatic elements to determine the degree of formality is well recognised. In Japanese, formality in a communicative interaction is achieved not only by the use of the appropriate speech style but also of backchannels and short responses. Three such short affirmative responses that also have different pragmatic functions in Japanese are hai, ee (also variants e and eh) and un. Hai is considered to be the most polite while ee and un decrease in degree of formality. However, when looking at real data their use is not that clearly defined. While hai is found only in formal settings, ee and un are used just as frequently in those interactions. Hence, formality or politeness alone cannot account for their use. This paper looks at the use of hai, ee and un in formal interviews, and shows that all three tokens are used frequently as answers, backchannels and discourse markers. However, their distribution is determined by the speakers’ roles suggesting that they project a particular stance and have a distinct emotive value. It appears that hai puts the content in the foreground and is therefore mostly used by interviewees while un is hearer-centered and is more frequently used by interviewers as a backchannel. On the other hand, the ee token is used by both interviewers and interviewees but has other very different functions to hai and un. The fact that these tokens originally used as affirmative tokens are now multifunctional suggests that they are going through a process of intersubjectification.

Unlike the short and specific advice of service-encounters, advice in counselling settings is longer and more complex. In these interactions, it is known that advice is initially resisted in all languages. Scholars have tried to explain this phenomenon in terms of ‘face loss’ (Brown and Levinson 1987; Goldsmith 1992, 1994; Hinkel 1994; Murakami 1994); premature delivery (Heritage and Sefi 1992); the inappropriateness of the advisors (Jefferson and Lee 1992); or discrepancies in the interpretation of a problem (Murakami 1994). One of the difficulties in counselling or therapeutic settings is that the giving of advice in these interactions is a ‘process’ that is long and complex. In order to understand advice resistance, it is essential, first and foremost, to identify the characteristics of advice and how it is delivered. The present analysis of Japanese radio phone-in programs focuses on advice in order to identify its formal characteristics and also to try to understand the factors that determine its acceptance or resistance.

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Graphs showing time series of hourly and daily mean values of variables characterizing inflow density and buoyancy dynamics from Blackwood Creek

This book analyzes the relationship between gender, age and role in Japanese television interviews. It covers a wide range of topics on Japanese communication; cultural and gender variables are interwoven in the interpretation of the findings. The study shows how participants interact through language and how they project their identities in the context of the interview. Based on a qualitative analysis, speech in mixed and same gender interactions is analysed, turntaking, terms of address and aizuchi (listener’s responses) are examined. The findings reveal interesting characteristics of all-female interactions, such as the influence of age that appears to be more important than gender; an observation that has repercussions in the study of gender and language differences in modern Japan. This book is an interdisciplinary study that integrates notions of politeness and theories of gender and language, and will be of interest to people researching Japanese culture and communication, gender studies and institutional language.