Projective/retrospective linking of a contrastive idea: Interactional practices of turn-initial and turn-final uses of kedo ‘but’ in Japanese

In this study, we adopted the methodology of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics to investigate the use of shiranai and wakannai ‘I don’t know’ in data from (the Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation), a corpus of naturally occurring conversations. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of the sequential positions and the interactional functions of these two expressions revealed that shiranai is often used as a response to a question that explicitly requests knowledge status. Shiranai is also used in response to informing, soliciting more talk from the interlocutor. On the other hand, wakannai is more often used as a response to a question that requests information. Used with prosodic features such as elongation and laughter, both shiranai and wakannai sometimes convey the speaker’s affective stance towards the lack of knowledge. Furthermore, wakannai can be used as a discourse marker to mark the speaker’s low degree of commitment, sometimes working as a sequence-closing device.

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Kedo-ending turn format as a formula for a problem statement with a deontic implication

Yokomori

2023

Journal of Japanese Linguistics

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In many languages, some turn formats are highly fixed and closely associated with specific interactional contexts, and thus function as formulas for particular actions. In Japanese, one of the recurring turn formats for referring to a problem found in the surrounding situation or other’s conduct is a clause ending with the contrastive particle kedo ‘but’. Based on close examination of examples from naturally-occurring conversations using the analytic framework of Interactional Linguistics, this article illustrates that the format with kedo is used to assign a deontic authority concerning an observed problem to the recipient and thereby leaving to the recipient a decision about how the problem should be dealt with and by whom. This shows a clear contrast with the turn format ending with yo, which is used to inform the recipients of what the speaker knows as a problem, and thereby to ask the hearers to register it.

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Projective/retrospective linking of a contrastive idea: Interactional practices of turn-initial and turn-final uses of kedo ‘but’ in Japanese

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Identical linguistic forms in multiple turn and sequence positions in Asian languages

Identical linguistic forms in multiple turn and sequence positions in Asian languages

Sequential positions and interactional functions of negative epistemic constructions in Japanese conversation

Kedo-ending turn format as a formula for a problem statement with a deontic implication

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