i am not sure about
this statement, but please do read this by Senko Maynard:
Language in
Face-to-Face Interaction: Conversation analysis
Linguistics-oriented
analysis of face-to-face interaction began with the publication of
Tannen's (1984) book. Using a tape-recorded Thanksgiving dinner
conversation as data, Tannen identifies "conversational style,"
which broadly includes linguistics expressions and
interaction-managing strategies. Tannen's analytical steps are: (i)
tape-recording of conversation, (ii) transcription, (iii)
observation and analysis of data, (iv) hypothesis, (v)
incorporation of input from conversation participants and others,
and (vi) verification of hypothesis. After observing the New York
Jewish style (called the machine-gun question) and analyzing how it
functions in narratives, Tannen characterizes this conversation
style as "high-involvement style."
Given that Tannen's study concentrates on
a particular occasion of talk (a single event of conversation with
multiple participants including Tannen herself), in my own work
(Maynard 1986, 1987a, 1989b, 1993b) I examine multiple Japanese
(and American English) conversations by using video- amd
audio-taped casual conversations (20 pairs of Japanese and 20 pairs
of American) among college students. Both qualitative and
quantitative methods are used for analysis, and both global and
local levels of structure and conversation management are
investigated. From the global perspective I examine thematic
structure by focusing on strategies such as mode of reference and
repetition which help structure the interaction-based themes of
conversation. I also analyze narratives appearing in the data and
show that the narrative is emergent in the conversation, and it is
co-created by both story teller and story recipient. Focus is
placed on interactional management strategies, turn-taking,
back-channeling, and head movement. Functions and frequencies of
these interactional behaviours are identified and discussed, and it
is emphasized that all are significant in structuring the
self-contextualization processes of Japanese interaction.
In general, conversation analysis adopts
the analytical method developed by ethnomethodologists. Rather than
sentences or utterances, conversation analysis considers primary
the units of interaction (e.g. turns, back-channels) and their
sequencing in conversation. Particularly useful are related
concepts of adjacency-pair, conditional relevance, and preference
organization. Interaction in conversation is locally organized as a
connected pair, such as a question followed by an answer. This
expected preferred sequencing of action (i.e. one example of
preferene organization) creates a place in the conversational
sequence where a certain response become relevant. Thus,
conditional relevance means that "given the first, the second is
expectable; upon its occurrence it can be seen to be a second item
to the first; upon its non-occurrence it can be seen to be
officially absent - all this provided sheerly by the occurrence of
the first item" (Schegloff 1968: 1083). The concept of sequenced
and situated action is the key for analyzing conversational
interaction.
In recent years, some aspects of Japanese
conversation have continued to be investigated. One of the topics
often discussed (especially in Japan) is the back-channel. For
example, Kita (1996) elaborates on back-channel-like utterances
jointly sent by participants during the inter-turn pause. Ikeda and
Ikeda (1996) offer a descriptive system in which different degrees
of head nods as well as the duration of eye gaze are plotted along
with the transcript, making it easier to describe both verbal and
nonverbal behaviour.
Another topic in conversation analysis
involves the phenomenon of co-construction. Conversation
researchers have often emphasized the collaborative nature of
utterance production in English (e.g. conversation as "achievement"
as explained by Schegloff 1982). Following this line of inquiry,
Ono and Yoshida (1996) investigate co-construction in Japanese
informal conversation. It turns out that the co-construction of
syntactic units is rare in Japanese, perhaps leaving the
collaboration strategies to means other than syntax.
Specific
interaction context
Analysis of
face-to-face interaction in Japanese has also led to the
investigation of specific situations of talk. Three areas in
particular have produced interesting results - business
negotiation, conflict situation, and the invitation refusal
process.
H. Yamada (1990, 1992) examines
communication strategies used in Japan-US business discourse. On
the basis of tape-recorded multi-party conversations of American,
Japanese, and American-Japanese business meetings, Yamada contrasts
topic-opening strategies, talk distribution, and back-channel
strategies across these settings. Using the idea of "cross-talk,"
Yamada analyzes data by adopting interpretive, comparative, and
quantitative methods.
According to H. Yamada (1990, 1992), in
cross-cultural business communication Japanese and Americans
optimize different cultural strengths - the Japanese strength is
shown in the group and the American strength in the individual. For
example, "American participants take long monologic turns,
distribute their turns unevenly among participants, and take the
highest proportion of turns in the topics they initiate; Japanese
participants take short turns, distribute their turns relatively
evenly among participants, and continue to distribute their turns
evenly regardless of who initiates a topic" (1990: 271). Yamada's
study illustrates the difficulties arising from cross-cultural talk
where meaning-in-context is created in the mutually interactive
context of culture, encounter and conversation.
Jones (1990, 1992) examines how Japanese
people linguistically handle conflict situations. Using audio- and
video-taped conversations between friends and acquaintances, Jones
identifies occasions of conflict and microanalyzes three such
conversations - television debate, father-daughter conflict in a
family, and office communication between co-workers. Jones (1990,
1992) reports that Japanese conflicts often occur in "ratified"
situations, and when the conflict is not socially ratified,
participants must work hard to rarify it.
A case in point: after a few minutes of
strained conversation the co-workers in conflict abruptly stopped
talking and turned away from each other. But even under this
circumstance, participants strove for a playful tone, introducing
laughter and jokes. Co-workers placed the conflict situation into a
framework of "play" by using strategies such as style-switching,
repetition, parallelism, and laughter. If the conflict is still not
ratified after all reframing strategies, Jones (1990: 306)
concludes that "it seems ... impossible for the participants to
dispute with each other comfortably," suggesting that perhaps the
Japanese themselves have bought into the "myth of harmony".
Szatrowski (1992, 1993) concentrates on
the Japanese invitation and refusal interaction taken from recorded
telephone conversations, and offers detailed analysis of 13
conversations of invitation. Using the concept
of wadan, similar to bundan, Szatrowski
shows that, instead of simple adjacency-pair, Japanese
invitation-refusal negotiation is enacted by the
invitation wadan stage and the
response wadan stage, which may take several
turn exchanges.
Szatrowski (1993) reports that when
compared with the English invitation-refusal exchange, Japanese
participants rely more on their co-participants in the
conversation, which results in co-produced stages. For example,
Szatrowski (1992, 1993) provides interaction examples in which an
invitee, whose goal may be to refuse, leaves open the possibility
of accepting while developing the conversation toward a refusal. A
Japanese inviter will go through several "invitation stages;" he or
she shows sympathy for the invitee by always leaving some option
for a refusal. In the invitee's "answer stages," he or she
gradually develops a story, always gauging the inviter's response,
trying to convince the inviter that he or she cannot accept the
invitation after all. Through this prolonged give-and-take
negotiation process, both participants successfully avoid losing
"face" (Goffman 1955).
The three studies mentioned above
represent analysis of real-life conversation with related but
differing contributions - insight into cross-cultural
communication, language understood within a larger interactional
frame (e.g. play), and the use of discourse units
(e.g. wadan) for understanding the meaning of
utterance clusters.
Hope that after
reading the above discourse analysis you will have a new
understanding on how Japanese discourse functions :-)
hmm..my sis used to work in JAL...told me japs is all polite and
smiley i front of you..then complains whatever they dislike about
you to someone else behind you..of cuz thats just one example..so
some of my friends who are pretty well versed in jap culture told
me the same thing..could be fake too..till i met my jap client who
hit off pretty well with me..i asked him if its true japs are back
stabbers..he says ya..thats y he left japan...
so while the artile is definitely not wrong..politie is a
virtue..backstabbing is not..and thanks for the article..learnt
quite a few things too =)
