Japanese turn-final tteyuu as a formulation device
Abstract
This paper offers a conversation analytic study of the Japanese turn-final construction tteyuu as a conversational practice of formulation. Tteyuu is normally used in clausal noun modification, being placed between its preceding clausal component and a following head noun. However, tteyuu also appears to be employed utterance-finally without a following head noun. Through microanalysis of mundane conversation data, this study documents a previously unstudied aspect of the turn-final tteyuu as a formulation device. This study especially focuses on how informing recipients utilize tteyuu formulations to summarize or explicate the gist of some part of their conversations, while indicating their high degree of epistemic access to the formulated information. Furthermore, this research examines what conversation participants accomplish by mobilizing this particular type of formulations. This study aims to contribute to the research of formulation by unveiling how a language-specific item can be deployed as a resource for turn-constructional formatting of formulation.
Keywords:
Publication history
1.Introduction
This paper offers a conversation analytic study of the Japanese turn-final construction tteyuu as a
conversational practice of formulation. Tteyuu is a complementizer, composed of the quotative particle
tte and the verb yuu “say.” Tteyuu is normally placed between its preceding
clausal component and a following head noun, and it functions in clausal noun modification. However, the use of the utterance-final
tteyuu, which lacks a following head noun, in both written and spoken data has been reported in recent literature
(Kato 2010Kato, Yoko 2010 Hanashi-kotoba ni okeru Inyoo-hyoogen [Quotative Expressions in
Spoken Language]. Tokyo: Kurosio
Syuppan.; Kim 2014Kim, Joungmin 2014 “Kankokugo no inyoo-shuushokusetsu no shusetsu-ka: Nihongo tono taihi o
tsuujite. [Main clause phenomena of quotatitve clauses in Korean: Contrast
with Japanese].” In Nihongo fukubun-koobun no
kenkyuu [Form and meaning in Japanese complex sentence
constructions], ed. by Takashi Masuoka, Motoo Oshima, Osamu Hashimoto, Kaoru Horie, Naoko Maeda, and Takehiko Maruyama, 695–717. Tokyo: Hituzi
Syobo.
; Koda 2015Koda, Naomi 2015 “Using
Reported Thought and Speech to Enhance a Story.” The Japanese Journal of Language in
Society 17 (2): 24–39.
; Matsumoto 2018Matsumoto, Yoshiko 2018 “The
Form and Meaning of the Dangling Mitaina Construction in a Network of
Constructions.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar,
Interaction and Culture, ed. by Mutsuko
E. Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 75–98. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
; Ohori 1995Ohori, Toshio 1995 “Remarks
on Suspended Clauses: A Contribution to Japanese
Phraseology.” In Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics: In Honor of
Charles J. Fillmore, ed. by Masayoshi Shibatani, and Sandra
A. Thompson, 201–218. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
, 1997 1997 “Framing
Effects in Japanese Non-final Clauses: Toward an Optimal Grammar-Pragmatics
Interface.” Proceedings of the Twenty-third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society:
General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical
Structure: 471–480.
; Uemura 2014Uemura, Takashi 2014 “On
Functions of Japanese -Toiu in So-called Suspended-sentence: An Investigation on Usage as a Sentence-final
Particle.” Papers in linguistic
science 20: 31–48.
), and
it is considered as an “innovative construction” (Matsumoto 2018Matsumoto, Yoshiko 2018 “The
Form and Meaning of the Dangling Mitaina Construction in a Network of
Constructions.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar,
Interaction and Culture, ed. by Mutsuko
E. Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 75–98. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
, 92). This study documents
a hitherto unstudied aspect of the turn-final tteyuu as a formulation device.
Formulation is a meta-communicative description with which people explain, characterize, explicate, summarize or furnish the
gist of some part of their conversation (Garfinkel and Sacks 1970Garfinkel, Harold, and Harvey Sacks 1970 “On
Formal Structures of Practical Actions.” In Theoretical
Sociology, ed. by John
D. McKinney, and Edward.
A. Tiryakian, 337–366. New
York: Appleton-Century Crofts.). Heritage and Watson (1979)Heritage, John, and Rod
D. Watson 1979 “Formulations as
Conversational Objects.” In Everyday Language: Studies in
Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 123–162. New
York: Irvington.
identified two general subclasses of formulations: formulations to which a speaker
has primary epistemic access and formulations to which a recipient has primary epistemic access. The former is used to explicate,
clarify, specify or generalize a speaker’s own prior version of a reference or description, while the latter is used to display
understanding of an interactant’s earlier statement by summarizing or developing the gist of it. Following Deppermann (2011)Depperman, Arnulf 2011 “The
Study of Formulations as a Key to an Interactional Semantics.” Human
Studies 34: 115–128.
, this article refers to the former type of formulation as ‘same-speaker formulation’ and
the latter as ‘other-speaker formulation.’
This study focuses on other-speaker formulations designed with the turn-final tteyuu, and explores those formulations’ roles for interaction by investigating their compositional and sequential features. In particular, this article shows how tteyuu formulations fall into categories of previously researched other-speaker formulations (Section 4). Then, it examines what conversation participants accomplish by mobilizing this particular type of formulations (Section 5). In so doing, this research reveals the interactional significance of tteyuu formulations in Japanese talk-in-interaction.
2.Background
2.1The utterance-final tteyuu
Tteyuu morphologically consists of the quotative particle tte and the verb yuu “say,” and it is prototypically placed between a modifying clause and its head noun, as indicated in Excerpt (1).
Michi: |
are
that
tte
tp
na
p
ayatsuru
control
tteyuu
tteyuu
ji?
letter
Is that the Chinese character of ‘control’? |
However, tteyuu has been observed at an utterance-final position without a following head noun. See Excerpt (2) below. (‘Lawson’ is one of the major convenience stores in Japan.)
Mika: |
saikin
recently
konbini
convenience.store
bakka(h)ri(h)
always
Recently I always (eat food from) convenience stores, |
cho-
rooson
Lawson
ni
p
akite
tired
kita
has.got
tteyuu.
tteyuu
I’m getting tired of Lawson tteyuu. |
Ohori (1995)Ohori, Toshio 1995 “Remarks
on Suspended Clauses: A Contribution to Japanese
Phraseology.” In Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics: In Honor of
Charles J. Fillmore, ed. by Masayoshi Shibatani, and Sandra
A. Thompson, 201–218. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins. appears to be the first study that pointed out the use of the
utterance-final toiu in spoken discourse. Toiu and toyuu are phonological
variations of tteyuu. Ohori categorized the utterance-final toiu as a kind of suspended clause,
i.e., grammatically incomplete patterns that have acquired their own pragmatic functions as independent constructions. Ohori first
compared two invented utterances of (3) and (4), and
claimed that (3), a suspended version of (4), is
possible because the head noun wake ‘story’ has only a general meaning and is not very informative and thus makes
it possible for the complement clause to stand by itself. Toiu in Ohori’s
(1995)Ohori, Toshio 1995 “Remarks
on Suspended Clauses: A Contribution to Japanese
Phraseology.” In Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics: In Honor of
Charles J. Fillmore, ed. by Masayoshi Shibatani, and Sandra
A. Thompson, 201–218. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
examples quoted below is bolded by the author of this article.
Daremo | tasuke | ya | shi | nai | toiu. |
anybody | help | prt | do | neg | toiu |
(The story is) nobody helped (me). |
Daremo | tasuke | ya | shi | nai | toiu | wake | yo. |
anybody | help | prt | do | neg | toiu | story | prt |
The story is nobody helped (me). |
Daremo | tasuke | ya | shi | nakat | ta. |
anybody | help | prt | do | neg | past |
Nobody helped (me). |
Then Ohori compared (3) with (5), and
argued that with toiu attached utterance-finally, a speaker may imply detachment or discommitment to a conveyed
message. In (3), a speaker reports an event as if she was an observer when it happened.
Even though the one who suffered is the speaker herself, the use of toiu renders the utterance as if it were
about somebody else. In (5), in contrast, this detachment is not felt, and a speaker simply
talks about her experience from her own point of view. Based on this analysis, Ohori claimed that the function of
toiu in the suspended construction is anti-evidential because it obscures the credibility of information by
impersonalizing it. In other words, “by adding toiu, she is conveying that information as if it were hearsay,”
even though what was described in (3) is the speaker’s own experience (Ohori 1997 1997 “Framing
Effects in Japanese Non-final Clauses: Toward an Optimal Grammar-Pragmatics
Interface.” Proceedings of the Twenty-third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society:
General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical
Structure: 471–480. , 478). Similarly, Uemura (2014)Uemura, Takashi 2014 “On
Functions of Japanese -Toiu in So-called Suspended-sentence: An Investigation on Usage as a Sentence-final
Particle.” Papers in linguistic
science 20: 31–48.
contended that the utterance-final toiu indicates a speaker’s psychological distance from information marked by
toiu and that this type of toiu can be grammatically categorized as a sentence-final
particle.
Kim (2014)Kim, Joungmin 2014 “Kankokugo no inyoo-shuushokusetsu no shusetsu-ka: Nihongo tono taihi o
tsuujite. [Main clause phenomena of quotatitve clauses in Korean: Contrast
with Japanese].” In Nihongo fukubun-koobun no
kenkyuu [Form and meaning in Japanese complex sentence
constructions], ed. by Takashi Masuoka, Motoo Oshima, Osamu Hashimoto, Kaoru Horie, Naoko Maeda, and Takehiko Maruyama, 695–717. Tokyo: Hituzi
Syobo. reported that the utterance-final toiu does not
necessarily follow a description of the speaker’s experience. Kim discussed that the utterance-final toiu can
mark the speaker’s (i) expression of his/her inferences of another’s thought, (ii) unexpectedness and surprise, (iii) presentation
of his/her known information as new information, or (iv) description of his/her personal information from another’s point of view.
Furthermore, from the perspective of construction grammar, Matsumoto (2018)Matsumoto, Yoshiko 2018 “The
Form and Meaning of the Dangling Mitaina Construction in a Network of
Constructions.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar,
Interaction and Culture, ed. by Mutsuko
E. Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 75–98. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
proposed a
broader definition of the utterance-final toyuu (or what Matsumoto called “the dangling toyuu
construction”), which encompasses the four usages provided by Kim (2014)Kim, Joungmin 2014 “Kankokugo no inyoo-shuushokusetsu no shusetsu-ka: Nihongo tono taihi o
tsuujite. [Main clause phenomena of quotatitve clauses in Korean: Contrast
with Japanese].” In Nihongo fukubun-koobun no
kenkyuu [Form and meaning in Japanese complex sentence
constructions], ed. by Takashi Masuoka, Motoo Oshima, Osamu Hashimoto, Kaoru Horie, Naoko Maeda, and Takehiko Maruyama, 695–717. Tokyo: Hituzi
Syobo.
mentioned
above; the utterance-final toyuu is used “to present to the audience the speaker’s view/stance toward the
situation in his or her words as the summary or the essence of the situation” (Matsumoto
2018Matsumoto, Yoshiko 2018 “The
Form and Meaning of the Dangling Mitaina Construction in a Network of
Constructions.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar,
Interaction and Culture, ed. by Mutsuko
E. Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 75–98. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
, 92).
By utilizing a wide variety of data resources including transcripts of conversation data and broadcasted TV programs and interviews, personal blogs, and invented written examples, these studies provide important insights into the functions of the utterance-final tteyuu with regard to a speaker’s perspectives on and attitudes towards the information marked by the tteyuu. The present study aims to contribute to the literature by elucidating interactional aspects of the turn-final tteyuu, specifically as to (a) how the turn-final tteyuu is used in contexts of other-speaker formulations, (b) how tteyuu formulations mark a specific relationship between themselves and their prior speakers’ turns, and (c) how tteyuu formulations shape interactional trajectories of in-progress courses of action.
2.2Formulation
This study provides a conversation analytic description of the turn-final tteyuu as a conversational
practice which belongs to the domain of formulation (Garfinkel and Sacks 1970Garfinkel, Harold, and Harvey Sacks 1970 “On
Formal Structures of Practical Actions.” In Theoretical
Sociology, ed. by John
D. McKinney, and Edward.
A. Tiryakian, 337–366. New
York: Appleton-Century Crofts.; Heritage and Watson 1979Heritage, John, and Rod
D. Watson 1979 “Formulations as
Conversational Objects.” In Everyday Language: Studies in
Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 123–162. New
York: Irvington.
). With formulation, a speaker generalizes, abstracts or
specifies the meaning of a first version produced before, either by the speaker him/herself or by another interactant. Formulation
of what another interactant said, i.e., other-speaker formulation, “involves summarizing, glossing, and developing the gist of the
informant’s earlier statements” (Heritage 1985 1985 “Analyzing
News Interviews.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Vol.
3, ed. by Teun. A.
van Dijk, 95–117. London: Academic
Press.
, 100). Thus, it serves as a
sequence-initiating action of confirmation request, making a response of either confirmation or disconfirmation conditionally
relevant from the interactant (Drew and Heritage 1992Drew, Paul, and John Heritage 1992 “Introduction:
Analysing Talk at Work.” In Talk at Work, ed.
by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 3–65. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
; Labov and Fanshel 1977Labov, William, and David Fanshel 1977 Therapeutic
Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation. New
York: Academic Press.
).
Other-speaker formulations are often observed in institutional settings (Heritage
1985 1985 “Analyzing
News Interviews.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Vol.
3, ed. by Teun. A.
van Dijk, 95–117. London: Academic
Press.). In those settings, institutional agents (e.g., therapists, counselors or interviewers) formulate what lay
persons say for institutional purposes, such as focusing on therapy-relevant matters in psychotherapy sessions (Antaki et al. 2005Antaki, Charles, Rebecca Barnes, and Ivan Leudar 2005 “Diagnostic
Formulations in Psychotherapy.” Discourse
Studies 7 (6): 627–647.
), eliciting concerns and feelings during child counseling (Hutchby 2005Hutchby, Ian 2005 “ ‘Active
Listening’: Formulations and the Elicitation of Feelings Talk in Child Counselling.” Research
on Language and Social
Interaction 38 (3): 303–329.
) or committing to newsworthy aspects during interviews (Heritage 1985 1985 “Analyzing
News Interviews.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Vol.
3, ed. by Teun. A.
van Dijk, 95–117. London: Academic
Press.
). In institutional talk, formulations are driven by those producers’
underlying agenda, and thus they can be cooperative, uncooperative, or argumentative and contentious (Antaki et al. 2005Antaki, Charles, Rebecca Barnes, and Ivan Leudar 2005 “Diagnostic
Formulations in Psychotherapy.” Discourse
Studies 7 (6): 627–647.
; Drew 2003Drew, Paul 2003 “Comparative
Analysis of Talk-in-Interaction in Different Institutional Settings: A
Sketch.” In Studies in Language and Social Interaction: In Honor of
Robert Hopper, ed. by Phillip.
J. Glenn, Curtis.
D. LeBaron, and Jennifer Mandelbaum, 293–308. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
; Hutchby 2005Hutchby, Ian 2005 “ ‘Active
Listening’: Formulations and the Elicitation of Feelings Talk in Child Counselling.” Research
on Language and Social
Interaction 38 (3): 303–329.
).
Previous studies have also documented various practices employed for other-speaker formulations in both institutional
and non-institutional interactions. For instance, interactants can explicitly refer to a prior speaker’s words by framing them
with a format of “what you’re saying is …” or “you mean …” (Antaki et al. 2005Antaki, Charles, Rebecca Barnes, and Ivan Leudar 2005 “Diagnostic
Formulations in Psychotherapy.” Discourse
Studies 7 (6): 627–647. ; Steensig and Larsen 2008Steensig, Jakob, and Tine Larsen 2008 “Affiliative
and Disaffiliative Uses of You Say X Questions.” Discourse
Studies 10 (1): 113–33.
). Interactants can also formulate a candidate continuation of a
prior speaker’s turn-constructional unit or TCU (Sacks et al. 1974Sacks, Harvey, Emmanuel
A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson 1974 “A
Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-taking for
Conversation.” Language 50: 696–735.
) with ‘appendor
questions’ (Lerner 2004Lerner, Gene
H. 2004 “On the Place of Linguistic
Resources in the Organization of Talk-in-Interaction: Grammar as Action in Prompting a Speaker to
Elaborate.” Research on Language and Social
Interaction 37 (2): 154–184.
; Sacks 1992Sacks, Harvey 1992 Lectures
on Conversation. Cambridge,
MA: Blackwell.
; Schegloff 1996aSchegloff, Emmanuel
A. 1996a “Turn Organization: One
Intersection of Grammar and Interaction.” In Interaction and
Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emmanuel
A. Schegloff, and Sandra
A. Thompson, 52–133. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
). Making an assertion about something a prior speaker alluded to can be
another type of formulation (Schegloff 1996b 1996b “Confirming Allusions: Toward
an Empirical Account of Action.” American Journal of
Sociology 104 (1): 161–216.
). Similarly, and-prefaced
formulations can articulate what a prior speaker did not say but meant to say or should have said (Bolden 2010Bolden, Galina 2010 “ ‘Articulating
the Unsaid’ via And-prefaced Formulations of Others’ Talk.” Discourse
Studies 12 (1): 5–32.
). Formulations are also often marked by so at a turn-initial position, and
they present a gist or an upshot of a prior speaker’s talk (Antaki et al. 2005Antaki, Charles, Rebecca Barnes, and Ivan Leudar 2005 “Diagnostic
Formulations in Psychotherapy.” Discourse
Studies 7 (6): 627–647.
; Hutchby 2005Hutchby, Ian 2005 “ ‘Active
Listening’: Formulations and the Elicitation of Feelings Talk in Child Counselling.” Research
on Language and Social
Interaction 38 (3): 303–329.
; Raymond 2004Raymond, Geoffrey 2004 “Prompting
Action: The Stand-alone ‘So’ in Ordinary Conversation.” Research on Language and Social
Interaction 37 (2): 185–218.
) and may close an
in-progress course of action (Schegloff 2007 2007 Sequence Organization in Interaction: A
Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
).
Prior research has provided great insights into sequential organization and interactional workings of formulations in
various types of institutional and non-institutional settings. And yet, as Deppermann (2011Depperman, Arnulf 2011 “The
Study of Formulations as a Key to an Interactional Semantics.” Human
Studies 34: 115–128. , 125) states, “we know very little about [...] the language-specific resources used for them [turn-constructional
formats of formulations] and how these design-features relate to what formulations do and mean in the interaction.” Building on
the literature of formulations, this article examines one kind of other-speaker formulation in Japanese designed with the
turn-final tteyuu.
3.Method and data
This research adopts Conversation Analysis (CA), which aims to describe perspectives of members of groups, rather than
initiating analysis based on some prescribed theory, and to explore the systematicity of social interaction (Heritage 1984Heritage, John 1984 Garfinkel
and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge/New York: Polity
Press.). This study is based on 53 instances of the turn-final tteyuu used in the
context of other-speaker formulations. These instances are culled from the author’s data collection of 16 hours of video-recorded
conversations and from 50 hours of audio-recorded conversations from the BTSJ-Japanese Natural Conversation Corpus (Usami 2021Usami, Mayumi ed 2021 BTSJ-Japanese
Natural Conversation Corpus with Transcripts and Recordings (March, 2021), NINJAL Institute-based Projects: Multiple
Approaches to Analyzing the Communication of Japanese Language Learners.
). All data are recordings of non-institutional interactions among adult native
speakers of Japanese. Throughout this article, tteyuu is kept untranslated in the transcripts.
The rest of this section clarifies how the author distinguished cases of the turn-final tteyuu from those
of the prenominal tteyuu. In the database, the tteyuu-marked utterances are occasionally found in
overlap with the next turn by another participant. Then, a question arises as to whether the tteyuu ended up being
located turn-finally as a consequence of being left unfinished without a following head noun due to the overlap. The author
distinguished the turn-final tteyuu from the prenominal tteyuu based on the timing of the overlap
onset and on the intonational design of tteyuu-marked utterances. In fact, in all cases of overlapped
tteyuu-marked utterances, overlaps occur as a ‘recognitional overlap’ (Jefferson 1983Jefferson, Gail 1983 “Two
Explorations of the Organizations of Overlapping Talk in Conversation: (a) Notes on Some Orderliness of Overlap Onset and (b)
On a Failed Hypothesis: ‘Conjunctionals’ as Overlap-vulnerable.” Tilburg Papers in Language and
Literature 28: 1–33.). Recognitional overlap happens at the point where the reminder of the ongoing turn is predictable for an
overlapping speaker, and thus it is not considered as an interruption by conversation participants. During recognitional overlaps, the
turn-final tteyuu shows two intonational characteristics. The tteyuu is designed with a final
intonation contour (see Excerpts [6] to [9] and [11]) but not with a continuing intonation contour nor with a cut-off as a result of
self-interruption to resolve the overlaps. When the turn-final tteyuu is not accompanied by a final intonation
contour, it is produced with and/or followed by its speaker’s laughter (see [10] and [12]). These observations indicate that the turn space around the focal tteyuu
is designed by tteyuu-speakers and treated by overlapping participants as a transition relevance space (Ford and Thompson 1996Ford, Cecilia
E., and Sandra
A. Thompson 1996 “Interactional
Units in Conversation: Syntactic, Intonational and Pragmatic Resources for the Management of
Turns.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed.
by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel
A. Schegloff, and Sandra
A. Thompson, 134–184. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
). On the contrary, the prenominal tteyuu is produced
with a continuing intonation contour, which projects a following head noun (see lines 2 and 3 of [6], for example). Therefore, the
prenominal tteyuu rarely gets overlapped and is designed and treated as a turn-internal component at which an overlap
would otherwise be considered as an interruption.
4.Compositional features of tteyuu formulations
The CA literature identifies two types of other-speaker formulations: gist formulations and upshot formulations. The former
summarizes what the other person said, while the latter draws out an implication from what the other person said (Heritage and Watson 1979Heritage, John, and Rod
D. Watson 1979 “Formulations as
Conversational Objects.” In Everyday Language: Studies in
Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 123–162. New
York: Irvington.). In the present database of tteyuu formulations,
another type was also identified in addition to gist- and upshot-formulations. This third type of tteyuu formulations
not only presents the implied gist of given information but also indicates its speaker’s independent knowledge about the topic being
discussed by providing more than what was inferable from what another conversation participant said.11.The author owes this observation to one of the reviewers. This section will introduce these three types of tteyuu formulations, while providing detailed
descriptions of their turn compositional features. Excerpt (6) is a case of gist formulation,
with which a speaker summarizes what an interlocutor said in the prior turn(s).
1 | Ken: |
mukashi
past
nanka
well
moo
like
hachi
eight
hachi
eight
toka
like
roku
six
toka
like
|
2 |
zu:tto
for.a.long.time
gakko(h)o
school
ni
at
i
stay
tuzuketa(h)
continued
tteyuu
cm
|
|
3 |
hito
person
ga
sp
ita
existed
tteyuu
cm
hanashi
story
wa
tp
nanka
like
o:bi:
ob
kai
meeting
|
|
4 |
nanka
like
de:
at
[kiku
hear
kedo.
but
At places like ob meetings, I hear that in the past there were people who stayed at school for a long time, like eight or six years. |
|
5 | Jiro: |
[honto:
true
ssu
cp
ka
q
sore.
that
Really? |
6 | Ken: |
tabun
maybe
gakuhi
tuition
ga
sp
yasukatta
was.cheap
kara
so
Maybe because the tuition was cheap, so |
7 |
[jibun
self
no
lk
okane
money
de
with
with their own money |
|
8 | Jiro: |
[a::: I see. |
9 | Ken: |
baito
part-time.job
shita
did
kingak-
amount.of.money
okane
money
de
with
with the money they earned by part-time jobs |
10 |
gakkoo
school
iketa
could.go
kara
because
>dakara
so
moo< nan-
like
they could go to school, so like |
|
11 |
nan
how.many
kai
times
koo
like
ryuunen
fail.to.pass
shi
do
temo
even.if
No matter how many times they failed to pass on to the next grade, |
|
12 |
betsu(h)ni
not.particularly
oya
parents
kara
from
mo
also
okorarenai.
is.not.scold
they weren’t really scolded by parents. |
|
13 | Jiro: |
ma:: Well, |
14 | Ken: |
un. Yeah. |
15 | Jiro: |
hookoo
expulsion
made
till
wa
tp
okke:
okay
tteyuu
cm
kan[ji?
feeling
is it like they were fine until being expelled? |
16 | Ken: |
[u::n nanka Yeah like |
17 |
sooyuu
such
hanashi
story
wa
tp
kiita
heard
kotoa(h)ru(h)
have.done
I’ve heard such stories |
|
18 |
[chokuse(h)tsu
directly
ne.
p
directly. |
|
19 | Jiro: → |
[sore
that
dat
cp
tara
if
sono ki ni nare ba
if.one.wishes
If so, if they wished, |
20 | → |
hachi
eight
nen
years
ireru
can.stay
tteyuu.
tteyuu
they could stay for eight years tteyuu. |
21 | Ken: |
n::n. Uh huh. |
22 | (1.5) | |
23 | Ken: |
>nanka<
like
ano
well
ima
now
seegen
restriction
aru
exist
yone?
p
There’re restrictions now, right? |
Prior to this excerpt, two participants talked about some people who have been in college for 5 years (as opposed to the majority of students who graduate after 4 years). Then in lines 1–4 Ken tells Jiro that in the past there were students who did not graduate even after 6 to 8 years. After Jiro’s news receipt (line 5), Ken in lines 6–12 provides a reason why those students could stay in college for that long period: because they were financially independent, they were free of pressure from their parents. In line 15 Jiro checks his understanding, and Ken confirms it in lines 16–18. Subsequently, Jiro formulates the information provided by Ken with the turn-final tteyuu in lines 19–20.
Jiro says sore dat tara sono ki ni nare ba hachi nen ireru tteyuu
“if so, if they wished, they
could stay for eight years
tteyuu
.” “So” in “if so” refers to Jiro’s prior candidate understanding that
Ken confirmed (lines 15–16): the condition that expulsion was the only external force for students to leave college. “Eight years” is
the maximum length of the period that Ken mentioned at the beginning of his informing in line 1. Formulations are usually selective
and they focus on a particular element as a point of the prior talk (Heritage and Watson
1979Heritage, John, and Rod
D. Watson 1979 “Formulations as
Conversational Objects.” In Everyday Language: Studies in
Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 123–162. New
York: Irvington.). With his gist formulation in lines 19–20, Jiro summarizes Ken’s informing, highlighting the longest possible length
of college repeaters in the past as well as the condition that made the college repeating that long. It is also noteworthy that Jiro’s
tteyuu-formation was designed based on his already-confirmed candidate understanding in line 15.
As for the compositional features, the following points should be noted. First, the turn-final tteyuu of
Jiro’s formulation at lines 19–20 is designed as a declarative assertion. In Japanese, there are two utterance-final question
particles ka and no. Ka is used when the predicate of the utterance is in the polite form, and
no is used for utterances in the non-polite, plain form (Hayashi
2010 2010 “An
Overview of the Question-Response System in Japanese.” Journal of
Pragmatics 42: 2685–702. ). In this excerpt, Jiro uses the polite form, but the particle ka is not placed after
tteyuu. Second, the formulation carries a downward intonation contour (marked by the period in line 20), which
indexes Jiro’s high degree of epistemic access to the formulated information (Raymond 2009 2009 “Grammar and Social Relations: Alternative Forms of Yes/No-type Initiating Actions in Health Visitor Interactions.” In Why Do You Ask?: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice F. Freed, and Susan Ehrlich, 87–107. New York: Oxford University Press.
). This intonational feature is distinctive
from that of Jiro’s earlier candidate understanding which featured a turn-final upward intonation contour (line 15) that indexed his
lower degree of epistemic access to the information given thus far. Third, Jiro’s formulation is in a sentential TCU. The formulation,
as an assertion about Ken’s informing, works as a request for confirmation, and Ken simply confirms its accuracy in line 21. After 1.5
seconds, their conversation shifts to a topic of current restrictions on college repeaters.
The next example represents a case of upshot formulation, with which a speaker draws out some implication from what an interactant said. Excerpt (7) is a conversation between two college students. They belong to the same student club, to which Kei appears to be new. In the focal segment, Sato, who is senior, tells Kei how seriously the club members play soccer during their summer camps. Right before the segment, Sato said that unlike Sato and Kei, other members have played soccer in high school and thus are much better players. What Sato means by yat(h) te nai to “if you didn’t do it” (line 9) refers to the fact that Kei did not play soccer in high school.
1 | Sato: |
gasshuku
camp
ga
sp
an
exist
da
cp
kedo:
but
son
that
toki
time
ni:
p
There’s a camp, and then |
2 |
are
that
[supootsu ( )
sport
|
|
3 | Kei: | [( ) |
4 | Sato: |
de:
and
supootsu
sport
yat
do
tari
like
suru
do
kara
so
and they play sports and things like that, so |
5 |
tabun
maybe
yaru
do
to
cm
omou
think
kedo
but
I think they will, but |
|
6 |
maitoshi
every.year
maitoshi
every.year
tte yuu ka
I.mean
every year, every year, I mean, |
|
7 |
ore
I
wa
tp
ni
two
nen?
year
ni
two
san
three
nen
year
mo
also
yattekita
did
kedo:
but
I did when I was a sophomore? sophomore and junior, but |
|
8 |
chotto
a.little
natsu
summer
wa
tp
ano::
uhm
supootsu
sport
yaru
do
to
when
in summer when we play sports, |
|
9 |
suGGE
extremely
taihen
hard
dakara
so
yat(h)te
do
nai
no
to
if
it’d be extremely hard, if you didn’t do it, |
|
10 |
MAji[de
seriously
[nori
impulse
dakara
so
because they do it on the spur of the moment. |
|
11 | Kei: → |
[hhh
[ato
also
bate
worn.out
chau
end.up
tteyuu.
tteyuu
Also you get worn out tteyuu. |
12 | Sato: |
soo
right
bate
worn.out
chatte
end.up
ore
I
ikkai
once
ni
two
nen
year
no
lk
toki
when
|
13 |
ha-
haite
vomit
n(h)
n
da(h)
cp
yo
f
hhhh
Right, I got worn out and once threw up when I was a sophomore. |
Sato in lines 9–10 emphasizes Kei’s potential difficulty in playing soccer with more experienced members. Although Sato’s multi-unit turn starting from line 1 is not yet syntactically and prosodically complete in line 10, Kei preemptively initiates his turn with a tteyuu formulation: ato bate chau tteyuu “Also you get worn out tteyuu ” in line 11. The turn-initial conjunction ato “also” semantically projects that what will follow is something additional to Sato’s prior talk. With his formulation, Kei presents his inference about potential physical exhaustion (in addition to and/or as a result of the technical hardship of playing with experienced fellows). In response, Sato in line 12 quickly produces confirmation with a soo-type token, and he further validates Kei’s formulation by starting to tell a story.
Kei’s formulation shares compositional features with Jiro’s formulation in (6): a
declarative assertion with a downward intonation contour in a sentential TCU. While Jiro’s formulation in (6) exemplified a gist formulation, Kei’s turn in line 11 provides an upshot formulation, which draws out certain
elements implied in Sato’s prior talk. Responses to the formulations are also different. Jiro’s gist formulation received a simple
confirmation (n::n “uh huh”), but Kei’s upshot formulation receives Sato’s response with a
soo-token. According to Kushida (2011)Kushida, Shuya 2011 “Confirming
Understanding and Acknowledging Assistance: Managing Trouble Responsibility in Response to Understanding Check in Japanese
Talk-in-interaction.” Journal of
Pragmatics 43 (11): 2716–2739. , there is a distinction in use
between nn-type and soo-type tokens as a response to candidate understanding. While a speaker uses
an nn-type token to simply confirm a recipient’s understanding, the speaker uses soo-type token to
agree with a recipient’s understanding as an independent formulation and acknowledges the recipient’s assistance in reformulating the
speaker’s turn. In the present database, Kushida’s findings generally apply to responses to tteyuu formulations as
well. While gist formulations tend to receive nn-type confirmations, upshot formulations receive
soo-type responses.
The next case exemplifies the third type of tteyuu formulations, which not only explicates the gist of what the other person said but also provides its speaker’s (i.e., an informing recipient) independent knowledge regarding the given information. Yoshi in Excerpt (8) works for a trading company, and he studied Korean at a community school when he worked at a branch in South Korea. Nao is an Indonesian language instructor at a college, and he has a little experience learning about the Korean language. Prior to the excerpt, they speculated why Korean people are better at speaking English as compared to Japanese people; the Korean language has more phonetic variations, which may overlap with those of English.
1 | Yoshi: |
koo
like
nihongo
Japanese
no
lk
hatsuon
pronunciation
da
cp
[to
if
koo
like
In the Japanese pronunciation, |
2 | Nao: |
[ee
Yeah
ee.
yeah.
|
3 | Yoshi: |
koo
like
iki
breath
o
o
hukikakeru
blow
yoona
like
hatsuon
pronunciation
tteyuu
cm
|
4 |
no
n
wa
tp
mettani[(.)
rarely
shimasen
not.do
kedomo
but
We rarely pronounce with blowing but |
|
5 | Nao: |
[ee. Yeah. |
6 |
ee. Yeah. |
|
7 | Yoshi: |
sooyuu
like.that
no
n
o
o
yarasare
be.made.to
mashita
was
yo
p
[hhhhhhhhh
I was made to do things like that. |
8 | Nao: |
[a:: hhh Oh yeah |
9 | → |
ano
well
omoshiroi
interesting
desu
cp
yone
p
ano::
like
well interesting, right? Like, |
10 | → |
chirigami
tissue
ka
or
nanka
something
me
eye
no
lk
mae
front
de
at
|
11 | → |
burasagete
hang
tteyu
[
u.
tteyuu
hanging tissues or something in front of eyes tteyuu . |
12 | Yoshi: |
[soo
Right
soo
right
soo
right
soo
right
soo
right
|
13 |
soo
right
soo.
right.
|
|
14 | Nao: |
ee. Yeah. |
15 | (1.0) | |
16 | Yoshi: |
indoneshiago
Indonesian
mo
also
sooyuu
like.that
kotoba
word
tte
tp
|
17 |
aru
exist
n
n
desu
cp
ka?
q
Do they have words like that in Indonesian, too? |
In lines 1–4, Yoshi says that the Japanese language rarely has pronunciations which require ‘blowing’ (i.e., aspiration).
Yoshi marks the end of his TCU with kedomo (line 4), which leaves recipients to figure out the implications of its
contrastive semantics (Ono et al. 2012Ono, Tsuyoshi, Sandra.
A. Thompson, and Yumi Sasaki 2012 “Japanese
Negotiation through Emerging Final Particles in Everyday Talk.” Discourse
Processes 49 (3–4): 243–272. ). Given the content of their prior talk (about
phonetic variations of Korean), this description about Japanese is understood as being contrastive to Korean. After Nao’s continuer
(Schegloff 1982Schegloff, Emmanuel.
A. 1982 “Discourse as an Interactional
Achievement: Some Uses of ‘Uh huh’ and Other Things That Come between
Sentences.” In Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and
Linguistics: Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 71–93. Washington
D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
) in line 6, Yoshi says sooyuu no o yarasare mashita yo
“I was made to do things like that.” “Things like that” refers to iki o hukikakeru yoona hatsuon “pronunciations like
blowing” mentioned in his prior TCU. Concurrent with Yoshi’s laughter at the end of his turn (line 7), Nao displays his understanding
with an interjection a:: “oh yeah” and laughs. Then, in the subsequent turn (lines 9–11), Nao, with
tteyuu formulation, explicates what Yoshi said in line 7 by referring to his knowledge which is independent from
what Yoshi has told thus far.
First, Nao assesses what Yoshi “was made to do” as omoshiroi “interesting.” With the particle
yone, which indexes an equivalent access to the reference (Hayano
2011Hayano, Kaoru 2011 “Claiming
Epistemic Primacy in Japanese: Yo-marked Assessments in
Japanese.” In The Molarity of Knowledge in
Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 58–81. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. , 2013 2013 “Territories
of Knowledge in Japanese Conversation.” PhD diss. Radboud
University Nijmegen., 2018 2018 “When
(Not) to Claim Epistemic Independence: The Use of Ne and Yone in Japanese
Conversation.” East Asian
Pragmatics 2 (2): 163–193.
), Nao presents his equal
epistemicity toward the assessable. Then, Nao says chirigami nanka me no mae de burasagete tteyuu
“hanging tissues or things like that in front of eyes
tteyuu
.” With this, Nao describes a way of
practicing Korean aspiration sounds in classroom settings. In other words, Nao reflects his independent epistemic access to the topic
in his formulation by providing more than what was inferable from Yoshi’s talk, i.e., how the practice can be done instructionally.
With regard to compositional features, similar to gist- and upshot- tteyuu formulations examined earlier, Nao’s
formulation here is also featured with a declarative assertion with a downward contour in a sentential TCU. Like upshot formulations
(such as Excerpt [7]), this third type of tteyuu formulations typically receives soo-type token
responses. In this example, Yoshi responds to Nao’s formulation with successive soo-tokens in lines 12–13.
As seen in the previous three excerpts, tteyuu formulations predominantly receive confirmation responses rather than disconfirmations. In the present database, there is only one case of tteyuu formulation that did not receive a straightforward confirmation. Excerpt (9) is the case in point. In the segment, participants talk about Fumi’s hobby, motorcycling. Fumi does not speed when no cars are around, but he gets tempted to chase cars when they go faster (lines 1–6). Then, Jun, with a tteyuu-marked upshot formulation, proffers his understanding of a reason for Fumi’s temptation to chase cars: charenji shitai tteyuu “you want to challenge (them) tteyuu ” in line 8. Like tteyuu formulations in (6) to (8), the design of Jun’s tteyuu formulation as a declarative assertion (along with his turn-initial a:: “oh I see” in line 7) indexes a high degree of his epistemic access to the formulated information.
1 | Fumi: |
jibun
self
hitoride
alone
wa
tp
sonna
not.much
supiido
speed
|
2 |
dasa
speed.up
nai
neg
n
n
desu
cp
yo.
f
When I’m alone, I don’t speed so much. |
|
3 | Jun: |
hai
Yes
hai.
yes.
|
4 | Fumi: |
de
and
mae
front
ni
at
nihyakkiro
two.hundred
toka
like
nihyakunijuk
two.hundred.twenty
|
5 |
kiro
kilometer
no
lk
kuruma
car
ga
sp
iru
exist
to::
when
And when there’s a car going 200 or 220 km per hour, |
|
6 |
chotto
a.little
okkake
chase
taku
want.to
naru
become
n
n
desu
cp
[yo hhh
f
I become wanting to chase it. |
|
7 | Jun: |
[a:: Oh I see, |
8 | → |
charenji
challenge
shi
do
tai
want.to
tteyuu.
tteyuu
you want to challenge (them) tteyuu. |
9 | Fumi: |
charenji
challenge
tte
cm
yuu
say
ka:
q
nanka
like
toriaezu
anyhow
Challenge tte yuu ka like anyhow |
10 | Jun: |
hai. Yes. |
11 | Fumi: |
ano
well
nemuku
sleepy
naru
become
n
n
de:
cp
yukkuri
slowly
hashitteru
driving
to [::
when
I get sleepy when driving slowly. |
12 | Jun: |
[a::: Oh I see. |
In response, Fumi first repeats the term charenji “challenge,” and then provides a more appropriate
description of his behavior, saying that chasing cars helps him stay awake (lines 9–11). With the use of the preface tte yuu
ka (indicated in bold in line 9), a speaker suggests a better alternative while claiming some degree of legitimacy or
warrant with an item that is being replaced (Hayashi et al. 2019Hayashi, Makoto, Yuri Hosoda, and Ikuyo Morimoto 2019 “
Tte
yuu ka as a Repair Preface in Japanese.” Research on Language and Social
Interaction 52 (2): 104–123. ). Thus, Fumi replaces
Jun’s tteyuu formulation with a better suited statement while also acknowledging that Jun’s inference is somewhat
legitimate.
This section exemplified three types of tteyuu formulations. A speaker of gist formulation summarizes an
interactant’s prior talk by recycling a particular word used by the interactant. A speaker may proffer upshot formulation by drawing
out some implication from an interactant’s prior talk. With the third type of tteyuu formulation, a speaker not only
explicates the implied gist of given information but also indicates his/her independent knowledge about the topic of the conversation
by providing more than what was inferable from what an interactant has told. All types of tteyuu formulations share
compositional features of being declarative assertions with a falling intonation, indexing speakers’ high degree of epistemic access
to the formulated information. Generally, other-speaker formulations serve as a confirmation request, and thus make a confirmation or
disconfirmation response from a speaker of the formulated talk conditionally relevant in the next turn. In the present database,
tteyuu formulations are typically responded to with confirmations; nn-type tokens are frequently
employed as responses to gist formulations, while soo-type tokens are used with upshot formulations as well as with
the third type formulations. A case of upshot formulation was found without a straightforward confirmation, although compositional
features of the formulation still indicated its speaker’s high epistemicity. Finally, it should be noted that while this section
presented clearer cases, the distinction between the three types of tteyuu formulations often appears to be
semantically and pragmatically blurred. Such indistinctiveness between gist- and upshot-formulations in other languages has been also
reported in literature as well (Antaki et al. 2005Antaki, Charles, Rebecca Barnes, and Ivan Leudar 2005 “Diagnostic
Formulations in Psychotherapy.” Discourse
Studies 7 (6): 627–647. ; Deppermann 2011Depperman, Arnulf 2011 “The
Study of Formulations as a Key to an Interactional Semantics.” Human
Studies 34: 115–128.
).
5.Sequential environments of tteyuu formulations
Tteyuu formulations are commonly observed during extended informings, i.e., informing turns consisting of more than one TCU. The previous section has shown that speakers of tteyuu formulations regularly indicate their high epistemicity toward formulated information by using a declarative form with a turn-final falling intonation. This suggests that tteyuu formulations are launched at a sequential place where informing recipients (i.e., speakers of tteyuu formulations) have been provided with enough information that they can be self-assured of their thus-far understanding of the information being told. This section will show two sequential configurations wherein tteyuu formulations are commonly found: tteyuu formulations for a closure of informing (5.1) and tteyuu formulations as an initiation of further talk (5.2).
5.1 Tteyuu formulations for a closure of informing
Tteyuu formulations are found most frequently at a possible completion of informing
(n = 33). A possible completion of informing is regularly indicated syntactically, prosodically, and
pragmatically, although these three resources may not always converge (Ford and Thompson
1996Ford, Cecilia
E., and Sandra
A. Thompson 1996 “Interactional
Units in Conversation: Syntactic, Intonational and Pragmatic Resources for the Management of
Turns.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed.
by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel
A. Schegloff, and Sandra
A. Thompson, 134–184. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. ; Tanaka 1999Tanaka, Hiroko 1999 Turn-taking
in Japanese Conversation: A Study in Grammar and
Interaction. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
). At such a possible completion of informing, recipients
are normatively expected to provide a relevant response (Jefferson and Lee 1992Jefferson, Gail, and John
R. E. Lee 1992 “The
Rejection of Advice: Managing the Problematic Convergence of a ‘Troubles-telling’ and a ‘Service
Encounter’.” In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional
Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 521–48. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
; Maynard 2003Maynard, Douglas.
W. 2003 Bad News, Good News: Conversational
Order in Everyday Talk and Clinical Settings. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
; Stivers 2008Stivers, Tanya 2008 “Stance,
Alignment, and Affiliation during Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of
Affiliation.” Research on Language and Social
Interaction 41 (1): 31–57.
), and
tteyuu formulations can be deployed as such responses. Previous excerpts (6) and (8) (partially reproduced below) are cases in point. In both cases,
informing sequences reach their closures after informing speakers’ (Ken in [6] and Yoshi in
[8]) confirmations to their preceding tteyuu formulations.
17 | Ken: |
sooyuu
such
hanashi
story
wa
tp
kiita
heard
kotoa(h)ru(h)
have.done
I’ve heard such stories |
18 |
[chokuse(h)tsu
directly
ne.
p
directly. |
|
19 | Jiro: → |
[sore
that
dat
cp
tara
if
sono ki ni nare ba
if.one.wishes
If so, if they wished, |
20 | → |
hachi
eight
nen
years
ireru
can.stay
tteyuu.
tteyuu
they could stay for eight years tteyuu. |
21 | Ken: |
n::n. Uh huh. |
22 | (1.5) |
7 | Yoshi: |
sooyuu
like.that
no
n
o
o
yarasare
be.made.to
mashita
was
yo
p
[hhhhhhhhh
I was made to do things like that. |
8 | Nao: |
[a::
Oh
hhh
yeah
|
9 | → |
ano
well
omoshiroi
interesting
desu
cp
yone
p
ano::
like
well interesting, right? Like, |
10 | → |
chirigami
tissue
ka
or
nanka
something
me
eye
no
lk
mae
front
de
at
|
11 | → |
burasagete
hang
tteyu
[
u.
tteyuu
hanging tissues or something in front of eyes tteyuu. |
12 | Yoshi: |
[soo
Right
soo
right
soo
right
soo
right
soo
right
|
13 |
soo
right
soo.
right.
|
|
14 | Nao: |
ee. Yeah. |
15 | (1.0) |
Excerpt (10) below shows a similar sequential configuration. Before line 1, Shige and Ryo talked about how unique Shige’s family name is. Then in lines 1–5 Shige says that, contrary to his name, ‘nothing is interesting’ about where he is from because he was born and raised in Tokyo. In response to Ryo’s follow-up question in line 7, Shige from line 8 starts providing a list of all the places that he has lived in Tokyo, beginning with his birthplace. Then in line 25 Shige mentions a place he moved this year (Azabu), which is recognizable as the end of the list and thus as the completion of Shige’s answer to Ryo’s question.
1 | Shige: |
shusshinchi
place.one’s.from
nikanshite
about
yuu
say
to
if
Speaking of where I’m from, |
2 | Ryo: |
hai. Yes. |
3 | Shige: |
boku
I
wa
tp
umare mo sodachi mo
born.and.rased
tookyoo
Tokyo
na
cp
n
n
de
cp
I was born and raised in Tokyo, so |
4 | Ryo: |
hai
Yes
ha[i.
yes.
|
5 | Shige: |
[ano::
Uhm
nanmo
anything
omoshiroi
interesting
koto
thing
ga
sp
na[i
neg
Uhm, nothing is interesting. |
6 | Ryo: | [A HA HA HA |
7 |
dono a-
where
dono
where
atari
around
desu
cp
ka?
q
Where- around where? |
|
8 | Shige: |
e::tto
well
umareta
was.born
no
n
ga
sp
bunkyooku
Bunkyo-ward
de,
cp
Well I was born in Bunkyo-ward, and |
((lines 9–24: Shige lists three more places he has lived.)) | ||
25 | Shige: |
kotoshi
this.year
ni
p
natte
became
azabu
Azabu
ni
p
hikkoshite.
move
I moved to Azabu this year. |
26 | Ryo: |
hai
Yes
hai.
yes.
|
27 | (2.0) | |
28 | Ryo: → |
˚haa ( )˚
I.see
dakara
so
iroiro
various
mawatteru
move.around
I see, so you’ve moved around various places, |
29 | → |
kedomo
but
tookyoo
Tokyo
tte(h)yu(h)[
u(h)
tteyuu
but Tokyo tteyuu. |
30 | Shige: |
[tookyoo
Tokyo
tte(h)yu(h)u(h)
tteyuu.
|
31 | (1.5) |
Ryo treats this possible completion point of Shige’s informing as a relevant sequential location for his
tteyuu formulation (lines 28–29), which follows after his acknowledgement tokens (line 26). An absence of
Ryo’s earlier uptake, which is indicated by the noticeable silence in line 27, may be due to a possible continuation of Shige’s
list: Shige could have moved from Azabu to another place before the summer when this conversation was recorded. It may also be
because of the incomplete syntax of Shige’s turn in line 25, as it ends with hikkosite, the -te
form22.The -te form is considered as one of the clause-chaining devices (e.g., Iwasaki 1993Iwasaki, Shoichi 1993 Subjectivity
in Grammar and Discourse: Theoretical Considerations and a Case Study of Japanese Spoken
Discourse. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins. ; Ono 1987Ono, Toshio 1987 “TE,
I, and RU Clauses in Japanese Recipes: A Quantitative Study.” Studies in
Language 14: 73–92.
). (or gerund or continuative form) of hikkosu “move.” In fact,
discontinuation of Shige’s list becomes apparent in line 27, and that leads to Ryo’s tteyuu formulation, which
demonstrates Ryo’s understanding of not only the gist of Shige’s informing but also an interactionally relevant action expected in
this sequential position.
Another point to note is about Shige’s response to Ryo’s formulation, which manifests two important facets of
tteyuu formulation. First, rather than simply confirming the accuracy of Ryo’s formulation (e.g., with
nn- or soo-type token), Shige in line 30 responds with a partial repetition of Ryo’s
formulation with tteyuu (tookyoo tte(h)yu(h)u(h)). This
is considered as the action of ‘confirming allusions’ (Schegloff 1996b 1996b “Confirming Allusions: Toward
an Empirical Account of Action.” American Journal of
Sociology 104 (1): 161–216. ), with which
Shige indicates that Ryo’s offered understanding could have been legitimately inferred from Shige’s prior talk. In other words,
Shige’s response evidently shows that Ryo’s tteyuu-marked turn serves as formulating the point Shige aimed to
convey through his informing. Second, Shige repeats tteyuu as well in his response. When a speaker repeats an
utterance, s/he typically dispenses with some turn-constructional components (Schegloff
2004 2004 “On
Dispensability.” Research on Language and Social
Interaction 37 (2): 95–149.
). Like Shige in (10), however, informing speakers often retain
tteyuu, when they respond to the prior tteyuu formulations with a (partial) repetition.33.See also Excerpt (12), where a recipient of the first tteyuu
formulation produces the second tteyuu formulation that clarifies the first formulated information. This means that tteyuu is an indispensable constitutive component of the
action of formulation.
In all three excerpts shown in this section, tteyuu formulations are produced upon a possible
completion of informing, where an uptake of the informing turns is due. The analyses of these cases and other similarly positioned
tteyuu formulations in the database indicate that producers of these formulations (i.e., informing
recipients) align with the informing speakers’ course of action (cf. Stivers 2008Stivers, Tanya 2008 “Stance,
Alignment, and Affiliation during Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of
Affiliation.” Research on Language and Social
Interaction 41 (1): 31–57. ) by
reaffirming and/or inferring the point of the informing with or without demonstrations of their independent knowledge about the
informed matter. While the turn-final design is consistent with tteyuu accompanied by a falling intonation, the
turn-initials of the formulations vary case by case. In (10), the tteyuu
formulation is prefaced with dakara (line 28), which is roughly equivalent to the English so.
So-prefaced formulations are frequently characterized as offering an upshot or a gist of the other speaker’s talk (Antaki et al. 2005Antaki, Charles, Rebecca Barnes, and Ivan Leudar 2005 “Diagnostic
Formulations in Psychotherapy.” Discourse
Studies 7 (6): 627–647.
; Hutchby 2005Hutchby, Ian 2005 “ ‘Active
Listening’: Formulations and the Elicitation of Feelings Talk in Child Counselling.” Research
on Language and Social
Interaction 38 (3): 303–329.
; Raymond 2004Raymond, Geoffrey 2004 “Prompting
Action: The Stand-alone ‘So’ in Ordinary Conversation.” Research on Language and Social
Interaction 37 (2): 185–218.
).44.
Deppermann (2011)Depperman, Arnulf 2011 “The
Study of Formulations as a Key to an Interactional Semantics.” Human
Studies 34: 115–128.
discusses the German also (translated
into the English so) as the most commonly used formulation index in the German language. Thus in (10), the dakara preface serves as another formulation marking in concert with
tteyuu. Similarly, the tteyuu formulation in (6) is
prefaced with sore dat tara “if so” (line 19), which prepares recipients to hear the upcoming formulation as a
consequential summary of information provided in the preceding talk. In other cases (Excerpt [8], for example), informing recipients may place tteyuu formulations after assessments, which are
frequently employed for topic closure as they allow recipients to show attention to the preceding talk while also delivering a
summary of it (Jefferson 1984 1984 “On
Stepwise Transition from Talk about a Trouble to Inappropriately Next-positioned
Matters.” In Structures of Social Action, ed.
by J.
Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 191–221. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
; Sidnell
2010Sidnell, Jack 2010 Conversation
Analysis: An Introduction. Malden,
Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell.
). Tteyuu formulations in this particular sequential position are responded to and most of the time
confirmed by the informing speakers’ nn- or soo-type tokens or a (partial) repetition of the
formulations.
5.2 Tteyuu formulations as an initiation of further talk
As discussed earlier, tteyuu formulations are frequently observed at a possible completion of informing. These tteyuu formulations receive informing speakers’ responses of a single TCU consisting of a confirmation token or a partial repeat of the formulation, and thus they contribute to leading the informing sequence to its closing. However, tteyuu formulations can also serve to develop ongoing topics into further related talk by tying the formulation to what was mentioned in the prior talk (n = 11). This section introduces three examples of this type of tteyuu formulation. The first case is Excerpt (7), which was shown in Section 4. The excerpt is partially reproduced below.
9 | Sato: |
suGGE
extremely
taihen
hard
dakara
so
yat(h)te
do
nai
no
to
if
it’d be extremely hard, if you didn’t do it, |
10 |
MAji[de
seriously
[nori
impulse
dakara
so
because they do it on the spur of the moment. |
|
11 | Kei: → |
[hhh
[ato
also
bate
worn.out
chau
end.up
tteyuu.
tteyuu
Also you get worn out tteyuu. |
12 | Sato: |
soo
right
bate
worn.out
chatte
end.up
ore
I
ikkai
once
ni
two
nen
year
no
lk
toki
when
|
13 |
ha-
haite
vomit
n(h)
n
da(h)
cp
yo
f
hhhh
Right, I got worn out and once threw up when I was a sophomore. |
Before line 10, Sato explained to Kei, a new member of their student club, the technical hardship of playing soccer with their more experienced fellows in the club. Then in line 11, Kei provides his tteyuu formulation, presenting his inference about potential physical exhaustion (in addition to and/or as a result of the technical hardship). In response, Sato in line 12 quickly confirms Kei’s formulation with a soo-token, and he further validates Kei’s formulation by starting to tell a story (which continues after line 13). In other words, Kei’s tteyuu formulation triggers Sato’s further discussion about another aspect of his experiences in the club.
Two graduate students in Excerpt (11) belong to the same (presumably a linguistics-related) department but are meeting for the first time. Prior to the segment, Asa said that she does not conduct research on the Japanese language although she is in the Japanese program within their department. That leads to Mai’s question in line 1.
1 | Mai: |
ja
then
nani
what
[nani
what
kenkyuu
research
shiteru
doing
n
n
desu
cp
ka?
q
Then what are you researching about? |
2 | Asa: |
[nanka
like
gengo
language
sesshoku
contact
o
o
yattete
doing
Like I’m doing language contact |
3 | Mai: |
he↑:[:::: Oh |
4 | Asa: |
[dakara
so
shingapooru
Singapore
o
o
So Singapore |
5 | Mai: |
a:
oh
[tagengo:: (.)
multilingual
[kokka
nation
mitaina
like
kanji?
feeling
Oh it’s like a multilingual nation? |
6 | Asa: |
[( )
[soo
right
desu
cp
soo
right
desu
cp
Right right |
7 |
soo
right
desu
cp
ne.
p
right. |
|
8 | Mai: |
sugoi
amazing
desu
cp
yone hhh[h
p
Isn’t (Singapore) amazing? |
9 | Asa: |
[n:n. Yeah. |
10 | Mai: → |
eh
oh
sore
that
gengo
language
ga
sp
majiriau
intersect
to
when
Oh that, when languages intersect, |
11 | Asa: |
[nn. Uh huh. |
12 | Mai: → |
[sono
like
hokano
other
gengo
language
ni
p
au
meet
to
when
doo
how
yuu
say
|
13 | → |
huuni
way
na[ru
become
no
n
ka
q
tteyuu.
tteyuu
when they meet other languages, how they’d become tteyuu. |
14 | Asa: |
[>soo
right
soo
right
soo
right
soo<
right
Right right right right |
After receiving Asa’s answer (gengo sesshoku “language contact”), Mai in line 3 provides a token
he↑:::::, which treats the provided information as newsworthy while also prompting for clarification (Mori 2006Mori, Junko 2006 “The
Workings of the Japanese Token Hee in Informing Sequences: An Analysis of Sequential Content, Turn Shape, and
Prosody.” Journal of
Pragmatics 38: 1175–1205. ). In the next turn, Asa provides her research target (i.e., Singapore). In
line 5 Mai, by framing Singapore as tagengo kokka “a multilingual nation,” checks the appropriateness of her
association of Singapore with language contact. After Asa’s confirmation (lines 6–7), Mai submits her assessment of Singapore’s
multilingualism by saying sugoi “amazing” with the turn-final particle yone, which indexes a
speaker’s claim of equal epistemic access to the proposition being discussed.
It is after this pre-shift assessment (Jefferson 1993 1993 “Caveat
Speaker: Preliminary Notes on Recipient Topic-shift Implicature.” Research on Language and
Social Interaction 26: 1–30. ) that Mai launches a
tteyuu formulation (lines 10, 12–13), whereby she brings their topical focus back to “language contact.” Mai
employs the eh-prefacing and a demonstrative sore “that” at the turn-beginning as tying
strategies. Eh-prefacing serves to frame a forthcoming question as being outside its sequentially most natural
position (Hayashi 2009Hayashi, Makoto 2009 “Marking
a ‘Noticing of Departure’ in Talk: Eh-prefaced Turns in Japanese
Conversation.” Journal of
Pragmatics 41 (10): 2100–2129.
). Sore also links between the current turn and
previous talk (cf. Sacks 1995 1995 Lectures
on Conversation. Vol. 2. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
; Sidnell
2010Sidnell, Jack 2010 Conversation
Analysis: An Introduction. Malden,
Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell.
). The most direct target of Mai’s formulation is language contact (appeared in line 2), as the formulation follows up
on the term and seeks confirmation on her elaboration of the term. In other words, the tteyuu formulation in this
excerpt works to topicalize what was previously mentioned. The formulation is then followed by Asa’s multi-unit turn consisting of
her confirmation and further explanation of language contact in Singapore.
In Excerpt (12), the four participants are colleagues who work at the Cabinet Office. They are routinely assigned to work at different locations, including the Diet Building, to which none of the participants has been assigned. Prior to the excerpt, participants said that they want to go to see the Diet Building at least once. Then, Naka talked about how they can go into some parts of the building which are not accessible by general visitors: they need ano bajji “the badge” (line 3), that is given to the Cabinet Office employees assigned to work at the Diet Building. A tteyuu formulation is produced by Tamu in lines 8–9 after all the participants appeared to reach their understanding of “the badge.”
1 | Naka: |
sore
that
igai
other.that
no
lk
tokoro
place
(0.5)
o
o
mireru
can.see
ka[ra::
so
You can see places other than that, |
2 | Hiro: |
[o: o: Oh oh |
3 | Naka: |
ano
the
bajji
badge
o
o
hhh
[motte(h)
bring
ike
go
ba
if
if you bring the badge. |
4 | Tamu: |
[a
oh
bajji
badge
motte
bring
Oh you bring the badge. |
5 | Hiro: |
ano
that
kusari
chain
no
lk
yatsu
thing
ne?=
p
The chained thing, right? |
6 | Naka: |
[=soo
right
desu.
cp
Right. |
7 | Kato: | [((nods)) |
8 | Tamu: → |
demo
but
sore
that
tte
tp
tsumari
in.other.words
kokkai
the.Diet
|
9 | → |
atatta
assigned
t
[
teyu
[
u
hhh hhhh
tteyuu
But that means (you’re) assigned to the Diet tteyuu. |
10 | Naka: | [A h [h h h h |
11 | Hiro: |
[soo(h)
Right
soo(h)
right
soo(h)
right.
|
12 |
zenzen
at.all
ano (.)
uhm
ureshiku[nai
not.happy
tteyuu
tteyuu
uhm (you’re) not happy at all tteyuu. |
|
13 | Tamu: |
[sonna hhh Such |
14 | Naka: |
u(h)re(h)shi(h)ku(h)na(h)i(h)[jookyoo not.happy situation Unhappy situation. |
15 | Tamu: |
[nanka
like
haitta::
got.in
nante
like
|
16 |
[yuuyuuto
leisurely
miteru
seeing
yoyuu
space
nasa
no
[soona
seem
[kigasuru
feel.like
like, I feel like there won’t be time for us to look around in a leisurely manner. |
|
17 | Kato: |
[n::n. Uh huh. |
18 | Hiro: |
[nai
no
ne.
p
No. |
19 | Naka: |
[soo
right
desu
cp
ne:
p
|
20 |
tashikani. certainly Yeah, certainly. |
Tamu’s tteyuu formulation in lines 8–9 starts with a conjunction demo “but” and
sore tte, a demonstrative “that” with a topic marker, which prepares recipients to hear that Tamu will, with
the rest of this turn, most likely state something contrastive to a certain aspect of their prior talk. Then he says
tsumari kokkai atatta tteyuu
“means (you’re) assigned to the Diet
tteyuu
.” Tamu’s tteyuu formulation clarifies their unsaid shared understanding
that having “the badge” means that they work there. Tamu’s formulation is treated as laughable and confirmed with
soo-tokens (lines 10–11). Then in lines 11–12, Hiro, with another tteyuu formulation,
overtly states the reason for their laughter: being assigned to the Diet is not something they desire (because of its hard work,
as it will be revealed later in this conversation). Hiro’s formulation is then confirmed by Naka’s partial repeat in the
subsequent turn in line 14 (cf. Schegloff 1996b 1996b “Confirming Allusions: Toward
an Empirical Account of Action.” American Journal of
Sociology 104 (1): 161–216. ). In this excerpt, by formulating an
unsaid shared assumption with tteyuu, Tamu and then Hiro foreground the reality of what they wish for (i.e., that
their wish to view special parts of the Diet Building would force them to engage in unwanted work), and that brings about a shift
in their topical focus.
As demonstrated in the above three cases and others like these, tteyuu formulations serve to shape
the topical trajectory of ongoing talk. They are compositionally characterized with certain turn-initial elements of tying devices
including the use of demonstratives, connectives, and/or tokens that indicate a particular relation between what was already said
and what will be formulated. Responses to these tteyuu formulations are designed with initial confirmations and
further development of their topical talk. Moreover, these formulations deal with semantic units of different sizes and kinds
(Bilmes 2011Bilmes, Jack 2011 “Occasioned
Semantics: A Systematic Approach to Meaning in Talk.” Human
Studies 34: 129–153. ; Deppermann 2011Depperman, Arnulf 2011 “The
Study of Formulations as a Key to an Interactional Semantics.” Human
Studies 34: 115–128.
; Hauser 2011Hauser, Eric 2011 “Generalization:
A Practice of Situated Categorization in Talk.” Human
Studies 34 (2): 183–198.
). They can be employed to formulate meanings of a single word or phrase that
previously appeared (like Excerpt [11]), a part of a description (like [7]), or a whole informing talk (like [12]). As has
been discussed in CA literature, a new topic is not abruptly introduced upon a completion of a previous topic, but a stepwise move
is regularly arranged to connect what has been talked about to what is about to be talked about (Jefferson 1984 1984 “On
Stepwise Transition from Talk about a Trouble to Inappropriately Next-positioned
Matters.” In Structures of Social Action, ed.
by J.
Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 191–221. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
; Sacks 1995 1995 Lectures
on Conversation. Vol. 2. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
). Tteyuu
formulations are one way in which such stepwise transitions are accomplished.
6.Concluding discussion
This study investigated the Japanese turn-final construction tteyuu as an interactional practice of
formulation. While tteyuu is normally placed in clausal noun modification with a following head noun, its use at a
turn-final position has been reported as “innovative construction” (Matsumoto 2018Matsumoto, Yoshiko 2018 “The
Form and Meaning of the Dangling Mitaina Construction in a Network of
Constructions.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar,
Interaction and Culture, ed. by Mutsuko
E. Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 75–98. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins. , 92).
This study documented a hitherto unstudied aspect of the turn-final tteyuu as an other-speaker formulation
device.
In the CA literature, other-speaker formulations have been classified into two general types: gist formulations and upshot
formulations (Heritage and Watson 1979Heritage, John, and Rod
D. Watson 1979 “Formulations as
Conversational Objects.” In Everyday Language: Studies in
Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 123–162. New
York: Irvington.). This study specifically examined
tteyuu formulations, and identified one additional type besides the previously recognized two types. This article
began with presenting tteyuu formulations representing those three types of formations.
Tteyuu-marked gist formulations summarized preceding informing, while tteyuu-marked upshot
formulations drew out informing speakers’ implications. The third type of tteyuu formulations indicated its speaker’s
independent knowledge about the topical matter by providing more than what was inferable from a preceding informing. All types of
tteyuu formulations shared compositional features of being a declarative assertion with a falling intonation
contour, indexing informing recipients’ high degree of epistemic access to the formulated information. Tteyuu
formulations were overwhelmingly responded to with confirmations.
Other-speaker formulations serve as a confirmation request for understanding because the formulated information originally belongs to other interactants in conversation. By investigating the two most common sequential environments of tteyuu formulations, however, this study revealed that an intrinsic interactional purpose of using the focal formulations is not merely a confirmation request. First, this research examined tteyuu formulations appearing upon a possible completion of informing. In such occasions, informing recipients who produced tteyuu formulations aligned with the informing speakers’ course of action by reaffirming and/or inferring the point of the informing, and those tteyuu formulations led the informing to its closure. Furthermore, this study elucidated that tteyuu formulations serve to shape the topical trajectory of ongoing talk. These formulations worked as a tying device to indicate a particular relation between the preceding informing and to-be-formulated contents, functioning as a pivot via which such stepwise transitions get done. It is also important to note that the turn-final tteyuu was, as clearly shown in Excerpts (10) and (12), an indispensable constitutive component to accomplish these interactional tasks. Further research needs to be conducted to compare tteyuu with other linguistic elements employed for Japanese other-speaker formulations and to investigate if, and if so, why tteyuu is specifically used for the interactional purposes observed in this article.
Throughout this article, it was demonstrated that tteyuu formulations serve as a means to demonstrate
intersubjectivity while also advancing sequence progressivity. Intersubjectivity refers to shared understanding between conversation
participants as a product of communication (Duranti 2009Duranti, Alessandro 2009 “The
Relevance of Husserl’s Theory to Language Socialization.” Journal of Linguistic
Anthropology 19 (2): 205–226. ). A general feature of
conversation is to favor implicit over explicit methods of accomplishing interactional tasks, and thus it is often the case that the
management of given information as intersubjectively secure is done implicitly (Jefferson
1987 1987 “On
Exposed and Embedded Correction in Conversation.” In Talk and Social
Organization, ed. by Graham Button, and John.
R. E. Lee, 86–100. Clevedon,
UK: Multilingual Matters.
; Levinson 1987Levinson, Stephen
C. 1987 “Pragmatics and the Grammar of
Anaphora.” Journal of
Linguistics 23: 379–434.
). However, tteyuu formulations are
identified as one of the conversational practices with which interactants explicitly demonstrate and negotiate their possible arrival
at a shared understanding. At the same time, tteyuu formulations are also tied to the concept of progressivity, which
refers to the forward-moving nature of interaction. As shown in this article, tteyuu formulations assist conversation
participants to move on to a next interactional agenda in a timely manner. Generally, participants’ intersubjectivity is claimed and
embedded in sequences for the sake of progressivity (Heritage 2007 2007 “Intersubjectivity
and Progressivity in Person (and Place) Reference.” In Person
Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives, ed.
by Tanya Stivers, and N. J. Enfield, 255–280. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
). Nevertheless,
tteyuu formulations tacitly work as a vehicle to advance sequence progressivity, while providing participants
with an interactional space to negotiate their understanding of each other.
Discourse-functional studies have provided great insight into how speakers utilize utterance-final tteyuu
to present certain information from different points of view (see Section 2 for a review of the
literature). These studies seem to agree that the utterance-final tteyuu has become a construction not only
grammatically but also pragmatically independent from the tteyuu used for noun-modifying constructions.55.However, see also Matsumoto (2018)Matsumoto, Yoshiko 2018 “The
Form and Meaning of the Dangling Mitaina Construction in a Network of
Constructions.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar,
Interaction and Culture, ed. by Mutsuko
E. Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 75–98. Philadelphia: John
Benjamins. , who discusses that the original meaning
of tteyuu in noun-modifying constructions as quasi-quotation may still persist in the utterance-final
tteyuu. Building on this line of research, the present study used the analytical method of CA and
documented another hitherto unstudied interactional use of the turn-final tteyuu as other-speaker formulations. It is
hoped that this study also contributed to the research of formulation by unveiling one example of how a language-specific item, with
its relatively new grammatical structure, can be deployed as a resource for turn-constructional format of formulation.
Notes
References
Appendix
Transcript symbols
the beginning of overlapped talk
micro-pause
length of silence
noticeably lengthened sound
latched utterance
cut-off
rising intonation
continuing intonation
falling intonation
shift into high pitch
shift into low pitch
unintelligible stretch
transcriber’s unsure hearing
transcriber’s descriptions
audible outbreath
audible inbreath
laughter within a word
increase in tempo
decrease in tempo
quieter than the surrounding talk
relatively high volume
Abbreviations
complementizer
copula
nominal linking particle
nominalizer
negative morpheme
object marker
particle
past tense
question particle
subject particle
topic particle