Organizer: Fumiko Nazikian, Columbia University
Chair and Discussant: Shigeko Okamoto, California State University, Fresno
Style-shifting in Japanese is considered a very challenging
linguistic phenomena to understand due to its multiplicity of socially and contextually
variable meanings. The panel highlights key issues related to the choice of
speech style, recognizing a realization of voices of speakers through style-choice.
All four studies demonstrate the communicative effect to which style-choice
is put in various social contexts.
The first paper presents public signs in Japan as “mini-narratives.” It
posits a contingent relationship between public signs and conventional longer
narratives. The author discusses the important tie of public signs into the
imagination of those who apprehend them, and the exploitation of communication
and communicative acts that tie into cultural imagination.
The second paper comprises a study of style-choice in the process of narrative
construction. Highlighting the communicative act of story telling, the author
discusses the communicative effects of style-shifts in engaging the interlocutor
with the story.
The third paper presents a study of style switching between the Japanese addressee
honorific (masu form) and its non- honorific counterpart (the plain form) in
academic consultation sessions. Findings highlight the relationship between
style switching and identity construction.
The final paper uncovers a strong relationship between
the use of “affect
keys” (elements which index social meanings) and adjustment of psychological
closeness with listeners in sociolinguistic interviews. Comparing the use
of bare plain forms and affect keys, the author discusses that it is affect
keys, not bare plain forms, that connote psychological closeness.
Patricia J. Wetzel, Portland State University
In their experience of public signs that dot the Japanese landscape (“No
parking”, “Curb your dog”, “Beware of purse snatchers”),
people move through places that are steeped in language. Public signs are seen
here as mini-narratives, where the word “narrative” is intended
to establish a parallel between signs, on the one hand, and longer discourse
(conventional narrative) that has been analyzed in some depth, on the other.
Narrative has captured the imagination of many who wish to explore communication
and communicative acts that tie into cultural imagination. Whether they are
about prohibited or sanctioned behavior, etiquette on public transportation,
or descriptions of felonious incidents, public signs in Japan qualify as narratives—as
often as not because they invoke other narratives with which their audience
is familiar. They give us access to a story, and in doing so they evoke voices
with which the reader has some familiarity and/or some relationship. Signs
differ from extended narrative in two ways: they must be brief and they must
avoid drawing attention to anything that does not serve the interest of the
message (Cook 1992:171, The Discourse of Advertising). But it is my contention
that, just as in traditionally recognized narrative, sign makers must wade through
the representational waters carefully if they are to be effective.
Fumiko Nazikian, Columbia University
It is generally held that there are two verb ending forms in Japanese, desu/masu
polite forms and da plain forms. Style-shifts between these have been studied
extensively by many Japanese linguists (e.g., Ikuta 1983, Makino 1993, Cook
1998, Maynard 1999, Cook 2002). These studies focus on the many contextual situations
where style shift occurs such as in backgrounded vs. foregrounded information,
informal vs. formal, intimate versus distant, etc.
Outstanding issues in style shifting challenges us to investigate its use
in a large variety of authentic examples and situations. Adopting Cook's
(1998, 1999, 2002) classification of the da plain forms into “impersonal” and
the “informal”, the shift between desu/masu and da is examined in
the communicative act of storytelling. Building on previous studies into
storytelling (Labov 1972; D. Hymes 1974; Sacks 1992; Nakai 2004), we discuss
when and for what reasons a storyteller tends to switch style in his interaction
with the interlocutors and visa versa.
The audio-taped data used in this study were recorded from storytelling interactions
in the media between a storyteller and his/her audience. The study shows that
the three speech styles are chosen by the speaker/listener for very different
communicative purposes. Specifically, the masu/desu polite form is chosen when
the storyteller is aware of her role as a storyteller; the informal speech style
is chosen when the expression of emotions is foregrounded: the impersonal speech
style is chosen when the speaker is engaged with the internal scene of the story.
Yumiko Enyo, University of Hawaii, Manoa
Japanese plain forms (PFs) can take a form of the combination of a plain
form itself (the bare plain form, BPF) and an affect key (AK), such as a
sentence-final particle. Recent studies claim that an AK adds social meanings,
which includes psychological closeness. This study investigates how Japanese
speakers use BPFs and AKs differently to adjust psychological closeness with
a listener. It provides empirical evidence that it is AKs, not BPFs, that denote
the psychological closeness. Twenty-two Japanese native speakers responded to
an interviewer in one-to-one sociolinguistic interviews. The participants’ sentence-ending in PFs were
collected, and ten participants were selected as focus group members who used
PFs more than 5 times. The PFs of the focus group were categorized into two
(“BPFs” and “PFs with AKs”), each of which were further
categorized in six functions: direct quote, inner speech, listing, evaluation,
feedback, and empathy. The result reveals that two participants used PFs more
than fifty times while other participants used them less than twenty times.
The two participants’ use of PFs was extended to listing, feedback, and
empathy functions, while other eight participants scarcely used PFs for these
functions. Furthermore, the two participants used PFs mostly with AKs, which
is not the case for other participants. The two participants who used AKs
frequently showed a stronger commitment to the interview activity, negotiating
for a closer stance to the interviewer.
Haruko M. Cook, University of Hawaii, Manoa
Sociolinguists have studied when and why speakers shift speech-styles and
provided cognitive and social explanations (e.g., Eckert and Rickford 2000).
The previous views attributed shifts to external social factors such as the
social situation, topic of talk, and/or the addressee/audience (e.g., Blom
and Gumperz 1972). In contrast, social constructivist theory proposes that language
is a tool available to the members of society for constructing their social
identities (e.g., Bucholtz 1999; He 1995; Ochs 1993). In this view, speakers
may shift from one social persona to another by shifting speech-styles.
From the point of view of social constructivism, this paper explores how
university professors orient to different social identities through style-shifts
between the Japanese addressee honorific, masu form and its non-honorific
counterpart, the plain form in academic consultation sessions. Previously, a
conversation between a professor and a student was depicted as a prototypical
example of a status-different interaction, in which the student must give the
masu form to the professor and receives the plain form (see Ide 1982).
The video- and audio-taped data come from academic consultation sessions
conducted by three male professors from two different universities in the
Tokyo area. The data were qualitatively analyzed.
The present paper argues that the professors’ shifts between the two forms
in academic consultation sessions are not necessarily motivated by a change
in the social situation or addressee, but by the professor’s fine balancing
between the two conflicting socially expected images of university professor – “professor” and “personal
coach.”
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