2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Study of Prosodie Variation in Japanese Desagreement
| Project/Area Number |
13610665
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
言語学・音声学
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| Research Institution | Hokusei Gakuen University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAKANO Syoji Hokusei Gakuen Univ., Dept. of English, Associate Professor, 文学部, 助教授 (00285503)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2003
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| Keywords | Prosody / Japanese / disagreement / directives / workplace / gender |
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| Research Abstract |
This study deals with prosodic variation in Japanese interactions involving disagreement between participants. The first research question is concerned with strategic aspects of prosody in naturally occurring interactions. Given that Japanese conversationalists highly esteem interpersonal harmony, I assumed that participants who face disagreement would take advantage of prosodic means as one of the strategic choices to compensate for the lack of harmony in interactions. Focusing on prosodic prominence on the negative "-nai" in friendly conversations, I found that observed variation is governed by a variety of constraints consisting of interactive meanings (or footing) of negation in the immediate context of use as well as language-specific internal structures of the intonation. phrase.~The second question is concerned with variable uses of prosody in Japanese disagreement in linkage to register. Analyzing three specific registers such as political debates, news broadcast, and friendly conversations as data, I found that prosodic variation observed in the negative "-nai" is systematically correlated with sociolinguistic properties of register, which lead to different sets of constraints. The last question is concerned with gender variation in prosodic phenomena in Japanese disagreement. Based on naturally occurring interactions at workplaces, I investigated variable uses of prosody by professional Japanese women in positions of authority and leadership and compared them with the uses of the male counterpart. While I have not yet completed my analyses of prosodic variables, I extensively studied their strategic uses of directives. The outcome of this latter phase of investigation will be published in a major international journal.
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Research Products
(6 results)
