Initiating Interactive Turn Spaces in Japanese Conversation: Local Projection and Collaborative Action

Abstract

Shifting from a focus on transitions between speakers at turn boundaries, this study examines projective and multimodal structures inside a turn-constructional unit (TCU), out of which any turn is built. It analyzes how particular noun-phrasal components within a TCU become projective and shape interactive turn spaces (ITSs) where co-participants legitimately provide a relevant next action. The speaker projects spaces, which create opportunities for responses and facilitate collaborative participation. The analysis explicates where and how the speaker projects ITSs through emerging syntactic components and multimodal resources such as gazes, gestures, and facial expressions. Demonstrating how participants understand emerging local actions and how they analyze prior actions to which they are responding (i.e., the impact of reflexivity) reveals the interactive organization of spaces inside a TCU where multiple dimensions of projection work together to facilitate micro-collaboration in Japanese conversation.

Notes

¹This partiture format transcript organizes verbal production by the participants diagonally to show concurrent actions. The diagram at the bottom illustrates the grammatical components of a single TCU, coordinating with the recipient's contributions. Japanese gloss and English translations are provided below the original utterances. A compound predicate, “kyoomi ga arimashita,” is produced separately in lines 6 (PRD1) and 10 (PRD2). Line 3, “doraggu kee ,” is an object (OBJ) of the compound predicate. “Mo” ‘also’ in line 6 is an adverbial particle, which is a postpositional particle for the “doraggu kee .” For Japanese gloss symbols and transcription notations, please see the Appendix.

²For more on projection, see Auer (2005); Chevalier and Clift (2008); de Ruiter, Mitterer, and Enfield (2006); Goody (1995); Hayashi (2004); Schegloff (1984, 1987, 1988); Streeck (1995, this issue); and Tanaka (1999, 2000).

³In the transcripts, each participant is assigned a series of tracks: nod or gesture, gaze, and speech (including Japanese gloss and English translations). One turn-constructional unit (TCU) from the primary speaker is presented horizontally (from left to right), and the simultaneous actions of the participants can be compared in the vertical axis. The labels along the top identify the sequence of components that compose the TCU. Elements in double parentheses in the English translation indicate unexpressed elements in the original language, but supplied by the author for clarity. See the Appendix for transcription notations and Japanese gloss symbols.

⁴The component, iya nanka, indicates that the speaker is making a link between what he said before (a question about the residency) and what he is about to say (the reason why he is inquiring). The next component, kyoo ‘today’, is a time-specified component, which foreshadows that the speaker is about to deliver a kind of account by telling what took place within a specified time frame (i.e., what happened today).

⁵Hayashi (2004, 2005b) discussed in detail how postpositional particles in Japanese are used as a resource to resume an ongoing turn construction that has been put on hold to deal with reference negotiation.

⁶The particle no indicates that the speaker is tying back to the prior component (Berkeley) and building a next component explicitly displaying grammatical connection with it. The structural format [noun phrase + no + noun phrase] is a syntactically constituent unit. See Hayashi (2003, 2005b) for further discussion on the utilization of particles.

⁷See Hayashi (2004) for further discussion on are.