Indicating Difficulty in Describing Something in Words: The Use of Koo in Word Searches in Japanese Talk-in-Interaction

ABSTRACT

This study explores how the lexical hesitator koo is used to initiate or continue word searches in Japanese talk-in-interaction. The word koo (“like this,” “in this manner”) is canonically used as a proximal demonstrative adverb of manner, often accompanied by a depicting gesture. We argue that because of its continuity with the canonical use, the hesitator koo (a) projects a descriptive term as a possible search outcome, and (b) indicates difficulty in describing in words what the speaker wants to say. In addition to initiating or continuing a search, the hesitator koo provides information about the type and nature of the resolution of search, thereby enhancing the intersubjectivity of the search process. This study contributes to our understanding of the organization of self-initiated same-turn repair by identifying the function of a particular lingistic resource used for it. Data are in Japanese with English translation.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 16th International Pragmatics Conference (Hong Kong 2019). The authors are grateful to the participants in the conference, three anonymous reviewers, and ROLSI editor Charles Antaki for their constructive feedback. Finally, special thanks to Allison Adelman for her editorial assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Note that the English translations in the parentheses display only the dictionary meanings of these tokens when used in a canonical way.

² The particles described by Laakso and Sorjonen (2010) appear to fall partially within the notion of repair preface because they note that these resources are occasionally used after the repair is initiated with another initiator.

³ The actual rate may be slightly higher because in some cases the speaker’s body is partially or fully out of the camera frame.

⁴ Yukie completes her turn without producing the noun projected by the TCU-thus-far, leaving it to Daigo to understand it from the context.

⁵ In addition, the expression sukete tooru yoo na is nonidiomatic: The idiomatic expression for the same meaning is sukete mieru yoo na.

⁶ For another example of nan te yuu no in a koo-initiated search, see Extract 8 in the next section.

⁷ However, they also differ: Though nan te yuu no is used to search for a noun phrase (Endo & Yokomori, 2020), koo is rarely used to do so.

⁸ Though we translate the Japanese word fushigi as “strange” for lack of a better word, it does not have the same negative implication that the English word strange has. Fushigi is more neutral than strange, and in this case it conveys that Heita was curious about Asai Jiroo’s attendance.

⁹ This is yet another example of the speaker treating the initial outcome as suboptimal.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 15K03842, 15K12881, 18K02026, and 21K01898.