일본어 회화에 보이는 ‘공화(共話)’의 성립 요인에 관한 연구

Abstract

Joint conversation, one of the greatest features of Japanese conversation, is cooperative conversation in which a speaker and a listener take part in completing utterance. In this study, factors that may influence the formation of such type of conversation are examined from a speaker's perspective as well as from a listener's. The following has been found after natural conversation among over three people was analyzed: 1) In natural conversation using Japanese, the length of each turn is shorter than that of other languages. 2) When the speaker holds a turn, the listener frequently sends back-channel signals. It is expected from these traits that the listener constantly responds to the speaker's utterance as the speaker, still in the middle of utterance, continues to observe the listener's reactions. As a result, the speaker and the listener can build cooperative utterance. 3) The speaker alter his or her utterance to induce cooperative utterance from the listener. In other words, the speaker intends to leave a turn to the listener by using ascending intonations, question forms, and non-predicate sentences. Former studies mostly focused on the listener's cooperative utterance. However, through this study, it has become clear that the speaker, as well as the listener, actively participates in making joint conversation.