| While the predicate-final structure of the Japanese language has been considered one of the main causes of its late projectability (Tanaka, 1999), this study demonstrates that the final predicate component of a "turn constructional unit" (TCU) furnishes a useful resource for conversational participants to negotiate various aspects of interaction. Using Conversation Analysis, I examine the organizational features of perspective negotiation near a TCU-ending in Japanese conversation. TCU-endings are significant organizational loci in a turn (Schegloff, 1996). Moreover, TCU-endings in Japanese typically consist of predicate components, which are key elements for turn projectability. Based on these two premises, I explore how Japanese syntactic characteristics serve as vehicles for participants to organize negotiation of perspectives. Additionally, adopting the theoretical principle that grammar is one of the multimodal resources for embodying actions in interaction, I examine participants' coordinated use of linguistic and non-linguistic resources for the realization of different interactional tasks.;By investigating the interrelation between gaze and syntax in the organization of turn-takings and participation frameworks, I reveal the participants' strong orientation to the TCU-final predicate component as a useful resource for organizing interaction. Specifically, a speaker's mid-TCU gaze shift tends to be linked to the occurrence of a predicate term, which signals the onset of transition space. Moreover, after the predicate term, a component is utilized as monitor space for a speaker to examine the recipient's reaction to his claim. I also illustrate a speaker's tactical utilization of a predicate component for creating "mid-predicate negotiation space" through the deployment of multimodal resources. Further, I examine how a speaker completes his utterance upon receiving a recipient's response in negotiation space, and in what contexts he tends to create such space. The findings propose that creating mid-predicate negotiation space is a speaker's designed practice for making a fine adjustment of his stance at a TCU-ending, in accordance with the recipient's response. Finally, I investigate a speaker's various syntactic practices for pursuing a recipient's affiliation in mid-predicate negotiation space, and uncover how Japanese syntactic structures furnish resources for the accomplishment of each remedial practice. |
