Intercultural pragmatics: A Japanese-American case study

This thesis attempts to describe and illustrate a methodology for the analysis of naturally-occurring talk, specifically that of intercultural encounters. This methodology draws heavily from pragmatics and socio-linguistics to engage in an analysis of Japanese and Anglo-American interactions and seeks to demonstrate how the values and beliefs of the members of a culture have linguistic and non-linguistic correlates at the discourse and utterance level. I argue that the world view of a culture influences and constrains socio-cultural macronotions, such as status, rights and obligations, and power, and that such notions are manifested in the microphenomena, such as the prosodic features, choice of honorifics, and turn-taking, of everyday talk. Failure to take into account constituents of discourse beyond the utterance level results in an inadequate understanding of speaker meaning. I suggest a framework of values, taking a social psychological perspective, which I contend is needed in understanding, explaining, and predicting Japanese interpersonal behavior, both with each other as well as with non-Japanese.;Chapter One sets out the rationale and background for this study and Chapter Two presents the framework of concepts within the context of an interpretation of the Japanese world view. Chapters Three, Four, Six, and Seven each take up a different area: listener behavior, prosodic variables, politeness, and conversational structure. Chapter Five provides an introduction to Chapter Six and sketches an alternative analysis of politeness, attempting to contextualize it within the value system of the Japanese ethos. Discussions are based on natural conversational data and other ethnographic evidence. Each chapter illustrates the use of the methodology, examining the microphenomena of talk from the point of view of the macronotions and higher order values, aiming at an expansion of sociopragmatic analysis.;The final chapter, Chapter Eight, summarizes the thesis and suggests areas of application and directions for further research.