Cover not available

Article published In: Instructing Bodies
Edited by Leelo Keevallik, Emily Hofstetter and Jan Lindström
[Interactional Linguistics 5:1/2] 2025
► pp. 127–166

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Japanese turn-initial particle hai in instruction-compliance sequences in boxing

 | Hokusei Gakuen University
Published online: 12 June 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/il.24011.oka
Abstract
This paper analyzes how language and body interact in boxing sparring sessions by focusing on the Japanese particle hai (lit. ‘yes’) as it occurs turn-initially in the first part of instruction-compliance sequences. Based on sequential and embodied analysis of 11 boxing sparring sessions, this paper examines: (1) in what sequential and embodied environments hai is used; (2) if hai responds to a focal moment, what constitutes that moment; (3) what actions do hai-prefaced instructions indicate? How do language and body interact when these actions emerge? This paper identifies three environments: (1) while a boxer is being attacked, the particle prefaces instruction to evade the attack; (2) after a first phase of combined boxing movements, it precedes instruction pursuing the second phase; (3) after a change of distance, the particle introduces instructions for punches which are suitable at that distance. In each environment, hai is used to identify the exact moment at which targeted shifts from a current body alignment to a different one should be implemented. Depending on the temporal order of language and body, hai-prefaced instructions express different actions, e.g., ‘late’ instruction can “acknowledge” ( (2021). How early can embodied responses be? Issues in time and sequentiality, Discourse Processes, 58(4), 397–418, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) boxer’s independent initiations of the targeted action and, simultaneously, make their completions relevant.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Data, setting, methods
    • 3.2Methodology
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.2(a) Hai responding to the opponent’s inability to attack or his continuing attack
    • 4.3(b) Responding to the completion of the first movement
    • 4.4(c) Responding to a change of distance: Hai + attack
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • Glosses
  • References
References (45)
References
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beach, W. A. (1993). Transition regularities for ‘casual’ “Okay” usages. Journal of Pragmatics, 191, 325–352. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolden, G. B. (2009). Implementing incipient actions: the discourse marker ‘so’ in English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 411, 974–998. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2024). Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.4.23, retrieved 27 October 2024 from [URL]
Cameron, D., McAlinden, F. & O’Leary, K. (1989). Lakoff in context: the social and linguistic functions of tag questions. In J. Coates & D. Cameron (Eds.), Women in their speech communities: new perspectives on language and sex (pp.74–93) New York: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, E. & Selting, M. (2018). Interactional Linguistics: studying language in social interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deppermann, A. (2018). Instruction practices in German driving lessons: differential uses of declaratives and imperatives. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 281, 265–282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deppermann, A. & Günthner, S. (2015). Introduction: temporality in interaction. In A. Deppermann & S. Günthner, (Eds.), Temporality in interaction. (pp.1–23). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deppermann, A., Mondada, L. & Pekarek Doehler, S. (2021). Early responses: an introduction, Discourse Processes, 58(4), 293–307, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deppermann, A. & Schmidt, A. (2021). Micro-sequential coordination in early responses, Discourse Processes, 58(4), 372–396, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
ELAN (Version 6.8) [Computer software]. (2024). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Retrieved from [URL]
Fox, B. A., Thompson, S. A., Ford, C. E. & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2013). Conversation Analysis and Linguistics. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers, (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 726–740). Malden, MA.: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. & Goodwin, M. H. (1987). Concurrent operation on talk: notes on the interactive organization of assessments. IPRA papers in Pragmatics 1(1), 1–54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1995). Conversation Analysis: methodological aspects. In U. M. Quasthoff (Ed.), Aspects of oral communication (pp. 391–418). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). Turn-initial position and some of its occupants. Journal of Pragmatics, 571, 331–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, J. & Atkinson, J. M. (1984). Introduction. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 1–15). Cambridge: CambridgeGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, J. & Sorjonen, M. (1994). Constituting and maintaining activities across sequences: and-prefacing as a feature of question design. Language in Society 231, 1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacobsen, W. M. (1999). Aspects of hypothetical meaning in Japanese conditionals. In A. Kamio & K. Takami, (Eds.), Function and structure: in honor of Susumu Kuno (pp. 83–122). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1984). Notes on some orderlinesses of overlap onset. Tilburg papers in language and literature 281, 1–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keevallik, L. (2010). Marking boundaries between activities: The particle nii in Estonian, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(2), 157–182, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018). What does embodied interaction tell us about grammar? Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(1), 1–21, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2020). Grammatical coordination of embodied action: the Estonian ja ‘and’ as a temporal organizer of Pilates moves. In Y. Maschler, S. Pekarek Doehler, J. Lindström & L. Keevallik (Eds.), Emergent syntax for conversation: clausal pattens and organization of action (pp.221–244) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keevallik, L., Hofstetter, E., & Lindström, J. (2025). Linguistic and other vocal resources of instructing bodies, Interactional Linguistics, this issue.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuroshima, S. (2023). When a request turn is segmented: managing the deontic authority via early compliance. Discourse Studies, 25(1), 114–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuroshima, S., Kim, S. H., Hayano, K., Kim, M. S., & Lee, S. (2021). When OKAY is repeated: closing the talk so far in Korean and Japanese conversations. In E. Betz, A. Deppermann, L. Mondada & M. Sorjonen (Eds.), OKAY across languages: toward a comparative approach to its use in talk-in-interaction (pp 235–265). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). Action formation and ascription. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers, (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 103–130). Malden, MA.: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mondada, L. (2014a). Instructions in the operating room: How the surgeon directs their assistant’s hands. Discourse Studies 16(2), 131–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014b). Requesting immediate action in the surgical operating room: time, embodied resources and praxeological embeddedness. In P. Drew & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Requesting in social interaction (pp. 269–302). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Conventions for multimodal transcription. Retrieved from [URL]
(2017). Precision timing and timed embeddedness of imperatives in embodied courses of action: examples from French. In M. Sorjonen, L. Raevaara, & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Imperative turns at talk: the design of directives in action (pp.65–101). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021). How early can embodied responses be? Issues in time and sequentiality, Discourse Processes, 58(4), 397–418, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mondada, L. & Sorjonen, M. (2021). OKAY in closings and transitions. In E. Betz, A. Deppermann, L. Mondada & M. Sorjonen (Eds.), OKAY across languages: toward a comparative approach to its use in talk-in-interaction (pp 93–127). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morita, Y. (1989). A dictionary of basic Japanese. Tokyo: Kadokawa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nishizaka, A. & Sunaga, M. (2015). Conversing while massaging: multidimensional asymmetries of multiple activities in interaction, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48(2), 200–229, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okada, M. (2008). When the coach is a woman: the situational meanings of so-called masculine directives in a Japanese boxing gym. In J. Mori and A. Snyder-Ohta (Eds.), Japanese Applied Linguistics: discourse and social perspectives (pp. 160–187). London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). Some analyses of the Japanese interjection hai embedded in activities: a linguistic form within a combination of resources. In M. Kobayashi and J. Hibiya (Eds.), Past, present, and future of Japanese language education, vol. 51 (pp. 125–152). Tokyo: Bonjinsha.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018). Imperative actions in boxing sparring sessions, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(1), 67–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). Lexical repetitions during time critical moments in boxing. Language & Communication 901, 95–113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okada, M. & Yanagimachi, T. (2008). How do coparticipants organize instructions?: analyses based on multimodality and joint attention. The Japanese Journal of Language in Society, 11(1), 139–150.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rossi, G. (2014). When do people not use language to make requests? In P. Drew & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.). Requesting in social interaction (pp. 303–334). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simone, M. & Galatolo, R. (2021). Timing and prosody of lexical repetition: how repeated instructions assist visually impaired athletes’ navigation in sport climbing, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 54(4), 397–419, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Takagi, T. (2008). The recipient’s response as a method for ordering interaction: cases of hai used in a therapy session’. The Japanese Journal of Language in Society, 10(2), 55–69.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Togashi, J. (2002). Regarding relationships between hai and un. In T. Sadanobu (Ed.), Linguistic studies about un and soo. (pp. 127–157). Tokyo: Hitsuji shobooGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue