Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 33:2 (2023) ► pp.157–183

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

Japanese turn-final tteyuu as a formulation device

ORCiD logo with link | San Diego State University
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 24 October 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.21044.ari
Abstract
This paper offers a conversation analytic study of the Japanese turn-final construction tteyuu as a conversational practice of formulation. Tteyuu is normally used in clausal noun modification, being placed between its preceding clausal component and a following head noun. However, tteyuu also appears to be employed utterance-finally without a following head noun. Through microanalysis of mundane conversation data, this study documents a previously unstudied aspect of the turn-final tteyuu as a formulation device. This study especially focuses on how informing recipients utilize tteyuu formulations to summarize or explicate the gist of some part of their conversations, while indicating their high degree of epistemic access to the formulated information. Furthermore, this research examines what conversation participants accomplish by mobilizing this particular type of formulations. This study aims to contribute to the research of formulation by unveiling how a language-specific item can be deployed as a resource for turn-constructional formatting of formulation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1The utterance-final tteyuu
    • 2.2Formulation
  • 3.Method and data
  • 4.Compositional features of tteyuu formulations
  • 5.Sequential environments of tteyuu formulations
    • 5.1Tteyuu formulations for a closure of informing
    • 5.2Tteyuu formulations as an initiation of further talk
  • 6.Concluding discussion
  • Notes
  • References
References (57)
References
Antaki, Charles, Rebecca Barnes, and Ivan Leudar. 2005. “Diagnostic Formulations in Psychotherapy.” Discourse Studies 7 (6): 627–647. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bilmes, Jack. 2011. “Occasioned Semantics: A Systematic Approach to Meaning in Talk.” Human Studies 341: 129–153. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina. 2010. “‘Articulating the Unsaid’ via And-prefaced Formulations of Others’ Talk.” Discourse Studies 12 (1): 5–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Depperman, Arnulf. 2011. “The Study of Formulations as a Key to an Interactional Semantics.” Human Studies 341: 115–128. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 2003. “Comparative Analysis of Talk-in-Interaction in Different Institutional Settings: A Sketch.” In Studies in Language and Social Interaction: In Honor of Robert Hopper, ed. by Phillip. J. Glenn, Curtis. D. LeBaron, and Jennifer Mandelbaum, 293–308. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and John Heritage. 1992. “Introduction: Analysing Talk at Work.” In Talk at Work, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 3–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro. 2009. “The Relevance of Husserl’s Theory to Language Socialization.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19 (2): 205–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ford, Cecilia E., and Sandra A. Thompson. 1996. “Interactional Units in Conversation: Syntactic, Intonational and Pragmatic Resources for the Management of Turns.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra A. Thompson, 134–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold, and Harvey Sacks. 1970. “On Formal Structures of Practical Actions.” In Theoretical Sociology, ed. by John D. McKinney, and Edward. A. Tiryakian, 337–366. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hauser, Eric. 2011. “Generalization: A Practice of Situated Categorization in Talk.” Human Studies 34 (2): 183–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hayano, Kaoru. 2011. “Claiming Epistemic Primacy in Japanese: Yo-marked Assessments in Japanese.” In The Molarity of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 58–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Territories of Knowledge in Japanese Conversation.” PhD diss. Radboud University Nijmegen.
. 2018. “When (Not) to Claim Epistemic Independence: The Use of Ne and Yone in Japanese Conversation.” East Asian Pragmatics 2 (2): 163–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto. 2009. “Marking a ‘Noticing of Departure’ in Talk: Eh-prefaced Turns in Japanese Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (10): 2100–2129. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “An Overview of the Question-Response System in Japanese.” Journal of Pragmatics 421: 2685–702. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto, Yuri Hosoda, and Ikuyo Morimoto. 2019. “Tte yuu ka as a Repair Preface in Japanese.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 52 (2): 104–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge/New York: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1985. “Analyzing News Interviews.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Vol. 3, ed. by Teun. A. van Dijk, 95–117. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Intersubjectivity and Progressivity in Person (and Place) Reference.” In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives, ed. by Tanya Stivers, and N. J. Enfield, 255–280. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Rod D. Watson 1979. “Formulations as Conversational Objects.” In Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 123–162. New York: Irvington.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hutchby, Ian. 2005. “‘Active Listening’: Formulations and the Elicitation of Feelings Talk in Child Counselling.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 38 (3): 303–329. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1983. “Two Explorations of the Organizations of Overlapping Talk in Conversation: (a) Notes on Some Orderliness of Overlap Onset and (b) On a Failed Hypothesis: ‘Conjunctionals’ as Overlap-vulnerable.” Tilburg Papers in Language and Literature 281: 1–33.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984. “On Stepwise Transition from Talk about a Trouble to Inappropriately Next-positioned Matters.” In Structures of Social Action, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 191–221. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1987. “On Exposed and Embedded Correction in Conversation.” In Talk and Social Organization, ed. by Graham Button, and John. R. E. Lee, 86–100. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. “Caveat Speaker: Preliminary Notes on Recipient Topic-shift Implicature.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 261: 1–30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail, and John R. E. Lee. 1992. “The Rejection of Advice: Managing the Problematic Convergence of a ‘Troubles-telling’ and a ‘Service Encounter’.” In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 521–48. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kato, Yoko. 2010. Hanashi-kotoba ni okeru Inyoo-hyoogen [Quotative Expressions in Spoken Language]. Tokyo: Kurosio Syuppan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Joungmin. 2014. “Kankokugo no inyoo-shuushokusetsu no shusetsu-ka: Nihongo tono taihi o tsuujite. [Main clause phenomena of quotatitve clauses in Korean: Contrast with Japanese].” In Nihongo fukubun-koobun no kenkyuu [Form and meaning in Japanese complex sentence constructions], ed. by Takashi Masuoka, Motoo Oshima, Osamu Hashimoto, Kaoru Horie, Naoko Maeda, and Takehiko Maruyama, 695–717. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koda, Naomi. 2015. “Using Reported Thought and Speech to Enhance a Story.” The Japanese Journal of Language in Society 17 (2): 24–39.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kushida, Shuya. 2011. “Confirming Understanding and Acknowledging Assistance: Managing Trouble Responsibility in Response to Understanding Check in Japanese Talk-in-interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (11): 2716–2739. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William, and David Fanshel. 1977. Therapeutic Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerner, Gene H. 2004. “On the Place of Linguistic Resources in the Organization of Talk-in-Interaction: Grammar as Action in Prompting a Speaker to Elaborate.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (2): 154–184. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1987. “Pragmatics and the Grammar of Anaphora.” Journal of Linguistics 231: 379–434. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 2018. “The Form and Meaning of the Dangling Mitaina Construction in a Network of Constructions.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar, Interaction and Culture, ed. by Mutsuko E. Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 75–98. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maynard, Douglas. W. 2003. Bad News, Good News: Conversational Order in Everyday Talk and Clinical Settings. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mori, Junko. 2006. “The Workings of the Japanese Token Hee in Informing Sequences: An Analysis of Sequential Content, Turn Shape, and Prosody.” Journal of Pragmatics 381: 1175–1205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ohori, Toshio. 1995. “Remarks on Suspended Clauses: A Contribution to Japanese Phraseology.” In Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics: In Honor of Charles J. Fillmore, ed. by Masayoshi Shibatani, and Sandra A. Thompson, 201–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. “Framing Effects in Japanese Non-final Clauses: Toward an Optimal Grammar-Pragmatics Interface.” Proceedings of the Twenty-third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Structure: 471–480. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ono, Tsuyoshi, Sandra. A. Thompson, and Yumi Sasaki. 2012. “Japanese Negotiation through Emerging Final Particles in Everyday Talk.” Discourse Processes 49 (3–4): 243–272. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey. 2004. “Prompting Action: The Stand-alone ‘So’ in Ordinary Conversation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (2): 185–218. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. “Grammar and Social Relations: Alternative Forms of Yes/No-type Initiating Actions in Health Visitor Interactions.” In Why Do You Ask?: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice F. Freed, and Susan Ehrlich, 87–107. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on Conversation. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1995. Lectures on Conversation. Vol. 2. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emmanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-taking for Conversation.” Language 501: 696–735. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emmanuel. A. 1982. “Discourse as an Interactional Achievement: Some Uses of ‘Uh huh’ and Other Things That Come between Sentences.” In Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics: Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 71–93. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emmanuel A. 1996a. “Turn Organization: One Intersection of Grammar and Interaction.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emmanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra A. Thompson, 52–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1996b. “Confirming Allusions: Toward an Empirical Account of Action.” American Journal of Sociology 104 (1): 161–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2004. “On Dispensability.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (2): 95–149. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack. 2010. Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steensig, Jakob, and Tine Larsen. 2008. “Affiliative and Disaffiliative Uses of You Say X Questions.” Discourse Studies 10 (1): 113–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya. 2008. “Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation during Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of Affiliation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (1): 31–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uemura, Takashi. 2014. “On Functions of Japanese -Toiu in So-called Suspended-sentence: An Investigation on Usage as a Sentence-final Particle.” Papers in linguistic science 201: 31–48.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Usami, Mayumi, ed. 2021. BTSJ-Japanese Natural Conversation Corpus with Transcripts and Recordings (March, 2021), NINJAL Institute-based Projects: Multiple Approaches to Analyzing the Communication of Japanese Language Learners.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Kaneyasu, Michiko
2024. Final tteyuu as a mockery stance marker: Multifunctionality and ongoing semantic change in Japanese social media. Journal of Pragmatics 221 ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue