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Storytelling across Japanese Conversational Genre
Editor
This book investigates how Japanese participants accommodate to and make use of genre-specific characteristics to make stories tellable, create interpersonal involvement, negotiate responsibility, and show their personal selves. The analyses of storytelling in casual conversation, animation narratives, television talk shows, survey interviews, and large university lectures focus on participation/participatory framework, topical coherence, involvement, knowledge, the story recipient’s role, prosody and nonverbal behavior. Story tellers across genre are shown to use linguistic/paralinguistic (prosody, reported speech, style shifting, demonstratives, repetition, ellipsis, co-construction, connectives, final particles, onomatopoeia) and nonverbal (gesture, gaze, head nodding) devices to involve their recipients, and recipients also use a multiple of devices (laughter, repetition, responsive forms, posture changes) to shape the development of the stories. Nonverbal behavior proves to be a rich resource and constitutive feature of storytelling across genre. The analyses also shed new light on grammar across genre (ellipsis, demonstratives, clause combining), and illustrate a variety of methods for studying genre.
[Studies in Narrative, 13] 2010. vi, 313 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 26 October 2010
Published online on 26 October 2010
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
- Prelim pages | pp. i–iv
- Part 1. Introduction
- Chapter 1. Introduction: Storytelling across Japanese conversational genrePolly E. Szatrowski | pp. 3–20
- Part 2. Storytelling in casual conversation
- Chapter 2. Manipulation of voices in the development of a story: Prosody and voice quality of Japanese direct reported speechYuriko Sunakawa | pp. 23–60
- Chapter 3. Ellipsis and action in a Japanese joint storytelling series: Gaze, pointing, and contextChisato Koike | pp. 61–112
- Chapter 4. Sharing a personal discovery of a taste: Using distal demonstratives in a storytelling about kakuni ‘stewed pork belly’Mariko Karatsu | pp. 113–144
- Part 3. Storytelling in animation narratives
- Chapter 5. Clausal self-repetition and pre-nominal demonstratives in Japanese and English animation narrativesFumio Watanabe | pp. 147–180
- Part 4. Storytelling in talk shows and survey interviews
- Chapter 6. Storytelling in a Japanese television talk show: A host’s responsive behavior as a resource for shaping the guest’s storyAtsuko Honda | pp. 183–210
- Chapter 7. Telling about experiences in three-party survey interviews: “Second stories” within the interview participatory frameworkTomoko Kumagai and Naoyuki Kitani | pp. 211–238
- Part 5. Storytelling in university lectures
- Chapter 8. The functions of narratives in Japanese university lecture discourseYoshio Takahashi | pp. 241–266
- Chapter 9. Creating involvement in a large Japanese lecture: Telling the story of a haikuPolly E. Szatrowski | pp. 267–302
- Addresses for contributors to Storytelling across Japanese Conversational Genre | pp. 303–304
- Author index | pp. 305–306
- Subject index | pp. 307–313
“This book challenges researchers with the dramatic theoretical proposal that it is not only the story tellers and the story texts, but also the recipients and various nonverbal devices that play a crucial role in the act of storytelling. The chapters present persuasive data to exemplify the intricate tapestry of Japanese storytelling woven with the warp and weft of conscious/unconscious efforts by the concerned parties. My special applause extends to the editor whose careful selection of the contributors speared the cloud of opacity around the “mystery” of Japanese storytelling.”
Suzuko Nishihara, Professor of Linguistics (Tokyo Woman's Christian University 1998-2009)
“This is a crucial book for the study of storytelling in interaction. It offers an original point of departure for analyzing how multiple semiotic resources such as talk, prosody, and gesture construct the organization of storytelling in different settings ranging from everyday conversation to university lectures. It is essential reading for anyone interested in storytelling in structurally different kinds of interaction.”
Charles Goodwin, Professor of Applied Linguistics (University of California at Los Angeles)
“With a focus on a variety of narratives in conversational discourse, Storytelling across Japanese Conversational Genre deepens our appreciation of multiple usages and functions of the Japanese language in real-life communication. Based on quality research, the volume offers fresh insight into how verbal (e.g., demonstratives), paralinguistic (e.g., prosody) and nonverbal (gesture, gaze, head nods) behavior can be meaningfully analyzed. For its breadth and depth of analysis, researchers in Japanese language and social interaction will find this volume both stimulating and useful.”
Senko K. Maynard, Professor of Japanese Language and Linguistics (Rutgers University)
Cited by (9)
Cited by nine other publications
Beeman, William O.
Szatrowski, Polly
Zhu, Dongyi
2020. Conversational narrative marker. In Analysing Chinese language and discourse across layers and genres [Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 13], ► pp. 37 ff.
Zawiszová, Halina
Burdelski, Matthew, Michie Kawashima & Keiichi Yamazaki
Karatsu, Mariko
2014. Repetition of words and phrases from the punch lines of Japanese stories about food and restaurants. In Language and Food [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 238], ► pp. 185 ff.
Szatrowski, Polly E.
2014. Modality and evidentiality in Japanese and American English taster lunches. In Language and Food [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 238], ► pp. 131 ff.
Szatrowski, Polly E.
2014. Introduction to Language and Food. In Language and Food [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 238], ► pp. 3 ff.
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