ELSEVIER
Journal of Pragmatics 26 (I 996) 355--387
The
Patricia
M.
Department
conversational
use of reactive tokens
English, Japanese, and Mandarin ~
Clancy
a, S a n d r a
A.
Thompson
a,*,
Ryoko
Suzuki
in
a, H o n g y i n
Tao
b
of Linguistics, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
h National University of Singapore
Received September
1994; revised version April 1995
Abstract
This paper investigates
'Reactive
Tokens'
in Mandarin
Chinese,
Japanese,
and English.
O u r d e f i n i t i o n o f " R e a c t i v e T o k e n " ( = ' R T ' ) i s "a s h o r t u t t e r a n c e p r o d u c e d
by an interlocutor
who is playing a listener's role during the other interlocutor's
speakership'.
That is, Reactive
Tokens will normally not disrupt the primary speaker's
speakership,
and do not in themselves
claim the floor. Using corpora of conversational
interactions from each of the three languages
of our study, we distinguish
among several types of RTs, and show that the three languages
differ in terms of the types of RTs favored, the frequency
with which RTs are used in conversation, and the way in which speakers distribute their RTs across conversational
units.
1. I n t r o d u c t i o n
Students
of conversational
language
have
noticed
for some
time
that when
one
speaker
projects
an extended
turn, other
speakers
may produce
small bits of vocal
behavior
which
exhibit
an understanding
that an extended
tam is in progress
on the
part of the first speaker
(Orestr6m,
1983:
23--25;
Sacks
et al., 1974;
Schegloff,
1982).
In this paper
we examine
these
small
"reactive'
turns
in three
languages:
Mandarin,
Japanese,
and American
English.
Referring
to the speaker
of the extended
turn as the "primary"
speaker,
we will suggest
that 'reactive'
turns play a role in a set
of culture-specific
communicative
strategies
that include
expectations
about
how
W e are g r a t e f u l t o t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a O f f i c e o f P a c i f i c R i m R e s e a r c h f o r f u n d i n g f o r t h i s
p r o j e c t . W e a r e p l e a s e d to a c k n o w l e d g e t h e a s s i s t a n c e o f L i l a F i s k f o r h e l p w i t h t h e E n g l i s h d a t a , K a w a i
Chui and Toshihide Nakayama for help with the graphical representations of the data, Tsuyoshi Ono for
help with the Japanese data, H.S. Gopal and Tsuyoshi Ono for advice on the interpretation of the quant i t a t i v e r e s u l t s , a n d G e o r g e B e d e l l , S h o i c h i I w a s a k i , G e n e L e r n e r , C h a r l e s N. Li, J a c o b M e y , a n d a n
a n o n y l n o u s r e f e r e e f o r t h e J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c ' s f o r v a l u a b l e c o m m e n t s . A l l r e m a i n i n g e r r o r s are o u r
responsibility. The research on this paper has been a thoroughly four-way collaborative matter; the
actual writing has been the responsibility of the first two authors.
* Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
0378-2166/96/$15.00
Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
356
P . M . Clan~ 3, et al. / Joto'nal o f P r a g m a t i c s 20 (1996) 355--387
much input a non-primary
speaker will give, and where this input will occur with
respect to the primary speaker's turn.
There has developed
a profusion
of terlninology
in the last two decades
to
describe the tunas of non-primary
speakers. Fries (1952: 49), looking at English conv e r s a t i o n s , w a s p e r h a p s t h e f i r s t t o g r o u p t o g e t h e r " t h o s e s i n g l e f r e e u t t e r a n c e s ...
that have as responses
continued
attention",
including yes, Uh huh, Yeoh, 1 see,
Good, Oh, etc. Kendon (1967) called them 'accompaniment
signals'. Yngve (1970)
proposed
the term "backchannel
communication"
for all these non-primary
turns.
Orestr6m (1983:23),
following Yngve, divides "utterances"
into ~'speaking-turns'"
and "'back-channel
items", where the latter term includes both lexical and non-lexical "'listener responses",
representing
"'rather special functions where the listener
informs the speaker that his message has been received, understood, agreed to and/or
has caused a certain effect". Duncan (1974) and Duncan and Eiske (1977), however,
extended the term 'backchannel"
to include sentence completions,
requests for clarification, brief statements, and non-verbal responses. Sehegloff (1982) marked a critical turning point in the study of 'non-primary"
turns, being the first to demonstrate
that such turns do not form a single set, but must be analyzed in terms of their interactive functions. What he called 'continuers',
in particular, especially uh huh, exhibit
the understanding
t h a t a n o t h e r t u r n is s t i l l i n p r o g r e s s b y p a s s i n g a n o p p o r t u n i t y
to
produce a full turn (p. 81). Jefferson (1984) proposed the term "acknowledgement
tokens' for the group of forms in English that includes yeah, mhm, and uh huh, and
suggested that functional and sequential distinctions exist among
the members
of
this group. This theme was pursued by Drummond
and Hopper (1993a,b), with a
response by Zilnmernaan (1993). Goodwin
(1986) nlade a further contribution to distinguishing
among the several types of non-prinaary vocalizations
by proposing
an
important interactional distinction between continuers and assessments,
which evaluate the primary speaker's contribution, such as Wow or Good.
Following
several of these scholars, we consider the notion of "primary speakership" to be critical to the definition of this set of utterances. We also wish to maintain a distinction among several types of utterances produced by non-primary
speakers, though for the purposes of this paper, we will propose a different classification
based partly on their form and partly on their sequential function, and we will not be
comparing
the sequential functions of the individual forms within each language, as
worthwhile a topic as that would be. We thus term the class of utterances made by a
non-primary
speaker REACTIVE
TOKENS,
as indicated in our title. Our definition
o f " R e a c t i v e T o k e n " ( = " R T ' ) is "a s h o r t u t t e r a n c e p r o d u c e d b y a n i n t e r l o c u t o r w h o
is p l a y i n g a l i s t e n e r ' s r o l e d u r i n g t h e o t h e r i n t e r l o c u t o r ' s s p e a k e r s h i p ' .
T h a t is, R e a c tive Tokens will normally not disrupt the primary speaker's speakership, and do not
in themselves
claim the floor. If a short utterance served as the second pair part of
an adjacency pair (Sacks et al., 1974), for example as an answer to a question or a
response to an offer, it was not considered a Reactive Token. In section 4 below we
will characterize and exemplify the types of RTs found in our data.
Our study was partially inspired by earlier research showing that "backchannel"
use differs across languages, especially English and Japanese (Iwasaki, 1990; Maynard, I986, 1987, 1989; White, 1989). These works suggested that Japanese speak-
P . M . C l a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 26 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - - 3 8 7
357
ers' use of 'backchannel'
tokens, or aizuchi
as they are called in Japanese, is more
f r e q u e n t t h a n is t h a t o f E n g l i s h s p e a k e r s . T a o a n d T h o m p s o n
(1991), based on the
preliminary
findings of the research project reported on in this paper, noted that
Mandarin
speakers use "backchannels'
much less frequently than do English speakers. Mizuno
(1988)
suggested
that Chinese
speakers
use backchannels
less frequently
than do Japanese
speakers.
Liu (1987),
in comparing
the frequency
of
backchannels,
or aizuc'hi, of Chinese and Japanese
speakers reacting to short prepared 'discourses',
found that Chinese speakers use aizt4c-hi less frequently than do
Japanese speakers.
In this study, we do not restrict ourselves to "backchannels',
since there are other
important types of 'non-primary'
t u r n t h a t o c c u r , a s w e w i l l s h o w , w i t h d i f f e r i n g tYequencies across languages. Instead, we focus on a more inclusive range of 'non-primary" turns, or Reactive Tokens, and compare the way speakers from three typologically
and
genetically
diverse
languages,
American
English, 1 Japanese,
and
Mandarin,
use them in everyday
interactions.
We will provide
a cross-linguistic
analysis of a variety of Reactive Tokens, and will relate the use of RTs to interactional strategies peculiar to each culture.
We first outline the goals of this study (section 2), and then discuss our data and
our methodology
(sections 3 and 4). In section 5 we present our findings, and in sect i o n s 6 a n d 7, w e d i s c u s s t h e i m p l i c a t i o n s
of these findings and the conclusions
we
may draw from them.
2. Goals
The goals of this study are to examine the communicative
strategies in each language with respect to culture-specific
expectations
about the degree of interaction
that the non-primary
speaker will engage in. There are two related aspects to these
expectations,
what we might call 'frequency'
a n d ' l o c a t i o n ' . T h a t is, w e w i l l ( I ) t e s t
a prediction arising from the earlier literature regarding frequency of RT use across
languages, and (2) demonstrate
that the placement of an RT token with respect to the
primary speaker's
t u r n is a c r i t i c a l p a r t o f t h e set o f e x p e c t a t i o n s .
Results of these
analyses will provide a basis for proposing a preliminary characterization
of the nonprimary speaker's role in each language.
3. Data
Our data are all from audiotaped
face-to-face
ordinary, non-argumentative
conversations among friends. 2 By focusing on friends, we hope to eliminate the effects
From here on, when we say "English',
2 F o r this project, we have restricted our
Future research might extend our findings
nard, 1989. for findings on Japanese head
of M a n d a r i n from m a i n l a n d China.
we are referring to A m e r i c a n English.
hypotheses to verbal rather than n o n - v e r b a l Reactive Tokens.
to include an analysis of n o n - v e r b a l tokens as well (see Maym o v e m e n t s ) . The M a n d a r i n data are all from native speakers
358
P.M. Clancy
e t al. / J o u r n a l
of Pragmatics
26 (1996) 355-387
of differential
social
status
on use of Reactive
Tokens;
this is, of course,
an
ing topic
for future
study.
Tables
1--3 summarize
the data from
each
language
"IU'
refers
to 'intonation
units',
to be characterized
below).
Table 1
Summary
of English
data
Transcript
# of IUs
Farmtalk
Africa
Hypochondria
Car Sales
Lunch
Dinner
Aesthetics
Shulz
204
200
228
204
105
110
91
89
Total
Table 2
Summary
of Mandarin
# of lUs
250
148
137
197
206
126
112
126
Total
Fujikawa
Gossip
Hamada
Oyama
Girlfriend
Party
Surprise
Takando
Total
M
F,
F,
M
F
F,
F,
F~
1 M
1 M
2 M
1 M
4 M
(rain.)
6
3
4
3
7
7
7
7
44
Speakers
2
3
1
1
3
1
1
2
1~,
F
F,
F,
M
F,
F,
M
1 M
1 M
1 M
2 M
2 M
1302
of Japanese
Duration
data
Jiaoyu
Sunday
TKY
TKY2
HKPR
Shen
Thai
Tongji
Transcript
2
2
2
2
3
2
1
1
1231
Transcript
Table 3
Summary
Speakers
Duration
(min.)
6
5
2
4
3
1
1
1
23
data
# of IUs
157
215
237
199
121
113
105
128
1275
Speakers
!
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
F, 1 M
F, 1 M
M
M
F, 1 M
F
F
M, 1 F
Duration
3
5
5
4
2
1
l
2
23
(rain.)
interest(where
P.M. Clancy et aL / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 26 (1996) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
359
4. M e t h o d o l o g y
Our data were transcribed
according
t o t h e D u B o i s e t al. ( 1 9 9 3 ) t r a n s c r i p t i o n
system (see also Du Bois, 1991), which recognizes
both turns and intonation
units
as basic elements
of conversational
language.
The data were then analyzed
according to a number
of grammatical
and interactional
coding categories.
Here we outline
those relevant to the issues we wish to discuss in this paper.
4.1. Speaker
change
A speaker
change
was judged
to have occurred
at any point at which
another
speaker
took a recognizable
turn, whether
a full turn or a Reactive
Token
turn.
Laughter
turns were counted
separately,
and will not be included
in this discussion.
4.2. Reactive
We
Tokens
distinguish
among
several
types
of Reactive
Tokens.
4.2.1. Backchannels
If the Reactive
Token
is a non-lexical
vocalic form, and serves as a "continuer'
(Schegloff,
1982), display of interest, or claim of understanding,
we consider
it a
Backchannel.
Typical Backchannel
forms in each of the three languages
found in our
data include those found in Table 4.
Table 4
T y p i c a l B a c k c h a n n e l s in J a p a n e s e , E n g l i s h and M a n d a r i n
Japanese
English
Mandarin
un (u=n, unun, etc.)
a=
ee
ha=
ho=
hu=n
he =
hm
huh
oh
mhrn
uh huh
uhm
a
ao
ai=
en=
eh
hum
mhm=/mh
4.2.2. Reactive Expressions
If the "non-primary"
speaker utters a short non-floor-taking
we coded that as a Reactive
Expression.
Typical
Reactive
lexical phrase or word,
Expressions,
including
P . M . C l a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 3 8 7
360
assessments
languages
are
(Goodwin,
1986;
Goodwin
those found
in Table
5. ~
and
Goodwin,
1987,
1992a,b),
in the
three
Table 5
T y p i c a l R e a c t i v e E x p r e s s i o n s in J a p a n e s e , E n g l i s h a n d M a n d a r i n
Japanese
English
Mandarin
sugoi "great'/'terrible"
h o n t o o "really"
s o o ' ( i t is) so"
a s o o / s o o k a "(is t h a t ) s o '
ii n a = " ( t h a t ' s ) nice"
hal "yes'
oh really/really
yeah
gee
o--kay
sure
exactly
all r i = g h t
man
shit
hell
z h e y a n g ha() " s u c h P R T "
jiushi a "indeed PRT"
shi a " C O P PRT"
dui "right'
dui dui/dui dui dui
4.2.3.
Collaborative
Finishes
When
the non-primary
speaker
finishes
a previous
speaker's
utterance,
we coded
it as a Collaborative
Finish
(Lerner,
1 9 8 7 , 1 9 8 9 , 1 9 9 1 ). O f t h e t h r e e l a n g u a g e s
in the
study, we found
collaborative
finishes
only in English
and Mandarin.
See the Appendix for a list of transcription
symbols
found
in the examples.
( I ) English
A:
..
..
...
..
B:
(2)
when
you say it happens
for
it's like,
it happened
to get you off-off my ass.
a reason,
(CARSALES)
Mandarin
A:
...
3 We use
2SG
CLF
=
COP
=
GEN
=
NEG
=
NOM
-OBJ
=
PRT
=
Q
=
SUB
=
TOP
=
-
-
Yi
one
ge
CLF
jiao
call
The
one,
what
shenme
what
do you
de?
PRT
call
it ?
tile f o l l o w i n g a b b r e v i a t i o n s f o r t h e g l o s s e s in o u r J a p a n e s e a n d M a n d a r i n e x a m p l e s .
2nd singular
classifer
copula
genitive
negativc
nominalizer
object marker
final particle
question marker
subject marker
topic marker
P.M. Clancy et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 20 (1996) 355--387
..
361
jiao=?
call
it is c a l l e d
..
haoxiang=,
seem
..
jiao
call
something
like
International
...
nei
that
ge
CLF
That
Shtra-
Guoji ....
international
Trade
Shang=ye
trade
Xueyuan
college
ba.
PRT
College.
xuexiao,
school
school
B:
...
remer
hot
C:
..
zui=,
very
..
zui
very
de.
PRT
is v e r y p o p u l a r .
very
remer.
hot
very popular.
(JIAOYU)
4.2.4. Repetitions
If the non-primary
speaker
reacts by repeating
mary speaker,
we coded
it a s a R e p e t i t i o n :
(3)
a portion
of the
speech
of the
English
A:
B:
A:
,.. I g o t e v e r y t h i n g
taken care
I got insurance
on it too.
... [ h o w m u c h
<X it X>] -... [ u n d e r m y ] n a m e .
... e l e v e n
hundred
a year.
B:
.. eleven
A:
B :
... t h r e e
hundred.
hundred
[dollars down],
[that's cheap]
man,
(4) Japanese
A:
.. o t o t o i - - the: d a y : b e f o r e
the day
..
kinoo
yesterday
before
: yesterday
yesterday-
da,
COP
yesterday
..
of.
denwa
telephone
ga
SUB
there was a phone
atte.
exist
call.
-
(CARSALES)
pri-
P . M . C l a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - - 3 8 7
362
B:
..
kinoo.
yesterday
Yesterday.
(GOSSIP)
(5) Mandarin
B : ... z h o n g z h u a n
intermediate:college
litou,
inside
Within the vocational
hai
still
neng
possible
gai
change
schools
bao.
application
i t ' s O . K . to c h a n g e y o u r a p p l i c a t i o n .
... j i e g u o ,
then,
Then,
haishi
still
mei
NEG
ren
person
even so nobody
A:
bao.
apply
is i n t e r e s t e d in a p p l y i n g
• ..
a o ~
...
mei
ren
bao
NEG
person
apply
(to this type of school).
oh,
Even so nobody
..
gaozhong,
high:school
is i n t e r e s t e d in a p p l y i n g
to s u c h s c h o o l s .
jinnian.
this :year
This year.
B:
...
mei
NEG
ren
- person
Nobody
bao
gaozhong.
apply
high:school
is i n t e r e s t e d in a p p l y i n g
to s u c h s c h o o l s .
... h a = m e ,
then
So,
... z h e y a n g
such
yi
once
lai,
come
in s u c h a s i t u a t i o n ,
4.2.5. Resumptive
(JIAOYU)
Openers
"Resumptive Openers' refer to a type of non-lexical element which is used at turninitial points. These forms would be coded as Backchannels
if they weren't followed
by full turns. Although in our coding they were treated as a subcategory
of Reactive
Token, they can be distinguished from both prototypical Reactive Tokens and prototypical contentful turns. No functional claims are intended by the term "resumptive"
in this label.
The characteristics of Resumptive
Openers include the following:
1. T h e y a r e r e a l i z e d i n s h o r t ( t y p i c a l l y m o n o s y l l a b i c ) ,
non-lexical,
vocalic forms.
2. T h e y t e n d t o a p p e a r a s a s e p a r a t e i n t o n a t i o n u n i t .
P.M. Clancy et al. / Journal o f Pragmatics 26 (1996) 355--387
3.
4.
Normally only short pauses occur after a resumptive
They appear at the beginning of a new turn.
(6) English
A : ... H o = w a r e y o u d o i n g w i t h t h e h o u s e .
B : ... O h ,
.. g o t i t a l l u h . . . p r i m e d ,
.. j u s t a b o u t ,
... e x c e p t t w o s i d e s [ o f i t ] .
A:
[ O h y o u s h o o t a] p r i m e r
(7) Japanese
A : hyaku
nanajuu=
ne=,
hundred
seventy
PRT
( s h e ) is a h u n d r e d a n d s e v e n t y ( - s o m e
B:
Wow
ii
na=.
good PRT
how enviable/(l) envy (her)
opener,
stuff.
centimeters)
(8) Mandarin
S : .. N i m e n
ne
ge
fangzi,
2PL
that CLF
house
About the housing you have now,
... n e n g b u
neng changqi
zhu xiaqu
ya?
can
NEG can
long:term
live down
PRT
Can you live there for long ?
T : ... ( 1 . 0 ) N a
dangran
keyi
a=.
that of:course
possible
PRT
Sure it's possible.
... N i
zhiyao
ni
y i z h i ..
zhuce
2SG
just
2SG
continuously
register
As long as you register (as a student).
... [ N a
ni
jiu
keyi].
then 2SG
then possible
you are fine.
S :
[Ai=,
Oh,
.. n e
ting
hao
de
a=].
that very good PRT
PRT
t h a t "s g r e a t .
363
(FARMTALK)
tall
(FUJIKAWA)
(TKY)
Resumptive
Openers are hybrid in nature: they themselves do not constitute a new
turn, but they are Reactive Tokens that occur at the beginning
of a tum. Thus they
364
P . M . C l a n c y et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 26 (1996) 355--387
differ from the other Reactive Tokens in that their function is to acknowledge
the
prior turn and commence
a new turn, but not to pass a turn-taking opportunity, which
is what the other Reactive Tokens may be said to do. Our Resumptive
Openers are
thus parallel to the "acknowledgement
tokens" signalling
"speakership
incipiency'
discussed by Jefferson (1984), Drummond
and Hopper (1993a,b), and Zimmerman
(1993).
4.2.6. Summary
In this subsection, we have offered a taxonomy
of Reactive Tokens which has
proved useful in the comparison
of the three languages of our study. In the next subsection, as background
for our discussion of the location of Reactive Tokens in the
three languages,
we will discuss our coding of possible conversational
completion
points.
4.3. Complex
Transition
Relevance
Places
One of our concerns was to determine
whether the languages of our study differ
in where non-primary
speakers tend to place their RTs. In particular, we wanted to
know if there are systematic differences as to whether speakers tend to utter RTs at
(1) points of possible transition from one speaker to another or (2) during another
speaker's turn. This issue in turn raises the question of how to define points of possible transition from one speaker to another.
Sacks et al.'s (1974) groundbreaking
and highly influential paper on the systematic organization
of turn-management
in ordinary conversation
first brought to the
attention of students of conversation
the issue of conversational
units, the units
which form the basis for turns. Sacks et al. proposed that turns can be constructed
from what they call "unit-types', or "turn-constructional
units' (= TCU):
"'Unit-types for English include sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical constructions. Instances of the
unit-types so usable allow a projection o f the unit-type u n d e r way, and what, roughly, it will take for an
instance of that unit-type to be completed. U n i t - t y p e s lacking the feature of projectability m a y not be
usable in the same w a y . " (p. 702)
T h e e n d o f a T C U , t h e n , is w h a t S a c k s e t a l . t e r m a " t r a n s i t i o n - r e l e v a n c e
place',
t h a t is, a p l a c e w h e r e a t r a n s i t i o n t o a n o t h e r s p e a k e r m i g h t o c c u r . E x a c t l y w h a t
d e f i n e s a T C U is l e f t o p e n i n t h e S a c k s e t a l . p a p e r , b u t it w a s a s s u m e d t h a t g r a m matical units play a major role.
Orestr6m
(1983) and Ford and Thompson
(to appear)
take up Sacks et al.'s
challenge
to linguists
to participate
in defining
the character
of TCUs
and the
nature of transition-relevance
places. Both studies find that these 'turn units' are
in fact best thought of as being complex,
that is, that they include intonational
and
pragmatic
cues as to where they will end, as well as grammatical
ones. Their data
show that intonational
and pragmatic
completion
points select from among
the
many more numerous
grammatical
completion
points to form what we will call,
following
Ford
and Thompson
(to appear),
'Complex
Transition
Relevance
Places' (CTRPs).
P . M . C l a r i t y e t al. / J o u r n a l
of Pragmatics 26 (1996) 355--387
365
In comparing
our three languages for systematic differences in placement
of RTs,
we found the concept of CTRP to be useful. We counted a Reactive Token as occurr i n g ' a t ' a C T R P i f it o c c u r r e d i n t h e c l e a r ( i . e . , n o t i n o v e r l a p ) i m m e d i a t e l y
after the
CTRP. In what follows, we will briefly outline our criteria for determining
the intonational and grammatical
boundaries
for identifying CTRPs. 4
4.3.1.
Intonational
completion
Intonational
completion
was defined in terms of intonation units. Much previous
research has shown that intonation units play a major role in the shape of turn units
(of. C h a f e , 1 9 7 9 , 1 9 8 0 , 1 9 8 7 , 1 9 9 2 , 1 9 9 3 , 1 9 9 4 a n d D u B o i s et al., 1 9 9 3 ) . W e d e f i n e
"intonation unit" as:
"'a stretch of speech uttered u n d e r a single coherent i n t o n a t i o n c o n t o u r . " (Du Bois et al., 1993)
As discussed in Crystal (1969), Cruttenden
(1986), Du Bois et al. (I 993), SchuetzeCoburn (1992), (to appear), and Schuetze-fobum
et al. (1991), numerous
prosodic
cues have been identified which are used to determine
intonation unit boundaries.
The perception of coherence in the pitch pattern is influenced by both the degree and
direction of pitch movement
on a stressed syllable and by a change in pitch relative
to the speaker's preceding utterance (known as "pitch reset'). Timing cues often also
play a role in the perception of intonation units, including an acceleration
in tempo
on initial unstressed syllables, prosodic lengthening
of final syllables, and a noticeable pause (0.3 second or greater) between
intonation units. The identification
of
intonation units is thus an auditory, perceptual matter.
In all of our examples, following the transcription system in Du Bois et al. (1993),
each line represents
one intonation unit. Reactive Tokens generally constitute one
intonation unit.
Among the basic intonation unit types, there are two that are characterized
as ending in a contour which signals finality, designated by a period or a question mark in
the Chafe (1980), (1987), (1994), Du Bois et al. (1993), and Sacks et al. (1974) transcription systems. 5 In contrast, non-final intonation contours are marked in all three
systems with commas,
and dashes are used to mark intonation contours which break
off in mid-utterance.
Each of these four types of intonation unit has its characteristic
acoustic realizations in a given language
or dialect/variety
(Du Bois et al., 1993). For American
English and many other languages, the period is realized primarily by a marked fall
in pitch at the end of the intonation unit, possibly accompanied
by creaky voice. The
question mark is realized primarily by a marked high rise in pitch at the end of the
4 A l t h o u g h we have relied on just two o f the three criteria used by OrestriSm (1983) and Ford and
T h o m p s o n (to appear), n a m e l y g r a m m a t i c a l and intonational, there is reason to believe that these two
criteria capture most of the relevant information. See OrestrOm (1983) and Ford and T h o m p s o n (to
appear) for further d i s c u s s i o n of incorporating some n o t i o n of "pragmatic completion" into an a c c o u n t of
turn transition.
5 T h e s e two systems also recognize an e x c l a m a t o r y i n t o n a t i o n contour, m a r k e d with an e x c l a m a t i o n
point, which we will treat as a type of final c o n t o u r for this paper.
366
P.M. C l a n c y et al. / J o u r n a l o f Pragmati~'s 26 (1996) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
intonation unit. The comma, or continuing, intonation unit type is typically realized
by a slight rise in pitch at the end of the intonation unit (beginning from a low or mid
level), a terminal pitch which remains level, or a terminal pitch which falls slightly
but not far enough to be considered final.
Further research will certainly lead to refinements
in the specification of the relevant prosodic properties;
for the purposes of this project, however,
we have taken
the intonation unit as a cross-linguistically
valid, well-established
auditory unit. We
divided each transcript into intonation units, either final or non-final, according to
the criteria just discussed. An English example can be seen in (9); as noted in the
Appendix, final intonation units are indicated by periods or question marks, and nont-real i n t o n a t i o n u n i t s a r e m a r k e d b y c o m m a s :
(9) English
A: and this la=dy,
... ( H ) n o b o d y k n o w s y e t w h y .
and most of us think,
she probably fainted.
... b u t s h e f e l l ,
(AFRICA)
Recall that the two characteristics of a Complex Transition Relevance
Place for this
project are intonational
completion
and grammatical
completion.
What we have
shown so far is that for intonational completion,
we counted intonation units with a
final contour.
4.3.2. Grammatical
completion
We judged an utterance to be grammatically
complete if, in its sequential context,
it c o u l d b e i n t e r p r e t e d a s a c o m p l e t e c l a u s e , i . e . , w i t h a n o v e r t o r d i r e c t l y r e c o v e r a b l e
predicate, without considering intonation. In the category of grammatically
complete
utterances, we also included elliptical clauses and answers to questions.
A grammatical
completion
point, then, is a point at which the speaker could have
stopped and have produced
a grammatically
complete utterance, though not necessarily one that is accompanied
by intonational
or interactional completion.
As we
noted above, our grammatical
completion
points correspond
in practice to what
Sacks et al. (1974) called 'transition-relevance
places'. Our definition clarifies the
indeterminacy
in their characterization,
however,
since they provide no criteria for
identifying one of these points. So a grammatical
completion
point will sometimes
be a word, sometimes
a phrase, sometimes
a clause, and sometimes
a multi-clausal
unit, as illustrated in Sacks et al. (1974: 702, fn. 12). An example of an utterance
from our data containing a series of grammatical
completion
points (indicated here
by slashes) is the following:
(10)
English
A: she should have gone/ho=me/
.. a n d s h e d e c i d e d t o s t a y / u n t i l
.. ( T S K ) a = n = d ,
in= April./
mugus=t,/
P.M. Clancy et al. / Journal o f Pragmatics 26 (1996) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
t h e = y w e n t = .. o u t = , /
.. a c t u a l l y ,
t h e y j u s t w e n t o u t / to C h i s e r a = , /
.. t o g o o u t / t o t h e r i v e r . /
367
(AFRICA)
In Japanese and Mandarin, we frequently find pragmatic particles following a
clause, an NP, and various other grammatical elements. In determining grammatical
c o m p l e t i o n , w e c o d e d b o t h the c l a u s e w i t h o u t a p a r t i c l e a n d w i t h t h e p a r t i c l e as
g r a m m a t i c a l l y c o m p l e t e (as i n d i c a t e d w i t h s l a s h e s in t h e e x a m p l e s b e l o w ) .
(1 1) J a p a n e s e
A: ichinichi yasumimashita/
one:day
was:absent
(1) t o o k a d a y off"
(12) Mandarin
A : .. n i
buyao dao Aomen/
2SG NEG
to
Macao
Don't go to Macao.
yo./
PRT
(OYAMA)
qu/ la=./
go PRT
(THAI)
A s c a n b e s e e n f r o m t h e s e e x a m p l e s , g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n is e v a l u a t e d i n c r e m e n t a l l y . T h a t is, a m a r k e r o f g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n d o e s n o t n e c e s s a r i l y i n d i c a t e
t h a t a c o m p l e t e g r a m m a t i c a l u n i t e x i s t s b e t w e e n it a n d t h e p r e v i o u s g r a m m a t i c a l
c o m p l e t i o n p o i n t ; r a t h e r , as is a s s u m e d in t h e c o n v e r s a t i o n a n a l y s i s l i t e r a t u r e , g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n is c a l c u l a t e d i n t e r m s o f its r e l a t i o n w i t h a p r e v i o u s p r e d i c a t e i f
o n e is a v a i l a b l e . T h u s , f o r e x a m p l e , in ( 1 0 ) , t h e r e is n o c l a i m t h a t t h e a d v e r b i a l
e x p r e s s i o n in A p r i l c o n s t i t u t e s a n i n d e p e n d e n t u n i t b y i t s e l f ; r a t h e r , it is u n d e r s t o o d
as b e i n g a third p o s s i b l e g r a m m a t i c a l
completion point, the boundary after She
should have gone being the first, and that after She should have gone home being the
s e c o n d . B y t h e s a m e t o k e n , g r a m m a t i c a l i n c o m p l e t i o n is c a l c u l a t e d in t e r m s o f a p r o jected upcoming predicate.
4.3.3. Summary
W e h a v e o u t l i n e d t w o t y p e s o f c o m p l e t i o n , i.e., i n t o n a t i o n a l a n d g r a m m a t i c a l ,
which Orestrtim (1983) and Ford and Thompson (to appear) have shown to be relev a n t in c h a r a c t e r i z i n g C o m p l e x T r a n s i t i o n R e l e v a n c e P l a c e s . W e will see in s e c t i o n
5 how the three languages of our study differ with respect to the occurrence of React i v e T o k e n s at C T R P s .
We turn next to our findings.
5. F i n d i n g s
As noted above, we provide an analysis in terms of the various types of Reactive
T o k e n s as o u t l i n e d i n s e c t i o n 4 :
368
P . M . C l a r l c y e t al. / .lourpzal o f P r a ~ m a t i c s
26 (1996) 355--387
-- B a c k c h a n n e l s
-- R e a c t i v e
Expressions
Collaborative
Finishes
Repetitions
-- Resumptive
Openers
Since
there was a substantial
amount
of variation
from one conversation
to another
within
each
language,
it was not appropriate
to pool
the data from
each
language.
Accordingly,
we are presenting
our findings
in the forin
of graphs
conaparing
the
eight transcripts
in each language.
-
-
-
-
5.1.
Frequency
(oC R e a c t i v e
Tokens
In order
to examine
the overall
frequency
of Reactive
Tokens,
we consider
the
ratio of all RTs to all Speaker
Changes.
That
is, we want
to ask what proportion
of
all Speaker
Changes
serve
to support
the primary
speaker
rather
than
to take
the
floor for a lull turn. 6 Since
every
RT was counted
as a Speaker
Change,
the ratio of
RTs to Speaker
Changes
provides
a tYequency
measure
that is relative
to the overall
amount
of all types
of Speaker
Change.
In fact, the amount
of Speaker
Change
per
total number
of intonation
units was quite
similar
in the three languages:
28.6%
in
Japanese,
33.6cI~) in English,
and 28_7%
in Mandarin.
7 Fig. I shows
the ratio of RTs
to Speaker
Changes.
As shown
i n F i g . 1, w i t h r e s p e c t
to the overall
frequency
of Reactive
Tokens,
the
three languages
of our study
show
clear differences.
8 These
differences
can be represented
in the form
of a hierarchy
both in terms
of the amount
of variation
across
the transcripts
and in terms
of the frequency
with which
RTs are used. This hierarchy is shown
in (13):
(13)
ENGLISH
JAPANESE
Fig.
1 shows
Speaker
Change
range
of variation
of variation
for
speakers
in our
>
MANDARIN
that both the range
of variation
and the ratio of Reactive
Tokens
to
are greater
in English
and Japanese
as compared
to Mandarin.
The
in English,
for example,
is from
1.8% to 56.3%,
while
the range
Japanese
is slightly
greater,
from
3.8%
to 66.7%.
But
Mandarin
data
range
from
only
1.8%
to 26.7%
in the number
of Speaker
O u r c a t e g o r y o f " R e s u m p t i v e O p e n e r " c o u l d b e s e e n a s p r o b l e m a t i c in t h i s r e g a r d , s i n c e it is f o l l o w e d
b y a full t u r n . N e v e r t h e l e s s , w e a r e c o u n t i n g t h e " R e s u m p t i v e O p e n e r " as a R e a c t i v e T o k e n a n d n o t a f u l l
t u r n , s i n c e in i t s e l f it d o e s n o t c o u n t as a f l o o r - t a k i n g t u r n , e v e n t h o u g h it is f o l l o w e d b y a T C U w h i c h
may take the floor.
7 T h e p e r c e n t a g e s o f S p e a k e r C h a n g e in e a c h l a n g u a g e i f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s a r e n o t i n c l u d e d is a l s o s i m i l a r : 1 7 . 8 % in J a p a n e s e , 2 6 . 0 % in M a n d a r i n , a n d 2 1 . 4 ~ in E n g l i s h .
s Standard statistical tests assume independent data points. Because our data points are not independ e n t , w e h a v e n o t f o u n d it a p p r o p r i a t e t o r u n s u c h t e s t s o n t h e r e s u l t s o f t h i s p r o j e c t . W e t h e r e f o r e r e f r a i n
from making any technical claims about "significance', but we do propose that the differences we have
f o u n d a r e i n t e r e s t i n g e n o u g h t o b e p r e s e n t e d as f i n d i n g s .
369
P . M . C l a n c y e t hi. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - - 3 8 7
Ix]: Raw
number
of Reactive
Tokens
Mandarin
TK
TJ
TA
12
-~
-~
~
~aJ
d~¢
12.0
BB1.8
lip
LN
Mean:
6.3
131
7.1
[21
8.5
[4]
8 . 7 141
8 . 9 [41
t91
2e.7
[el
English
ili
18.2
[10]
22.4
Mean:
[111
RR
40.0
50.0
i
121
127]
54.7
129]
55.3
[211
56.3
[27]
Japanese
,o.4 i01
41_1
41.5
[23]
122]
Mean:
39.5%
46.3
[191
48.0
[12]
r
0
37.3=/°
[251
t~
CA
AF
GO
HA
PA
9J
FU
TA
10.0"/o
57.9
10
20
I
i
I
t
30
40
50
60
[33j
G6.71 [ 2 2 ]
70
Fig. 1. Percentage of Speaker Changes that are Reactive Tokens.
Changes that are RTs, a relatively low percentage and only half the range of variation found in the Japanese and English transcripts. Another way of looking at these
f i n d i n g s i s t o c o n s i d e r t h e n u m b e r o f t r a n s c r i p t s in w h i c h a t l e a s t h a l f o f a l l S p e a k e r
Changes are Reactive Tokens:
for English there are four such transcripts, and for
Japanese there are two. For Mandarin, however, there are no transcripts in which
more than half of the Speaker Changes are RTs.
Interestingly, although the range of variation is too great to rely solely on average
R T f r e q u e n c y i n c o m p a r i n g t h e t h r e e l a n g u a g e s , it i s w o r t h n o t i n g t h a t t h e a v e r a g e s
do support the hierarchy shown in (13), with English RTs comprising an average of
37.3% of the total number of Speaker Changes, Japanese 39.5%, and Mandarin, only
1 0 . 0 % . T h u s i n M a n d a r i n , w h e n a n e w p a r t i c i p a n t s p e a k s , it i s m o r e l i k e l y t o b e i n
order to take the floor than is the case in English and Japanese. Conversely, in English and Japanese, new speakers are more likely to be supporting the primary speaker's tum than is the case in Mandarin.
In sum, then, our data show a greater use of RTs in Japanese and English conversations than in Mandarin. Japanese and English can be said to exhibit roughly twice
the frequency of RT use as Mandarin, and twice the amount of variation. These data
allow us to suggest that, based on the frequency of RT use, English and Japanese
non-primary
speakers seem to play a more active role in supporting the primary
speaker, while Mandarin
speakers play a less active role; essentially 90% of the
Speaker Changes in Mandarin, on the average, serve to take the floor, compared with
60--63% of the Speaker Changes in English and Japanese.
Now we consider the types of Reactive Tokens found in our data.
370
5.1.1.
P.M. C l a n c y et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 26 (1996) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
Distribution
of Reactive
Token
types
Although all RTs are by definition non-floor-taking
devices, different languages
may utilize different strategies for implementing
this support of the primary speaker.
Analysis of the different types of RTs allows us to investigate the range of variation
and the preferred strategies for supporting the primary speaker in each language.
W h e n w e c o n s i d e r t h e d i s t r i b u t i o n o f R T t y p e s in t h e t h r e e l a n g u a g e s , w e f i n d a n
interesting cross-linguistic similarity: while differences emerge in relative frequencies, for all three languages Backchannels
are the most frequent type of RT found in
conversation, and Reactive Expressions are the second most frequent. Table 6 presents the average percentages of the different types of Reactive Tokens, showing the
similarities and differences among the three languages of our study.
Table 6
Types of Reactive Tokens in English, Japanese, and Mandarin
Language
Backchanneis
Reactive
Expressions
Repetitions
Resumptive
Openers
Collaborative
Finishes
Japanese
English
Mandarin
68,3 %
37.9c/o
47.2%
17.0%
34.2%
31.1%
2.2%
!. 3%
5.8%
12.5 %
10.4%
14.5 %
0
15.6%
8.9%
While Backchannels
are the preferred form of RT in all three languages, there are
striking differences in the relative frequencies of the two or three most frequent
types of RTs across the languages.
F o r J a p a n e s e s p e a k e r s , t h e o b v i o u s f a v o r i t e R T t y p e is t h e B a c k c h a n n e l ( t o b e d i s cussed in the next section); 68.3% of all RTs in Japanese are Backchannels.
Reactive Expressions and Resumptive Openers are a distant second and third, comprising
17% and 12.5% of all RWs, respectively.
English speakers have a much lower percentage of Backchannels,
37.9%. The
next most frequent type of RT, which is more frequent in English than in Japanese,
is t h e R e a c t i v e E x p r e s s i o n , c o m p r i s i n g 3 4 . 2 % o f a l l R T s . N e x t m o s t c o m m o n
is t h e
Resumptive
Opener, which constitutes a similar percentage of RTs as in Japanese
(10.4% vs. 12.5%, respectively).
The numbers in Mandarin are again too small to allow any strong claims, but we
can say that Mandarin speakers are similar to English speakers in their frequency of
Backchannels
(47.2% of RTs) and Reactive Expressions (31.1%). (Mandarin speakers, like English and Japanese speakers, use Resumptive
Openers as their third most
f r e q u e n t t y p e ( 1 4 . 5 % ) , b u t t h e n u m b e r is o n l y 4 . )
W h a t w e c o n c l u d e f r o m t h e d a t a i n T a b l e 6, t h e n , is t h a t w h i l e r e l a t i v e f r e q u e n c i e s o f R T t y p e s d i f f e r f r o m o n e l a n g u a g e t o a n o t h e r , t h e r e is a s i m i l a r i t y a c r o s s t h e
languages in the types of RTs that are favored by speakers. Backchannels
and Reactive Expressions are the most frequent types of RTs in all three languages, suggesting that future research should focus on the interactional functions served by these
P . M . C l a n c y et al. / J o u r n a l
of Pragmatics 26 (1996) 355--387
371
favored types. 9 At the same time, Table 6 also points up a striking difference
between Japanese, on the one hand, and Mandarin and English, on the other: Japanese more strongly favors Backchannels
(68% for Japanese, compared to about 42%
for Mandarin and English), while Mandarin and English make greater use of Reactive Expressions
than Japanese (about 30% each, compared to 17% for Japanese).
The distinction between Backchannels
and Reactive Expressions
will prove important when comparing
our findings on Japanese and English to those of previous
re s e a r c h e r s .
5.1.2.
Backchannel
use
As we have seen, overall RT use differs widely among the three languages of our
study. Thus, in order to understand the cross-linguistic
differences in non-primary
speakership,
it i s i m p o r t a n t t o c o n s i d e r t h e r a t i o o f B a c k c h a n n e l s
to all Reactive
Tokens. The averages lor each language were given above in Table 6, which showed
that Japanese speakers greatly favored Backchannels
over other RT types, although
Backchannels
are the favorite RT type in all three languages. Fig. 2 shows the breakdown of Backchannels
to Reactive Token ratios by transcript for each language.
[ x ] : F l a w number
I-P
q7
CA
RFI
AF
D(
LN
AS
''m°l
9J
HA
131_
PA
la.2
|2|
M
27.6
lal
32.0 181
.2.9
I
I
Ill
25.o
121 53.3
379~.
{151
[8~6.7 t181
800
25.0
....
191
55.6
TA
JY
"rK
HK
T2
rd
~lj
9-1
of
of Backchannels
English
o
Mandarin
Mean:
47.2%
Ill
44.4
4]
Iel
~5o.o
5o°
50,0
ioo
I°1
I
I
I
i
i
lO
I
I
30
20
Fig.
I
2.
Percentage
40
of Reactive
I
68.2
[15]
69.7
[231
75.0
[OI
773
117]
80+0
I
50
60
Tokens
Moan:
i
70
80
683°[0
41
I 070
q
[i
Japanese
Im
~9.5
90
20]
[17
I00
that are Backchannels.
As shown
in F i g . 2 , in J a p a n e s e ,
although
t h e r e is o n e t r a n s c r i p t w i t h n o
Backchannels
at a l l , f o r t h e s p e a k e r s i n t h e r e s t o f t h e t r a n s c r i p t s , m o r e t h a n t w o thirds of all RTs are Backchannels.
In English, the range is between 0% and only
66.7%;
in other words, except for the one transcript in each language
with no
Backchannels,
the English maximum
percentage of Backchannels
is just under the
Goodwin
and Goodwin
(1987), discussing the interactionat differences between continuers (which
are typically 'backchannels'
in our terminology) and assessments
(which are typically "reactive expressions" for us), provides a promising place to start.
9
372
P . M . C l a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - - 3 8 7
J a p a n e s e m i n i m u m . I n M a n d a r i n , t h e r a n g e is b e t w e e n 2 5 % a n d 1 0 0 % , b u t t h e n u m bers are so small as to make these figures nearly meaningless. (For example, in the
t r a n s c r i p t i n w h i c h 100°/~ o f t h e R T s a r e B a c k c h a n n e l s ,
the number of RTs is one.)
It is c l e a r , h o w e v e r ,
that a much higher percentage
of all Reactive Tokens are
Backchannels
in Japanese than in the other two languages.
F i g . 2 t h u s s u g g e s t s t h e h i e r a r c h y s h o w n in ( 1 4 ) :
(t4)
JAPANESE
>
MANDARIN
ENGLISH
L e t us s u m m a r i z e o u r f i n d i n g s s o f a r . W e h a v e c h o s e n a n a r r o w e r d e f i n i t i o n o f
'Backchannel'
than most previous studies, in order to tease out distinctions between
the way speakers use all Reactive Tokens and the way they use Backchannel
forms.
Our data show that, with respect to tYequency of RTs, as measured
against total
Speaker Changes, Japanese and English are comparable,
with Mandarin
RT use
being less frequent. Of all RTs, however, Japanese speakers favor Backchannels
to a
greater extent than do English and Mandarin speakers.
5.2.
Placement
of Reactive
Tokens
Given that Japanese and English speakers use Reactive Tokens with greater frequency than do Mandarin speakers, our next question is whether there are important
differences among the three languages in where speakers choose to place these Reactive Tokens with respect to the primary speaker's turn. When Reactive Tokens are
extremely frequent, for example, do they occur while the primary speaker is talking?
Recall that we are accepting the finding from previous research that the basic unit
o f t u r n - t a k i n g is c h a r a c t e r i z e d a s e n d i n g a t a C o m p l e x T r a n s i t i o n R e l e v a n c e P l a c e
(CTRP), here defined as a point of grammatical and intonational completion. For our
analysis of RT location, we will use the CTRP as a way of measuring where speakers place their RTs with respect to the turn of the primary speaker. As with the frequency of Reactive Tokens, the three languages of our study show strong differences
in the sequential placement of RTs.
In fact, we found that the extent to which speakers place their Reactive Tokens at
CTRPs yields the continuum shown in (15):
(15)
MANDARIN
> ENGLISH
> JAPANESE
T h a t is, t h e t e n d e n c y t o p l a c e R T s a t C T R P s is s t r o n g e s t a m o n g t h e M a n d a r i n s p e a k ers, weaker among the English speakers, and weakest among the Japanese speakers,
a s s h o w n in F i g . 3.
Fig. 3 shows that nearly all the RTs, both in individual transcripts, as well as on
average, occur at CTRPs in Mandarin, ranging frona 44.4% to 100%, though we
must continually bear in mind that the numbers of RYs are extremely small. In English (not counting transcript HP, which had only one RT), RTs occurring at CTRPs
range from 30% to 66.7% of all RTs, which means that only two of the Mandarin
P . M . C l a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 0 ) 3 5 5 3 8 7
Raw
[x]:
number
Mean:
1 10, 2 [4]
i:~.t
!
=Tl
[41
I~.o
,3,
36.4
HA
(31(3O
lSl
40.0
[11
English
Ib
30,0
AF
.]
FH
CA
~Z
AS
HK
TK
T2
~U
JY
TJ
TA
~H
30,8%
12l
~t~ fi "1Sl°j
O.O
OY
HP
LN
E~
Japanese
o! R T s at C T R P s
[41
12.1
373
II I
131
44.4
1147.6
iii
Mean:
[1:21
48_0
I121
02.1
63.6
444 141 ,
.
10
Fig.
.
.
[10]
17]
60.7
116l
.
.
20
3. P e r c e n t a g e
i
30
of Reactive
"
I
40
Tokens
]
[
50
at Complcx
Mandarin
Mean: 79.5°,~,
667 I~I 7s.o ~3,
f
I
_
4 5 . 1 ~1o
[101
,
I
~
60
Transition
I
I II I
75.0
[3)
g~6' PI
70
Relevance
,
loo
I
--p
zoo
II
--'1100
90
80
Places
121
[41
[11
100
(CTRPs).
t r a n s c r i p t s h a v e a s u f f i c i e n t l y l o w p e r c e n t a g e o f R T s at C T R P s t o o v e r l a p w i t h a n y
t r a n s c r i p t in t h e E n g l i s h r a n g e . F o r J a p a n e s e , t h e t r a n s c r i p t s r a n g e f r o m 1 2 . 1 % t o
5 0 . 0 % i n p e r c e n t a g e s o f R T s at C T R P s , w i t h n o t r a n s c r i p t r e a c h i n g t h e h i g h e n d o f
the English range or even the mid-range
of the Mandarin frequency. Thus Fig. 3
s h o w s a c l e a r d e c r e a s e in p r e f e r e n c e f o r p l a c i n g R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at C T R P s , w i t h
Mandarin speakers exhibiting the strongest preference, English the next strongest,
a n d J a p a n e s e s p e a k e r s t h e l e a s t s t r o n g p r e f e r e n c e , j° W e w i l l s e e b e l o w h o w t h i s
s k e w i n g in p r e f e r r e d p l a c e m e n t o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e i n t e r a c t i o n a l
s t r u c t u r e o f t h e c o n v e r s a t i o n r e l a t e s t o o v e r a l l s t r a t e g i e s in t u r n m a n a g e m e n t .
B u t t h e r e is a n o t h e r s k e w i n g w h i c h d e s e r v e s a t t e n t i o n . D e g r e e o f p r e f e r e n c e f o r
p l a c i n g R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at C T R P s m u s t b e u n d e r s t o o d i n t e r m s o f t h e t w o t y p e s o f
completion
that constitute a Complex
Transition Relevance
Place, namely, intonational completion
and grammatical conapletion. As mentioned
a b o v e , in a l l t h r e e o f
o u r l a n g u a g e s , t h e r e a r e m a n y m o r e g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n p o i n t s in o u r c o n v e r s a tional data than there are intonational completion
points. The intonational completion points nearly coincide with CTRPs, but there are many grammatical completion
p o i n t s w h i c h d o n o t o c c u r at C T R P s ( s e e F o r d a n d T h o m p s o n ,
to appear and Table
7 below).
S o w e c a n a s k t o w h a t e x t e n t R e a c t i v e T o k e n s in t h e t h r e e l a n g u a g e s t e n d t o o c c u r
at p o i n t s o f g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n ,
regardless of intonation.
~0
Although
our percentages
are not directly
comparable
with those
of Maynard
(t989),
they do
point in the same direction.
Maynard
reports that in her data 82.84~
of all backchannels
in English
but only 5 1.02c7c in Japanese
occur
at points
of grammatical
completion.
Maynard's
definition
of
"grammatical
completion"
is s i m i l a r t o o u r d e f i n i t i o n
of CTRP
i n t h a t it c o m b i n e s
intonational
(final
intonation)
and grammatical
criteria;
however,
Maynard
does
not define
grammatical
completion
incrementally,
as we do.
P . M . Clan(ly et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g r n a t i c s 2 0 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
374
Ix]: Raw
number
of RTs
at Grammatical
Completion
Points
TA
Japanese
RJ
Mean:
36.6*/.
PA
CL
HA
[~Ol
47.A
f111
OY
HJ
AF
CA
DI
AS
61
N
[111
1101
TK
12
JY
3-3
TA
121
141
Ill
191
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Fig. 4. Percentage of Reactive Tokens at Grammatical Completion Points.
What Fig. 4 shows is that speakers of Mandarin and English strongly tend to place
R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at p o i n t s o f g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n ,
as shown in the hierarchy in
(16):
(16)
ENGLISH
MANDARIN
> JAPANESE
T h a t is, f u l l y 8 8 % o f M a n d a r i n R T s a n d 7 8 % o f E n g l i s h R T s o c c u r at p o i n t s o f
grammatical completion,
as compared with only 36.6% of all Japanese RTs. We will
e x p l o r e t h e i m p l i c a t i o n s o f t h i s s k e w i n g in s e c t i o n 6 b e l o w .
Finally, let us consider the implications of the findings on grammatical completion
as compared with the results on CTRPs as sites for Reactive Tokens. If we compare
Figs. 3 and 4, we see that they are roughly similar for both Mandarin and Japanese.
Speakers of both Mandarin and Japanese treat grammatical
completion
points and
CTRPs essentially the same when using Reactive Tokens;
that is, the number of
R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at C T R P s a n d at g r a m m a t i c a l
completion
p o i n t s is r o u g h l y t h e
same. But the data for English suggest a substantial preference (roughly twice as
g r e a t , w i t h a m e a n o f 7 8 . 0 % c o m p a r e d t o 4 5 . 1 % ) f o r p l a c i n g R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at
grammatical
completion
p o i n t s in t h e p r i m a r y s p e a k e r ' s t u r n o v e r p l a c i n g t h e m at
CTRPs. This implies that English speakers are more inclined to wait for the end of a
grammatical
clause before using a Reactive Token than are speakers of Japanese,
and are somewhat
less likely to wait for the end of a gramnaatical clause than are
speakers of Mandarin. But, unlike Mandarin speakers, who prefer to place Reactive
T o k e n s at t h e e n d s o f g r a m m a t i c a l
c l a u s e s t h a t a l s o h a v e f i n a l i n t o n a t i o n ( i . e . , at
C T R P s ) , E n g l i s h s p e a k e r s o f t e n u s e R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at t h e e n d s o f c l a u s e s w i t h
non-final intonation contours as well.
P . M . C t a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l
of Pragmatics
26 (1996) 355-387
375
While English speakers tend to use Reactive Tokens
at the ends of clauses which
may or may not be intonationally
complete,
and Mandarin
speakers tend to use them
at points of both grammatical
and intonational
completion,
it is clear that Japanese
speakers must be using Reactive Tokens at points lacking either grammatical
or intonational completion.
In Japanese,
since only 30.8% of all Reactive
Tokens occur at
CTRPs
and only 36.6%
at Grammatical
Completion
Points, the question
arises:
where are the rest of the Reactive Tokens located? The answer is that more than half
of all Japanese
RTs occur in the following
non-final locations:
19.6% in the middle
of intonation
u n i t s , tt a n d 3 3 . 3 % a t t h e e n d s o f i n t o n a t i o n u n i t s w h i c h l a c k g r a m m a t ical completion
and which have non-final intonation contours (marked with commas
in our transcripts).
Thus Japanese
RTs are much more likely to occur 'midstream'
during the primary speaker's
talk, while s/he is still in the process of constructing
a
grammatical
clause.
The following
example,
in which
two co-workers
are complaining
about their
jobs, illustrates these two types of non-final Reactive Tokens in Japanese.
(1 7 ) J a p a n e s e
Y: wareware
we
no
ne=,
PRT
GEN
Obll"
H:
un.
uh-huh
T : sofuto
no
ne~
software
GEN
PRT
on sofm,are
H." u n .
uh-huh
T:
... s h i g o t o
ni
taisuru
hyoo[ka]
work
LOC
towards
recognition
r e c o g n i t i o n o f the w,ork
ga,
SUB
[n].
H:
uh-huh
T:
ano hito
he=,
that person
PRT
that person
.. s h i t e n a i .
do
not
d o e s n "t
~t
Our findings
on mid-IU
1989:
171, who found
that
Units. This discrepancy
may
Backchannels),
different
units
ends of IUs to be in the clear,
as "near" a PPU boundary
by
Reactive
Tokens
are somewhat
higher
than those reported
in Maynard,
11.48%
of backchannels
did not occur
at or near Pause-bounded
Phrasal
reflect different
definitions
of listener behavior
(i.e., Reactive
Tokens
vs.
of analysis (IUs vs. PPUs),
and the fact that since we required
RTs "at" the
some of the RTs we coded as 'mid-IU'
would probably
have been treated
Maynard.
376
P.M. Clancy et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 20 (1996) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
... h y o o k a
o.
recognition
OBJ
recognition
That person doesn't
recognize
our software
work.
At the beginning of (17) we see a very typical pattern of RTs after non-final intonation units in the Japanese data. Following
Y's first two intonation units, each of
which
consists
of a noun,
casemarker
and pragmatic
particle,
H produces
a
backchannel.
Then, in the less frequent "midstream'
pattern, H backchannels
during
Y's third intonation unit, in the middle of the noun hyooka "evaluation'. Clearly, H
has established a steady rhythm of backchanneling
at or near the end of each intonation unit as T produces it; the fact that the final backchannel
precedes the end of the
intonation unit may reflect the predictability of the word hyooka 'recognition'
in this
context, especially after the first syllable has been produced,
as well as its crucial
role in completing
the noun phrase 'evaluation of our software work'.12 But since all
three backchannels
a r e p r o d u c e d b e f o r e Y c o m p l e t e s a s i n g l e c l a u s e , H is n o t r e a c t ing to a full proposition per se, even though he may be able to anticipate the direction of Y's thoughts.
In (18) we see a "midstream'
Reactive Token
that involves a rather extensive
overlap. H and T have been talking about T's father (H's former teacher), who unexpectedly
went off to sleep somewhere
during H's visit; H has asked who slept
where.
( 18 ) J a p a n e s e
H : chanto=,
properly
properly
T: un.
uh-huh
H : a,
oh
okita [ 1 karaheiki
1] [ 2
datta2]
got :up
because all:right was
h e g o t u p s o it w a s a l l r i g h t .
T:
[1 o k i t e
k i t a 1]
get:up
came
(he) got up
[ 2 u n . 2]
uh-huh
n
NOM
da.
COP
~2 This n o u n is repeated after the next two intonation units, probably because current speaker T has
used the wrong casemarker, the subject particle ga, instead of the object particle o.
P.M. Clancy et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 26 (1996) 3 5 5 ~ 8 7
377
After H begins the answer to T's question, T immediately produces a partial repetit i o n in o v e r l a p w i t h h e r , a n d t h e n c o n t i n u e s t o o v e r l a p w i t h a b a c k c h a n n e l . T h i s t y p e
o f r a t h e r l o n g o v e r l a p p i n g R e a c t i v e T o k e n h a s a l s o b e e n d o c u m e n t e d in J a p a n e s e b y
H a y a s h i ( 1 9 8 8 ) , w h o f o u n d m o r e t h a n t w i c e as m u c h s i m u l t a n e o u s
talk among
J a p a n e s e as a m o n g A m e r i c a n c o n v e r s a t i o n a l i s t s . A l t h o u g h r a t h e r c o m m o n in J a p a n ese, in E n g l i s h a n d M a n d a r i n the p r o d u c t i o n o f R T s after n o n - f i n a l i n t o n a t i o n units
o r " m i d s t r e a m ' d u r i n g i n t o n a t i o n u n i t s is e x t r e m e l y r a r e .
In this section, then, we have seen that speakers of the three languages of our
s t u d y d i f f e r in t h e e x t e n t t o w h i c h t h e y p l a c e R T s a t p o i n t s o f g r a m m a t i c a l a n d i n t o n a t i o n a l c o m p l e t i o n , i.e., w h a t w e a r e c a l l i n g C T R P s . W e f o u n d t h a t t h e t e n d e n c y t o
p l a c e R T s a t C T R P s is s t r o n g e s t a m o n g t h e M a n d a r i n s p e a k e r s , w e a k e r a m o n g t h e
E n g l i s h s p e a k e r s , a n d w e a k e s t a m o n g t h e J a p a n e s e s p e a k e r s , as s h o w n i n F i g . 3
above.
We also found that speakers of Mandarin and Japanese treat grammatical completion points and CTRPs essentially the same when using Reactive Tokens, while the
d a t a f o r E n g l i s h s u g g e s t a s u b s t a n t i a l p r e f e r e n c e f o r p l a c i n g R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at
g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n p o i n t s i n t h e p r i m a r y s p e a k e r ' s t u r n o v e r p l a c i n g t h e m at
C T R P s , a s s h o w n in F i g . 4 a b o v e .
I n s e c t i o n 6 w e w i l l d i s c u s s o u r f i n d i n g s o n t h e p l a c e m e n t o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s in
t e r m s o f o v e r a l l s t r a t e g i e s in t u r n m a n a g e m e n t .
B u t t h e r e is o n e f i n a l i s s u e t o b e
resolved before turning to the implications of our findings.
5.3. Behavior
of the non-primary
speaker
at boundary
points
Thus far we have been analyzing the treatment of various boundary points, such
as C T R P s a n d p o i n t s o f g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n , in t e r m s o f t h e p e r c e n t a g e o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at e a c h p o i n t . B e f o r e w e c o n s i d e r t h e i m p l i c a t i o n s o f o u r f i n d i n g s o n
R T s f o r i n t e r a c t i o n a l s t r a t e g i e s , it is i m p o r t a n t t o h a v e a n o v e r v i e w o f h o w t h e d i f f e r e n t b o u n d a r y p o i n t s a r e h a n d l e d in c o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h i n e a c h l a n g u a g e . I n T a b l e 7,
t h e r e f o r e , w e s u m n a a r i z e the b e h a v i o r o f the n o n - p r i m a r y s p e a k e r at f o u r d i f f e r e n t
b o u n d a r y p o i n t s in o u r d a t a : C T R P s ( p o i n t s o f g r a m m a t i c a l a n d i n t o n a t i o n a l c o m pletion), grammatical completion points (the ends of complete grammatical clauses),
intonational completion points (points of final intonation), and non-final intonation
u n i t s (i.e., p o i n t s m a r k e d b y c o m m a s in o u r t r a n s c r i p t i o n s y s t e m ) . W e c o n s i d e r t h r e e
p o s s i b l e m o v e s o f the n o n - p r i m a r y s p e a k e r : (1) p r o d u c e a R e a c t i v e T o k e n , (2) t a k e
a f u l l t u r n , ( 3 ) n o v e r b a l r e a c t i o n ( i n d i c a t e d b y 0 in T a b l e 7 ) .
A s t h e f i g u r e s in t h e l a s t r o w o f T a b l e 7 s h o w , t h e m o s t f r e q u e n t r e a c t i o n o f t h e
n o n - p r i m a r y S p e a k e r at e a c h o f t h e s e b o u n d a r y p o i n t s is s i m p l y t o c o n t i n u e l i s t e n i n g , w i t h n o v e r b a l r e s p o n s e . T h e r e is a s t r i k i n g d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n t h e p o i n t s o f
n o n - f i n a l i n t o n a t i o n , h o w e v e r , a n d t h e o t h e r b o u n d a r i e s : as m i g h t b e e x p e c t e d , m u c h
l o w e r r a t e s o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s a n d S p e a k e r C h a n g e o c c u r at t h e e n d s o f n o n - f i n a l
i n t o n a t i o n u n i t s t h a n at t h e b o u n d a r i e s i n v o l v i n g g r a m m a t i c a l
and/or intonational
completion. Only 8% or fewer non-final intonation units elicit either a Reactive
Token or Speaker Change, with Mandarin conversationalists being the most likely to
c o n t i n u e l i s t e n i n g in s i l e n c e ( 9 4 % o f t h e t i m e ) .
378
P . M . C l a n c v e t al. / J o u r n a l
()¢'Pra~matics 26 (1996) 355--387
Table 7
N o n - p r i m a r y S p e a k e r B e h a v i o r at B o u n d a r y P o i n t s
CTRPs
RT
Turn
0
triton, compl.
G r a m . compl.
N o n - f i n a l inton.
J
E
M
J
E
M
J
E
M
J
E
M
0.08
0.29
0.63
0.14
0.39
0.48
0.05
(/.39
0.56
0.09
0.28
0.63
0.15
0.38
0.46
0.04
0.39
0.57
0.05
0.16
0.79
0.11
0.21
0.69
0.03
0.23
0.74
0.08
0.03
0.89
0.07
0.08
0.85
0.008
0.06
0.94
At the three major completion
points in Table 7, the non-primary
speaker in all
three languages
is m o r e l i k e l y t o t a k e a f u l l t u r n t h a n to g i v e a R e a c t i v e T o k e n . A t
CTRPs
and points of intonational
completion,
English and Mandarin
non-primary
speakers take a turn almost 40% of the time, Japanese non-primary
speakers almost
30% of the time. Reactive
tokens are provided
about 5--15% of the time at these
boundaries,
with English showing the highest and Mandarin
the lowest rates of RTs.
Points of grammatical
completion
show the same pattern, but with somewhat
lower
rates of Speaker Change and Reactive Tokens.
I n s u m , w h a t t h e f i g u r e s i n T a b l e 7 a l l o w u s to d o is to c o m p a r e
the use of RTs in
the three languages against a different measure from that used for Figs. 3 and 4, Figs.
3 and 4 considered
RT placement
in terms of percentages
of all RYs, while Table 7
considers
RT placement
in terms of all boundary
points. These data taken together
indicate, then, that although the rates of RT use at various boundary
points may be
high, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4, when we consider RT use in terms of the four types
of boundary
points, we can see that the ratio of RTs per boundary
point may be very
low. For example,
while 80% of Mandarin
speakers'
RTs occur at CTRPs
(Fig. 3),
this is by no means the same as saying that 80% of CTRPs
have RTs uttered after
them. Indeed, only 5% of Mandarin
CTRPs
are followed by an RT (Table 7). And
although 33.3% of Japanese RTs occur at the ends of non-final intonation units (see
p. 375), this constitutes only 8% of the total number of these units. Table 7 thus clarifies the relationship
between
RT use and boundaries
in the primary speaker's
talk.
5.4.
Summary
We have seen that, in terms of both frequency
and placement
of Reactive Tokens,
our Japanese,
Mandarin,
and English
data show clear and interesting
differences.
First, Japanese
and English speakers use Reactive Tokens more than three times as
frequently
as Mandarin
s p e a k e r s ( F i g . 1), w h i c h w e r e p r e s e n t e d
by the hierarchy
in
(13):
(13)
ENGLISH
JAPANESE
Second,
outranks
>
MANDARIN
in terms of ratio of Backchannel
responses
to total RTs, Japanese
(68,3%)
Mandarin
(47.2%) and English (37.9%) (Fig. 2), as shown in (14):
379
P . M . C l a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - - 3 8 7
(14)
JAPANESE
>
MANDARIN
ENGLISH
Third, Mandarin
speakers place a higher percentage
of their Reactive
Tokens
at
Complex
Transition
Relevance
Places than English
speakers,
who in turn favor
CTRPs more than Japanese speakers (Fig. 3), as shown in the hierarchy in (15):
(15)
MANDARIN
> ENGLISH
> JAPANESE
Finally, Mandarin and English speakers place higher percentages
of RTs at points of
grammatical
completion
than do Japanese speakers (Fig. 4), producing the hierarchy
in ( 16):
(16)
ENGLISH
MANDARIN
Summary
profiles
>
JAPANESE
of these findings
by language
are given
in Table
8.
Table 8
S u m m a r y profiles of the n o n - p r i m a r y speaker in Japanese, M a n d a r i n and E n g l i s h
Japanese
Mandarin
English
High
High
Low
Low
Low
Low
High
High
High Reactive T o k e n ratio
Low B a c k c h a n n e l ratio
Moderate R T at C T R P
High R T at gram. compl.
Reactive T o k e n ratio
B a e k c h a n n e l ratio
R T at C T R P
R T at gram. compl.
Reactive T o k e n ratio
B a c k c h a n n e l ratio
R T at C R T P
R T at gram. compl.
In the next section, we interpret these results in terms
turn-management
strategies among the three languages.
of differences
in overall
6. I m p l i c a t i o n s
Our findings with respect to Reactive Token use in these three languages provide
a new type of evidence for the observation that what it means to be a "polite' or "cooperative" conversational
partner (Brown and Levinson,
1978; Grice, 1975) is a culture-specific matter, as suggested in Keenan (1976), Rosaldo (1982), and Wierzbicka
(1985), among others.
We are well aware that there must be other factors which influence RT use which
we have not examined. Our data consist of conversations
among friends of the same
social status, so they do not allow us to generalize about the role of social status in
RT use. Similarly, gender may well play a role; there are no clear indications of this
in our data, but we did not control for gender in our research design, so our data simply leave us agnostic on this point. Finally, we readily acknowledge
that there will
almost certainly be individual differences
among speakers within a given language
380
P_M_ C l a r i t y et o1_ / J o u r n a l
of Pragmati¢'s 26 (1996) 355-387
arising from the content and setting of the conversation. Investigating the role of
t h e s e v a r i o u s f a c t o r s is a t a s k f o r c o n t i n u e d r e s e a r c h .
The findings which we have summarized on the use of Reactive Tokens suggest
that t h e y are p a r t o f a d i s t i n c t set o f t u r n - m a n a g e m e n t
strategies for each language.
T h a t is, t h e f r e q u e n c y , t y p e s , a n d p l a c e m e n t o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s a r e p a r t o f a n i n t e r a c t i o n a l s y s t e m w h i c h c o m p e t e n t l a n g u a g e u s e r s k n o w a n d w h i c h g i v e s rise to c l e a r
c u l t u r a l e x p e c t a t i o n s a b o u t w h a t s p e a k e r s a n d l i s t e n e r s a r e d o i n g in o r d i n a r y t a l k ,
s i m i l a r to the c o n v e n t i o n a l i z e d
styles documented
for various cultural subsets of
A m e r i c a n s p e a k e r s in T a n n e n ( 1 9 8 1 a , b , c , 1 9 8 2 , 1 9 8 4 , 1 9 8 7 ) . I n w h a t f o l l o w s w e
w i l l t r y t o o u t l i n e w h a t o u r s t u d y s h o w s a b o u t i n t e r a c t i v e s t r a t e g i e s in e a c h o f t h e
three languages we have investigated.
6. I. Japanese
T h e r e is a r e l a t i v e l y s u b s t a n t i a l l i t e r a t u r e s u g g e s t i n g t h a t i n t e r a c t i o n a l a n d a f f e c t i v e c o n s i d e r a t i o n s p l a y a l a r g e r r o l e in J a p a n e s e c o n v e r s a t i o n s t h a n t h e y d o i n E n g lish. I n J a p a n e s e l a n g u a g e t e a c h i n g , h o w to t e a c h the a p p r o p r i a t e f o r m s , f u n c t i o n s ,
a n d u s e o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s is a v e r y i m p o r t a n t i s s u e ( H o r i g u c h i , 1 9 8 8 ; M a t s u d a ,
1988; Mizutani, 1983, 1984, 1988). The use of aizuchi
" b a c k c h a n n e l s " is a m a t t e r o f
e v e r y d a y d i s c u s s i o n a m o n g J a p a n e s e p e o p l e ; it is c o m m o n t o c o m m e n t o n o t h e r
people's over- or under-use of aizuchi.
Furthermore,
there are many anecdotal
reports by native speakers of Japanese and English suggesting that a higher rate of
Reactive Token use tends to characterize Japanese conversation.
O u r f i n d i n g s a r e c o n s i s t e n t w i t h p r i o r r e s e a r c h in t h a t J a p a n e s e s h o w s a h i g h f r e quency of Reactive Tokens, but we did not find that this frequency was significantly
h i g h e r t h a n in E n g l i s h . In c o n t r a s t , M a y n a r d ( 1 9 8 9 ) , b a s e d o n 3 - m i n u t e s e g m e n t s o f
conversation among 20 Japanese and 20 American pairs, found a total of 871 Japanese "backchannels', occurring roughly one per every 2.42 Pause-bounded
Phrasal
Unit, compared with only 428 American
'backchannels'.
In our data, which are
based on fewer, though somewhat
longer stretches of conversation,
we found
r o u g h l y e q u i v a l e n t f r e q u e n c i e s o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s in J a p a n e s e a n d E n g l i s h ( 3 9 . 5 %
a n d 3 7 . 3 % o f all S p e a k e r C h a n g e s , a n d 1 0 . 8 % vs. 1 0 . 9 % o f all I n t o n a t i o n u n i t s ,
respectively). When we consider only Backchannels, since a higher percentage of
J a p a n e s e R e a c t i v e T o k e n s a r e B a c k c h a n n e l s , w e f i n d a g r e a t e r d i f f e r e n c e : in J a p a n e s e , 2 9 . 9 % o f all S p e a k e r C h a n g e s w e r e B a c k c h a n n e l s ,
w h i l e o n l y 1 5 . 9 % o f all
S p e a k e r C h a n g e s w e r e B a c k c h a n n e l s in E n g l i s h .
A n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t d i f f e r e n c e in o u r J a p a n e s e v s . E n g l i s h d a t a is t h e l o c a t i o n o f
R e a c t i v e T o k e n s . A s n o t e d a b o v e , A m e r i c a n s p l a c e 4 5 . 1 % o f t h e i r R T s at C T R P s
a n d 7 8 . 0 % at G r a m m a t i c a l C o m p l e t i o n p o i n t s , in c o n t r a s t t o J a p a n e s e s p e a k e r s , w h o
i n s t e a d p l a c e m o r e t h a n h a l f o f all t h e i r R T s in t h e m i d d l e o f t h e p r i m a r y s p e a k e r ' s
I U o r at t h e e n d o f n o n - c l a u s a l I U s . T h u s o u r J a p a n e s e s p e a k e r s a r e m u c h m o r e
l i k e l y t o g i v e t h e i r R e a c t i v e T o k e n s w h i l e t h e p r i m a r y s p e a k e r is ' i n p r o g r e s s " r a t h e r
than waiting for a completion point. Regardless of relative frequency, this unexpected placement of RTs could lead Americans to feel that their Japanese interlocutors are using Reactive Tokens much more than anticipated.
P . M . C l a n c y et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
381
I n a n a l y z i n g t h e i m p l i c a t i o n s o f s u c h d i f f e r e n c e s f o r i n t e r a c t i o n , it is i m p o r t a n t t o
k e e p in m i n d t h a t c u l t u r e - s p e c i f i c i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s o f t h e s a m e p h e n o m e n o n o f t e n v a r y
r a d i c a l l y . O u r d a t a s u g g e s t t h a t A m e r i c a n s e x p e c t t o h e a r R e a c t i v e T o k e n s at G r a m matical Completion points; from a semantic/pragmatic
point of view, these are pres u m a b l y p o i n t s at w h i c h a full p r o p o s i t i o n h a s b e e n uttered. I f the l i s t e n e r d o e s n o t
wait to hear a complete clause before giving a Reactive Token, this may sound dism i s s i v e ( " Y e a h , y e a h , I a l r e a d y k n o w w h a t y o u m e a n " ) , a n d m a y be d i s r u p t i v e to
t h e s p e a k e r , w h o is n o t a c c u s t o m e d t o p r o c e s s i n g a r e a c t i o n f r o m t h e l i s t e n e r w h i l e
f o r m u l a t i n g a c l a u s e . I n t h i s l i g h t it m a k e s s e n s e t h a t i f R T s a r e t o b e p r o d u c e d w h i l e
t h e s p e a k e r is i n p r o g r e s s , a s i n J a p a n e s e , t h e i r m o s t c o m m o n f o r m s h o u l d b e t h e
Backchannel,
which presumably places the least burden on the primary speaker,
s i n c e it d o e s n o t r e q u i r e a n y s y n t a c t i c / s e m a n t i c a n a l y s i s , a n d is t a k e n a s a c o n t i n u e r
(Schegloff, 1982).
On the other hand, from the Japanese perspective, Reactive Tokens that occur
w h i l e t h e s p e a k e r is in p r o g r e s s r a t h e r t h a n f i n i s h e d w i t h a g r a m m a t i c a l o r i n t o n a tional unit may be ideally suited for providing emotional support; to the extent that
R T s d o n o t o c c u r at the e n d s o f p r o p o s i t i o n s , t h e y are u n l i k e l y to b e i n t e r p r e t e d as
providing support for the speaker's point, which has not yet been made. Mizutani
(1984, 1988) and Maynard (1989) suggest that the Japanese turn-management
strategy could be characterized
as follows: speakers use a highly conventionalized
affect-laden interactional style, with frequent inviting and accepting of involvement
o n t h e p a r t o f all p a r t i c i p a n t s . T h u s , J a p a n e s e s p e a k e r s u s e R T s as o n e w a y o f s h o w ing interactional support (see, e.g., Horiguchi,
1988; Mizutani,
1983). Matsuda
( 1 9 8 8 ) p o i n t s o u t t h a t this c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n m a y b e r e l a t e d to a J a p a n e s e c u l t u r a l c o n cern for harmony and co-operation.
Our data provide support for this description, and suggest that Reactive Tokens
which occur frequently and are distributed throughout another speaker's turns and
c l a u s e s r a t h e r t h a n at p o s s i b l e c o m p l e t i o n p o i n t s m a y c o n s t i t u t e a n e s p e c i a l l y a p p r o p r i a t e m e a n s o f p r o v i d i n g a n d r e c e i v i n g i n t e r a c t i o n a l s u p p o r t in c o n v e r s a t i o n . T h e
n o n - p r i m a r y s p e a k e r is e x p e c t e d t o s h o w c o n c e r n f o r t h e p r i m a r y s p e a k e r ' s s e n s e o f
s e c u r i t y in h o l d i n g t h e f l o o r ; a n e m p a t h e t i c c o n v e r s a t i o n a l
partner provides this
sense of security by giving RTs during the primary speaker's turn.
6.2.
Mandarin
In s h a r p c o n t r a s t to the r e s e a r c h t r a d i t i o n in J a p a n e s e , t h e r e h a s b e e n n o s y s t e m atic w o r k d o n e o n R e a c t i v e T o k e n s in M a n d a r i n or a n y o t h e r C h i n e s e l a n g u a g e . T h i s
b y i t s e l f is a n i n t e r e s t i n g f a c t , s u g g e s t i n g t h a t R e a c t i v e T o k e n u s e is n o t p e r c e i v e d a s
a predominant
feature of Chinese language use. The literature discussed above
(Mizuno,
1988, and Liu, 1987) does suggest that Chinese speakers use aizuchi
('backchannels')
less frequently than do Japanese speakers. Our findings confirm
these results for Backchannels and Reactive Tokens in general, and indicate a quite
different turn-management
strategy than for Japanese (or English). First, the use of
R e a c t i v e T o k e n s is s t r i k i n g l y l o w i n c o m p a r i s o n w i t h J a p a n e s e a n d E n g l i s h . S e c o n d ,
w h e n t h e M a n d a r i n s p e a k e r d o e s r e a c t , s / h e t e n d s t o d o it at a C o m p l e x T r a n s i t i o n
382
P . M . Clan~\v et al. / J o u r n a l o f ' P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 ~ 8 7
R e l e v a n c e P l a c e a n d n o t in t h e m i d d l e o f t h e p r i m a r y s p e a k e r ' s c l a u s e . A n d w h e n a
R e a c t i v e T o k e n is u s e d , it is m u c h m o r e l i k e l y t o b e l e x i c a l l y c o n t e n t f u l t h a n a r e
Japanese Reactive Tokens; this places no special burden on the primary speaker,
w h o h a s p r e s u m a b l y c o m p l e t e d h i s / h e r c l a u s e , a n d is f r e e t o p e r f o r m a n y s y n t a c tic/semantic analysis required.
Based on informal observations from several bilingual Mandarin speakers, our
s p e c u l a t i o n is t h a t M a n d a r i n i n t e r a c t i o n a i s t y l e f a v o r s c o n v e r s a t i o n a l p a r t i c i p a n t s n o t
infringing on the other's "rum space'. RT use, particularly without waiting for a trans i t i o n p o i n t , is s e e n a s p r e s u m p t u o u s , i n t r u s i v e , a n d e v e n r u d e o r i m p o l i t e . A n i n t e r e s t i n g parallel c a n be f o u n d in the w o r k o f P h i l i p s ( 1 9 8 3 : 52--67), w h o r e p o r t s that
in t h e W a r m S p r i n g s c o m m u n i t y , N a t i v e A m e r i c a n l i s t e n e r s i n d i c a t e t h e i r a t t e n t i o n
to the s p e a k e r b y v e r y s u b t l e m o v e m e n t s o f the m u s c l e s a r o u n d the e y e s , a n d use
f e w e r b a c k c b a n n e l s t h a n A n g l o A m e r i c a n s . T h i s l i s t e n e r b e h a v i o r is p a r t o f a " n o n coercive cultural orientation' that places high value on personal autonomy
and
avoids putting oneself above others; listeners avoid behaviors that might imply an
a t t e m p t to c o n t r o l the s p e a k e r or to i n d i c a t e that t h e y are l i s t e n i n g m o r e a t t e n t i v e l y
t h a n o t h e r s . T h u s a v o i d a n c e o f b a c k c h a n n e l i n g is i n t e r p r e t e d a s r e f l e c t i n g a n a p p r o priate stance of non-interference toward the speaker. For Japanese listeners, failing
t o p r o v i d e R T s f o r t h e p r i n a a r y s p e a k e r m a y b e i n t e r p r e t e d as u n c o o p e r a t i v e a n d
l a c k i n g in e m p a t h y -- a f a i l u r e t o c a r e f o r t h e s p e a k e r ' s n e e d s -- w h i l e in M a n d a r i n ,
eschewing RTs shows an appropriate respect for the primary speakers" right to formulate and produce their talk undisturbed. This interpretation of our results shows an
i n t r i g u i n g p a r a l l e l w i t h n o t i o n s d i s c u s s e d in t e r m s o f p o l i t e n e s s , e . g . R .
Lakoff's
(1973)
"rules
of
politeness'
which
specify
an
opposition
between
nonimposition/freedom ('Don't impose" and 'Give options') and camaraderie ('Make A
feel goodbe friendly') and Brown and Levinson's (1987: 67) distinction between
" n e g a t i v e face" (the w i s h f o r o n e ' s a c t i o n s to be u n i m p e d e d b y o t h e r s ) a n d " p o s i t i v e
f a c e " ( t h e w i s h f o r o n e ' s w a n t s t o b e d e s i r a b l e , i.e., t h e w i s h t o b e a p p r e c i a t e d ) .
These speculations must await further study; for now we merely note that the use of
R e a c t i v e T o k e n s in c o n v e r s a t i o n m a y p r o v e t o b e h i g h l y c o n s i s t e n t w i t h s u c h c u l t u r e - s p e c i f i c i n t e r a c t i o n a l p h e n o m e n a as p o l i t e n e s s strategies.
6.3.
English
In very broad terms, English could be said to occupy a position between Japanese
and Mandarin with respect to Reactive Token use. The relatively high frequency of
Reactive Tokens suggests a strongly interactional style with numerous reactions on
t h e p a r t o f t h e n o n - p r i m a r y s p e a k e r . R e a c t i v e T o k e n s a r e f r e q u e n t mad o f t e n o c c u r
within another speaker's turn. But the American interactive style differs from the
J a p a n e s e in that s p e a k e r s d o n o t u s u a l l y p r o v i d e R e a c t i v e T o k e n s until a p o i n t o f
g r a m m a t i c a l c o m p l e t i o n ; it d i f f e r s f r o m t h e M a n d a r i n in t h a t A m e r i c a n s d o n o t n e c e s s a r i l y w a i t u n t i l a C T R P h a s b e e n r e a c h e d b e f o r e t h e y r e a c t . R e a c t i v e T o k e n s in
our English data are often contentful, requiring a certain minimal amount of linguistic p r o c e s s i n g , b u t t h e f a c t t h a t t h e y a r e u s u a l l y p r o d u c e d at p o i n t s o f g r a m m a t i c a l
c o m p l e t i o n m i n i m i z e s a n y p o t e n t i a l d i f f i c u l t y in p r o c e s s i n g t h e m .
P . M . C l a n c y et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 ~ 8 7
383
Based
again on purely anecdotal
accounts,
we note that Americans
are indeed
caught in the middle with respect to Japanese
and Mandarin
Reactive
Tokens:
they
tend to find Japanese RTs disruptive and even annoying,
but the Mandarin
paucity of
RTs somewhat
unnerving,
leaving
them wondering
what the listener is thinking.
Americans
are not accustomed
to Japanese-style
'midstream'
affective support, but
miss the punctuating
of a large number
of their propositions,
even non-final
ones,
with a Reactive
Token from the listener. Thus American
non-primary
speakers
are
more
actively
involved
than their Mandarin
counterparts,
but are nevertheless
expected
to refrain from infringing
on the primary
speaker's
on-going
task of formulating
propositions.
In terms of interactive
style, then, Americans
may stand at a
point somewhere
between
the high rapport of Japanese
and the respectful
deference
of Mandarin
interactants.
7. C o n c l u s i o n s
In this study we have shown how a close examination
of one interactional
device,
the Reactive
Token, can shed light on possible cross-linguistic
differences
in communicative
strategies. A major finding is that differences
from one conversation
to
another in our data could be as great as differences
across languages.
Yet when these
differences
are taken into account, we can still see patterns of usage which characterize each language
as opposed to the others.
We see our study as a first step towards
a more systematic
understanding
of the
extent of possible variation from one language to another in the way people carry on
everyday
conversations.
One obvious question for further research relates to the factors underlying
the variation
in RT use across conversations
within one language.
For example,
what is it about the English
'HYPO"
or the Japanese
"OYAMA"
conversations
that leads to such a relatively low use of RTs? Since all the conversations
were among friends, relative status is not a likely factor; we speculate that a variety
of factors might be found to relate to differential
use of RTs, such as content, number of speakers,
or ethnic or regional
'style',
as discussed
in Tannen
(1981a,b,c,
1982, 1984, 1987), but studies attempting
to determine
the role of such factors have
yet to be done.
Since our analysis has been primarily
quantitative,
we have not carried out the
type of detailed case-by-case
analysis of RTs in a given language
that would establish the sequential and organizational
properties that almost certainly affect their frequency
and distribution,
as suggested
and demonstrated
in, e.g., Goodwin
(1986),
Goodwin
and Goodwin
(1992b), Jefferson
(1984), and Schegioff
(1982). We recognize, of course, that such in-depth
analyses
are critical for an understanding
of the
way RTs work in interaction
and hope that our current project will provide partial
guidance for future research in this area. Thus starting from our results, we might ask
what sequential
properties
of conversations
in these three languages
could help
account for the more global differences
suggested
by our findings. For example,
do
certain types of conversational
sequences
occur with different frequencies
in different cultures?
Does conversation
involving
similar topics and participants
exhibit dif-
384
P . M . C l a n c y e t al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - 3 8 7
ferent sequential organization in different cultures? We hope that our quantitative
approach will soon be complemented
by more qualitative case-by-case analyses of
Reactive Tokens across different cultures.
We also anticipate further research to determine the range of functions that RTs
serve from one language to another, including the types of functions that have been
discussed as 'assessments'
(C. Goodwin,
1986; M. Goodwin,
1980; Goodwin and
Goodwin,
1987, 1992a,b), and 'continuers'
(Schegloff, 1982). And we would welcome further research showing how such findings could be incoporated
into our
understanding of the ways in which languages are learned and taught.
What we hope to have shown is that such cross-linguistic comparisons
are feasible and can begin to open new lines of inquiry into conversational
strategies. While
our cross-cultural
interpretations
of the data await confirmation
from further
r e s e a r c h , it i s c l e a r t h a t c r o s s - l i n g u i s t i c a n a l y s i s o f R e a c t i v e T o k e n s c a n m a k e a
valuable contribution to our understanding of conversational interaction.
Appendix:
Symbols
B o i s e t al. ( 1 9 9 3 )
for discourse
transcription
from
Units
Intonation unit
Truncated intonation unit
Word
Truncated word
{carriage
~space "
Speakers
S p e a k e r i d e n t i t y / t u r n start
Speech overlap
Transitional
[ ]*
continuity
Final
Continuing
Appeal
Lengthening
Pause
Long
Short
Vocal
° °
noises
Vocal noises
Alveolar click
Inhalation
()
(TSK)
(H)
Quality
QuaLity
<Y Y>
return]
Du
Bois (1991)
and
Du
P . M . C l a n c y et al. / J o u r n a l o f P r a g m a t i c s 2 6 ( 1 9 9 6 ) 3 5 5 - - 3 8 7
T r a n s c r i b e r "s p e r s p e c t i v e
Uncertain hearing
* Certain
brackets
are
indexed
<X
with
numbers
385
X>
to clarify
which
speech
overlaps
with
which.
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