The Japanese interactional particles ne and sa: An analysis of their conditional relevance for conversation

This dissertation employs key concepts of Interactional Linguistics and Conversation Analysis in order to investigate how speakers of Japanese may deploy the particles ne and sa as resources for talk-in-interaction. These particles appear primarily in spoken language, carrying neither referential nor denotational meaning, nor indicating grammatical relations. Instead, the particles ne and sa appear in utterance initial, medial, and final positions, creating prosodically marked boundaries within a stretch of talk, and highlighting the interactional relevancy of certain units and the saliency of particular conversational moves. In so doing, they create an interactional space between conversational actions wherein various elements of talk can be negotiated and accomplished.;With respect to ne, this study proposes that it contextualizes speakers' displays of alignment as a relevant concern for the participants over the developing course of ongoing interaction. I argue that the interactional particle ne is a linguistic resource with which Japanese speakers may explicitly indicate their cooperative stances for the coordinated functioning for ongoing action. Thus, Japanese speakers often use ne in situations where they explicitly express connectedness or "acknowledged contingency," i.e., an explicit coaxing or responsiveness to the other participants' immediately prior or immediately anticipated next action.;With respect to sa, this study proposes that it is a communicative practice of explicitly marking the "non-negotiability" of a given stretch of talk. I argue that many elements in a talk-in-interaction (e.g., turn occupancy, epistemic stance) are all subject to negotiation by the participants. By marking turn onset with sa, speakers may indicate the turn's 'here-and-now' necessity in starting a disjunctive action. In addition, by indicating the non-negotiable quality of a turn, sa is also deployed in marking the lack of expectation, or even the refusal, of the next activity that could be offered by the recipient contingently upon the particular turn's talk.;The ubiquitousness of these particles in Japanese conversation suggests their fundamental importance as resources for the explicit marking of "alignment" and "negotiability" in Japanese speakers' everyday interactions.