| The present study investigates ways in which Japanese speakers negotiate agreement and disagreement in sequences involving opinion or evaluation. Using the sociological methodology of "conversation analysis" (CA) (cf. Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson) as a central framework for analysis, the present thesis explicates the sequential development of negotiation towards agreement as well as the structure of each turn within the sequence. Further, this study, as a part of the growing body of research on "interaction and grammar," explores the relationship between the structures of social interaction and the structures of the language, focusing on the recurrent use of two structurally different types of connective expressions: the clause-initial connectives, dakara, datte, and demo, and the clause-final connective particles, -kara, and -kedo. The use of these different types of "causal" or "contrastive" markers exhibits the speaker's engagement in different types of activities involved in the negotiation of their opinions and evaluations. The goal of this study is to examine the occurrences of these markers with reference to the sequential environment of their use and the interactional activities accomplished by their use.; As an initial step in the application of the CA methodology to Japanese conversations, the present thesis suggests the existence of some generic organizations of conversational interaction common across languages and cultures. The data, which consist of six audio-recorded causal conversations among Japanese adult peers, demonstrate that the Japanese speakers shape agreeing or disagreeing turns, or respond to actual or anticipated problems in interaction, in remarkably similar ways to those reported in the CA studies of American English conversations. On the other hand, the structural differences between the languages, namely English and Japanese, appear to alter the kinds of resources available for accomplishing a particular action; they also seem to partially change the temporal realization of actions in progress. Through the close analysis of "opinion-negotation" sequences and the use of connective expressions within those sequences, the present study explores the interplay of the structural differences between the languages and the realization of the potentially universal features of human interaction. |
