Foreign Language Teaching Association
Reactive Tokens and Gender in Japanese Conversation
（日本語の会話における反応符とジェンダー）
October 17th, 2003
Chie SAKUTA - 作田千絵, M1, LIS
1. Introduction
- Reexamination – does gender of the interlocutor affect the use of Reactive Tokens?
2. Reactive Tokens (RTs)
“A short utterance produced by an interlocutor who is playing a listener’s role
during the other interlocutor’s speakership” (Clancy et al., 1996: 356)
- Previous studies
- Definition and classification:
Backchannel (BC)
Resumptive Opener (RO)
Backchanneling-type RT
Speaker Backchannel (SB) *
Reflective Backchannel (RB)*
Examples:
Reactive Expression (RE)
(BC) aa. ee. un. hoo.
Repetition (RP)
(RE) soo(ka). hai. ne.
Collaborative Finish (CF)
uso.
*Modifications to accommodate RT characteristics found in Japanese
3. Aim of Study
- Reexamination of Furo’s study; quantitative/qualitative
- Adjustments – size of data, method in measuring frequency, statistical examination
4. Data
- Dyadic casual conversation between same-gender interlocutors;
- 10 minutes × 14 pairs (3 male, 5 female – Sakuta / 3 male, 3 female – Fujii, 1995-97)
5. Method
- Frequency – for each interlocutor, rather than in each conversation;
calculated in terms of Intonation Units
- Statistical examination – the Mann-Whitney U-test (non-parametric) ★Cf: Figure 1.
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6. Results
- Quantitative
Wide variance in frequency; little difference found between genders ★Cf: Figure 2.
Average frequency: all male interlocutors – 26.5%, all female – 25.6%
Support from a statistical point of view: null hypothesis not rejected
- Qualitative
Various forms used, no overall tendency caused by gender
- Comparison with a (possible) different factor
- An interesting use of RTs (possibly gender-specific?)
7. Implications
- Gender difference in RT use: doubtful (frequency, categorical distribution, forms)
- Limitations of my inquiry
- Possible inplications
< Source of linguistic data >
Fujii, Seiko (1995-97) The Spoken Japanese Corpus: Dyadic casual conversations by
young adults. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
< References >
Clancy, Patricia M., Sandra A. Thompson, Ryoko Suzuki, Hongyin Tao. 1996. The
conversational use of reactive tokens in English, Japanese, and Mandarin. In
Journal of Pragmatics 26, 355-387. Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger.
Furo, Hiroko. 2000. Listening responses in Japanese and US English: gender and social
interaction. In Bonnie Swierzbin, Frank Morris, Michael E. Anderson, Carol A. Klee
and Elaine Tarone (eds.), Social and Cognitive Factors in Second Language
Acquisition, 445-457. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Kita, Sotaro. 1999. Japanese ideology of conversation and its structural manifestations:
a study of aiduchi and head nods. In Jef Verschueren (ed.), Language and Ideology:
Selected Papers from the 6th International Pragmatics Conference, 262-269.
Antwerp: International Pragmatics Association.
Pilkington, Jane. 1992. 'Don't try to make out that I'm nice!': the different strategies
women and men use when gossiping. In Wellingon Working Papers in Linguistics 5,
37-60. (Reproduced in Coates, Jennifer (ed.), 1998. Language and Gender: A Reader,
254-269. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.)
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Figure 1.
U = min (Um, Uf)
Um = Nm Nf + Nm (Nm+1) / 2 – Rm
Uf = Nm Nf + Nf (Nf+1) / 2 – Rf
Where,
Nm = the number of elements (i.e. of interlocutors) in category M (= 12)
Nf = the number of elements in category F (= 16)
And
Rm = the sum of the ranks in data set M
Rf = the sum of the ranks in data set F
Figure 2. Frequencies of Reactive Tokens and their sub-categories
frequency
CF
60.0%
RP
RE
RB
50.0%
SB
RO
40.0%
BC
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
male
interlocutors
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female
JF
1
JF a
1b
JF
2
JF a
2b
JF
3
JF a
3b
F5
F5a
b
F4
F4a
b
F3
F3a
b
F2
F2a
b
F1
F1a
b
JM
JM1a
1b
JM
JM2a
2b
JM
JM3a
3b
M1
M1a
b
M2
M2a
b
M3
M3a
b
0.0%