Introduction to Grammer and Interaction Papers

Human Studies 22: 397–423, “QUESTIONS ” IN1999. ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 397 “Questions” in Argument Sequences in Japanese TOMOYO TAKAGI Department of Linguistics,University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, U.S.A. (e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract. The present study reports on the use of a linguistic category “interrogative,” which has been traditionally associated with the act of questioning, and its use in argument talk in Japanese. Based on the observation that interrogative utterances in argument data are regularly followed by non-answers, it is argued that interrogative utterances in argument sequences may not be designed/interpreted as doing questioning. Such use of interrogatives can become an orderly practice to which participants orient themselves in social activities recognizable as arguments. However, though an answer is not expected, the recipient invariably provides some form of response, or the initial speaker seeks such a response when none is provided. Thus the nature of interrogatives as a grammatical category seems to reside in the basic structural unit of social interaction [recipient-oriented action]-[response]. In general, this study is intended to show the dynamically interlocking relationship between grammar and interaction by exploring the intricate interplay between a local action for which interrogative grammar is employed, and the sequential environment and activity framework in which the action takes place. Key words: argument talk, conversation analysis, functional linguistics, grammar and interaction, interrogatives, Japanese Introduction In this study, from the perspective of functional linguistics informed by conversation analytic studies, I hope to show that the use of a linguistic form can be ordered so as to accommodate interactional needs emerging from ongoing talk, while people are carrying out their larger real-life projects. Specifically, I will focus on a linguistic category traditionally called ‘interrogative’ as it appears in Japanese argument talk. Observation of a clear case of argument talk can suggest a host of potentially describable orderlinesses that the disputing participants are oriented to in constructing a social activity recognizable as argument or quarrel (Coulter, 1990; Goodwin, 1990; Grimshaw, 1990; Kotthoff, 1993). One such suggestive phenomenon in my data is that question-formatted utterances are regularly followed by non-answers.1 In other words, they seem to be collaborating to do something other than questioning. Many researchers in linguistics, philosophy, discourse analysis and conversation analysis have observed that ‘question forming’ morphosyntax does not necessarily do ‘questioning’ in 398 TOMOYO TAKAGI English (e.g. Athanasiadou, 1991; Coulthard, 1985; Heritage and Roth, 1995; McHoul, 1987; Schegloff, 1984; Searle, 1969; Tsui, 1992; Weber, 1993). Similarly, Maynard (1995) reports frequent use of “expressions that take interrogative forms but do not seek answers” in Japanese. These findings at least point to the following two issues: 1) It is necessary to distinguish morphosyntactic forms primarily used to formulate questioning utterances from actual actions of questioning implemented by such forms and/or by other devices. Hereafter, I will refer to morpho-syntactically question-formatted utterances as interrogative utterances, which should be differentiated from the social actions accomplished through such utterances. 2) The traditional linguistic category, “interrogative”, is not necessarily a useful analytic category for explorations of grammar as “the distillate of action and/in interaction” (Schegloff 1981).2 However, it is also the case that speakers of Japanese have the impression that certain linguistic forms such as the particle ka and words like nani ‘what’ and itsu ‘when’ are closely and primarily associated with questioning actions. That is, they know at least that these forms are “accommodative” for (but may not be limited to) doing questioning.3 Then it is not unreasonable to start our investigation, bearing such knowledge of primary associations in mind, by focusing on the use of instances of such a form-based category where the members of this category seem to be collaborating to do something other than the action/function they are normally associated with. By analyzing a single case, I hope to show what interactional resources Japanese interrogative grammar can provide for speakers as well as the intricate interplay between a social action for which that particular grammar is employed and the sequential environment and activity framework in which the action takes place. This will further provide empirical support for the view of the nature of interrogative grammar as serving as the first pair part of an adjacency pair (Levinson,1983; Thompson, 1998), or more specifically, as a way of maximizing recipient-orientation and turn-transition upon its completion. Thus the present study aims to contribute to research on interaction and grammar (e.g. Ochs, Schegloff and Thompson, 1996), by exploring an instance which indicates that grammar is fundamentally and deeply interwoven with interactional projects. 1. Data It may be helpful to provide some background to the argument data from which the excerpts are taken and analyzed in this paper.4 The quarrel took place between a couple at their house when researcher B, who had previously asked “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 399 them to tape some of their conversations, happened to be with them. The researcher started recording the conversation when she noticed that the couple was getting into a quarrel. The tape starts with the female conversant M’s referring to the male conversant K’s negligence in not doing the recording he had promised to do for the researcher. Though the researcher was physically available as a participant in the argument, she does not participate in the portions of the talk examined in this study. 2. Question-Answer Pairs in Conversation 2.1. Question-Answer Sequence in Japanese Before we turn to analyzing interrogative utterances in the present data, it may be worth while to take a brief look at what typical Question-Answer sequences look like in Japanese conversation, for example, in casual talk among friends. The Question-Answer pair, as an adjacency pair, means that upon the production of a particular kind of action by first speaker, a particular kind of action by the recipient of the first action is immediately relevant (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973; see Note 1). This same structure is also found in Japanese conversation as well. The following is an excerpt from a conversation that took place at a couple’s home at dinnertime. Takeshi and Akiko are spouses; Shiho is their friend, who is recording the conversation. (1) 1 AKIKO: sukiyaki TTE, sukiyaki TOP Speaking of sukiyaki, 2 : 3 SHIHO: e(h), DM Yes, 4 AKIKO: A, ho[nto:::]. DM really Oh, really. 5 SHIHO: [iremasu]. put:POL (I) do. tamanegi toka iremasu ka? onion like put:POL Q do (you) put things like onion in Sukiyaki? 400 TOMOYO TAKAGI At the completion of Akiko’s first turn which is clearly produced in questioning intonation, Shiho produces a minimal response e with a slight exhalation. Although the same kind of vocalization can be interpreted in a few different ways depending on the context in which it occurs, Akiko immediately treats this token as an answer to her question and shows her acknowledgment of the answer before Shiho finishes her answer in fuller form at line 6. This illustrates that Question-Answer sequence constitutes an adjacency pair in Japanese, by reference to which participants expect the utterance produced after a question to be an answer to the question in the first place.5 In the following excerpt Takeshi asks Shiho whether she drinks alcohol, formulating his utterance in negative interrogative form. (2) 1 TAKESHI: : 3 SHIHO: Anmari osake wa nomanaindesu ka? not.much sake TOP drink: NEG: POL Q (You) don’t drink much? (1.0) [zen]zen? never Never? [um], kekkoo- nomu (.) kana. DM quite drink FP Um, (I) drink quite a bit (I guess). Takeshi’s negative question at the first line is designed such that a negative answer is expected. After a one-second pause, he produces an upgraded negation term zenzen ‘never.’ This follow-up question after the pause indicates that the speaker understands that an answer to the question is due but somehow delayed. Shiho’s turn initiated concurrently with Takeshi’s follow-up question turns out to be incongruous with his polarized attitude in formulating a question, which appears to account for the delay, as predicted by the studies of preference organization.6 Thus the Question-Answer sequence is, in Japanese as well, an operative organization to which participants orient their talk and action. In a case in which an answer is not immediately returned as a second pair, accounts for the deviation from the ordinary sequence pattern become relevant: issuing a question generates the conditional relevance of an answer to be implemented by the recipient of the question. In the following sections we turn to the data of the argument between the couple, M and K, in which interrogative utterances appear to have a different kind of sequential implicativeness. Through detailed examinations of the instances I will try to explicate that they are in fact not used to do questioning as the instances illustrated in this section are. “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 401 2.2. A Puzzling Case Initial concern with interrogative utterances in argument talk arose from the observation that some interrogative utterances in my data appear to be consistently responded to with non-answers. However, the following portion of the data provides an exceptional case in that after some negotiations the interrogative utterance is eventually responded to with an answer. It also drew my attention because of some awkwardness in K’s reaction to M, who treats the interrogative utterance as a question to which she should provide an answer. (3) 1 K: sonna koto jibun ga YAtte kara yuu n da yo, such thing yourself SBJ do after say NOM BE FP (You) should say such a thing after you have done, 2 jibun [ga yatTA] no ka yo::. yourself SBJ do:PAST LNK Q FP Did you do. : 3 M: 4 : [NA(h)ni o]what OBJ What(0.8) nani O:? what OBJ What(did I do)? 5 K: da::kara rekoodingu demo nandemo yatTA [no ka yo::]. so recording TOP everything do:PAST NOM Q FP (I’m asking if you) have done the recording and everything. 6 M: [SHITA YO::]! do:PAST FP (I) did! 7 K: (0.6) nani itten DA yo:, what say BE FP What are (you) saying, The segment above takes place after M brings up K’s not doing the recording by specifically quoting his broken promise. K counters this with a claim that M has no right to accuse him because she does not do anything for others either (lines 1–2). In line 3, M requests clarification of the referent of the object of the verb yaru ‘do’ in K’s utterance in line1. M’s first attempt at request for clarification is overlapped by K’s continued talk, which he completes with the interrogative utterance jibunga yatta no ka yo ‘Did you do’’ (line 2). M tries the clarification request a second time in the clear (line 4). In line 5 K responds to M’s request by providing an overt object, only it is accompanied by an amplifier -demo nandemo ‘and everything’. Upon K’s 402 TOMOYO TAKAGI clarification of the reference, M produces an “answer” to K’s restated “question,” namely, that she did the recording. Interestingly, in line 7, K treats M’s “answer” to his “question” as nonsensical (nani itten da yo ‘what are (you) saying’). Drawing on the notion of adjacency pair described in 2.1., this segment might be analyzed as a Question-Answer pair, within which an insertion sequence of Question-Answer is embedded (Schegloff, 1972). Namely, K’s initial “question” in line 2 generates sequential implicativeness, which makes the recipient’s answer to the question relevant as a next action. M’s request for clarification in lines 3 and 4 is designed to lead to an answer to K’s original question, as shown by K’s treatment of M’s request: K responds to it with a restatement of his prior utterance in line 2 with an overt object. Upon recognition of what K meant the object to be, M produces her answer (line 6) even before K completes his restating turn. Thus M fulfills the conditional relevance of the second action maintained across the sequence. However, such an analysis would overlook some complications involved in this particular context. It suggests that applying conversation analytic notions resulting from the accumulation of close observations of individual cases to particular instances without detailed examination of them in their own environments can be problematic. That is, it would miss the fundamental methodological principle in conversation analysis: any isolated systematic feature must be shown to be actually oriented to by participants. In our segment above, at least the following points should be more carefully attended to and in some way or another incorporated into a more refined analysis of the instance: 1) M initiates her attempt at request for clarification in line 3 before K produces the question particle ka. Hence it can be said that M’s turn in lines 3 is not specifically oriented to K’s interrogative utterance (or its ‘interrogativity’) in line 2. 2) However, M’s treatment of K’s preceding turn still indicates that she analyzes them as designed to make her response relevant in a certain way and claims that a certain referent needs to be clarified in order to respond in a relevant way. 3) K treats M’s initiation of a request for clarification as legitimate, as shown by the fact that in line 5 he provides a restatement of his earlier utterance (line 2) with an explicit object. However, K treat’s M’s “answer,” which is produced upon her recognition that the requested repair for the `missing’ object is being done, as nonsensical (line 7). In short, K, on one hand, shows that he interprets M’s request for clarification as legitimate, and on the other hand, treats M’s “answer” to his original “question” as ‘not-making-sense.’ Thus, a closer observation of the segment suggests that although interrogative grammar is used and they seem to participate in a sequence in the form of Question-Answer pair with an inserted Question-Answer pair “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 403 inside, there is some incongruity in the participants’ analyses of each other’s actions. I will return to this puzzling case in the last section and try to clarify the issues that make this case problematic for the participants as well as for the analyst. Let us now look at the other instances of interrogative utterances and their sequential environments in the data, and see if there are any characteristic features of the ways the participants deploy and treat such utterances, which will help understand possible reasons for the incongruity observed in the case above. 3. Non-Questioning Interrogatives in Argument Talk 3.1. Sequential Patterning Heritage and Roth (1995) found that the vast majority of questioning in English news interview rely on a core grammar defined by Quirk et al. (1985), which includes yes/no questions, WH-questions and alternative questions. However, they also report a case in which syntactically formed questions do not do questioning and argue that questioning as an activity cannot be reduced to grammatical form. Schegloff (1984) shows how it is misleading to account for social actions such as “questions” and “promises” by using linguistic forms as sole indicators of such actions. Close observation of the utterances in the argument data that are linguistically formulated as questions suggests that they are just such a use of interrogative utterances for implementing an action other than questioning. This is supported by the fact that the recipient of such interrogative utterances consistently responds with a non-answer: the recipient adjacently provides a responsive turn without answering.7 Let us look at several cases in point. Here we focus on the interrogative utterances and the subsequent responses marked with single-shafted arrows in the following excerpts. The utterances marked with double-shafted arrows will be attended to later in this section. In Excerpt (4), after finding out that K came home without doing the recording he promised to do for researcher B, M points out that K knew that B had to leave their place on that day by using the tag form deshoo ‘didn’t you’ (line 2). In response to this, instead of confirming that he knew the fact, he refers to another fact that B is not leaving Japan for the U.S. yet (lines 3–4), which downgrades the seriousness of his neglecting the recording on that particular day. (4) 1 M: B-chan wa moo-, TOP now B-chan is 404 2→ TOMOYO TAKAGI : kyoo kaeru no shitteta deshOO[::::::]? today return NOM know : PAST TAG leaving today, (you) knew (that), didn’t (you)? 3→ K: [DA::tta] tte BE:PAST QT 4→ betsuni, amerika kaeru wake janai janai ka specially U.S. return NOM BE:NEG BE:NEG Q yo kyoo::. FP today but (she) isn’t leaving for the US today. 5⇒ M: datte re- DA::tte sa ja, but rec- but FP then But rec- but then, 6⇒ : kore oite iku- iku wakeni ikanai n da yo, this leave go NOM go : NEG NOM BE FP (she) can’t leave this here, 7⇒ : kono dekkai no are:::::. this big NOM that this big thing, that one. Similarly, in the next excerpt, M does not respond to K’s interrogative utterance in line 4 with an answer. In lines 5 and 6 M problematizes the assumption implied in K’s preceding turn: the assumption that M is over-emphasizing that she did whatever she was supposed to do. (5) 1 K: 2 : jibun DAtte, era soona koto yuu kedo omae, oneself TOP good sounding NOM say though ADD (you) are talking as if you are good, but- 3 : NA::ni o, ji- jibun de yatta yatta ttsu tte, what OBJ oneself by do:PAST QT say what- (you are persistently) saying you did (this and that). 4→ : NA::ni o yatta n [da itta::i]. what OBJ do:PAST NOM BE EMPH (but) what on earth did (you) do. 5→ M: 6→ : DA::kara, so So [.hh YATTA YATTA] nante yuudo:PAST TOP sayich[ichi, kyoochoo shite nai yo]. repeatedly emphasis do NEG FP (I’m) not emphasizing (I) did (this and that). “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 7⇒ K: 8⇒ : 405 [SO:: da yo, itTERU janai ka], so BE FP say:PROG BE:NEG Q Yes (you are). (You) are saying that, aren’t (you). kyoochoo shiteru yo, °omae::°. emphasis do:PROG FP ADD (you) are emphasizing. In Excerpt (6), well into the argument K suddenly stops defending himself against M’s accusation and assumes a “suit-yourself-attitude.” His utterance can be literally translated as ‘you two (M and the researcher friend, B) do on your own’ without an object of ‘do’ being expressed. In her turn M asks what K insists that they should do on their own. Instead of providing an answer to M’s interrogative utterance, K responds to this with an affirmation of his own prior utterance soo da yo ‘right’ in line 4 followed by a remark evaluating M’s attitude (erasoo ni yo ‘you talk like you are better than I’). (6) 1 K: 2 : DA::kara moo iwanai shi yannai shi, so now say:NEG and do:NEG and So (I)’m not gonna say a word or do a thing, jibuntachi de yarya ii janai ka yo:, ja::. oneselves by do:COND good BE:NEG Q FP then (you guys) do (it) on your own, OK? 3→ M: (0.5) nani o yo:? what OBJ FP (Do) what? 4→ K: (.) soo: da yo:: sonna era soo[ni yo]. so BE FP such good sounding FP Right. (You talk like you) are better than (I). 5⇒ M: [A:::], nanka, G(h)AKIPPO:::I! DM like childish Oh, (you) sound childish! In line 4 in Excerpt (7) K explicitly refuses answering M’s interrogative utterance in line 3 by problematizing the way M formed her interrogation. (7) 1 K: 2 : JI::bun datte, oneself TOP You, too, are nenjuu sonna taido totte n da ze, ittoku kedo::. all.year such attitude take NOM BE FP let.me.tell.you taking such an attitude all the time. Let (me) tell (you). 406 TOMOYO TAKAGI 3→ M: i::tsu yo:::. when FP When. 4→ K: na:ni, itsu janai itsudatte soo da yo::. what when BE:NEG always so BE FP (It’s) not (a matter) of ‘when.’ (You) are ALWAYS like that. ((Continues on asserting that M does not have a right to accuse him.)) Excerpt (8) again shows a case of an interrogative utterance not being treated as a question expecting an answer. In line 4, M produces confirming utterance, which is not attended to in K’s next turn. He instead analyzes M’s preceding action as being proud of the fact that she usually does not decide what they should do together. (8) 1 M: 2 : koodoo n- isshoni shiyooto shite- shi- yoku suru activity together going.to. do often do going to do something with you 3 : nanika, .h jibun de puran tateta koto nai mon what oneself by plan make NOM NEG FP (I) don’t usually arrange things myself. 4→ : datte atashi itsumo aata nanka to because I always you TOP with Because when I am (2.5) soo deshoo? (.)[°itsumo°]. so TAG usually. Right? Usually. 6→ K: [SOnna koto] jimanniNAN no ka yo::. such thing proud NOM Q FP Is it something (you) can be proud of. 7 : puran tateta koto nai nante, plan make NOM NEG TOP That (you) don’t arrange things, 8 : NANde puran tateyoo to shiNAI n da yo::. why plan try.to.make do:NEG NOM BE FP why don’t (you) try to do it. 9⇒ M: ima no hanashi de itten no. now LK story with SAY:PROG FP (I’m) only talking about this case. The last example most clearly indicates not only that an interrogative utterance may not be regarded as questioning but also that it may be interpreted as a different type of action. In response to K’s WH-interrogative utterance in line 407 “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 2, M re-asserts that K is being irresponsible in line 3, which is appropriate only in the context where she understands that she is confronted with an opposition to her assertion. (9) 1 2→ K: : omae mo dakara sekinin motten no-, you too so responsibility take FP so you are taking responsibilityNA::ni o sekinin motte nai n da yo::. what OBJ responsibility take NEG NOM BE FP About what am (I) not taking responsibility? 3→ M: motte nai janai, take NEG BE:NEG (You) are not, (are you), 4 yaru yaru toka ttsu tte sa, yaranai no yo do do like QT say FP do:NEG FP FP (you) say, like, ‘I will do (this and that)’ and (you) don’t. : ((Continues stating that K is always irresponsible)) 6 : yutteru koto to yatteru koto to CHIgau [janai]. say:PROG thing and do:PROG thing and different BE:NEG What (you) say is not consistent with what you do. 7⇒ K: [JA::], then then 8⇒ : JIBUNTACHI DE YAREBA II JANAI KA YO:: one-selves by do:COND good BE:NEG Q FP do (it) on your own 9⇒ : sonna koto gatagata monkuyuu n dattara sa:::. such thing keep.complaining NOM BE:COND FP if (you) keep complaining that way. To sum up, it appears that the recipient of these interrogative utterances analyzes them not as bonafide questions that should be answered or are answerable but as something that can be responded to with non-answer actions.8 This can be schematically represented as follows. (10) A: [interrogative utterance] B: [non-answer] It is important to note that the non-answer actions are produced in preferred formats in that they do not involve any delays and prefaces, which are characteristic of dispreferred formats (Heritage, 1984: 266–267; Levinson, 1983: 334–335).9 In some of the cases above (see lines 3–4 in Excerpt (4), lines 408 TOMOYO TAKAGI 5–6 in Excerpt (5), line 4 in Excerpt (7)) it is possible to analyze the responsive utterances as accounts for not providing an answer. Although accounting for not responding in a relevant way is another feature of dispreferred organizations, these utterances do not share the ‘no fault’ quality that are often seen in common forms of accounting in friendly conversations. That is, they are not designed to avoid threatening the ‘face’ of either party (Drew, 1984; Heritage, 1984: 269– 272). In Excerpts (4), (5) and (7), the recipient explicitly problematizes the way the interrogative utterance is formulated or the assumption on which the formulation is based. In Excerpt (4), in response to M’s interrogative utterance pointing out that K knew that their friend had to leave on that day, K proposes a different version of when the friend has to leave: she is not leaving for the U.S. that day. In Excerpt (5) M denies the presupposed fact (that she over-emphasizes that she did good to others), instead of explaining what she did, which was the interrogated part of K’s preceding utterance.10 In Excerpt (7) K explicitly treats M’s preceding utterance as an improper “question” and refuses to answer M’s “question” (itsu yo ‘when’). Thus it appears that parties to argument talk produce their actions in such a way that they regularly contradict what would be preferred format on other occasions. This regularity is further supported by the ways in which the non-answer responses are treated. Let us return to the schema in (10). Just as B’s analysis of the first turn is displayed in his/her own turn, first speaker A shows in the next turn whether the displayed analysis of the first was adequate. In other words, ‘third position’ can be used by A to correct B’s displayed analysis of the first turn (Schegloff, 1992). This opportunity to repair an interpretation of the first action is invariably not taken by the first speaker in the cases given above, as marked with the double-shafted arrows in each example. None of the thirdposition responses treats the preceding non-answer response as accountable and as failing to implement a sequentially implicated action. They are responsive only to the immediately preceding turn in that no component needs to be understood specifically by reference to the initial interrogative utterance. Namely, they do not invoke the sequential implicativeness that could have been generated by the initial interrogative utterance. Thus it can be concluded that the sequential pattern subsequent to the interrogative utterances uniformly reflects that both the issuer and the recipient of such an interrogative utterance do not treat it as doing questioning. 3.2. Turn Format In 3.1. we have observed that the participants show their analysis of each other’s action by their own action in turn, and that the sequential patterning of the turns subsequent to these interrogative utterances indicates that they are not being treated as question. There is further evidence that supports this observation: some “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 409 of the turns in which interrogative utterances are produced are recognizably designed not to be interpreted as questioning or information-seeking. One way to investigate how they are actually designed is to compare them with some characteristics of what Pomerantz (1988) calls Candidate Answers as an information seeking device. She argues that information seeking is generally engaged in in such a way as to be sensitive to the information seeker’s purpose in seeking the information, and the speaker’s knowledge and the recipient’s knowledge of the matter at hand. To incorporate a Candidate Answer in a question to the recipient is one strategy responsive to such situations. The following are some of the examples of this strategy given in Pomerantz (1988).11 1) The speaker received a call from a friend and neighbor just after she arrived home and says, ‘Did you just see me pull up?’ 2) Sally: Did you step out for a few minutes? Ann: NO. I took a shower. 3) A truck pulled over and the passenger pointed up the street and asked the author, ‘Is that Temple?’ As stated in Pomerantz (1988), two implications of offering a Candidate Answer are 1) that a speaker may implicitly propose to be, or display being, somewhat knowledgeable even while seeking information and 2) that since a Candidate Answer is put forth as the speaker’s guess and a goodlikelihood, it can be seen as reflecting the speaker’s expectation of the other’s behavior. Thus the author claims that offering a legitimate action as a Candidate Answer reflects and proposes a cooperative or friendly relationship, and that it is what frequently happens. In 1) for example, the speaker could have said “Were you spying on me?,” which could be heard as an accusation and might reflect and shape the relationship. In the light of Pomerantz’s observation, let us look at the following excerpt from my data. (11) 1 M: jibun wa nan tsutta no yo::. oneself TOP what QT.say.PAST FP FP What did you say. 2 : e:::, B-san gomen ne:::. a::n, well B-san.ADD sorry FP DM ‘Well,I’m sorry, B-san. Uh, 3 : mata kyoo dekinakatta kedo mata itsuka kanarazu, again today can.do:NEG:PAST but again someday certainly (I) couldn’t do it today, but (I) promise (I) will do (it), 4 : KANARAZU yaru kara, toka tte iWAnakatta:::? certainly do so such QT say:NEG:PAST some other time, so...’ didn’t (you) say (that)?12 410 TOMOYO TAKAGI 5 K: (.) YAtteii yo::, soRAA:::. can.do FP then (I) will do it, then (if you say so). 6 : (0.8) yatte yar- ikuradatte CHANSU wa aru yo::, can. do do- so.many opportunity TOP exist FP (I) can do- (we) still have lots of chances, 7 : chansu wa::. chance TOP a lot of chances. M’s extended turn ending with a negative interrogative includes the quotation of what K had said earlier when he missed a first few opportunities to do the recording. M enacts what he had said in an elaborated way with a distinct voice quality of mimicking. Thus the quotation is so designed as to demonstrate the speaker’s familiarity with what K had said. In other words, M’s interrogative utterance displays her good knowledge of the very information being interrogated.13 Though M’s utterance may be seen as a type of Candidate Answer as described by Pomerantz, it differs in that it is so produced as to demonstrate that she is fully knowledgeable, while offering a Candidate Answer may “implicitly propose to be, or display being, somewhat knowledgeable” (Pomerantz 1988: 370, emphasis mine). Furthermore, in the context where K in fact failed to do the recording on that day again, offering the fact that K promised the recording in the past as a Candidate Answer can be recognizable as naming an illegitimate action (i.e. breaking one’s promise), as opposed to offering a legitimate action as a Candidate Answer. The next excerpt similarly involves the speaker’s explicit display of knowledge of an illegitimate action of the recipient. (12) 1 M: KEkkoo asoko, quite over.there 2 : terebi miteta yo, TV watch.PAST FP (You) were watching TV over there. 3 : kookoo yakyuu. highschool baseball the highschool baseball game. 4 : (3.0) miteta deshoo? watch:PAST TAG (You) were watching, (weren’t you)? 5 : (3.0) mite nakatta::? watch NEG:PAST Weren’t (you) watching? “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 6 K: 411 MITETA: yo:::. watch:PAST FP (I) was watching. In the talk prior to the above excerpt M argues that K did not tell her anything about his negligence of the recording. M further points out the fact that K was watching TV when she finally broached the subject as evidence that he had even forgotten about his failure to keep his promise. After a pause of three seconds in line 4, M turns the predicate part of the preceding utterance into an interrogative utterance by attaching a tag . Following another significant length of a pause, M issues another interrogative utterance with a change in its polarity (i.e. from an affirmative interrogative format to a negative interrogative format) in line 5. M’s interrogative utterances at lines 4 and 5 can be seen to incorporate a Candidate Answer. However, it is important to note again that it is recognizably displayed that the speaker is knowledgeable of the very information being interrogated. From line 1 through 3 M ‘states’ what she has actually seen: she has seen K watching TV. Notice that M uses the so-called final particle yo in line 2. This epistemic particle has been described in the literature, roughly, as indicating that the speaker is presenting the matter in question as more accessible to the speaker than the recipient (Kamio, 1990; Maynard, 1993). In the present instance, yo may be seen as used to ‘remind’ K of what he was doing. This is additional evidence that M’s interrogative utterance in Excerpt (12) are so framed as to display that she is fully knowledgeable of the very fact being interrogated. The observed features of displaying sufficient knowledge and naming illegitimate actions appear to point to the speaker’s orientation to formulating her turn not as information-seeking but as accusing/challenging. In other words, the device of incorporating a Candidate Answer, which is normally warranted by accountable purposes of seeking information and the informationseeker’s insufficient knowledge of the matter, can be seen as deployed here to do specifically work other than information-seeking. Just as we have seen earlier that the [interrogative utterance]-[non-answer] pair is preferred in the present data, here otherwise dispreferred features of the Candidate Answer strategy such as offering an illegitimate action seem to be preferred. Importantly, these reversed effects in argument talk are by no means random but provide a mirror image of organizational aspects of friendly talk, which have been shown by a number of studies. In this section we have observed that interrogative utterances in our argument data are so designed as to be recognizable as non-questioning actions and are interpreted as such. The question now arises: if interrogative utterances are employed to implement actions other than questioning, what is the basis for adopting interrogative forms but not other forms? This is the issue we turn to next. 412 TOMOYO TAKAGI 4. Grammar and Interaction 4.1. Interrogatives as a Response-Seeking Device In the preceding discussion it has been shown that interrogative utterances in the present data are consistently not responded to with ‘answers.’ However, it should be noted that they are still responded to in some way or another. It appears that the interrogative utterances make turn transition relevant at their completion point and that the recipients are expected to take the next turn. When there is no upcoming response after an interrogative utterance is completed, the speaker further seeks to elicit a response from the recipient, as seen in Excerpt (12), which is partially reproduced below. (12) 4 M: (3.0) miteta deshoo? watch: PAST TAG (You) were watching, (weren’t you)? 5 (3.0) mite nakatta::? watch NEG:PAST Weren’t (you) watching? : 6 K: MITETA: yo:::. watch:PAST FP (I) was watching. After the pause of three seconds followed by the first interrogative utterance in line 4, M produces another interrogative utterance. The second one is more notably marked with rising intonation, which is usually interpreted as questioning. K finally provides an answer in line 6 admitting the fact that he was watching TV. Namely, K’s answer is delayed and persistently sought by M. This underscores our initial observation of the preferred organizational character of the [interrogative utterance]-[non-answer] pair (see the schema in (10)). That is, responding with a candidate answer to an interrogative utterance is dispreferred in argument talk. In other words, the parties to this argumentative conversation expect each other to provide some response to an interrogative utterance in form of a non-answer. However, note that in spite of the reversed correlation of preferred/dispreferred response type and format, one character is shared by interrogative utterances in the present data and on other occasions including cases in which interrogatives are used for questioning, offering, inviting and so on: at the completion of the utterance, turn transition to the addressed recipient(s) becomes relevant. In the next section I would like to develop this view in terms of relationship between the turn-taking system, sequential environments and linguistic form (i.e. grammar). “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 413 4.2. Interrogative Grammar and Turn Taking The view that an interrogative utterance designates the recipient as next speaker at its completion point brings in some interesting ramifications in conceptualizing the nature of interrogatives as a grammar in interaction. First, it indicates the significant relevance of the turn taking mechanism for interrogatives as a grammatical category. The Japanese turn taking mechanism for conversation seems to operate basically in the same way as described for English conversation in Sacks et al. (1974).14 The character of interrogatives as seen above seems to be especially relevant to the first stage of application of the rules governing turn allocation and coordinating turn transfer in the turntaking systematics: At the initial transition-relevance place (TRP) of an initial turn-constructional unit, if the turn-so-far is so constructed as to involve the use of a ‘current speaker selects next’ technique, then the party so selected has the right and is obliged to take next turn to speak (p. 704). If we can assume that a certain linguistic category can be used for such techniques as “current speaker selects next,” interrogative grammar seems to be one of such categories. More precisely, the response-seeking nature of interrogatives consists in the turn allocation/transfer management. A speaker can use various verbal and non-verbal resources to project an imminent TRP, and select next speaker so that turn transfer can take place with minimized gap and overlap. Interrogative grammar is unique in that the grammar itself is a routinized way of forming an utterance to deal with both projecting a TRP and selecting next speaker. Importantly, Thompson (1998), comparing interrogative and negative grammar, points out that corpus studies show that interrogative grammar cross-linguistically “correlates strongly with questioning and getting a response from the hearer, and must signal readiness to yield the floor,” and that its locus is the prosodic unit or interactional unit, while the locus of negative grammar is the clause or a grammatical unit. In Japanese, interrogatives are marked by distinctive intonation often along with so-called final particles, both of which operate on the ‘prosodic’ unit, as Thompson predicts. In terms of the turntaking mechanism, an entire “prosodic” unit, which marks the completion point of the utterance provides an enhanced recognizability for the TRP, and the distinctive prosodic contour may serve to appeal to the recipient for attention and for response. Put another way, interrogative forms can be seen as grammaticization of a fundamental interactional unit of [recipient-oriented action]-[response]. This accounts for the prevalent use of interrogatives in a major class of adjacency pairs. The present study dealt with the instances of interrogatives used to do what can be seen as accusing or challenging. The following are some other types of interrogatives from my Japanese data. 414 TOMOYO TAKAGI (13) Offer Participants are about to finish dinner. → M: maron gurasse osuki? marrons glacés like Do (you) like marrons glacés? H: HAI! DM Pardon!? M: maron [gurasse]. marrons glacés Marrons glacés. K: [hhhhh] mo sonna [kincho-] kinchooDM such tense tense (You don’t have to be) so tense. H: R: [WAtashi]. I(formal) Me? WATASHI! I ‘watashi!’ ((After the participants make fun of H’s use of the formal firstperson reference form, H says that he wants to finish dinner with the tangerine he is eating.)) (14) Request T is writing a letter in Y’s office. → T: jishofutsuu no jisho wa naindeshoo [ka]. dictionary- ordinary LK dictionary TOP exist:NEG:POL Q Is there an ordinary dictionary. Y: [aru]. exist There is. ((Y approaches a bookshelf and reaches for a dictionary.)) (15) Suggestion In T’s living room participants are about to eat Japanese pizzas that F and another participant brought. F: T: kore, attameta hoo ga iin janai? [ii no? attame nakutte]. this warm way SBJ good BE:NEG good FP warm NEG Isn’t it better to warm these? Is it OK not to warm (them)? [attame yoo ka]. “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 415 warm shall Q Shall (I/we) warm them. Excerpt (15) is of special interest. If F were the host and the conversation had taken place at F’s home, her action in the first line could be interpreted as an offer to take the pizzas to the kitchen to warm them. However, F is in fact visiting T’s place for the first time and it is T who is expected to do the work or at least help F do the work. Therefore F’s action is better understood as suggestion addressed to T rather than as an offer, which would have been responded to with an acceptance or rejection. T’s turn initiated at the first possible completion point of F’s utterance indicates her recognition that her response as a hosting participant is now relevant: though prompted by F, she produces an ‘authorized’ offer. Interrogatives have been long recognized as having diverse functions in different situations with questioning being the main function (Freed, 1994). As Excerpt (15) suggests, different ‘functions’ may be captured as differences characterizable as aspects of social interaction such as recognition of shared knowledge, participation framework, positioning in conversational sequence.15 The point is, whatever the ‘function’ is, the action being done in/through producing an interrogative utterance is reciprocal in nature in that the action is always addressed to the other and that some response is expected. It may be a basic interactional mechanism onto which adjacency pairs are mapped.16 Levinson (1983: 365) notes the significance of the concept of adjacency pair as well as other concepts developed in conversation analysis in understanding how language is structured: Indeed a general explanation for the cross-linguistic prevalence of the three basic sentence-types (declarative, interrogative, and imperative) may lie in the basic distinction between, respectively, utterances that are not firstpair parts, utterances that are first parts to other utterances, and utterances that are first parts to actions. The present study has shown that participants are strongly oriented to the relevance of some response to interrogative utterances even in cases in which interrogatives are not used to seek information. This provides further empirical support for Thompson’s and Levinson’s observation on the nature of interrogative grammar. Functional linguistic studies of processes of grammaticization have thrown new light on how communicative and interactional functions shape grammars. (e.g. Du Bois, 1985, 1987; Hopper, 1987; Hopper and Thompson, 1980; Hopper and Traugott, 1993) Now it seems to be worthwhile to reconsider the nature of ‘functions’ in view of empirical insights gained from closely examining their ‘home’ environment, that is, talk-in-interaction, and ask what are the implications of relating such interactional properties as temporality, 416 TOMOYO TAKAGI sequentiality and intersubjectivity to the question of how grammars become the way they are. 5. Re-examining the Puzzling Case We started our discussion with questioning what are possible reasons for incongruence in the participants’ analyses of each other’s action in excerpt (3). Having observed the sequential patterning involving interrogative utterances in argument talk, we are now in a better position to reanalyze the excerpt. The relevant part, with a few more lines added, is reproduced below. (3) 1 K: 2 : 3 M: 4 : 5 K: sonna koto jibun ga YAtte kara yuu n da yo, such thing yourself SBJ do after say NOM BE FP (You) should say such a thing after you have done, jibun [ga yatTA] no ka yo::. yourself SBJ do:PAST LNK Q FP Did you do? [NA(h)ni o]what OBJ What(0.8) nani O:? what OBJ What(did I do)? da::kara rekoodingu demo nandemo yatTA [no ka yo::]. so recording TOP everything do:PAST NOM Q FP (I’m asking if you) have done the recording and everything. 6 M: [SHITA YO::]! do:PAST FP (I) did! 7 K: (0.6) nani itten DA yo:, what say BE FP What are (you) saying, 8 i- (.) doko ni an da yo. where at exist BE FP Where is (the tape). : 9 M: aru mon. motteru mon. exist FP have FP There is (a tape). (I) have (it). 10 K: °nani itten da yo°. what say BE FP What are (you) saying “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 417 To recapitulate briefly what the participants are up to in the talk prior to this segment, in accusing K, M has brought up K’s irresponsible behavior, specifically, not doing the recording, by quoting his broken promise. K counterargues that because M does not do anything for others either, she has no right to accuse him of ‘not-doing.’ All through his argument K does not specifically mention the object of the verb yaru (‘do’; appears in some conjugated forms in the text). M initiates repair for the unspecified object. The first try of the repair attempting the clarification is initiated in overlap with K (line 3) and then, as shown by the medium pause at line 4, held until it becomes visible that K has reached a TRP and that her utterance in the next turn will be in the clear. Thus, as we initially observed, M’s repair-initiating utterance in line 4 is not specifically responsive to K’s interrogative utterance in line 2. However, note that as the result of M’s overlap management (i.e. holding it off till K’s utterance reaches its TRP), this utterance by M is placed adjacently to K’s interrogative utterance. This adjacency of the two utterances in question in fact makes M’s utterance in line 4 hearable as a repair initiation specifically pointing to K’s preceding utterance in line 2. If our observation that interrogative utterances in argument talk are not designed as question nor treated as such is correct, K’s interrogative utterance here can be warrantably analyzed as one of such non-questioning interrogatives.17 However, when M’s utterance in line 4 is seen as responsive to it, it is now interpretable as a question, which M is ready to answer upon the clarification of the object. By accommodating to M’s repair initiation and providing the information sought by M, K finds himself retroactively reanalyzing his prior utterance in line 2 as a question, to which M provides an answer in line 6. Notice that M’s answer is produced before K completes his turn. Responding to an interrogative utterance with an answer in preferred format is not found in the rest of the instances we have seen in the present argument data. In a way it breaks the orderliness being established in this particular argument sequence. K’s somewhat disoriented utterance in the next turn (line 7) may be seen as showing his difficulty with coping with the unexpected development of the sequence that is disadvantageous to him in the on-going argument. K produces another interrogative utterance in line 8, which M again answers without delay (line 9).18 K is once again faced with the same difficulty and ends up repeating the phrase nani itten da yo ‘what are you saying,’ though this time significantly lessened in volume (line 10). To summarize, this particular case illustrates that the ‘function’ of questioning attributable to an interrogative utterance may be a result of retroactive characterization that the succeeding sequence furnishes. Note also that though it may be unexpected in its position, M’s treating K’s interrogative utterance as a bona-fide questioning utterance is not held accountable. This indicates that the primary association of interrogative forms with the action of questioning 418 TOMOYO TAKAGI can be evoked by default without any special work. The present case initially regarded as puzzling seems in fact to support our claim that ‘functions’ of a particular linguistic form/grammar may not be accurately captured without considering its sequential environments and how the participants treat it.19 6. Concluding Remarks This paper has addressed an issue of the relationship between a linguistic form of an utterance and sequential environments in which the utterance is produced through the examination of a single case of argument talk. It has been shown that interrogative utterances in argument sequences may not be designed/interpreted as doing questioning. This can be an orderly practice to which participants orient themselves in a domain of social activity recognizable as argument. Furthermore, we have seen that though an answer is not an expected response to such utterances, the recipient provides some form of response, or such response is sought when none is upcoming. The fact that interrogatives are pervasively used in performing not only accusation/challenge but also other sequentially organized actions such as requesting, offering, inviting and so on suggests that interrogative grammar is grammaticized in such a way that it reflects the fundamental interactional unit of [recipient-oriented action]-[response]. Many major adjacency pair types are manifestations of this basic unit and the fact that interrogative grammar is employed across different types of adjacency pairs indicates that the nature of interrogatives as a grammatical category may reside in this basic structural unit of social interaction. I hope the present study has at least provided another piece of evidence that it is promising to reconsider the interrelationship of function and grammar in view of sequential interactional environments as it emerges in talk-in-interaction. Acknowledgments I wish to thank Tom Wilson, Sandy Thompson and Makoto Hayashi for their valuable comments and suggestions on the earlier versions of this paper. Notes 1. Though mainly in English, many conversation analytic studies have shown there is a class of actions that project particular types of action as a relevant next activity. Such paired actions are usually called adjacency pairs following Schegloff and Sacks (1973). Common examples are requests, which make granting or denying relevant; invitations, which project acceptance or rejection; and questions, which call for answers. A central “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 419 feature of such pairs is that participants orient to the occurrence of an appropriate second pair part and can warrantably treat failure to provide it as a noticeable event. Fox (1994) problematizes the use of technical linguistic labels such as ‘relative clauses’ or ‘passives’ as meaning “a single, monolithic, and highly abstract unit stored in the brain/mind from which speakers can generate specific tokens.” The assumptions about the nature of language underlying the present study are indeed inspired by such insights as her proposal for a non-traditional view of grammar as socially distributed across participants and context. This view is inspired by Du Bois’s notion “grammar as architecture for function” (Du Bois, 1997), which, simply put, claims that grammar can be seen as architecture or frame that ‘allows’ a certain function but does not ‘signify’ or ‘mark’ a function. I would like to thank Patricia Mayes and Ryoko Suzuki for making the data available for this study. Though we do not have any visual information, it is possible that Shiho’s vocalization in line 3 is accompanied by such a gesture as nodding, which would contribute to the interpretation of Shiho’s utterance as an affirmative answer. Nonetheless, it is important to note that such an interpretation of Shiho’s action, whether verbal or gestural, is made possible by the fact that it is positioned after a questioning utterance. Sacks (1987: 64) observed the systematic preference for agreement and contiguity in second pair parts of adjacency pairs. One of the observed practices implementing such preference is when a person who has asked a question, upon the occurrence of a pause, revises “that question to exhibit the reverse preference.” Though Takeshi revises his question here upon the occurrence of a pause, the way he does it (i.e. upgrading its negative polarity) contradicts what is observed by Sacks. His reformulation of the original question may be seen as reflecting his orientation to the cultural assumption that female heavy drinkers are more likely to be stigmatized than males in Japanese society. By offering an extreme version of “not drinking,” that is, “not drinking at all,” he can both align himself with the culturally favored assumption and make it easier for Shiho to provide an appropriate description of how much she drinks by reference to the extreme version. The fact that Excerpt (3) does not follow this pattern warrants special attention, which will be turned to in Section 5. For concise and instructive discussion of adjacent actions as resources by which the next speaker displays his/her analysis of the prior speaker and the prior speaker determines whether s/he was understood, see Heritage (1984:245–260). Mori (1996) shows that in casual conversations among Japanese adult peers, the delivery of disagreement tends to be delayed, whereas agreement tends to be delivered immediately upon completion of or in slight overlap with the prior turn. Maynard (1985) discusses a hearer’s problematizing the presupposition implicitly present in the speaker’s utterance as an argumentative device. As shown by these examples and the other examples provided in Pomerantz (1988), the Candidate Answer strategy takes the form of what is traditionally called “yes/no question.” Accordingly, in comparing our instances with utterances offering a Candidate Answer, here we limit our discussion to “yes/no question” type interrogatives. In Japanese, which is a predicate-final language, the complement in a complex sentence precedes the main clause. Thus the quoted part usually precedes the quoting part involving such a verb as ‘say.’ Labov and Fanshel (1977) propose classifications of events according to the shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer. They propose that these classifications are useful for describing “rules of discourse” such as “If A (Speaker) makes a statements 420 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. TOMOYO TAKAGI about B-events (known to B, but not to A), then it is heard as a request for confirmation.” What M refers to in this case may be classified as an “AB-event” (known to both A and B). However, here we are more concerned with the interplay between the participants’ display of knowledge and interrogative grammar, rather than establishing a correlation between a state of shared knowledge and a use of interrogatives. Tanaka’s (1996) extensive exploration on turn taking in Japanese and Anglo/American English shows that the basic organization of turn taking is essentially the same for both languages. For a re-examination of what has been termed as indirect speech act in the light of temporal and sequential properties of talk-in-interaction, see Schegloff (1988). See also the discussion in the next section and Note 19. There is a small class of what are often called “rhetorical questions/interogatives.” Such interrogatives are said to expect no answers from the other (Maynard, 1995). I do not consider this to be evidence against my claim, for the following reasons: 1) To seek no answers does not necessarily mean to seek no “responses”. Here the issue is whether some response is made relevant by the occurrence of interrogative forms and whether participants show orientation to such relevancy. 2) Whether there really is a class of interrogative forms which seek no “responses” is an empirical issue yet to be explored. For example, what is produced as a question can be retrospectively turned into a soliloquy with respect to the fact that the recipient has passed up the chance to respond. Or the speaker of the utterance that seems to be doing questioning can ‘rush through’ the TRP (Schegloff, 1982) and continue his/her talk without allowing an opportunity for the recipient to respond. In fact, in my Japanese data, cases in which the speaker recognizably designed his/her turn as a “rhetorical interrogative” and the recipient treats it as such (i.e. does not provide any response) are extremely rare. Thus, it is important to analyze closely particular cases of interrogatives in naturally occurring talk before assuming that some interrogative utterances seek no responses or answers. There is another point to note in interpreting K’s utterances in line 2 and 5. Usually, the combination of the question particle ka and the epistemic particle yo indicates that the speaker assumes that the recipient does (or should/can) not positively acknowledge the situation expressed in the clause that the particles are attached to. In this particular case, K brings up the issue of whether the recipient M did something (for others), in response to M’s accusation of him for not doing the recording. Thus this utterance by K can be interpretable as a counter which is designed to constrain M’s response in such a way that she has to deny the situation described (M did something for others), thereby, invalidating her right to accuse K. The combination of these particles ka yo, can be viewed as a more or less grammaticized particle string associated with a particular action. Note, however, that M’s utterance here does not exactly provide the information about where she placed the tape. It is possible that this utterance is accompanied by an indexing gesture, though we lack visual information. McHoul (1987) argues that the pragmatic status (e.g. information-eliciting, complaints, objections, warnings, and threats) of questions in discourse largely depends on what the hearer does with it. Among the examples given in McHoul (1987: 465) is a case in which the hearer treats a possible complaint as information-eliciting question, “thereby attempting to ‘cool out’ that complaint: A: How could you do this to me? B: It was no problem I assure you . . . I simply told them you’d been late six times this week. The excerpt we have analyzed here seems to be one instance that confirms McHoul’s claim that determining what is being done with interrogatives is much more in the hands “QUESTIONS” IN ARGUMENT SEQUENCES IN JAPANESE 421 of persons being interrogated than in those of their interrogators. 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