Part of
Emotion in Multilingual InteractionEdited by Matthew T. Prior and Gabriele Kasper
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 266] 2016
► pp. 237–265
Edited by Matthew T. Prior and Gabriele Kasper
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 266] 2016
► pp. 237–265
‘It hurts to hear that’
Representing the feelings of foreigners on Japanese television
This study looks at the interactional expression of emotions in a Japanese television talk show involving a Japanese cross-dresser, a Japanese comedian, the production staff, and 50 foreign residents from various countries living in Japan. Building on previous work on embedded frames in Japanese television, this chapter shows how emotions are used by the show’s participants and producers as resources across various interactional frames to create a collaborative discourse for entertainment. In addition to sequential conversation analysis, formulation analysis, indexicality, footing, and framing are used to show the various ways that emotions are discursively brought into being through various textual and verbal resources as well as non-lexical means such as jeering and laughter.
Keywords: conversation analysis, emotion, formulation analysis, Japanese, talk shows, television
References (43)
Bell, Allan. 1984. “Language Style as Audience Design.” Language in Society 13 (2): 145–204. 
Bilmes, Jack. 1986. Discourse and Behavior. New York: Plenum Press.
. 2011. “Occasioned Semantics: A Systematic Approach to Meaning in Talk.” Human Studies 34: 129–153.
Briggs, Charles L., and Richard Bauman. 1992. “Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2 (2): 131–172.
Cheng, Winnie. 2003. Intercultural Conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Clift, Rebecca, and Elizabeth Holt. 2007. “Introduction.” In Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction, ed. by Elizabeth Holt, and Rebecca Clift, 1–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cook, Haruko M. 2006. “Joint Construction of Folk Beliefs by JFL Learners and Japanese Host Families.” In Language Learners in Study Abroad Contexts, ed. by Margaret A. DuFon, and Eton Churchill, 120–150. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
D’hondt, Sigurd. 2011. “
Ah-Prefacing in Kiswahili Second Pair Parts.” Language in Society 40: 563–590.
Egbert, Maria M. 1997. “Some Interactional Achievements of Other-initiated Repair in Multiperson Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 27: 611–634.
Ervin-Tripp, Susan M., and Martin D. Lampert. 2009. “The Occasioning of Self-disclosure Humor.” In Humor in Interaction, ed. by Neil Norrick, and Delia Chiaro, 3–27. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Furukawa, Gavin. 2014. “‘Stupidest of All the Primates’: The Role of English in Japanese Television.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communications 24 (2): 196–220.
. 2015. “‘Cool’ English: Stylized Native Speaker English in Japanese Television Shows.” Multilingua 34 (2): 265–291.
Glenn, Phillip. 2003. Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1978. “Response Cries.” Language 54 (4): 787–815.
. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goodwin, Charles. 2007. “Participation, Stance and Affect in the Organization of Activities.” Discourse and Society 18 (1): 53–73.
Goodwin, Charles, and Marjorie H. Goodwin. 2005. “Participation.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 222–244. Oxford: Blackwell.
Greer, Tim. (this volume). On Doing Japanese Awe in English Talk.
Hepburn, Alexa, and Scott Varney. 2013. “Beyond ((Laughter)): Some Notes on Transcription.” In Studies of Laughter in Interaction, ed. by Phillip Glenn, and Elizabeth Holt, 25–38. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Heritage, John. 1985. “Analyzing News Interviews: Aspects of the Production of Talk for an Overhearing Audience.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis Volume 3, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 95–117. New York: Academic Press.
Hutchby, Ian. 2005. Media Talk. New York: Open University Press.
Ilie, Cornelia. 2001. “Semi-institutional Discourse: The Case of Talk Shows.” Journal of Pragmatics 33: 209–254.
Jefferson, Gail. 1972. “Side Sequences.” In Studies in Social Interaction, ed. by David Sudnow, 294–333. New York: Free Press.
Koshik, Irene. 2002. “Designedly Incomplete Utterances: A Pedagogical Practice for Eliciting Knowledge Displays in Error Correction Sequences.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 35 (3): 277–309.
Leech, Geoffrey N. 2014. The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Livingstone, Sonia, and Peter Lunt. 1994. Talk on Television: Audience Participation and Public Debate. London: Routledge.
Miller, Roy. 1982. Japan’s Modern Myth: The Language and Beyond. New York: Weatherhill.
Ministry of Justice. 2013, January 3. The Ministry of Justice. Retrieved from [URL]
Minorikawa, Hayato (Producer). 2010–2011. Arita to Matsuko to Otoko to Onna [Television Series]. Tokyo: Tokyo Broadcasting System.
Morita, Emi. 2005. Negotiation of Contingent Talk: The Japanese Interactional Particles Ne and Sa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Napier, Nancy K., and Sully Taylor. 1995. Western Women Working in Japan: Breaking Corporate Barriers. West Port, CN: Quorum Books.
Park, Joseph S.Y. 2009. “Regimenting Languages on Korean Television: Subtitles and Institutional Authority.” Text & Talk 29 (5): 547–570.
Prior, Matthew T. (this volume). “Formulating and Scaling Emotionality in L2 Qualitative Research Interviews.”
Saft, Scott L. 2006. “The Moderator in Control: Use of Names, the Particle Ne, and Response Tokens on a Japanese Discussion TV Program.” Research and Language on Social Interaction 39 (2): 155–193.
Stivers, Tanya. 2008. “Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation During Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of Affiliation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (1): 31–57.
Stokoe, Elizabeth. 2012. “Moving Forward with Membership Categorization Analysis: Methods for Systematic Analysis.” Discourse Studies 14 (3): 277–303.
Strauss, Susan. 2002. “Distinctions in Completives: The Relevance of Resistance in Korean V-Ale Pelita and V-Ko Malta and Japanese V-Te Shimau.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 143–166.
Suzuki, Ryoko. 1999. “Language Socialization through Morphology: The Affective Suffix -CHAU in Japanese.” Journal of Pragmatics 31 (11): 1423–1441.
Suzuki, Satoko. 1995. “A Study of the Sentence-final Mitai Na.” The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 29 (2): 55–78.
Tanaka, Lidia. 2004. Gender, Language and Culture: A Study of Japanese Television Interview Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Thornborrow, Joanna. 1997. “Having Their Say: The Function of Stories in Talk-show Discourse.” Text 17 (2): 241–262.
Thornborrow, Joanna, and Deborah Morris. 2004. “Gossip as Strategy: The Management of Talk About Others on Reality TV Show ‘Big Brother’.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 8 (2): 246–271.
Weiner, Michael. 2009. Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity. London: Routledge.