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Part of
Questioning and Answering Practices across Contexts and Cultures
Edited by Cornelia Ilie
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 323] 2021
► pp. 167–192

Constructing interrupting inquiries as cooperative interactions

Question-response-hai ‘yes’ sequences in Japanese interviews

| Kanto Gakuin University

This chapter examines how speakers manage the simultaneous occurrence of questioning and interruption. The data are 22 sequences consisting of an interviewer’s interrupting question, the interviewee’s response, and the interviewer’s hai ‘yes’, from 60-minute interviews with eight women. I analyze what discursive strategies the interview participants employ to construct such sequences as cooperative interactions. The analysis shows that: (1) the interviewee constructs the sequence as a side activity, sustaining the status of her narrative as the main activity; (2) the interviewee turns the side activity into a crucial contribution to the interaction; and (3) the interviewer utilizes hai to explicitly transfer speakership to the interviewee. The findings demonstrate the importance of examining questions within sequences of ongoing interaction.

Keywords: question, interruption, interview, main/side activities, Japanese
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
  • 3.Theoretical approach
  • 4.Data and methodology
  • 5.The relationship between utterances before and after the [question-response-hai] sequence
    • 5.1Continuation
    • 5.2Resumption
    • 5.3Redesign
  • 6.The responses of the interviewees
    • 6.1Transformative answer
    • 6.2Repetitional answer
    • 6.3Adoption of part of the question in the return
    • 6.4Combination of repetition, addition, and adoption
  • 7.The role of the turn-final hai ‘yes’
    • 7.1Degree of prompting force of hai
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.323.06nak
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