ClassInfo

LING5900 Topics in Linguistics: The Linguistics of Japanese Storytelling

How do Japanese speakers tell stories in conversation? In this course we will investigate the structure and linguistic forms used in storytelling in a variety of Japanese conversational genre (including animation narratives, storytelling in casual conversation, interviews and lectures), and how this expression of embodied experience shapes and is shaped by language. We will examine how participants negotiate the tellability (newsworthiness) of their stories using evaluative devices
(style shift, onomatopoeia, quotation, constructed dialogue, repetition, etc.), and how they use stories to make points, justify opinions, and create alignments that connect the story teller's and story recipients' identities with larger social identities.

Using data from stories in videotapes of spontaneous Japanese conversational interaction, we will investigate how participants use their language and bodies to allocate specific structural roles in the participation framework
(storyteller, co-teller, addressed and non-addressed recipient), create story structure, and evaluate events. Other topics will include the negotiation of information between knowing and unknowing participants (using topicalization, focus, contrast, reference, ellipsis, proximal and distal demonstratives), and the establishment of time and perspective (past/non-past tense alternation).

Prerequisites: LING 3001 or 3011 or 5001 (may be taken concurrently) AND JPN 1012 OR
permission of the instructor