f)ifiJfl~.fl)f~J t('; 10 ~(2008 if) pp. 54-70© 2008 if

8 *Mtfl:l~~~Some Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style

Scott Saft
University of Hawai' i at Hilo

This study describes a style of arguing in Japanese university faculty meetings. Approaching argument
as an interactional event in which two or more participants exchange opposition over a particular matter, the analysis focuses on roles played by two lingui stic resources, short responses known as aizuchi
and markers of opposition such as demo ('but') and tada ('but'). The analysis shows that these resources
enable the participants to construct a style of arguing marked by relatively long oppositional turns that
perform a variety of actions. Following the analysis, tbe cultural implications of this style of arguing
are discussed.
Keywords:

1.

Argument, Cultural style, Conversation Analysis, Aizuchi, Opposition

Introduction

The primary goal of this study is to provide a description of a style of arguing in a
specific institutional setting in Japan, namely, university facul ty meetings. The approachto argument follows conversation anal ysts who have treated arguing as an interactionalsequence in which two or more participants exchange opposition over a particular matter(Greatbach and Dingwall 1997; Hutchby, 1996, 2001). In particular, the analysis focuses on two linguistic resources, sh01t response items known as aizuchi ('back-channels')
and markers of opposition such as demo (' but' ) and tada ('but'), which enable the faculty member participants in the data to construct a style of arguing marked by relatively
long oppositional turns. In addition to expressing opposition, the analysis shows that theparticipants use these linguistic resources within their oppositional turns to accomplish
other actions that include explanations, the introduction of new information, and requests.
A secondary goal of this study is to discuss briefly the cultural implications of thestyle of arguing described in the analysis. Despite prior studies that have analyzed occurrences of arguing in Japanese contexts (lwai 1996; Saft 2004; Takagi 1999), it has sometimes been noted that Japanese speakers are under strict cultural constraints in terms of
the expression of opposition in interaction (Barnlund 1989; Nakane 1970 ; Ozaki 1978).
It has even been suggested that cultural constraints make it virtually impossible forJapanese participants to argue, and it has likewise been claimed that Japanese patterns oflogic do not allow for the production of ' logical' arguments (Nakane 1972; Morita 1998;
Okabe 1983). However, the claim is made in this study that what makes the style of argu54

Some Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style55

ing presented in this study distinctly 'Japanese' is less a result of the influence of underlying constraints and patterns of thought and more an outcome of the participants' ability to deploy on a turn-by-turn basis the linguistic resources available to them.

2. Data
T he data for this paper come from monthl y departmental faculty meetings at a 4-year
Japanese university in Northern Japan that were audio-taped for a 14-month petiod in
1998- 1999. In total, approximately 15 hours of interaction from the meetings were taped
and transcribed with the help of first language speakers of Japanese. The meetings wereattended by 11 participants, including myself, all of whom were male and members of theInternational Department at the uni versity. 1 The meetings were not typically argumentative in nature, but it was not unusual for the participants, as a part of discussing matterspertaining to the administration of their department and the university in general, tooppose statements from their colleagues and to engage in arguments that could last forseveral minutes. The analysis below examines some of the common features of thosesequences of argument.

3. Analysis
As I have described elsewhere (Saft 2004, 2007a), the meetings typically begin in a
' reporting framework' with one of the faculty members reporting information to the restof the participants, who remain, temporaril y at least, silent recipients of the talk.
However, it was common in the meetings for one of the recipients to inte1ject talk into
the reporting framework of a 'current speaker', which sometimes led to the exchange of
opposition. Excerpt (1) begins as one of the faculty members, Tanaka, inte1jects into a
repmt that was being made by S uzuki. Just ptior to Tanaka's interjection which begins
in line 1, Suzuki had been explaining that a recent change in the university curriculum toa semester system (from a system in which the same classes were taught for a full year)
might mean that the faculty have to write four different syllabi for their seminar classes,
two for their junior seminar (one for each semester) and two for their senior seminar (also
one for each semester). Instead, Suzuki had suggested as part of his report that the faculty, in order to lesser their burden, write just one syllabus to cover all of their seminarclasses. 2

1

All names of participants and departments in the analysis are pseudonyms.
The transcription conventions and abbreviations appearing in the interlinear gloss can be found in
the two appendices following the body of the paper.
2

(1)

2

3

4

5
:

..

6

7
-'

8

9
10
11

12

13

1- 22- 98
Tanaka: demo ne: so-sao suru to gakusei ga hora rishuutodokeobut FP that do if student S look registration form 0
dasu
toki ni shi[rabasu o mite (.5) sono enshuu no ichi=
hand in time syllabus 0 seethat seminar LK I
'but if we do it that way, the students, when they hand in their registration, will look at the syllabus (.5) and that seminar 1'[ee ::
Suzuki:yes'yes'
Tanaka: =t- wareware wa ichi ka ni ka tte yutteta
deshooweTM one or two Q QT were saying COP'(before) we were saying either 1 or 2, right'
Suzuki: ee:
yes
'yes'
Tanaka: un kokusaien[shuu
yes international seminar'yes, the International Department seminar classes'
Suzuki:
[ee:
yes
'yes'
Tanaka: desana ichi mo ni mo nakute:: (.)sana: (.) u-u- shirabasu.
COP that one also two also not have thatsyllabus
mita toki sono (.) kamokumei ga (.) enshuu dake tte yuu
look time thatclass name S
seminar only QT say
nowa (.) okashii (.) tsumari sannensei
de are suru
NOM TM strange
basically 3rd year student COP that do
no to yonensei
to toozen. chigaimasu yo ne:
LK and 4th year student and naturally different
LK FP'and without either 1 or 2 (.) that(.) when the students look at that syllabus (.) and the class name, (.) only seminar is strange, (.) basicallywhat we do in third year (seminars) and fo urth year (ones) are of comsedifferent'
Suzuki: tashika ni ei no ichi taka
to be sure A LK 1 and the like' to be sure, (we will use) AI and the like'
Tanaka: un=
uh-huh' uh-hu h'Some Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style

14

Suzuki:=soo yuu katachi dethat say form[n

15

rishuu sasenai to naranai

COP register have to make dodesu kedo mo

NOM COP but'we will have to make them register in such a way, but'
16

Tanaka:un[ un
uh-huh uh-huh' uh-huh uh-huh'

17

Suzuki:bunka

to wareware deCultw-e Dept. and us

wa moosude ni

LOC TM already already[jilcan no zure ga aru=

18

time LK gap S have'there is already a time gap between us and Lhe Culture Department'

19

Tanaka:[ un
uh-huh'uh-huh'20

Suzuki:=wake desu yo
reason COP FP' that's what has happened'

21 Ta naka:unuh-huh'uh-huh'22

Suzuki:bunka wa kakunen

saikuru o sur[u to yuu koto ni nalfe=

Culture TM ev~ry year cycle 0 do
QT say matter become'the Culture Department works on a specific cycle every year'n[unThnaka:uh-h uh'uh-huh'24

Suzuki:=wareware wa sono opushon deweTM thal option

yaranai to yuu leota

COP not do QT say matterni nattemasu no de25

is becoming because' it has been decided that we will not make use of such an optio n'26

Tanaka:unuh-huh' uh-huh '27Suzuki:sono hen demoo sude ni (.) mukoothat area LOC already28

shirenai demaybe

wa mittsu kaku ka moover there TM three write

kotchi wa futatsu toka (.) zurete

COP hereTM twokuru wakeand the like skew come reason

57

58

29

30
31

32
33

desu ne (.) soo yuu imi
de wa gakubukande
COP FP that say meaning COP TM within School LOC
tooitsu suru tte yuu tm t
de wa (.) tonikaku enshuu ounify do QT say meaning COP TM anyway seminar 0
matomete kaite (.5) de sono ei ichi ni tte yuu no
put together write
COP that A one two QT say LK
aku made rishu.u
toorokujoo no (.) soochi ni
to the end registration emollment LK device
shitaito yuu (. ) kangae nan desu yowant to make QT say
idea
NOM COP FP'and, if already (.) they are going to possibly write three syllabi and wewill write two or something like that (.) it will be skewed, to avoid that,
it is important to unify things within the School (.) so at the least,
putting the contents of the seminar together and writing one (.5) andleaving the A- 1 and 2 as merely a (.) device used at the time of registration is what we have been (.) thinking of doing'

In lines 1-2, Tanaka begins by noting that students will be looking at the syllabus when. "they register for their seminar classes. He then explains in lines 4 and 6 that the faculty
themselves had called the seminars by different numbers before claiming in lines 8- 11that it wi ll be strange if the one syllabus (suggested by Suzuki) has only the title of'Seminar ' . In other words, he has constructed in these first 11 a point that opposes theone-syllabus proposal made by Suzuki, ending his turn with the claim that it is going to
be 'strange'. In response to this opposition, Suzuki in lines 12 and 14-15 acknowledges
that they will have to use letters such as 'A' and numbers like '1 ' to help students register correctly, but Suzuki then begins in line 17 to build support for his proposal. As he
explains through line 33, writi ng onl y one syllabus will allow the department to restore
synchrony with another closely related department known as the Culture (Bunka)
Department. Essentially then, in this excerpt, Tanaka and S uzuki have exchanged opposi tion over a particular matter; Tanaka has maintained that w1iting one syllabus will cause
problems for students trying to register and Suzuki has rebutted by stating that the his proposal is necessary because it will enhance the department's relationship with anotherdepartment.
This is a very rich excerpt with many places of interest, but there are two points
about the organization of the argument to be foc used on here. First, it can be noted thatneither Tanaka nor Suzuki, in initiating their opposition, just put forth what Jones (1 990)
has termed a ' blunt opposition'. In other words, the participants do not use straightforward utterances such as 'I disagree', 'you are wrong', or ' that is incorrect'. Instead, inline 1, Tanaka begins with the 'marker of opposition' demo (' but') before building his
opposition through line 11, and in lines 14-15 Suzuki offers an 'acknowledgement preface' (Saft 2000) as a precursor to constructing his rebuttal. In this analysis, I want to giveSome Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style59

attention especially to the role of markers of opposition. 3 As the analysis will show, by
beginning oppositional turns with opposition markers, participants are able to display thatthey have a problem with the previous tum, but they can also, at the same time, continue
on to construct an oppositional turn that performs a variety of actions.
The second point about the organization of this argument sequence is the frequent
usage on the part of the recipients of short responses such as ee ('yes') and un ('uh-huh')that are commonly refeiTed to as aizuchi (often translated as 'back-channels' in English).
In line 3, we can see that soon after Tanaka utters the oppositional marker demo andbegins explaining his point Suzuki provides the short response token ee. Suzuki then continues offering ee tokens in lines 5 and 7 as Tanaka develops his point. Then, in lines 13,
16, 19, 21, 23, and 26, we can observe that Tanaka produces un tokens as Suzuki constructs his counterpoint. 4 Research on aizuchi as a category of responses in Japanese,
besides noting the high frequency with which they occur in Japanese, has suggested thatthey function as indicators of agreement and support on the part of a listener for somespate of talk (Iwasaki 1997; Locastro 1987; Maynard 1989; White 1989; Yamada 1992).
In excerpt (1 ), it is possible that the aizuchi from Suzuki and Tanaka are playing a supportive role by encouraging a current speaker to continue with their talk, but it is doubtful that they are functioning as agreement given that Tanaka and Suzuki do not seem tobe agreeing on this particular point. As I have argued previously (Saft 2007a) and will
pursue fmther here, aizuchi have an even more important function in terms of the socialorganization of arguments in the faculty meetings. Excerpt (2) below will allow me tofurther show how markers of opposition and aizuchi serve as resources for arguing in thefaculty meetings. Like excerpt (1), it focuses on the change in the curriculum in whichseminar classes will be held for one semester at a time instead of for a year as in the past.
At the beginning of this excerpt, Ogawa is explaining to the other faculty members a discussion about the change that occurred in another meeting he had attended earlier. Justprior to line 1, Ogawa had stated that the participants in the other meeting had become

3 Jones ( 1990) uses te1m discourse markers of opposition to refer to a similar set of items and Gruber(1998) uses the term disagreement markers to describe a set of comparable items in the German language. Gruber describes disagreement markers as a subclass of discourse markers and in doing so aligns
his work with work by Fraser (1990) and Schiffrin (1986, 1987). Both Gruber and Schiffrin have suggested that these 'discourse markers' function in the 'interpersonal' aspects of turn taking rather than the'mechanical' aspects (cf. Gruber 1998: 455 and Schiffrin I 986: 372). While there are certainly interpersonal aspects of the oppositional turns to be described in my study, I have chosen not to preface'marker' with 'discourse' in order to focus more on the structural aspects of the oppositional turns in thedata, particularly, how markers of opposition allow participants to structure their subsequent turns in different ways.
4 The fact that Tanaka employs un and Suzuki ee can be at least partly explained by the differencein thei r social positions. Tanaka is an older faculty member occupying the position of full professor(kyooju) while Suzuki is a junior facul ty in the position of assistant professor (kooshi). While interesting, this difference in their aizuchi will not be pursued in the analysis.

60

confused (using the Japanese term konran) trying to figure how the new system is going
to work.
Excerpt (2) 6-17-98
1

Ogawa:

2
3

4
5

6

Kida:

7

Ogawa:

8

Kida:

9

10

Ogawa:

11

Kida:

12

13

ima tsuunen de: (.) sannensei no z.emi
o yatteru yalsu
now full year COP
3rd year LK seminar 0 doing thingo ichigakki
de baa to yatte (.) de::: sono tsugi no toshi
0 one semester COP quickly do
COP that next LK year
no yonensei de tsuunen de yatta yatsu mata ichigakki ni
LK 4th year COP full year COP did thing again one semester
katametekatametegaa
tte yaru wake desu yo
push together push together hastenly QT do reason COP FP
neFP' now as one full year (.) the 3rd year students' seminar is taking place
but we will take that and do it all (.) in one semester, and the next year
we will take the 4th year seminars and also do them in one semester,we will push them together and just take care of the semesters quickly'
tada mukashi ne:
but before FP'but before'unuh-huh'uh-huh'mukashi baku oboeteru kedo sa: (.) ano: ikkai ni sanjikan
before I
remember but FP
SF one time 3 hours(.) .fittakoma tsuz.uki
de yatta [(**)
two units contin uous COP did'I reme mber that(.) in one semester we did three hours, (.) two units ofclasses we did them back to back (**)
[unyatta ndesu
uh-huh did NOM COP'uh-huh, we did that'dakara are de kangaeru to ne: baku are no hoo
gatherefore that COP think
if FP I
that LK alternative S
jikan ga: juubun torete yokatta ne (.) ima jissai ni ima notime S enough take was good FP now reall y now LKsannensei
sore de yattent no ne
3rd year students that COP are doing FP FP'so, thinking about that, I feel doing it that way gave us plenty of timeand I think that was good (.) now, actually for my 3rd year seminar, I

Some Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style

14

Ogawa:

15

J(jda:

16

Ogawa:

17

Kida:

18
19
20

61

am doing it that way'un[:uh-huh' uh-huh'[futakoma tsukuzi
datte (*) tte kanji de
two uni ts continuous COP
QT feeling COP' doing two un its back-to-back gives you a feeling of (*)'
unuh-huh' uh-huh'jissai ne (.) de sao yatta hoo
ga ne gakuseitachi
really FP
COP that did alternative S FP students
shuuchuudo tte yuu ka ne:(.) are hakadoru nda yo
concentration QT say Q FP
that progress NOM COP FP
na dakara boku wa sono tame konran wa shincti daroo
FP thus I
TM that reason confuse TM not do perhaps
to yuu ki
wa suru yo ne
QT say feeling TM do FP FP'in reality (.) that way of doing it, if you talk about students' level ofconcentration (.) it will let them make more progress (.) so for that reason 1 have a feeling that there will not be much confusion in the new
system'Just as Ogawa has explained tlu·ough line 5 that faculty in the new system will have toteach in one semester the content that they had previously taught in a full year (whichmeans that the instructors will need to have longer classes in order to cover the necessary
material), Kida enters in line 6 with an utterance that begins with the marker of opposition tada. Ogawa next produces an aizuchi un ('uh-hu h' ) in line 7 which prompts K.ida
to continue explaining in lines 8-9 that they had in years past taught two units of seminar classes back-to-back. With Ogawa providing more un tokens in lines 10, 14, and 16,
Kida then further notes in lines 17-18 that such a procedure raises the level of the students' concentration and then finishes in li nes 19-20 by stating that he does not think
there will be much confusion in the new system. In doing so, Kida employs the same
Japanese term konran that Ogawa had originally used to describe the feeli ng of somemembers of the university toward the new system. He has thus used his turn beginningin line 6 to oppose the idea put forth by Ogawa that the new system was going to be confusing.
Crucial to the development of this point of opposition is the employment of aizuchi
by Ogawa and the marker of opposition tada by Kida. As I have noted in other work
(Saft 2007a, 2007b), aizuchi may express support and agreement, but one of the basic
functions they perform in Japanese interaction is allowing participants to acknowledge

62

their role as willing recipients of a spate of talk. And, with one participant expressing awillingness to be a recipient, aizuchi make it possible for a currently-speaking participant
to develop a point of opposition, as Kida did in excerpt (2). When two participants, as
Tanaka and Suzuki did in Excerpt (1), ' take turns' using aizuchi and choosing themselves
as recipients, then participants can exchange oppositions, in other words, have an argument. In terms of the structure of the interaction, this means that aizuchi help shift the
talk from an organization in which one person reports information to the rest of the(silent) participants to an organization in wh.ich two participants can argue over specificmatters. Aizuchi are thus important resources for enabling the participants .in the faculty
meetings to accomplish arguments.
Markers of opposition such as demo and tada are important in this structural shift
because they, as the initial part of the utterance, make it clear that a participant has a problem with a current spate of talk. 5 Markers of opposition do not by themselves express
what that problem is, and undoubtedly for this reason, there were no .instances in my data
where a marker of opposition stood by itself as a full and complete turn. In fact, by commonly responding with aizuchi to turns prefaced with markers of opposition, participants
seemed to orient to the fact that more talk was expected after a marker of opposition.
Subsequentl y, current speakers were allowed to continue to develop their points. In
Excerpt (2), Kida's use of tada as a part of tada mukashi ne: (' but before' ) prompted
aizuchi from Ogawa, which in tmn made it possible for Kida to explain why he had problems believing that the new system was going to be confusing. Likewise in excerpt (1),
Tanaka's preface of demo in line 1 resulted in aizuchi fro m Suzuki, which enabled Tanaka
to elaborate on his problem with the one-syll abus proposal.
Tn this sense, it would appear that the marker of opposition and the subsequent
expression of the problem are in a mutually informative relationship; the marker of opposition, on the one hand, lets the listeners know that they should understand the talk to follow as opposition-relevant, and the subsequent talk, on the other hand, informs participants how they should understand the marker of opposition. In excerpt (1), the talk followi ng Tanaka's demo made it apparent that Tanaka had a problem with the title of theseminar class on a single syllabus, and i.n excerpt (2), the subsequent talk after Kida's rada
showed that he believed that the semester system would not be confusing. In both ofthese excerpts, the markers of opposition and aizuchi worked together to allow the participants to utter and elaborate their points of opposition.
Observation of the data, however, indicates that markers of opposition sometimes
functioned as resources for using turns to do more than just elaborate their points.
Excerpt (3) provides an example. It begins as Ogawa explains that the first day of class-5

In my data, the markers of opposition most commonly used were demo, tada, and iya (' no'), butother possible li nguistic items in this category would be tadashi ('however' ), shikashi ('but'), tokoro ga('however'), and kedo ('but'). It would be interesting to give consideration to all of these items in theanalysis, but because of a lack of space, the rest of the analysis will focus o n usages of tada in the data.

Some Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style63

es for each semester will be used to gather all of the students together and have a gu idance session, meaning that instead of regular classes, they will use the time to disttibute
report cards to students and discuss with them what they need to accomplish in theupcoming semester.
Excerpt (3)1

Ogawa:

2

3
4

5
6

futsuu no jugyoo o yaranai de(.) dakara minna
regular LK class 0 not do COP thus
everyonedent
hitsuyoo wa: nai
yo ne (1) kurasu tannin ga
take part necessity TM not have FP F P
class advisor S
dete kite solw de (.) seisekihyoo kubatte gaidansu o okonau
take part there LOC report cards hand out guidance 0 do
wake desu kedo moreason COP but'regular classes will not be held (.) and there is no need for everyone
to take part (.), the class advisors will attend and they will (.) distti bute the report cards and do the guidance but'(.)

tada ano: bunka no eigo
ichi (1) no ken
desu
cul ture LK English one
LK matter COP
kedo mo (.) ee kurasu o (.) mittsu ni wakete kurasuwake obut
SF class 0
tlu·eedivide class division 0
shinakya naranai desu ne:have to do
COP FP'however, urn, its about the Culture's English 1 class but (.) urn we will(.) divide it into three classes and so we have to make that division atsome time 'Ogawa:aaoh'oh'
Yamada: de: ano: (.) getsuyoobi: no gozenchuu ni: (*) (.) saisho no
COP SF
Monday
LK morning
firs t LK(.) jugyoo ga (.)ant to omou ndeclass S
have QT think NOM COP'and um (.) it is Monday in the morning (*) (.) that the first (.) classoccurs (.) I think
Ogawa:
nUikanme desu ne
2nd period COP FP'2nd petiod'
Yamada: ni-nijikanme desu yo ne desu kant: sono told ni: bunka no (. )2nd period COP FP FP COP sothat time
Culture LK

Yamada:but SF

7
8

9

10
11

12

13

64

14
15
16
17
18

19

20

-. -.·.·1.

· .•Ogawa:

ichinensei (.)
zenin atsumatte moratte (.) de tada: ana:
1st year students allgatherreceive
COP only SF
sentaku: na ndesu keclo mo (.) shikashi hotondo gachoose COP NOM COP but
however almost S
mooeigo
ichi torimasu no de ne (.) sore de (.) ana:
already English 1 takebecause FP
that COP SF
sono bade (.) kurasuwake o: ano: shitai
tothat place LOC class division 0 SF want to do QT
omotte iru ndesu kedo mothinking NOM COP but'2nd period, right, therefore, at that time, since the Culture (.) I st year
students (.) will all be gathered together (.) and its just a matter of themchoosing their classes (.) however almost all of the students will takeEnglish I (.) and so (.) urn at that place (.) I would like to take care of
the class division'iinja nai desu ka: (.) Mori sensei wa sentaa
good NOM not
COP Q
Mori ATTM Centerdoo desu ka
da kara
COP because how COP Q' that should be okay (.) Professor Mori you are in the Center so what
do you think?'

After Ogawa offers the information in lines 1-4 that only the class advisors will attend
the guidance session and hand out report cards, Yamada, after a micropause, utters in li ne
6 tada and then immediately goes on to note that the students taking a class entitledEnglish 1 need to be divided into three sections. Short responses from Ogawa in lines 9
and 12 lead to further information which reveals that Yamada wants to use the guidancetime, when all of the students taking Enghsh 1 will be together, to accomplish this division. The division, as he alludes to in lines 14-15, is only a matter of having students
choose the class they want to take.
Like the first two excerpts, the talk following the marker of opposition informs
understanding of the marker of opposition, but there seems to be at least a couple of possible differences. First, Yamada does in a sense explain his reason for utteting tada but
more than just making an explanation, he introduces new information, namely, that thestudents in English need to be divided into three sections. This is itself is not necessarily surptising because in excerpt (2), we saw that Kida, as part of explaining his point,
brought in new information about his previous experiences. Yet, the second point about
this excerpt is that Yamada does not really use this new information to oppose a previous
point. Instead, Yamada appears to be accomplishing more of a request than an opposition. He expresses his desire in lines 16-18 to do the class division during the guidance
meeting. Indeed, we can see that Yamada's point is treated by Ogawa as a request as heSome Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style65

first gives his pennission in line 19 but then directs in lines 19-20 the question to Mori,a participant who is affiliated with the Educational Research Center, the part of the university that is responsible for creating and overseeing guidance sessions.
Excerpt (3) thus shows a tum prefaced by tada being used to accomplish the introduction of new information and a request, but si nce it is difficult to see anything oppositional about Yamada's talk, it also might raise questions about the characterization of tada
as a marker of opposition. Still, there is evidence in the data that participants themselves
treated tada as a marker of opposition. Excerpt (4), which is a continuation of excerpt(2), serves as an example.
Excerpt (4): Continuation of (2)mandai wa ne (.) sono (.) sore o yaru deshoo: de
2 1 Ogawa: tada
however problem TM FP
that
that 0 do COP
COP
22
zenki
de yatte kooki
de mo yaru- yaru ndafirst half COP do later half COP do
do NOM COP
kedo sore ga onaji ningen ga kuru to yuu koto ga
23
but that S same persor S come QT say matter S
24
hotondo nai
almost not have'however, the problem is (.) that (.) if we do it that way, we will be finein the first half and then when we try to also do it in the second half we
will not be getting the same students'
25(.)
onaji ningen [ga:?
26 Kida:same person S'same students'[sao sao sao sao
27 Tanaka:that that that that' that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right
28 Ogawa: undaka[rauh-huh thus
'uh-huh, thus'
29 Tanaka:[moojiyuu da kara (.) bonbon
already free COP because more30
bon[bon=more'because it's an open system, more and more will come'
31 Kida:[jiyuu da:?
free COP'i t's open?'

66

32

Tanaka:

33

Kida:

34

35
36

do-dare demo haitte kuru kara=unuh-huhwhoever enter come because'yes, anyone can just enter the seminar'
ee chotto matte sore wa juugyoo doo yuu fuu ni yaru
huh little wait that TM class how say way do
ka to jissai kankei nai nja nai no onaJl nmgen
Q with actually relation not NOM not Q same person}a nakutemo futakoma tsuzukete yareru giron
not even
two units continuous can do argument
ni naranai
not become' huh, wait a second, that does not matter in terms of how we teach ourclasses, even if it is not the same students, we can have two units backto-back, that's not an argument'

Following Kida's usage in excerpt (2) of the oppositional marker tada to begin explaining why the new semester system would not be confusing, Ogawa in line 2 1 employs tada
to introduce some information that he believes will be problematic. He states in lines 2 124 that the students entering the seminar in the second semester may be different fromthose who took the class the first semester. After a rnicropause in line 25, it becomes
clear that Kida, as he repeats the phrase onaji ningen ga ('the same students') with a question intonation, has failed to understand the import of such a remark. Ogawa in line 28
begins to attempt a repair, but it is Tanaka in lines 29-30 who hies to explain further by
noting that students will be free to take whatever seminar they want. However, Kida once
again displays a lack of understanding by using a question intonation to repeat the phrase
jiyuu da ('it's open') that was used by Tanaka. Tanaka hies to clmify the point in line 32
by asserting that anyone can enroll in the seminar, but this prompts Kida in lines 33-36
to claim the irrelevancy of such a point and then, using a bit of a playful tone, to admonish Ogawa and Tanaka for not keeping to the argument. In other words, Kida appears tohave been expecting Ogawa and subsequently Tanaka to provide an opposition to thepoint Kida himself had just made. When Kida is unable, after several tries, to see theconnection between his previous point and the proposed opposition, he employs thephrase giron ni naranai (' that is not an argument') in lines 35-36 to complain that Ogawa
and Tanaka are doing something outside of the realm of arguing. Largely responsible for
Kida's expectation is the usage by Ogawa of the marker of opposition tada to preface histum in line 21. This helps lead Kida to try to understand the subsequent talk from Ogawa(and Tanaka) as an opposition.
This excerpt, then, suggests an orientation on the part of participants to the mutually informing relationship between markers of opposition and subsequent talk. Prefacing
a turn with a marker of opposition can result in an expectation that the subsequent talkwill provide listeners with the means for understanding the point of opposition. When

Some Lingui stic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style

67

Kida could not see the connection between the tada uttered by Ogawa and the rest of theturn, be claimed that Ogawa and Tanaka were not 'playing by the rules'.
And, although Kida's reaction in this excerpt suggests that tada has an oppositional
quality to it, this does not necessarily mean that participants will always use markers of
opposition in the same way in interaction. In fact, the excerpts presented in the analysis
indicate that markers of opposition can preface turns that do a variety of actions, including explain points, introduce new information, and make requests. In particular, based on
Yamada's move in excerpt (3), we might want to recognize that at times the most immediate outcome of the use of tada is not an opposition or argument but instead a content
shift in the discussion. Hence, one way of summarizing the interactional import of amarker of opposition such as tada would be to refer to it as a versatile linguistic resourcethat allows participants to accomplish multiple actions in interaction, some of which may
contribute to the building of arguments. The same can be said for aizuchi. They serve
as versatile resources which may be serve multiple roles in Japanese interaction, including the giving of support, the expressing of agreement, and the determining of recipientship. In some contexts, such as the faculty meetings in this study, they may also function as resources that create an interactional organization such that the participants canengage in arguments.

4.

lDiscussion: arguing style as cultural style

With the frequent employment of aizuchi and markers of opposition, a style of arguing often emerges in the faculty meetings that appears to differ from the image of an argument in western communication. Rather than exchange blunt statements of opposition,
the Japanese participants tend to develop and exchange rather lengthy points of opposition that are full of explanations, the introduction of new information, and content shifts.
Sometimes even, as in excerpts (3) and (4), participants may use markers of opposition
but yet seemingly develop thei r turns in ways that appear to be only marginally oppositional. To some observers, especially those with a perception of western communication
as being marked by direct statements of purpose (including opposition), the style of arguing used in the Japanese faculty meetings might seem indirect and even sometimes illogical. They might, in short, be used as evidence supporting the notions that there exists inJapan an aversion to argument or that the Japanese way of thinking (logic) is different
from that of the west. By way of conclusion, I would like to suggest, however, that we
not jump too quickly to conclusions. First of all, although there exists microanalyses ofarguing in western societies (Greatbach and Dingwall 1997; Gruber 1998; Hutchby 1996,
2001), it is perhaps too early to state with any confidence that the style of arguing in theJapanese faculty meetings are 'different' . Until we have more research in institutionalsettings like universities (and other settings), it is difficult to know just what types of linguistic resources are employed and what kinds of interactional organizations are createdin other languages. Likewise more research is needed on arguments in other Japanese68

contexts. Takagi (1999), for one, has described an argument in Japanese in which the participants seemed to employ more 'direct' oppositions.
At the same time, though, while being careful about drawing generali zations tooquickly, we can still refer to the methods desclibed in the analysis as a 'cultural' style ofarguing. What makes it Japanese, though, may not automatically be the cultural ideals or
thought-patterns (whether or not there are restrictions on arguing or a different logic)
underlying or mediating the interaction, but rather the mobilization by the participants of
the interactional resources available to them. The participants in the transcription excerpts
provided above were all first language speakers of Japanese who produced this style ofarguing one turn at a time by using their inferences concerning the linguistic items mostapproptiate for that particular situation. By choosing markers of opposition, whether they
be for expressing opposition, making explanations, or accomplishing requests, andaizuchi, whether they be used for support, agreement, and/or determining recipientship,
the participants were creating (and constantly recreating) a particular 'cultural' style.
Markers of opposition and aizuchi themselves, thus, should be seen as versatile cultural
resources because of their usage in ct:eating this style. This does not mean, necessatily,
that this would be a unique style of arguing-more research would be necessary acrosslanguages-but we can still say that the participants in the faculty meetings organized
their arguments in a very Japanese (cultural) way.

Appendix 1. Transcription conventions

(0.0)

(.)
underline?
(difficulty)(*)

the point where overlapping talk begins
the point where overlapping talk ends
length of silence measured in tenths of a second
micro pause
indicates some form of emphasis, which may be signaled by changes
in pitch and/or amplitudelengthening of previous syllable
cut-off of the preceding sound"latched" utterances-indicating no usual interval between end of a prior unit and the
beginning of a next utterance
rising intonation
unsure heatings
unintelligible stretches of talk-each * represents .5 of a second

Appendix 2. Abbreviations appearing in the interlinear gloss
COP:
FP:
LK:
NOM:
0:

various forms of copula verb be
final particle
linking nominal- occurs between two nouns
norninalizer
object marker

Some Linguistic Resources for Arguing, Japanese Style

S:
TM:
Q:
QT:
SF:
LOC:

69

subject marker
topic marker
question marker
quotative marker
speech filler
Locative

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