Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies
Vol. 7, March 2015, pp. 137-151 (ONLINE)
Doctoral Program in International and Advanced Japanese Studies
Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Tsukuba
http://japan.tsukuba.ac.jp/research/

ArticleGaikokujin ja Arimasen (I’m Not a Foreigner):
An Analysis of the Interactive Construction and Contestation of Being a Foreigner in Japan

Cade BUSHNELL
University of Tsukuba, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Associate professor
Participants of talk-in-interaction may make various categories and collections of categories relevant to their talk
(Hester & Eglin, 1997; Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, 1992, 2007). From an ethnomethodological perspective, such categories
are understood not as static possessions, but rather as being assembled by the participants on a moment to moment basis
as they co-construct their interaction (Hester & Eglin, 1997; Nishizaka, 1995, 1999; Psathas, 1999; Watson, 1997).
Additionally, the participants’ co-construction of, alignment to, or contestation of categories may reflexively affect thesequential organization of their talk (Watson, 1997).
In the present research, I examine a service encounter between a Caucasian Japanese national, his two friends, and the
racially Japanese staff of a public bath house in Japan. In the analysis, I use conversation analysis and membershipcategorization analysis to examine the specific ways in which the participants co-construct the categories of Japaneseand foreigner, how they constitute the category Japanese as being bound to differential sets of attributes, rights, legal
statuses, and so forth, and how they treat these mutually different categorical constitutions as being problematic for
assembling the real-world activity of using the bath house facilities. I also consider how the sequential and categorialaspects of the talk jointly work to make the interaction visible as being a dispute as the participants align to or contest
categories in their interaction.
Keywords: Conversation Analysis, Membership Categorization Analysis, Dispute Talk, Discrimination, Nationality

Introduction
One pervasive feature of social interaction is the work of assembling people and things into certain categories,
which may be treated as being bound to or associated with certain rights, stances, characteristics, attributes, and soforth (Sacks, 1972a, 1972b). In this paper, I consider the participants’ interactional construction (and contestation) of
two categories in particular: nihonjin ‘Japanese’ and gai(koku)jin ‘foreigner’. In lay-terms, these two categories are
dichotomous, one being defined in opposition to the other. Such categories are commonsensical; people use them on adaily basis in a matter-of-fact manner. Similarly, in much of the research conducted in the humanities and the social
sciences, such categories are often treated as given, being seen as parameters for defining and controlling groups ofresearch participants rather than as topics in need of empirical investigation (Nishizaka, 1995).
In regard to Japanese nationality and what it means to be Japanese, however, Sakai (2005: 4) maintains that thenotion of Japanese nationality is based on “the myth of a single ethnic society living within the discrete boundaries of
the Japanese archipelago.” He also problematizes the notion of Japanese ethnicity, arguing that if we define cultures
not as things somehow intrinsically connected to nations or peoples, but rather as “modes of behavior or regimes ofpractices” (2005: 5), we see that any given society will contain multiple cultures. Thus, as Sakai argues, while it istrue that groups of people associating with a nation-sate may indeed exhibit broadly shared modes of behavior (i.e.

Cade Bushnell, Gaikokujin ja Arimasen (I’m Not a Foreigner)

cultures), it is not possible to maintain that there is a unity between all of the various cultures that might exist within
the nation-state. As Nishizaka (1995: 306) puts it: “[D]epending on what criteria are to be used, the Sri Lankans andthe Japanese may not be any more culturally different than Bostonians and New Yorkers.”
In the present research, I apply the analytical tools of sequential conversation and membership categorization
analysis to examine a service encounter between a racially-non-Japanese Japanese citizen, his two racially Japanese
friends, and the racially Japanese staff members of a public bath house in Japan. By performing a fine-grained and indepth analysis of the data, I will show how the participants construct, align to and contest categories on a moment tomoment basis as they co-produce their talk, and how they treat the differential ways in which these categories areinteractionally constituted as being problematic for the real-world activity of using the bath house facilities.
1. Conceptualizing Identity in Talk
(1) Identity as a Stable Entity
Lebra (1976) argues that “belongingness” is a central part of Japanese cultural identity. She links thisbelongingness to the notion of ba ‘frame’, put forth by Nakane (1970). According to Lebra, frame invokes the idea ofgroup membership and stands in opposition to “attribute.”1 Lebra (1976) maintains that Japanese people are culturally
ingrained to conceive of identity not in terms of the individual but of the group. This ideology of group orientation has
been reified in much of the anthropological, sociological and sociolinguistic research done on Japan, the Japanese and
the Japanese language up to the nineteen-nineties (e.g., Doi, 1971; Ide, 1982, 1992; Kindaichi, 1957; Lebra, 1976,
1992; Nakane, 1970; Reischauer, 1970), and remains a common folk belief among both the Japanese and Japanophiles
alike.
The ideology of group is seen as being intimately related with the notions of uchi/soto ‘inside/outside’ (see Lebra,1976). Notions such as uchi/soto have been used as variables or parameters to study identity and its putative effects onhuman linguistic behavior (e.g. Ide, 1982, 1992; Matsumoto, 1988). However, such studies are premised upon the
supposition that uchi/soto, taken as categories by which social experience might be organized, exist and aremeaningful a priori to specific interactional moments, and that the propositional meanings of such categories arestable, clearly delineated and shared between participants (Suzuki, 2009). Additionally, many previous studies havepresumed such categories to be interactionally omnirelevant to participants. Nishizaka (1995), however, contends that
we must conceive of categories not as being given, but as occasioned interactional productions necessitating inquiry intheir own right.
(2) Discursive Approaches to Identity
Within the tradition of ethnomethodological inquiry, identity is seen as being managed by the parties to theinteraction in terms of various categories (see Bushnell, 2011 for a concise overview). There has been an enduring
interest in the ways in which sequential and categorial aspects of talk-in-interaction interact with and inform eachother (e.g. Bushnell, 2014; Eglin & Hester, 2003; Hester & Eglin, 1997; Housely & Fitzgerald, 2002, 2009; Stokoe,
2012; Watson, 1997). Discursive approaches to categorization have shown that categories are not relevant by default,
nor are the meanings of categories static or inherent, but rather they are emergent and co-constructed on a moment tomoment basis by the participants of the talk-in-interaction. It thus becomes necessary for the researcher to examine
not only the ways in which the categories are used, but how they are responded to in the subsequent interaction.
During the course of an interaction, participants make categories relevant, or irrelevant (i.e. by making anothercategory relevant in its place; see, e.g., Nishizaka, 1995, 1999); they use categories to display, align to or contest
interactionally constructed positionings (Day, 1998; Hansen, 2004), and co-construct category relevancy not only bymaking it overt in the talk (see Schegloff, 1997), but also by engaging in certain describable practices or actions
1 Lebra (1976) maintains that Japanese people will identify themselves in the context of a frame, such as work place, family, and so forth,rather than by mentioning individual attributes, such as professor, manager, etc.

Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies University of Tsukuba

Volume 7 ONLINE / March 2015

(Egbert, 2004). Examining the interactions of a racially Japanese interviewer and several non-Japanese students inJapan, Nishizaka (1995, 1999) notes that the relevance of the categories of foreigner and Japanese was neither
omnirelevant nor static, but accomplished by the participants on a moment to moment basis over the course of theunfolding of their interaction. In particular, Nishizaka (1995) shows how, for the participants in one example, it was
the categories of expert and layperson, rather than foreigner/Japanese that were made relevant for the initial stages of
the interaction. However, the Japanese interviewer eventually contests this categorization framework by making
relevant the category Japanese. Nishizaka shows that the interviewer accomplishes this not by overtly mentioning his
affiliation with Japanese, but rather by engaging in an activity expectedly and properly done by members of thatcategory, that is, claiming an authority on matters pertaining to the Japanese language. Nishizaka also shows how, by
making Japanese relevant, the interviewer makes foreigner relevant by association. In a similar vein, Moerman (1988)
shows, in an analysis of Thai talk-in-interaction, that as a participant constructs herself as being a “real Thai,” whoeats non-glutinous rice, she also invokes an opposing category, that is, “non-real Thai,” for glutinous rice-eaters. Thus,
the use of one category may also imply a related and often opposing category. Sacks (1992) suggests that one
important characteristic of categorization is that when one makes reference to a category of a given collection of
categories, one also makes the other categories of that collection implicitly relevant to the subsequent interaction. For
example, by making a category such as mother relevant, other categories seeable as being in a collection with thiscategory, for example child, father and so forth, also become of potential relevance for the participants (see Sacks,
1972a, 1972b).
Some collections may have restrictions such that they can contain only a certain number of a given members (i.e.,
in non-polygamous/polyandrous societies, only one husband/wife at a time is permissible in the collection family).
Furthermore, a category may be exclusive of another category (i.e. the category dead presidents cannot co-contain any
member of the category living presidents). In this vein, Nishizaka (1995) states that the categories Japanese andforeigner are mutually exclusive in that one person cannot simultaneously be both a Japanese and a foreigner. In a
more contextualized view of category analysis (see Hester & Eglin, 1997), however, categorization devices andcollections are not seen as being natural (i.e. in existence a priori) but rather as being occasioned. As Hester and Eglin(1997: 18; original emphasis) argue, “it has to be decided in each and every case what the category means and thiswill involve a figuring out of what collection the category belongs to for this occasion.” A contextualized view ofcategorization requires us to carefully examine how the individual participants display their understandings of what a
category, and membership in it, means to them on that particular interactional moment. Participants generate andmanage categories in their talk by applying the resources of turn and sequence (Psathas, 1999; Sacks, 1992; Watson,1997), as well as various formulations and labels (Bushnell, 2014). Furthermore, the deployment and subsequent
management of categories in talk is reflexively intertwined with its the sequential structure (Bushnell, forthcoming a;
Watson, 1978, 1997).
2. Research Questions
1.
What membership categories do the participants make relevant in their interaction?
2.
How do participants co-construct, align to, or contest the membership categories?
3.
How do the categorial aspects and the sequential aspects serve to jointly define the interactional pattern as a
specific unfolding activity?
3. Methodology and Data
(1) Methodology
I use the analytical tools of conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorization analysis (MCA) toperform a fine-grained analysis of the data. Watson (1997) argues for a synthesis of CA and MCA. He contends that,

Cade Bushnell, Gaikokujin ja Arimasen (I’m Not a Foreigner)

though the tendency has been to foreground one analytical concern (e.g. sequence) while disattending to the other (e.g.
category), such a dualism is “unhelpful in many respects (1997: 53).” Simply disattending, Watson maintains, to thecategorial aspects of the talk does not mean that such aspects become inert in the participants’ actions. Furthermore,according to Watson, a purely sequential analysis must necessarily and unrelievedly rely upon membershipcategorization as a tacit and unexplicated analytical resource in making sense out of the data (1997: 52-53; see also
Moerman, 1988).
According to Watson (1997), a combination of the analytical tools of CA and MCA can be usefully applied in
describing the participants’ “documentary method of interpretation” (see Garfinkel, 1967). Garfinkel explains that the
documentary method of interpretation of social members is a situated process of sense making which involves treating
actual appearances (i.e., some observable features) as the document of (or as an indicator of, or standing in behalf of)an underlying pattern (1967: 78). These documents reflexively serve to both constitute the underlying pattern, and arethemselves interpreted in reference to the underlying pattern. Drawing on Grafinkel (1967), Watson argues that thesequential aspects of talk-in-interaction should be seen as being in a reflexive relationship with membership categorialaspects of the talk, and that these two aspects jointly function to point to an “imputed underlying [interactional]
pattern” (1997: 56) which then, in turn, potentially inform the sequential and categorial aspects of the talk. Watsonargues that approaching the data from this viewpoint will help the analyst to avoid unwarranted extrapolation because
it disallows the decontextualization of any of the features of the talk-in-interaction.
In the present study, I consider both the sequential and categorial aspects of the data. I also examine how thesefeatures jointly indicate the underlying pattern of the interaction, and, conversely, how that pattern reflexively informs
the sequential and categorial aspects of the talk. While this may seem to beg the question, it is important to note that it
is a fundamental concern of ethnomethodological inquiry to develop accounts of the actions of the participants and themundane logic informing the production of these actions, regardless of whether or not such logic may appear to be
circular. Indeed, in the real world, apparently circular logic often informs the assembly of even courses of action as
grave as convicting a person of a serious crime (see, e.g., Onuki & Matsuki, 2003).
(2) Data
The data of the present study are a sign that was posted in front of a public bath house in Japan, forbidding
foreigners to enter the facility, and an audio recording of a service encounter that takes place between a Caucasiannational of Japan (i.e., a naturalized citizen), Debito,2 his two racially Japanese friends, Abe and Baba, and the raciallyJapanese staff of the bath house (see Arudou, 2006, 2007). The eleven minute eighteen second audio recording was
made by Debito himself on October 31, 2000, and subsequently posted to an internet forum by him, along with atranscript of the exchange. The ostensible purpose of the recording was to gather evidence of discriminatory practices
by the bath house. For the purposes of the present study, the audio data were entirely retranscribed from the originalaudio according to CA standards (see Jefferson, 2004), though information about the physical environment of theinteraction, and the actions of the participants was obtained through reference to the transcript made by Debito himself(see footnote 5), which features a number of comments about these things.
4. Analysis(1) The Sign
A major concern of the present study is the ways in which the participants construct and contest certain
membership categories. Though not part of the interactional data per se, I will first examine the categories invoked bya sign posted in front of the establishment (presumably by the management), and the ways in which this sign
potentially functions to account for certain courses of action by the participants.

2 ARUDOU, Debito’s actual name used by permission. All other names are pseudonyms.

Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies University of Tsukuba

Volume 7 ONLINE / March 2015

Figure 1. The sign.3

First line (i. Romanized Japanese, ii. literal translation, iii. English gloss)
i.
ii.
iii.

gaikokujin no kata no nyuujoo o okotowari itashimasu
foreign people M entry O
refuse“We refuse the entry of foreigners”

Second line (English)i.

Japanese Only

Third line (i. Romanized Russian, ii. literal translation, iii. English gloss)i.
prosim instrannykh srazhdan ne vkhodit’ v pomeshchenieii.
we ask foreign national not to enter DA premisesiii. “We ask foreign nationals not to enter the premises”

The first element of the sign is written in Japanese. Five noteworthy features of this portion of the sign are that 1)
it is written in Japanese, 2) it is written in formal, honorific language, 3) it features a number of Kanji characters, 4) it
includes no furigana (‘phonetic guide’) for the readings of the Kanji characters, and 5) it mentions only foreigners inconnection with who may or may not enter the premises. These five features work to make this particular message
most readily consumable by a Japanese audience, and to make the sign readable not only as a prohibition to certain
people to use the bath house, but as an explanation to the Japanese clientele regarding the bath house’s policy
concerning members of the category foreigner.
Contrastingly, the medial portion of the sign is 1) written in English, 2) it features a fragmental syntactic structure(interestingly analogous to that of warnings and edicts such as no smoking, members only, and so forth), and 3)
mentions only Japanese in regard to possible users of the facilities. These three features contextualize this part of thesign as being an edict to be consumed by an English speaking audience.4 Through deployment of the categorical label
Japanese, together with the extreme case formulation (see, e.g., Edwards, 2000; Pomerantz, 1986) “only,” it delimits
use of the facilities exclusively to members of Japanese. The final element of the sign is 1) written in Russian, and 2)
formulated as a statement of the bath house management’s request to foreign nationals. In this way, this portion of thesign seems to have been designed as a message specifically to Russian-speaking members of the category foreign
national, prohibiting members of this category from entering the bath house. Thus, in contrast with the Japanese
portion of the sign, this portion not only selects its audience via the linguistic features of its formulation, it also directs
its perlocutionary force as a prohibition to that audience. In this way, the message content of the sign is organized in
3 Photo by Olaf Karthaus and ARUDOU, Debito. Courtesy of Debito.org at http://www.debito.org/photosubstantiation.html
4 Although one of the anonymous reviewers suggested that the fragmental syntax is not necessarily indicative of an edict (citing, e.g.,

formulations such as “under construction”), I feel that when taken together with the other features mentioned, the sign is contextualized as
being a prohibitory message aimed at English speakers.

Cade Bushnell, Gaikokujin ja Arimasen (I’m Not a Foreigner)and through the deployment of the categories Japanese and foreigner (i.e., the Japanese gaikokujin or the Russian
instrannykh srazhdan)—associating these categories with certain eligibilities and courses of action in regard to thebath house facilities.
Finally, though the sign makes clear that 1) people reading in Japanese and Russian are to understand that
foreigners will be refused entrance, and that 2) people reading the sign in English are to understand that the eligible
clientele of the bath house are exclusively members of the category Japanese, the sign does not make clear who is tobe understood on any specific interactional occasion as being a member of the categories foreigner or Japanese. In theanalysis of talk-in-interaction presented below, I consider the ways in which the participants display theirunderstandings of category meanings, and work to align with or contend membership in categories made relevant onthat particular occasion.
(2) Gai(koku)jin ‘foreigner’ or Nihonjin ‘Japanese’?
In this section, I examine the talk-in-interaction produced by Debito (D), his two racially Japanese friends (Abeand Baba), and the racially Japanese front attendant at a public bath house in Northern Japan.5 Excerpt 1 is derived
from the interaction between Debito and the front attendant of the bath house. It is situated just after Debito and thetwo friends accompanying him had entered the main lobby of the bath house.
Excerpt 1: Gaikokujin ja arimasen 6
1

D:

konban wa:

2

Attd:

irasshaimase.

3D:

nto ne (.) otona no riyooken wa koko desu ne.

4

Attd:

sumimasen ga gaikoku no kata no goriyoo wa okotowari

evening T
welcome
um

5

P

adult

sorry

but

M

foreign

pass

M

T

here

people M

C

use

P

T

refuseshiteru n desu yo.
doing

N

C

P

6

D:

gai:kokujin ja arimasen, nihonjin desu.

7

Attd:

(xxx) nihonjin (.) desu ka?

8

A:

kika

9

B:

soo. nihonjin.

10

Attd:

kika

11

D:

=[soo desu. nihonjin desu.

12

A:=[U:::nforeigner

notJapaneseC

C

Q

shitemasu.

naturalization
thatJapanese

doing

Japanese

desu ka?=naturalization C
that

C

Q

Japanese

C

English Translation
1

D:

Good evening.

5 The data are from a conversation tape recorded by ARUDOU, Debito on October 31, 2000. Courtesy of Debito.org at

http://www.debito.org/yunohanatranscript103100.htm
6 In regard to the transcripts, the first line appears in Romanized Japanese followed by a literal translation with grammatical elements inall capital letters. An italicized gloss in natural English is supplied immediately following each transcription. See the appendix for a list oftranscription conventions.

Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies University of Tsukuba

2
3
4/5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Attd:
D:
Attd:
D:
Attd:
A:
B:
Attd:
D:
A:

Volume 7 ONLINE / March 2015

Welcome.
Um, this is where the adult passes are, right?
Sorry, but we are refusing use of the facilities to foreigners.
I am not a foreigner. I am Japanese.
You are Japanese?
He is naturalized.
Right, Japanese.
naturalization?
Right. I am Japanese.
Yeaaah.

In the following analysis, I show that 1) membership categorization is achieved by the participants of talk-ininteraction on a moment to moment basis, and 2) participants do not always share an understanding of how certain
categories might be constituted. Categories and collections of categories do not have an a priori status, but rather arenegotiated and assembled by participants on each occasion as they engage in the interaction (Hester & Eglin, 1997).
After entering the establishment and receiving a formulaic greeting, irrasyaimase ‘welcome’, Debito approaches
an attendant with a question about obtaining a pass to use the facilities. The attendant issues an utterance that echoes
the language of the sign in front of the bath house (see above): gaikoku no kata no goriyoo wa okotowari siterun desuyo ([we] are refusing foreigners’ use [of the facilities]) (lines 4 and 5). The appendage of n desu yo marks theutterance as more than just a neutral statement, but as an explanation or account of the attendant’s action of notproviding Debito with the information he requested concerning obtaining a pass to the facilities. In so doing, theattendant also simultaneously effectively denies Debito entrance to the bath house. In line 6, Debito contests
affiliation with the category foreigner by deploying the negative copula, ja arimasen, and then formulating himself as
being nihonjin ‘Japanese’.
Then, in line 7, the attendant initiates a repair sequence (Schegloff, Sacks & Jefferson, 1977). Abe and Babachime in with kika sitemasu ‘(he) has naturalized’ and soo nihonjin desu ‘right, Japanese’, respectively. These actions
show that Abe and Baba have oriented to the attendant’s prior turn as a display of a possible problem with
understanding in regard to Debito’s claim of being Japanese. The attendant again initiates repair in line 10, this time inrelation to Abe’s line 8 kika shitemasu ‘(he) has naturalized’, and Debito responds to this by again predicating himself
as being a Japanese, latching onto the attendant’s turn and specifically beginning his utterance with a confirming soo
desu ‘right’ (line 11). In line 12, Abe overlaps Debito’s utterance with an elongated and high-pitched un ‘yeah’, whichfunctions to offer further and emphatic confirmation. Notably, these actions by Debito, Abe and Baba seem to be
aimed at undermining the attendant’s attempt to prohibit Debito’s entrance into the facilities, contesting his (Debito’s)
membership in the category foreigner through re-assembling him into another category glossable as naturalized
Japanese. At this point, just after line 12, the attendant leaves and then returns approximately one and a half minutes
later with the manager of the bath house. It may be noted that the attendant’s actions of bringing the manager works todisplay an orientation to institutional authority as a resource for dealing with the unfolding trouble.7
Excerpt 2 occurs after the manager arrives. The excerpt begins with Debito again requesting admission to the bathhouse.
Excerpt 2: Wakarun desu kedo
12D:

hai oban deshita::
yeseveningC(2.2)

7 I am indebted to a comment from one of the anonymous reviewers on this point.

Cade Bushnell, Gaikokujin ja Arimasen (I’m Not a Foreigner)

3D:

hai. sore dewa, chotto yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
yes

4

then

littlegood

please

(1.2)

5

Man:

e::: >ya< nto taihen mooshiwake [nai n desu kedo ne:=

6

A:

7

D:

e::: >ya< nto taihen mooshiwake [E?
e::: >ya< nto taihen mooshiwake huh
=hai.

8

Man:

=mooshi[wake nai desu.(kika sareteru no wa wakaru n) desu ke[domo:

9
10

A:
D:

11

Man:

=mooshi[^HHHHH=mooshi[wake nai desu.(kika sareteru no wa wakaru n) desu ke[hai.
=mooshi[wake nai desu.(kika sareteru no wa wakaru n) desu ke yes
nto uchi toshite wa:: gaikokujin o itioo okotowari shiteru

uh

no

um

terrible

sorry

N

C

but

P

yes

12

sorry

um

we

naturalizedasT

foreignerN

T understand N

O presently

refusal

C

but

doing

to iu katachi ni naru n desu yo::=
QT

say

shape

become

N

C

P

13

D:

=>watashi wa gaikokujin ja arimasen. =[nihonjin de-<

14

Man:

=>watasi wa gaikokujin ja arimasen. = [kika sareteru to iu no wa=>watasi wa gaikokujin ja arimasen. = naturalized
QT say N T
wakaru n desu kedo[::

I

15
16

understand N

D:

wakaruwakaru
(1)

17
18

T

Man:

19

foreigner

C

not

JapaneseC

butn desu kedo[hai.
n desu kedo yes

de: ma. hoka no: ma gaikokujin no koto mo aru node (.)
and well

other

M

well

foreigner

Mthing also existsominasan ni okotowari shiteru n desu yo.=everyonetorefusing

N

C

P

20

D:

=>(soo dakara) boku wa gaikokujin ja arima[sen. nihonjin desu.

21

Man:

=> (soo dakara boku wa gaikokujin ja arima[n : : : : : : :22

D:>nihon no kokuseki [o motteiru n desu. sore de=

23

Man:

>nihon no kokuseki [sore>nihon no kokuseki that24

D:

gaikokuj- gaikokujin ja arimasen yo ne?]<foreign

foreigner

not

25

Man:

d e s uk e d on e : :

that

Japan

C

so

M

I

T

citizenship O

butforeigner

have

wa
T

P

N

not

C

wakaruunderstandPnJapanese

so

N

P

]

English Translation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11/12
13
14/15
16
17

D:
D:
Man:
A:
D:
Man:
A:
D:
Man:
D:
Man:
D:

Yes, good evening.
(2.2)
Yes. Well then, I look forward to your services.
(1.2)
Uh, no, um I am terribly sorry but, you know.
Huh?
Yes.
I am terribly sorry. I understand that you have naturalized, but.
Ughhh
Yes.
Uh, the state of things is that we are presently refusing foreigners.
I’m not a foreigner. I am a JapI understand that you have naturalized, but.
Yes.
(1)

C

Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies University of Tsukuba

18/19
20
21
22/24
23/25

Man:
D:
Man:
D:
Man:

Volume 7 ONLINE / March 2015

And, well, there’s the issue of other foreigners, so we are refusing everyone.
I’m not a foreigner. I’m Japanese.
Yeaaaaah.
I have Japanese citizenship, so I’m not a forei- foreigner, right?
I understand that, but, you know.

In the following analysis, I show how differences in the ways the participants assemble occasioned collections of
categories inform the sequential structure of their talk-in-interaction, and how the categorial aspects and sequential
aspects of the interaction jointly work to index the interactional pattern.
In lines 1 and 3, Debito first offers a greeting to the manager,8 after which he bids for entry to the bath house.
Each of these moves results in silence (lines 2 and 4). Notably, Debito’s line 3 constitutes the first pair-part of an
adjacency pair which might be glossed as bid for admittance→acceptance/refusal. However, it is only after a 1.2
second gap that the manager undertakes his line 5 utterance, which through the reluctance markers (see Bilmes, 1988)“e::: >ya< nto” and an apologetic formulation (i.e., “taihen mooshiwake nai n desu kedo”), which features an
upgraded level of politeness in comparison to excerpt 1, line 4 (i.e., “sumimasen ga”), projects a refusal. As this action
becomes clear, Abe interjects with a response that is hearable as displaying disbelief (line 6), and Debito receipts bylatching on with hai ‘yes’. In line 8, the manager again apologizes (possibly in response to Abe’s line 6, which he may
be treating as a repair initiation), and continues by stating that he is aware that Debito is a naturalized citizen. In line 9,
Abe overlaps the manager’s line 8 apology with a strong out breath, which is hearable as a display of disgust or
frustration. In line 10, Debito again receipts with hai, overlapping the end of the manager’s line 8.
In line 11, the manager delivers the projected refusal. This utterance is prefaced by “uchi toshite wa,” which casts
it as a formulation of policy from the standpoint of the bath house as an institution, and is framed as an account for
why Debito will not be admitted through the use of n desu yo. Thus, the manager’s talk in lines 8 and 11 firstrecognizes Debito as having naturalized, and, following a deployment of the disjunctive conjunction kedomo, denies
him access to the facilities by stating institutional policy prohibiting the use of the bath house by foreigners. In thisway, the manager treats the category of foreigner as possibly being inclusive of naturalized Japanese citizens. Debito
contests this proposed categorization framework by latching onto the manager’s line 12 with a “first priority
response” (Bilmes, 1993; Bushnell, 2014), which negates Debito’s status as a gaikokujin ‘foreigner’, and formulates
him as being a nihonjin ‘Japanese’. In this way, Debito treats naturalized citizens as properly being assembled into thecategory Japanese.
In lines 14 and 15, the manager again claims a recognition that Debito has naturalized, and Debito receipts this inline 16 with hai. Then, following a 1 second silence, the manager provides a further account for disallowing Debito’s
use of the bath house (lines 18 and 19). In this account, the manager mentions “the issue of other foreigners,” and,through the use of node, formulates this as being the rational basis for refusing “everyone.” The following two points
may be noted. First, the manager deploys n desu yo,9 which strengthens the explanatory tone of this utterance. Herethe manager is speaking on behalf of the establishment. Second, he deploys hoka ‘other’, which functions to assemble
Debito into the category foreigner, along with “others.” Finally, the manager’s use of the exhaustive term minasan‘everyone’ functions to deny admittance to all members of the category foreigner with no exception. Debito
immediately latches onto the manager’s line 19 with a redo of his line 13, framed as such by soo dakara, which claims
a status as Japanese and not foreigner. The manager overlaps part of Debito’s utterance with an elongated n, whichprima facie seems to claim a recognition of Debito’s claimed status, but, through its stretched-out production spanningthe duration of the second unit of Debitos’s utterance, may in fact function as a sort of “bomb” pin-pointing Debito’s
8 Who does not self identify as such at this time. However, it becomes clear later in the interaction that he is indeed the manager of thebath house.
9 Yoshimi (1993: 276) suggests that yo can imply that “the license for this information is my context-relevant social role.”Cade Bushnell, Gaikokujin ja Arimasen (I’m Not a Foreigner)

claim to be Japanese (see Moerman, 1988). Then, in lines 22 and 24, Debito continues his utterance with the
production of further units, which formulate a claim of his possession of Japanese citizenship, and take this as thebasis for negating his status as a foreigner. Again, in lines 23 and 25, the manager overlaps Debito’s utterance with aclaim of understanding, which he (the manager) begins from the point the pragmatic trajectory of Debito’s utterance
becomes clear.
In this way, Debito seems to assemble the category Japanese into an occasioned collection glossable as legal
statuses. He does this by first self categorizing as a member of Japanese, while simultaneously excluding himself
from foreigner (lines 13 and 20), and second, by claiming possession of “Japanese citizenship”, which he formulates
as a basis for negating his status as a foreigner (line 22). On both of these occasions, however, the manager overlaps
Debito’s talk with opposition-relevant utterances (lines 14 and 15, 21, and 23 and 25). In this way, the manager
contests the categorization framework proposed by Debito, and submits an opposing categorization framework
wherein the category foreigner includes in its membership people with the legal status of being naturalized Japanesecitizens.
The analysis of Excerpt 2 has shown how differences in the ways in which the participants assembled occasioned
collections of categories reflexively informed the sequential structure of their talk-in-interaction. It has also shownhow the categorial aspects and sequential aspects of the interaction jointly work to index the interaction as being adispute. The participants were shown to have made the categories foreigner, Japanese, and naturalized citizen, as wellas institutional staff and patron, relevant at various points in their interaction. As they worked to organize courses ofaction related to eligibility to use the bath house facilities, in particular, they made the constitution of the categories
Japanese and foreigner an issue in their talk. This project-at-talk reflexively informed the sequential structure of theirinteraction such that the participants co-constructed a sequential pattern characterized by latching, overlap, repetition,and oppositional moves (Bilmes, 1995; Corsaro & Rizzo, 1990; Saft, 2000). These features, together with thecategorical work, jointly index this interaction as being a disagreement or misunderstanding.
Excerpt 3 provides a final example of how the participants constitute, orient to and contest membership categories
as they co-accomplish their interaction as a dispute. Here, Debito and his friends are preparing to leave the bath house.
They have just finished putting on their shoes when Abe asks the manager if Chinese people would be permitted into
the bath house. Excerpt 3 occurs at the end of the data, right before Debito, Abe and Baba have their money returnedto them and leave the bath house.
Excerpt 3: Gaiken nan da yo ne
1A:

ja chuugokujin wa ii n da yo ne. soo sitara=

2

D:=soo desu yo ne.=3

A:=kao no katachi mo nihonjin ni nite- niteru

4
5

that

C

face M

and

Man:

P

T

good NC

P

P

if.that.is.the.case

P

shape

also

Japanese

to

rese-

resembleafter.allappearance C N

C

P

P

si [>dakara< (.) sore ↑wa↓:
so

that

T

kochira mo shaberanai to wakaranai to iu katachi ni na[ru (n desu)
this

D:

8
9

Chineseshi [yappari gaiken na n da yo ne::

6
7

well

don’t.talk

if

don’t.know

QT

say

shape

becomeNC

kochira mo shaberanai to wakaranai to iu katachi ni na[a demo ima
kochira mo shaberanai to wakaranai to iu katachi ni na[ah but now
demo shoomee shimasita node (.) [sorezore nobut

Man:

also

proof

did

so

each

M

demo shoomee shimasita node (.) [sore wa wakarimasu kedo:
demo shoomee shimasita node (.) [that T understandbutJournal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies University of Tsukuba

Volume 7 ONLINE / March 2015((continues))

English Translation:
1
2
3/4
5/6
7/8
9

A:
D:
A:
Man:
D:
Man:

Well then, Chinese would be permitted, right? In that case.
That’s right, huh.
The shape of their faces resembles the Japanese, so it is outward appearances after all, right?
So, it’s that we wouldn’t know unless we talk with them.
Oh, but since I’ve proven it now, eachI understand that, but.

In line 1, Abe mentions Chinese people as being possibly eligible users of the bath house. Her soo shitara ‘ifthat’s the case’ seems to index the manager’s just prior statement (not shown) that he cannot let Debito enter becauseeven though Debito is legally a Japanese citizen, the fact that he is not racially Japanese is visually available to otherpatrons of the bath house. Debito immediately aligns with Abe by “piggybacking” (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1990) onto
her turn with soo desu (yo) ne ‘that’s right, huh’. In lines 3 and 4, Abe continues talk production by latching onto
Debito’s line 2 with an assessment of Chinese people as physically resembling Japanese people, and formulating an
upshot that it must be a matter of “outward appearances after all.” In this way, Abe invokes a category glossable as
Chinese people, and treats physical resemblance to the Japanese as one feature bound to this category. She then baseson this an assertion that the issue is one of “outward appearance” (gaiken). Abe’s talk thus reformulates the manager’s
prior talk as having treated the problem as being one of racial appearances rather than legal status (see Fukuda, 2014
regarding physical appearance as a category-bound predicate of Japanese).
In line 5, near the end of the initial unit of Abe’s lines 3 and 4 utterance, the manager undertakes the production of
talk. Notably, though the occurrence of shi ‘and’ at the end of a unit of talk may overtly signal transition relevance,such instances would typically be accompanied by the phonological characteristic of sound stretch, that is, shi:::. In
this way, the utterance is constructed as one “trailing off” (Wong & Waring, 2010). However, Abe’s production of shi
is brisk, which seems instead to project further talk. Notably, she continues production of the talk following shi to afull grammatical, pragmatic and intonational completion, even as it is overlapped by the manager’s talk. This indicatesthat the “overlap resolution device” (Schegloff, 2000) is not in operation here, and that the manager’s turn in line 5 isbeing treated by Abe as an interruption (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974; Schegloff, 2000).
The manager’s overlapping talk seems to be designed as a first-priority response (Bilmes, 1993), which should be
deployed as soon as possible in order to avoid an interpretation of acquiescence. The manager begins his line 5utterance with dakara ‘so’. One turn-initial use of dakara seems to be to indicate that an account for actions or statesof affairs problematized by one’s co-participant is forthcoming. Thus, the action projected by the manager’s line 5
seems to be that of justifying, rather than opposing or counter-arguing (in which case, he might have used iya ‘no’,demo ‘but’, etc.); this implicitly validates Abe’s lines 1, 3 and 4 reformulation of his position as being based on issuesof outward appearance, though it simultaneously treats Abe as having reached a faulty conclusion about the reason
behind the manager’s position-so-formulated. The manager continues on in line 6 to formulate this reason as being
that, although the institution may allow Chinese to use the facilities, it is only because the staff cannot differentiate
Chinese patrons from the Japanese based only on appearance; they would have to talk to every potential patron of thebath house in order to do so.
In line 7, Debito self selects, overlapping slightly at a transition relevance place in the manager’s line 6. His turnbegins with a, which can function in a manner similar to the English token oh, shown by Heritage (2002) to display adisagreement to a disagreement (Bushnell, forthcoming). He then follows this token with demo, which projects
opposing talk. In line 8, Debito produces talk which indexes his action several minutes earlier of producing hisCade Bushnell, Gaikokujin ja Arimasen (I’m Not a Foreigner)

Japanese driver’s license with his name written in Kanji characters on it10 (not shown). He then deploys node, whichtaken together with the micropause following it, may have been visible to the manager as indicating that Debito had
concluded his turn-at-talk. Just as the manager begins an utterance, however, Debito continues with talk, which now
becomes visible as an upshot to be based on the talk preceding node. This is overlapped by the manager’s line 9,
which effectively recycles the response he has already made a number of times throughout the interaction, claiming arecognition of Debito’s status as a naturalized citizen. After this, Debito produces a lengthy, multi-unit turn (omitted
for reasons of space). In this lengthy turn, Debito displays and understanding of the manager’s actions of disallowing
him (Debito) entrance to the bath house as being based upon issues of race. The turn itself contains five questions.
These questions go unanswered by the manager, which seems to suggest that he is either unable or unwilling to
produce (further) counter arguments (Bilmes, 1993, 1995). Debito then treats the managers declination of further
speech production as being closing-relevant (Sacks & Schegloff, 1973) and moves to make a final closing of theencounter.
The analysis of Excerpt 3 has shown that the participants have accomplished closing their interaction by using themundane sequential structures of talk-in-interaction (cf. Sacks & Schegloff, 1973). However, the ways in which they
co-construct, align to and/or contest membership categories has informed the sequential structure of their closing. Of
particular interest is the way in which the participants co-constructed a category glossable as eligible patrons of thebath house as containing only members who share certain physical traits which Debito does not possess. Thus,
although continually acknowledged throughout the interaction to have a legal status as a Japanese citizen, Debito is
excluded from eligible patrons, while Chinese people who may not have such a legal status are included on the basisof racial appearance. Then, the stance continually displayed by the manager of disallowing Debito’s use of the
facilities is treated by Debito as declining further substantial participation in the interaction, and thus as anopportunity for the participants to initiate and accomplish closing.
5. Conclusion
In the present research, I have analyzed the language of a sign prohibiting foreigners from using a bath house inJapan, and talk-in-interaction taken from a service encounter in which the policy indicated on the sign is contested
between a non-racially Japanese citizen of Japan and his two racially Japanese friends. In the analysis, I considered
the following research questions:
1.
What membership categories do the participants make relevant to this interaction?
2.
How do participants co-construct, align to, or contest the membership categories?
3.
How do the categorial aspects and the sequential aspects serve to jointly define the interactional pattern as a
specific unfolding activity?
A close analysis of the data using CA and MCA has revealed that the participants have accomplished makingcategories-relevant not only by producing speech overtly mentioning the categories (cf. Schegloff, 1992), but also by
performing and mentioning category-bound attributes, rights, and so forth. A point of particular interest has been theoccasioned manner in which participants have co-constructed, aligned to, or contested categories.
Matters of identity and belonging are likely to become increasingly important as Japan continues to push for
globalization, and more non-Japanese people take up permanent residence, or become naturalized citizens. The
participants in this interaction made the categories Japanese and foreigner relevant at various points in their talk-ininteraction. However, the fact that they constituted these categories in very different ways, by treating them as beingbound to the categories different attributes (i.e. legal status, racial appearance, etc.), informed the organization of thetalk so that the sequential and categorical aspects, taken together, worked jointly to index this particular encounter as a
10 As one part of the procedures for becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen, candidates with non-Kanji names must provide Kanjitransliterations of their names.

Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies University of Tsukuba

Volume 7 ONLINE / March 2015

dispute. For the participants, their use of categories-in-talk had grave ramifications on their real-world courses ofaction; in the end, the category work performed on this occasion resulted in providing the bath house management a
resource for disallowing Debito’s use of the facilities. However, the results of the present research should not be taken
to mean that non-racially Japanese may never be assembled into the category Japanese. This is an issue at talk for theparticipants of the interaction, and thus may turn out very differently under other circumstances.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. ARUDOU, Debito and Dr. Olaf Karthaus, who performed thefieldwork from which the data are taken. I also wish to thank the audience members who offered comments andcriticisms when I presented an ealier version of this paper at the 2014 annual conference of the Pragmatics Society ofJapan. My analyses also benefit from comments by various readers, including the anonymous referees for the Journalof International and Advanced Japanese Studies. Any errors or misinterpretations are, however, the sole responsibilityof the author.
Appendix: Transcription conventions^↑↓>word<<word>
[
=
(3.1)
(.)
(xxx)
((word))
:::
WORD
word
wo,
.
?

glottal stop
rising intonation
falling intonationdelivered at a quicker pace that the surrounding talkdelivered at a slower pace that the surrounding talkonset of overlapped speech“latching” (i.e. there is no pause between utterances)length of pause measured in seconds and tenths of seconds
unmeasured pause
unclear utterance
commentary by transcriptionist
lengthened sounddelivered in a louder voice than the surrounding talkdelivered with more emphasis than surrounding talkcut-off
continuing intonation(full stop) falling intonation
rising intonation

Interlinear Key
C: Copula
D: Dative particle (he, ni)
M: Noun modification particle (no, na, etc.)
N: Nominalizer
O: Object marker

P: Interactional particle (yo, ne, sa, na, etc.)
Q: Question marker
QT: Quotation marker
S: Subject marker
T: Topic marker

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