Title Inverted Utterances as Contextualization Cues : InteractionalSociolingustic Analysis

Author(s) 金城, 克哉

Citation 言語文化研究紀要 ： Scripsimus(9): 13-27

Issue Date 2000-10

URL http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12000/426

Rights

m S£ffcffl9BKg SCRIPSIMUS Na 9, 2000

Inverted Utterances as Contextualization Cues:

Interactional Sociolinguistic Analysis

Katsuya Kinjo

0. Introduction

In order to consider the problems raised in Kinjo (1993), namely,

why now, why the speaker uses an inverted utterance here, but not else

where; what motivates the speaker to use an inverted utterance, what

kind of context is necessary for the speaker to judge certain information

more important than other, etc., the framework of Interactional Socio-

linguistics is employed. This approach also presupposes speaker-hearer in

teraction, namely 'talk-in-interactionr (Schegloff 1988, 1991). Schiffrin

(1994: Ch.4) points out two main streams in this framework functioning

to complement each other: Gumperz's theory of verbal communication

and Goffman's sociology. Gumperz's chief concern is the crucial role of

the context which enables the hearer to understand the speaker's inten

tion correctly. Goffman, studying human interaction in general, regards

verbal communication (or talk) as "socially organized, not merely in

terms of who speaks to whom in what language, but as a little system

of mutually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face action, a social

encounter" (Goffman 1971: 65). The purpose of this paper is, thus, to

examine inversions from these two perspectives, especially Gumperz's no

tions of contextualization cues and contextual presupposition and

Goffman's notion of footing.

1. Contextualization cues and presupposition

Gumperz defines his goal as investigation of the "connections be

tween perception of surface linguistic signs and interpretation." (1982:

— 13 —

32) He is aware that, "any utterance can be understood in numerous

ways, and that people make decisions about how to interpret a given ut

terance based on their definition of what is happening at the time of in

teraction." (1982: 130) Therefore, some criteria with which to interpret

the speaker's intention are needed. Gumperz proposes two notions to in

vestigate this aspect of human interaction: contextualization cues and

contextual presupposition. Contextualization cues are the "constellations

of surface features of message form" (e.g. intonation pattern, code-

switching, word choice, etc.) by which speakers signal and listeners in

terpret "what the activity is, how semantic content is to be understood

and how each sentence relates to what precedes or follows", the contex

tual presuppositions (1982: 131, 1992).

In order to consider the data below, provision of some information

concerning the participants and the topic is in order. The conversation

preceding the following excerpt concerns the financial difficulty experi

enced by graduate students in the United States. A mentions that they

do not waste their money in every aspect of their lives, and B brings in

the case of another first-year graduate student, X, who is a 22 year old

white American male. The excerpt begins with A's reaction to B's state

ment that X owns a car and a bicycle:

(l) (a) A: demo kare wa ma: okanemochi da mon ne. dokutaa X.

(b) B: @ dokutaa X.

(c) A: soo ne,

(d) B: bonbon tte yuu ka/??/a: koitsu wa bonbon kana/???/a:

koitsu wa bonbon da na tte yuu..

(e) A: soo.. omoo kedo, demo nanka sodachi no ii tokoro ga ii na

to omotte.

(f) B: so so so. [aru aru aru. [am aru.

(&) A: [atashi soo yuu hito tte tsukiaiyasui kara [suki,

— 14 —

gatsugatsu shiteru yori mo.

(h) B: demo demo ano nichiyoo no misa ni konaika tte yuu..

[aredake wa =

(i) A: [a doo shita? [yameta? itta?

(j) B: [=yamete hoshikatta.. iya, iya,

iya ikanakatta yo.

(k) A: mmm.. a demo kekkoo kare wa chotto kinishiteta n ja nai?

ammari kyoosee shicha ikenai tte yuu no.

(1) demo warito., chikarazuyokatta?

W B: un. chikarazuyokatta.

English gloss:

(a) A: But he is rich, right? Dr. X [last name].

(b) B: Ha ha ha. Dr. X.

(c) A: Let's see,

(d) B: I wondered whether he is a hick/??/... and I was sure

that he is a hick.

(e) A: Yeah, I think so too, but I think his having manners is good.

(f) B: Right, right, right.

(S) A: I like that type of person rather than an ill-mannered

person because they are comfortable to be with.

(h) B: But, but I didn't want him to ask me to come to Sunday

mass.

(i) A: What happened? Didn't you go there or did you?

(j) B: No, no, no, I didn't.

(k) A: I see, but I think he was worrying about it, wasn't he?

About that putting too much pressure (on you) is not good.

(1) But ... was it forceful?

(m) B: Yeah, he was insisting.

It is claimed that inverted utterances have the same illocutionary

— 15 —

force as their proper word order counterparts (Kinjo 1993), and that in

versions are generally related to the conventional implicature that what

the speaker says first is more important than what follows. Now to ex

amine the inversion in (Ik) as a contextualization cue and which aspects

of inversions can be revealed within this framework by focusing on (i)

what kind of activity this is, (ii) how semantic content is to be under

stood, and (iii) how each sentence relates to what precedes or follows.

In the course of considering these points, answers to the questions posed

at the beginning of this paper should emerge.

First, it may be safe to assume that the statement (Ik) is A's at

tempt to elicit B's agreement with her opinion, n ja nai is a set phrase

which has various functions in Japanese. One is a hedge to indicate 'I'm

not sure' and it implies 'what do you think? Do you agree with me?'

with rising intonation. By means of this phrasal expression, she is try

ing to mitigate the force of the entire sentence (see R. Lakoff 1980).

She was not sure, at this moment, whether or not X really cared about

his insisting that B come to mass. It is notable that this assumption ap

pears to be in conflict with the idea that what the speaker says first is

the most important matter. If A thinks what she is trying to say is of

any importance, why does she try to mitigate the power of assertion?

One possible explanation is to consider that what she regards as im

portant, i.e. 'he was worrying about' goes against the other partici

pant's opinion. Thus eventually she assumes that she has to mitigate the

power of assertion in order to maintain their relationship. Conflicts,

even among friends, must be avoided! Thus, one needs to understand the

context, i.e. the previous utterance made by B in order to comprehend

what is going on here. B, as the interaction shows, regards X as a hick

(Id) and an unpleasant person (lh and i) who insists that B come to

mass. On the other hand, it is observed that A has a positive feeling

— 16 —

toward X (le and g). These two views toward the same person create

conflict. Upon hearing what B said in (lh and j), she ponders a bit

Cmmm' at the beginning of (lk)). Perhaps, she is thinking about how

to deal with the dilemma - maintain her opinion 'X is a good person' or

go against B's opinion 'X is not a good person'. What (lk) illustrates

is that she chooses to defend her opinion but gives a touch of hesitation

to it. She keeps her own stance by mentioning what she considers the

more important first, i.e. showing how X is considerate of other peo

ple's feelings, 'he does care about what he did to B.' By itself, this is

a risky statement, so she attaches n ja nai in order that B may think

X has a considerate aspect.

Second, regarding the semantic content of the utterance, inversion

indicates that as a native speaker of Japanese, the hearer is assumed to

understand what happens or why the speaker uses this word order change.

Even if the postverbal element were not expressed in (lk) (in that case

it should be analyzed as ellipsis (Kuno 1978a, b)), as a Japanese speaker

who shares the background knowledge of conversation strategies and

from the topic of the conversation, B is expected to comprehend what X

cared about. Moreover, the hearer is expected to understand her bewil

derment in maintaining her position, i.e. disagreement with him in the

face of desire to avoid the conflict.

Third, what A does is strongly tied to preceding statements (or con

text) by the other participant, in that she maintains her position by re

ferring to X's appreciable characteristic. It may be that, despite her

estimation, X does not turn out to be a considerate person. She is no

longer sure about that (i.e. n ja nai). Thus, it is normal to make sure

of this point by asking another question, demo...warito chikarazuyokatta?

'But ... was it forceful?' in (lk) shows that, although she attempted to

defend her position, it may be wrong; actually, B confirms that her

— 17 —

expectation was wrong (cf. (lm)). In this sense, the inverted utterance

is bi-directionally connected to preceding and following utterances.

Data set (2) has been discussed in Kinjo (1994) in terms of local or

ganization of talk. Reconsideration is appropriate from the view point

of the inversion in question as a contextualization cue:

(2) (a) A: tatoeba ima atashi ga nihon ni kaettara minna aa futotta na

to omoo kamo shirenai=

(b) B: a honto?

(c) A: =wakannai [kedo

(d) B: [so?

(e) A: a demo dakara..

(f) B: a: mainichi atteru kara kamo shirenai.

-*■ (8) A: @ nikiro gurai na n da kedo, taijuu de

two kilos, about cop. nom. cop. though weight part.

fueta no wa

increased nom. top.

(h) demo yappari kaeru to shokku daroo na.

English gloss:

(a) A: If I go back to Japan now, maybe everybody will think

that 1 gained some weight.

(b) B: Really?

(c) A: I'm not sure...

(d) B: Is that so?

(e) A: But, so ..

(f) B: [the reason I haven't noticed is] maybe because I see you

everyday.

(g) A: About two kilograms though, I gained.

(h) I would be shocked if I went back [to Japan].

It was noted in Kinjo (1994) that speaker B's responses, honto?

— 18 —

'Really?' (2b), so? 'Is that so?' (2d), and a: mainichi atteru kara kamo

shirenai 'I didn't notice that [ = your weight gain] because I see you eve

ryday' (2f) cause A to utter the inverted utterance (2e). B does not rec

ognize her weight gain at first, but after a bit of consideration, he

concludes that the reason he does not, is that he sees her everyday.

Although it is A who brings the topic of her weight gain into the con

versation, when B admits the fact of some weight gain (2f), she tries to

reduce the worry. She counts how much weight she gained 'one or two

kilograms'; this phrase is in the inverted utterance (2g). She now seems

to want to minimize it, just in case B may have thought that her weight

gain is more than that. In short, what is happening here is, A's preven

tive measure against B's overestimation of the amount of her weight

gain. This inverted utterance as a contextualization cue, therefore, indi

cates that B should recognize that she did not gain so much weight; one

or two kilograms are enough for her to worry about.

2. Footing and alignment

Within his general perspective of the social organization of involve

ment, Goffman regards verbal communication as "a little system of mu

tually ratified and ritually governed face-to-face action, a social encounter"

(1964) or in other words, conversation, as a part of everyday life is a

ritual (Collins 1988; Goffman 1987). Each participant in this social en

counter recognizes the current situation (i.e. 'What is it that is going on

here?') ... a joke, a dream, an accident, a mistake, a misunderstanding,

a deception, or a theatrical performance. This identification of a situa

tion is called framing (1974). As Schiffrin (1994) points out, Gumperz'

contextualization cues can be recaptured as a framing device. Particularly

when Goffman talks about footing, which concerns "the alignments we

take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the way we

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manage the production or reception of an utterance" (1981: 18), its

change implies "a change in our frame for events", or how the hearer is

to interpret the speaker's intent. In this sense, one can recapture the in

version at issue as the speakers change footing.

If there is no need to emphasize certain information, no inversion

occurs. There must be a strong motivation to break the rather strict

Japanese word order, SOV. Regarding the data (l), it can seen in

(Ik=inverted utterance) that the speaker wants the hearer to change the

framing, 'how to interpret what I want to say'. The previous discussion

assuming the inversion in (Ik) as a contextualization cue shows the

speaker attempting such a stance despite B's remark. A attempts to sig

nal that she cannot maintain a supportive action, which is generally re

quired of the addressee. However, if what we observe here is a change of

footing, it must be the case that the framing differs from the previous

and following inversion. Note here that her maintaining her stance has

been observed in previous interactions as well. Before discussion of the

inversion in (lk) in more detail, other exchanges and how they relate to

the utterance in question need to be examined.

B's remarks in (id), mentioning X as bonbon 'hick/naive person',

can be interpreted as evaluation towards X; B's judgment must be re

lated to his past life experience. A, on the other hand, interprets his

'hick' characteristic as a positive sign (i.e. 'well-mannered' in (le)). It

seems that in this respect B and A have different opinions of the same

person. However, as B's agreement with her shows, B's remark in (id)

is not necessarily taken as a negative sign to X. B also acknowledges

X's 'well-mannered' aspect and seems to evaluate it positively. Further,

receiving encouragement, A goes on to reveal her general attitude to

wards people: she likes those who are 'well-bred'. Here note that B's

next statement in (lh), 'But I didn't want him to ask me to come to

— 20 —

Sunday mass', belies her opinion; this remark is against what Goffman

calls 'supportive ritual' (1971: 65). It seems that B challenges A by

pointing out that even those who are 'well-mannered' may have xyz 'bad'

aspects. From another point of view, it may be argued that her 'posses

sion' is in danger. In everyday life, people tend to show their anger when

their possessions are derogated as if they themselves were criticized. This

tendency also appears when one's friends are ill-treated; the closer one

feels to a friend, the more likely negative remarks about her/him trigger

anger. In this sense, B's remark is a threat to her 'good' friend, with

whom A is congenial. In either case, whether this is a direct threat to

her opinion or an indirect threat to her 'possession,' it can threaten. Her

opinion/friend is at risk. Her belief is questioned and may not be appre

ciated. Because B brought a topic, 'what happened to him' (i.e. being

asked to come to the church) into the conversation, A shows an interest

in it (note the overlap in (lh) and (li)). However, the situation has not

yet changed, and her opinion remains in jeopardy. At this point the oc

currence of inversion, (Ik) is observable.1

In this context, the utterance with the inversion in (Ik) functions as

an indicator of footing change from a friendly chat to an argument, in

the sense that she is attempting to support her opinion by supplying evi

dence. Making an argument to protect herself at the same time threat

ens B, in that she does not give 'positive rites' (Goffman 1971). These

two extremes are integrated in one utterance. The use of inversion to

emphasize protection of herself is the imminent task, and the use of n

ja nai for hedging, functions to reduce the power of the assertion.

However, because she tries to build an argument assuming that X felt

guilty for exerting unnecessary pressure on B, she must assure this point

can or cannot be confirmed by the opponent ('Was it forceful?' in (11)),

and B counter-argues that this argument cannot be valid because her

-21-

assumption is not true (cf. (lm)).

It was observed that the inverted utterance in the data (2) can be

considered as a contextualization cue. The same interaction can be con

sidered in terms of misframing. For the reader's convenience, the data

are displayed below:

(2) (a) A: tatoeba ima atashi ga nihon ni kaettara minna aafutottana

to omoo kamo shirenai=

'If I go back to Japan now, maybe everybody will think

that I gained some weight.'

A appears to be afraid of what her friends would think if she went

back to Japan. It can be pointed out that usually when people bring

some serious topic into a conversation, the listener should respond to

the speaker's story with compassion. Or, at least, it is required as part

of conversational 'good manners.1 However, what is observed in B's next

utterance is that he does not understand this 'ritual' and the 'compassion-

seeking' frame, and proceeds to ask whether or not she really thinks so:

(2) (b) B: a honto? 'Really?'

(c) A: =wakannai [kedo 'I'm not sure ...'

(d) B: [so? 'Is that so?'

(e) A: a demo dakara.. 'But, so..'

A's hesitant reaction (2c and 2e) to B's question, a honto? 'Really?'

shows that she is perplexed because she cannot obtain what she expected

from B (e.g. caring words such as sonna koto naiyo 'That is not the

case'). Misunderstanding of the current frame is further enforced by his

following comment:

(2) (f) B: a: mainichi atteru kara kamo shirenai.

(g) A: @ nikiro gurai na n da kedo, taijuu de fueta no wa

(h) demo yappari kaeru to shokku daroo na.

— 22 —

English gloss

(f) B: [the reason I haven't noticed is] maybe because I see you

everyday.

(g) A: About two kilograms though, I gained.

(h) I would be shocked if I went back [to Japan]

Instead of considering why she brought that topic into their conver

sation, B seeks the reason that he had not noticed her weight gain. Two

participants in the same conversational interaction are framing the cur

rent interaction in two different ways: A's 'compassion-seeking' frame

and B's 'problem-solving' frame. Either of these should be 'corrected' or

the first framing confirmed somehow because these two frames cannot

co-exist. Recall that it is A who brings the topic of the current interac

tion, or in other words, A frames the situation first, and the listener B

has to understand the frame as such. However, before doing so, she has

to 'reprove' him for his misframing ~ 'Yes, I have gained weight.

Maybe you didn't notice that because it is just (?) two kilograms.

However, it is not the point that I want you to understand.' (2g) there

fore serves two functions. On the one hand, as seen in the previous sec

tions, A prevents B's over-estimation of the amount of weight. On the

other, it functions as an introduction to the following restatement of a

'compassion-seeking' frame, demo yappari kaeru to shokku daroo na 'I

would be shocked if I went back [to Japan]' (2h).

3. Summary

How an inversion can be regarded as a contextualization cue or as

a demonstration of the speaker's change of footing has been noted in

this paper. It was considered and clarified that the inversions are strongly

contextualized. An inverted utterance is motivated, for example in data

(l), by two factors: (i) maintenance of the speaker's own opinion, and

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(ii) maintenance of the relationship with the hearer. The question raised

in Kinjo (1993), 'Why now?' should be answered, in this case, with re

gard to this first motivation. The listener is expected to regard this in

verted utterance as a contextualization cue and construe the utterance as

such. Previous analyses such as those of Simon (1989) and Ono and

Suzuki (1992), although mentioning 'the speaker's urgent situation', im

plicitly assumed that such a notion 'explains all', and no detailed analy

sis is provided through the consideration of contextual information. If

such a notion is valid to explain inversions, at least why it is so, must

be revealed with the provision of appropriate contextual analysis. What

has been seen in this paper is based on Speech Act analysis (cf. Kinjo

1993). Upon recognizing the speaker's utterance as one speech act, the

speaker is able to recognize the utterance in question as a contextu

alization cue. Although this subject matter was manageable by means of

the sociolinguistic approach, it should be noted that not all cases of in

versions are analyzable in this way. At the very least it can be said that

inversion must be considered as part of a discourse in order to have a

contextualizing function.

Notes

1 As may have already been noticed, this discussion is also modified

by the notion of face discussed in Brown and Levinson (1987). In their

terms, B's statement is construed as a Face Threatening Act (FTA) to

A's positive face, "the want of every member that his wants be desir

able to at least some others" (Brown and Levinson 1987: 62).

— 24 —

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sals in Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Drew and A. Wootton, eds., Eruing Goffman: Exploring the Inter

action Order, 41-63. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Goffman, Erving. 1964. The neglected situation. American Anthropologist,

vol. 66, no.6., 133-136. Reprinted in Paolo Giglioli, ed. (1972)

Language and Social Context, 61-66. Penguin Books.

Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Be

havior. New York: Pantheon Books.

Goffman, Erving. 1971. Relations in Public. New York: Basic Books.

Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An essay on the organization

of experience. New York: Harper Colophon Books.

Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Penn

sylvania Press.

Gumperz, John J. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Studies in Interactional

Sociolinguistics 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gumperz, John J. 1992. Contextualization and understanding. In Alessandro

Duranti and Charles Goodwin eds., Rethinking Context: Language

as an interactive phenomenon, 230-252. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Kinjo, Katsuya. 1993. A study of Japanese inversions in spoken dis

course. University of California at Berkeley, m.s.

Kinjo, Katsuya. 1994. Japanese inversion and organization of talk: A

view from conversation analysis. Southern Review, No. 9, 87-99.

Kuno, Susumu. 1978a. Japanese: A characteristic OV language. In Winfred

P. Lehmann, ed. Syntactic Typology, 57-138. University of Texas

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Press.

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Taishukan Shoten.

Lakoff, Robin Tolmach. 1980. How to look as if you aren't doing any

thing with words. Versus, 26/7, 29-47.

Ono, Tsuyoshi and Ryoko Suzuki. 1992. Word order variability in Japa

nese conversation: Motivation and grammaticization. Text 12 (3),

429-445.

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In Drew and Wootton, 89-135.

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D. Boden and D. H. Zimmerman eds., Talk and Social Structure:

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Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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論文要旨

コンテクスト化記号としての倒置発話

金城 克哉

この論文では談話における倒置文がどのような働きをするのかということを

InteraCtionalSociolinguistiesの枠組みの中で解明することを目的とする｡ こ

こで論じられる倒置の発話の問題点として次の考察をおこなう｡

まず､1)話し手は何故､あるコンテクストの中で倒置による発話を行なう

のか｡倒置という現象は一般に理解されているような､ ｢大切なことを先に述

べる｣という大まかな捉え方でいいのか｡あるコンテクストで話し手にとって

｢大切なこと｣とは一体何であるのか｡2)そういった倒置の発話を聞き手は

どのように理解すればよいのか｡情報内容が同じであるからといって､通常の

語順の発話と同等に扱っていいものかどうか｡こういった発話が､実は聞き手

との人間関係を築いていく際に何らかの働きをになっているのではないか｡

こういった点を議論するにあたり､互いに補い合う二つの理論の鍵概念を用

いた分析を行う｡一つはガンパースの言語コミュニケーションの理論とそこで

の基本概念となる ｢コンテクスト化信号｣と ｢コンテクスト前提｣､もう一つ

は社会学者であるゴフマンの ｢フッティング (footing)｣であるo

ここで特定のデータを使った結果､次の点が明らかにされる｡ 1)倒置の発

話はアトランダムに現れるのではなく､談話のコンテクストに動機づけられて

いること｡ 2)話し手自身の意見主張の手段として倒置が用いられること｡ 3)

同時に話し手と聞き手の関係を維持するという機能も担っていること｡こういっ

た点を踏まえて､倒置という現象はコンテクストとの関わりが重要であり､実

際の会話資料の分析を通した研究が必要であると結論づけられる｡

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