Discourse functions and pitch patterns of the Japanese interactional particle yo in student-professor conversation

Until recently Japanese interactional particles have largely been investigated in various social contexts without paying much attention to intonation. Building on Shimotani (2006) that examined discourse functions and the intonation yo in informal talk among friends, the current study intends to contribute to interactional particle research by analyzing yo in six sets of one-to-one student-professor conversations. The findings demonstrate that the students and professors exhibited different pitch patterns of yo. Students tended to use yo with a falling pitch [+fall] when performing pre-story-telling, and frequently used the n-desu-yo construction. The professor, on the other hand, often used yo [−fall] when providing opinions or advice. These results will be discussed from Ochs’ social constructive discourse approach perspective. The present study concludes that both discourse functions and pitch patterns in interactional particles are important linguistic resources used to construct speakers’ social personae and stance-building. As such, pedagogical implications will be provided.

Gender Stereotype in Prosody: Japanese Interactional Particles NE and YO

In this paper, I will focus on how prosody affects the interpretation of genderneutral interactional particles ne and yo in Japanese. The interactional particles are potential sites for stereotyping, and "males have flatter intonation pattern than females do in pitch range and pitch heights" (McConnell-Ginet 1983: 73). Based on these assumptions, a purpose of the paper is to find possible answers for the following research questions: I) Will gender stereotype characteristics appear on some of the most frequently used particles such as ne or yo? and 2) Wil female-style speech, in general, will be more emphasized than male-style speech?