The expressions of culture in the conversational styles of Japanese and Americans.

It has been widely claimed that conversational activities constitute a significant part of culture, and that cultural assumptions are reflected in conversational behavior (Gumperz 1982). Further, mismatches in conversational behaviors are claimed to frequently cause misunderstanding. However, the major claims about conversation have been made mainly based on English conversation. Little is known about conversation in other languages, such as Japanese. With increased opportunities for cross-cultural communication today, conversations in other languages need to be studied. This study compares the interactional management of Japanese and American males in first-encounter, intra- and cross-cultural conversations. The data consisted of 5 dyads each of American-American, Japanese-Japanese, and Japanese-American pairs. The participants were matched with an unfamiliar partner of a similar background. Their task was to talk freely or on the suggested topics. The conversations were videotaped and transcribed for analysis. Each participant was interviewed later to elicit comments on the task, the partner, the incidents of communication breakdowns, and language learning experience and beliefs. The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of the comparison reveal that while both groups followed common, general interaction-guiding principles, namely, the Cooperative Principles (Grice 1975) and the systematic turn-taking organization (Sachs, et al. 1974), they also exhibited relatively culture-specific behaviors. Specifically, Americans tended to participate more actively as a speaker, exhibiting self-involvement through self-assertion, while Japanese tended to participate more actively as a listener, producing many listener responses. These approaches both represent ways of maintaining interpersonal harmony. The analysis additionally revealed within-group stylistic variations. The differences in interactional approaches can be explained by many factors, but this study suggests that different self-conceptions and -orientations to societies play a significant and systematic constraining role upon conversational behavior. That is, Japanese behavior exhibited their greater emphasis on self-contextualization, while American behavior exhibited their greater concern for self-involvement. It is concluded that conversational behavior indeed reflects cultural patterns and functions to reinforce cultural patterns. The implications of cross-cultural differences for interpersonal relationships, cross-cultural communication, and language learning and teaching are discussed.PhDAsian literatureEthnic studiesLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsLinguisticsSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129616/2/9542860.pd