Recipient design and collaboration in language socialization
A multimodal analysis of a Japanese household religious ritual
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.23611Keywords:
ritual, participation framework, language socialization, recipient design, membership category, multimodal analysisAbstract
When people participate in a special event such as a religious ritual, they may need support to perform the appropriate actions specific to the ritual. This study adopts the methodology of multimodal conversation analysis to investigate how language socialization is achieved differently depending on the recipient and the agent and how adults of different social roles collaboratively socialize a child participant. The analysis of the linguistic and embodied behaviours directed towards child and adult participants during a Japanese
household Shinto ritual reveals that the priest’s style of speech becomes informal, less formulaic, more involved, and more personal when directed towards child participants compared with those towards adults. Shifts in the membership category are also observed, which suggest that the priest assumes the role of a caregiver in addition to being a religious authority. The parent also contributes to the socialization of a child participant, but not in the same way as the priest. While the priest has the rights to give verbal instructions, the parent makes physical corrections to the child before the priest. Through analyses of multiple recipients and agents, this study
contributes to the understanding of the intricacies of language socialization.
References
Agha, A. (2007). Language and Social Relations. Cambridge University Press.
Aronsson, K. & Cekaite, A. (2011). Activity contracts and directives in everyday family politics. Discourse and Society, 22(2), 137–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926510392124
Blum-Kulka, S. (1997). Dinner Talk: Cultural Patterns of Sociability and Socialization in Family Discourse. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Brown, P. & S. C. Levinson. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge University Press.
Burdelski, M. (2010). Socializing politeness routines: Action, other-orientation, and embodiment in a Japanese preschool. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1606–1621.
Burdelski, M. (2013). Socializing children to honorifics in Japanese: Identity and stance in interaction. Multilingua, 32(2), 247–273.
Burdelski, M. (2021). Embodiment, ritual, and ideology in a Japanese-as-a-heritage-language preschool classroom. In M. J. Burdelski & K. M. Howard (eds), Language Socialization in Classrooms: Culture, Interaction, and Language Development (pp. 200–223). Cambridge University Press.
Burdelski, M. (forthcoming). Language socialization. In M. Hiramoto & K. Matsumoto (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Language. Oxford University Press.
Burdelski, M. & Cook, H. M. (2012). Formulaic language in language socialization. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 32, 173–188.
Butler, C. W. & Fitzgerald, R. (2010). Membership-in-action: Operative identities in a family meal. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 2462–2474. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PRAGMA.2010.03.006
Cameron-Faulkner, T. Lieven, E. Tomasello, M. (2003). A construction-based analysis of child-directed speech. Cognitive Science, 27, 843–873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.06.001
Cekaite, A. & Mondada, L. (eds) (2020). Touch in Social Interaction: Touch, Language, and Body. Routledge.
Clancy, P. (1986). The acquisition of communicative style in Japanese. In B. B. Schieffelin & E. Ochs (eds), Language Socialization across Cultures (pp. 213–250). Cambridge University Press.
Clancy, P. (1999). The socialization of affect in Japanese mother–child conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 31(11), 1937–1421.
Cook, H. M. (1999). Situational meanings of Japanese social deixis: The mixed-use of the masu and plain forms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 8(1), 87–110. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.1998.8.1.87
Cook, H. M. (2018a). Speech style shift. In Y. Hasegawa (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics (pp. 629–648). Cambridge University Press.
Cook, H. M. (2018b). Socialization to acting, feeling, and thinking as shakaijin: New employee orientations in a Japanese company. In H. M. Cook & J. S. Shibamoto-Smith (eds), Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power, and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse (pp. 37–64). Springer.
Du Bois, J. W. (1986). Self-evidence and ritual speech. In C. Wallace & J. Nichols (eds), Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology (pp. 313–336). Ablex Publishing.
Dunn, C. D. (2008). Pragmatic functions of humble forms in Japanese ceremonial discourse. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 15(2), 218–238.
Dunn, C. D. (2013). Speaking politely, kindly, and beautifully: Ideologies of politeness in Japanese business etiquette training. Multilingua, 32(2), 225–245.
Duranti, A., Ochs, E. & Schieffelin, B. B. (eds) (2011). The Handbook of Language Socialization. Wiley-Blackwell.
Eckert, P. (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(4), 453–476. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00374.x
Endo, T. (2018). The Japanese change-of-state tokens a and aa in responsive units. Journal of Pragmatics, 123, 151-166. https://10.1016/j.pragma.2017.06.010
Endo, T. (2021). The Japanese benefactive -te ageru construction in family and adult interactions. Journal of Pragmatics, 172, 239–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.11.011
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1976). Is Sybil there? The structure of some American English directives. Language in Society, 5(1), 25–66.
Ervin-Tripp, S. (2001). Variety, style-shifting, and ideology. In P. Eckert & J. R. Rickford (eds), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation (pp. 44–56). Cambridge University Press.
Fasulo, A., Loyd, H. & Padiglione, V. (2007). Children’s socialization into cleaning practices: A cross-cultural perspective. Discourse and Society, 18(1), 11–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507069454
Ferguson, C. A. (1977). Baby talk as a simplified register. In C. Snow and C. A. Ferguson (eds), Talking to Children (pp. 209–235). Cambridge University Press.
Fischer, K. (2015). Situation in grammar or in frames? Evidence from the so-called baby talk register. Constructions and Frames, 7(2), 258–288. https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.7.2.04fis
Gal, S. & Irvine, J. (1995). The boundaries of languages and disciplines: How ideologies construct difference. Social Research, 62(4), 967–1001.
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society, 18(1), 53–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507069457
Goodwin, M. H. & Cekaite, A. (2018). Embodied Family Choreography: Practices of Control, Care, and Mundane Creativity. Routledge.
Heritage, J. (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action. Cambridge University Press.
Ide, S. (1989). Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Multilingua 8(2–3), 223–248.
Irvine, J. T. (1992). Ideologies of honorific language. Pragmatics, 2(3), 251–262. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.2.3.02irv
Irvine, J. T. (2001). ‘Style’ as distinctiveness: the culture and ideology of linguistic differentiation. In P. Eckert & J. R. Rickford (eds), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation (pp. 21–43). Cambridge University Press.
Iwasaki, S. & Ono, T. (2002). ‘Sentence’ in spontaneous spoken Japanese discourse. In J. L. Bybee & M. Noonan (eds), Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse (pp. 175–202). John Benjamins.
Kádár, D. Z. (2017). Politeness, Impoliteness and Ritual. Cambridge University Press.
Keevallik, L. (2018). What does embodied interaction tell us about grammar? Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(1), 1–21.
Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.
Matsumoto, Y. (1988). Reexamination of the universality of face. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 403–426. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(88)90003-3
Matsumoto, Y. (1997). The rise and fall of Japanese nonsubject honorifics: The case of ‘o-Verb-suru’. Journal of Pragmatics, 28, 719–740. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00072-6
Nelson, J. K. (1992). Shinto ritual. Ethos, 57(1–2), 77–104.
Nelson, J. K. (1996). A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine. University of Washington Press.
Ochs, E. & Schieffelin, B. (1984). Language socialization: three developmental stories. In R. A. Shweder & R. A. Levine (eds), Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion (pp. 279–324). Cambridge University Press.
Ochs, E. Solomon, O. & Sterponi, L. (2005). Limitations and transformations of habitus in Child-Directed Communication. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 547–583. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054406
Okamoto, S. (1999). Situated politeness: Manipulating honorific and non-honorific expressions in Japanese conversations. Pragmatics, 9(1): 51–74. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.9.1.05oka
Ono, S. (1962). Shinto: The Kami Way. Tuttle Publishing.
Pizziconi, B. (2011). Honorifics: The cultural specificity of a universal mechanism in Japanese. In D. Z. Kádár & S. Mills (eds), Politeness in East Asia (pp. 45–70). Cambridge University Press.
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on Conversation, vols I and II. Blackwell.
Sacks, H., Schegloff E. A. & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735.
Schieffelin, B. B., and Ochs, E. (eds). (1986). Language Socialization across Cultures. Cambridge University Press.
Snow, C. E. (1995). Issues in the study of input: Finetuning, universality, individual and developmental differences, and necessary causes. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (eds), The Handbook of Child Language (pp. 180–193). Blackwell.
Stokoe, E. (2012). Moving forward with membership categorization analysis: Methods for systematic analysis. Discourse Studies 14(3), 277–303.
Takada, A. (2013). Generating morality in directive sequences: Distinctive strategies for developing communicative competence in Japanese caregiver-child interactions. Language & Communication, 33, 420–438.
Tanaka, H. (2000). Turn projection in Japanese talk-in-Interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 33(1), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327973RLSI3301_1
Traugott, E. C. (1995). Subjectification in grammaticalisation. In D. Stein & S. Wright (eds), Subjectivity and Subjectivisation (pp. 31–54). Cambridge University Press.
Tsujimura, T. (1992). Keigo Ronkoo [The Theory of (Japanese) Politeness]. Meiji Shoin.
Wetzel, P. (1994). A movable self: The linguistic indexing of uchi and soto. In J. M. Bachnik & C. J. Quinn (eds), Situated Meaning: Inside and Outside in Japanese Self, Society, and Language (pp. 73–87). Princeton University Press.
