The Linguistic Behavior of Thai Native Speakers in Japanese-Based Complaint Situations: Reframing from a Complaint Frame to a Play Frame

Abstract

Reframing to a play frame is used universally to relieve tension during strained situations. In complaint situations, Thai native speakers often carry out reframing to a play frame when speaking with an interlocutor of different linguistic or cultural background. This paper analyzes reframing by Thai native speakers in complaint situations while conversing in Japanese. Reframing was observed when Thai native speakers acted as the complainer. They tended to make jokes with the interlocutors accompanied by humor and laughter, rather than negotiate for a quick solution. The content of joking was also analyzed for cues signaling reframing. When the joking might be face-threatening to the interlocutor, laughter, repetition, prosodic change, style-shift, or direct reported speech was used. However, when the joking was not face-threatening, only laughter, repetition, and prosodic change were used. These cues enabled the reframing of the talk as a play frame due to the emphasis on the humor of the activity.