Abstract
The usage of Indirect Passive Sentences (IPS) requires contextual information. However, because Japanese textbooks separate these contextual information, it is difficult for Japanese learners to actually produce this sentence pattern. To solve this problem, I have narrowed down the IPS to the category of narrative of the speakers' own experience and identified the kinds of conversations and expressions that accompany its usage. The results are as following: (1) when the IPS is used with negative emotional expression, it is used in order to describe the speakers' complaints and (2) when the IPS is used with the auxiliary verb teshimau or is accompanied by the speakers laugh, it is used in order to narrate funny stories. This suggests that this usage of the IPS is utilized to maintain relationship with the conversation participant by providing empathy or laugh.
