The introduction procedure of laughable episodes in complaints in Japanese Everyday Conversation

Abstract

In everyday conversation, participants often present a behavior of the character as a laughable episode and the others laugh at it accordingly when they tell complaints on the experience. This study make it clear how the laughable episodes are introduced in the complaint through the analysis of positions and compositions of the turn containing the laughable in the sequence organization. The findings are as follows. The turn including the laughable are produced in the disjunct manner such as accompanying a long pause just before it or its footting being changed. As a result, the laughable are distinguished from the other parts of the complaint, which produces a position where the receiver can laugh.