Abstract
We repeatedly find an interactional pattern wherein a speaker narrates his/her experiences to the hearer, and the hearer then expresses his/her understanding of the speaker's experiences in everyday conversations. In this paper, we will focus on the following interactional pattern: the hearer uses wakaru to show his/her understanding of the experiences. The main characteristic of this pattern is that by using wakaru, the hearer should convey not only that he/she understood the experiences, but also that he/she understood the opinions or the attitudes of the speaker who narrated his/her experiences. Thus, using wakaru to show one's understanding of the experiences is related to “understanding others” in everyday conversations.
Our research questions are as follows: (1) Why does the hearer use wakaru, even though it is not effective (Sacks 1992: 252) at showing understanding, and (2) how do the participants of a conversation organize a sequence that includes wakaru to be able to show understanding in the conversation?
The results of the analysis show that the hearer repeatedly adds “proof” attempts of understanding (Sacks 1992: 252) , which take the form of a second story (Sacks 1992: 249-60) by the hearer to wakaru (“claim” understanding). These proof attempts of understanding not only enable the hearer to compensate for the lack of efficacy of wakaru in showing understanding, but can also help to tell the speaker that “my mind is with you” (Sacks 1992: 257). Further, we describe a sequence structure wherein wakaru is used in the following order: (a) narration (first story) by the speaker, (b) wakaru (claim of understanding) by the hearer, (c) the proof attempts (second story) of understanding by the hearer, and (d) the acknowledgment of understanding by the speaker.
