Since the release of the Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation (CEJC) in March 2022, it has been used in various research fields, including linguistic research, cognitive science, language processing and language education. The CEJC is designed to contain various kinds of everyday conversations in a balanced manner to capture their diversity. This paper provides an overview of the CEJC and other corpora, and subsequently, presents case studies using the CEJC to discuss its potential.

This study purports to investigate the underexplored phenomenon of translanguaging euphemisms on Chinese social media with regard to their formation, comprehension and motivation. Based on typical cases of comment threads collected from Chinese media, it showcases the formational diversity of translanguaging euphemizing practices, explores the associations supporting their production and comprehension, and discusses some advantages characterizing their use. It is hoped that the study can contribute to existing research on euphemisms, not only by extending their scope to their translanguaging equivalents, but also by showing how their formation and advantages benefit from technological affordances.

This study analyzed the occurrence and methods of re-complimenting in Japanese and Chinese speakers’ conversations at initial meetings and between friends. It was found that in conversations between friends, both Japanese and Chinese speakers use flexible strategies to re-compliment as recipient reactions; however, Chinese speakers used re-complimenting more often than Japanese speakers to persuade interlocutors to accept their compliments. Furthermore, concerning re-complimenting at initial meetings, Japanese speakers demonstrated mutual consideration, whereas Chinese speakers sought to proactively build relationships through re-complimenting.

Based on speech function theory, a functional survey was conducted on 4,591 action-request sentences found in 642 school letters. The results demonstrated that 36% of the surveyed sentences were non-explicit, such as “eventive description,” among 18 sentence functions. The speech function analysis revealed 1,887 sentences with “indirect” and non-behavior-oriented speech functions. In other words, 40% of the action-request sentences failed to match the form and function. Parents need to make analogies regarding the function and content of sentences. This results in difficulties in implementing actions that align appropriately with the teacher’s intentions and expectations.

When -mashō ka is used in atypical situations, it can imply coerciveness, condescension, or familiarity toward the listener. This study uses the concepts of convergence and distancing to explain the factors leading to such implications. The analysis revealed that -mashō ka allows the speaker to decide the tone of their interaction with the listener. The listener’s right to decide is seized by the speaker; thus, the form enables the convergence of the listener toward the speaker. The results demonstrated that while convergence represents familiarity, it also implies impoliteness through encroaching on the other party’s territory.

This study aims to clarify the features of instructor’s verbal and nonverbal behaviors and learners’ reactions in correction sequences by observing the interactions in a classroom practicing the Japanese Noh dance, focusing on the initiation of the sequences. It uses multimodal conversation analysis to examine video-recorded data. Results show that, first, the instructor starts a correction sequence by using assessments, directions, or deixis to identify problems with the learner’s bodily movements. Second, the learners are observed to show understanding by imitating the instructor’s movements simultaneously or after the instructor’s demonstration.

This paper presents a syntactic and discourse analysis of sentence-final particles by second person pronouns (SPSPPs) in Kyushu dialects. The syntactic features of SPSPPs often occur independently without other final particles. The modality of the expressive category in which SPSPPs occur is overwhelmingly the informational modality, which is related to the exchange of information rather than the action modality. As a discourse function, they have an orientation toward congruence of information and an expressive function of intimacy. These analyses suggest that the substantive meaning of SPSPPs is bleached and that they function as a pragmatic acquisition of meaning, i.e., positive politeness.