This paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis of references to the third person that are strongly connected to the achievement of tasks in consultations between Japanese Native Speakers (hereafter referred to as JNS) and Chinese Native Speakers (hereafter referred to as CNS). The conclusions of this study are as follows. JNS mention specific anecdotes, objective facts, or negate other possibilities when referring to the third person. That is to say that JNS prefer to make much of showing the foundation of what they have mentioned before by using more specific utterances. Other types of references used by JNS include quoting statements from the third person and expressing what they image to be the person’s feelings. Such speech serves the function of enhancing the sense of realism, livening up the discussion, and indirectly conveying the speaker’s evaluation. On the other hand, CNS most often express objective information regarding the third person. CNS generally present multiple pieces of information that they know about the third person and aim to accomplish a task by finding what they consider the most appropriate solution. Furthermore, their speech is characterized by clear verbalization of information about the third person, especially in close relationships. One similarity between JNS and CNS is that they often use questions to trigger a reference to the third person; however, the type of response to these questions differs. Specifically, JNS respond using sequences of an association type, while CNS use a typical independent sequence or an expanded independent sequence.

There is plenty of research regarding the ways to express requests in Japanese such as “---temoraemasenka” and “--tekudasaimasenka.” A wide range of research on communication strategies for requests in various contexts and conversations exists as well. However, the author holds the belief that the reasons for some of the misunderstandings that occur during the communicating of requests are not, in reality, confined to the content of the conversation. Instead, different cognition of the premises of the communication involved in requests leads to some communication trouble. The purpose of this research is to clarify the recognition of premises in communication when communicators decide whether to make requests of others, or the recognition of premises in communication when the person who receives a request from others decides whether or not to accept. In this research, eight respondents were asked about situations from their own lives; and, the KJ method was utilized for data analysis. Based on different cases, the results indicate that there is variation when it comes to recognition of premises in the communication of requests. Moreover, the results clarify the existence of phases, linkage, and diversity of consciousness in the recognition of premises in communicating requests.

Through a survey of business email communication, this paper clarifies aspects of the correlation between the cognizance of the person (communication subject) who engages in verbal communication and actual expression, verbal acts. This study focuses on the cognizance of communication subjects from the perspective of their knowledge of the situation and their memory, which is a postulate for verbal acts. Specifically, this focuses on how the cognizance of the subject and the resulting expression (such as content and form) of the verbal act are correlated. The results of the study show that there are differences in the correlation depending on what subjects focus on. The results also indicate that the correlation of the verbal act is based on seven factors: a verbal act that emphasizes (1) cognizance of the situation resulting from relationships, (2) cognizance of the situation resulting from the context of the situation, (3) cognizance of the situation resulting from the understanding of email, (4) cognizant memory as a precondition for a verbal act, (5) the e-mail content, (6) the form of the e-mail, and (7) the "writing level." These findings indicate that multiple forms of cognizance exist within subjects, and in some cases, cognizant factors were in conflict with one another. From such conflicts in the subject's cognizance, we can see the dynamic nature of the subject's cognizance itself.