Discourse, Culture, and Extraordinary Experiences: Observations from a Comparative, Qualitative...

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Discourse, Culture, and ExtraordinaryExperiences: Observations from aComparative, Qualitative Analysis ofJapanese and UK English Accounts ofParanormal PhenomenaYasushi Ohashi a , Robin Wooffitt b , Clare Jackson b & Yumi Nixon ba Shukutoku University , Japanb University of York , UKPublished online: 14 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Yasushi Ohashi , Robin Wooffitt , Clare Jackson & Yumi Nixon (2013) Discourse,Culture, and Extraordinary Experiences: Observations from a Comparative, Qualitative Analysis ofJapanese and UK English Accounts of Paranormal Phenomena, Western Journal of Communication,77:4, 466-488, DOI: 10.1080/10570314.2012.714047

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Discourse, Culture, and ExtraordinaryExperiences: Observations from aComparative, Qualitative Analysisof Japanese and UK English Accountsof Paranormal PhenomenaYasushi Ohashi, Robin Wooffitt, Clare Jackson,& Yumi Nixon

This article examines communicative practices in Japanese and UK English accounts of

extraordinary experiences. We compare the way in which specific narrative features are

handled: description of the actual experience, and the completion of the narrative. We

also examine some ways in which the accounts are rhetorically designed to address skep-

tical alternatives. The perspective is informed by an ethnomethodological focus on com-

municative competences in description. This comparison identifies differences between

Japanese and UK English narratives. This focus on interactional features of the data

is contrasted to macro cultural or psychological perspectives on the relationship between

national culture and language.

Keywords: Communicative Competences; Epistemics; Japanese; Paranormal;

UK English

Yasushi Ohashi is Professor of Psychology at Shukutoku University, Japan. Robin Wooffitt is Professor of

Sociology at University of York, UK. Clare Jackson is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Sociology at

University of York, UK. Yumi Nixon is Japanese Language Tutor at University of York, UK. The authors would

like to thank the Japanese interviewees who reported their paranormal experiences. They also thank the School

of Psychological Practices at Shukutoku University for providing the first author with the period of research

leave during which time the work reported here was undertaken. Finally, they would like to thank Bill Eadie

and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this article. Correspondence

to: Robin Wooffitt, Department Sociology, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. E-mail:

[email protected]

Western Journal of Communication

Vol. 77, No. 4, July–September 2013, pp. 466–488

ISSN 1057-0314 (print)/ISSN 1745-1027 (online) # 2013 Western States Communication Association

DOI: 10.1080/10570314.2012.714047

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In this article, we adopt a broadly conversation analytic perspective to make some

preliminary observations on variations in discourse between Japanese and British

English. The data we examine are accounts of personal experiences with a range of

paranormal phenomena. We are not concerned here with the status of these reports

as evidence for the objective existence of the phenomena they report. Rather, they

provide the basis for comparison of the ways in which Japanese and British speakers

address core features of reporting extraordinary experiences.

Comparative research on Japanese discourse (and related languages) and English

language has tended to explore the influence of broadly characterized cultural differ-

ences, and different psychological traits or personality types associated with these

general cultural differences. For example, Benedict (1946) described Japanese society

as a ‘shame’ culture, in contrast to Western culture, which she labeled as ‘guilt’ socie-

ties. Benedict described shame as the primary agent of social control in Japan.

Although her work has been criticized and revised by a number of researchers (see

Creighton, 1990; Doi, 2001), it is widely agreed that a sense of shame and ‘pressure

of social judgements’ play a significant role in Japanese society. A similarly macro

cultural perspective informed Hall’s (1976) analysis, in which he examined what

he called high- and low-context communication: terms designed to capture the

different but culturally specific ways in which information required for interpersonal

interaction is either taken for granted in the context of communication, or explicitly

encoded in the actual discourse. He argued that in high-context cultures, such as in

Japan, China, and Korea, people are more homogeneous, and share common experi-

ences among them; hence they do not require in-depth background information

when communicating with each other.

On the other hand, in low-context cultures such as the US, the UK, and

Canada, people are less homogeneous and need to provide detailed background

information in their communication. Similarly, Hofstede (1984) introduced four

cultural dimensions along which characteristics of national cultures can be mea-

sured: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism–collectivism, and

masculinity–femininity. The UK was shown to be higher than Japan on the indi-

vidualism dimension and lower on the power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and

masculinity dimensions. Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988) also traced differ-

ences in discourse to broad cultural differences, reporting that what they called

individualistic cultures (such as the US and the UK) place greater emphasis on

verbal communication and directness of expression, while collectivist cultures

(such as Japan and China) often do not trust verbal communication and therefore

prefer indirect communication methods. In a similar vein, Matsumoto (1991)

found that people from individualistic cultures tend to communicate a wider var-

iety of emotional behaviors than people from collectivist cultures, who may sup-

press emotional displays that are contrary to the mood of the group. And Boldt

(1978) explained key differences in interaction styles between loose and tight

social structures. In cultures with loose social structures, such as Australia,

New Zealand, and the United States, people can have a high degree of freedom

to deviate from the societal norms. Alternatively, cultures with tight social

Western Journal of Communication 467

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structures such as Japan and Korea tend to emphasize stringent cultural norms,

rules, and interaction scripts (Ting-Toomey, 1999).

This tradition of research not only draws upon broadly defined notions of cultural

difference, but can also rest on equally broad psychological theories of the self or

identity. For example, Markus and Kitayama (1991) categorized individuals as either

having ‘independent construal of the self ’ or ‘interdependent construal of the self ’.

People with independent construal of the self are found to show more ego-focused

emotions such as anger, frustration, and pride than people with interdependent con-

strual of the self. Having interdependent construal of the self, on the other hand,

leads people to pay attention to significant others so that they can fit themselves

within a proper place in a group, engage in appropriate actions and contribute to

group success. People with interdependent construal of the self tend to inhibit

expression of their internal attributes and regard emotion expression as a public

instrumental action that may or may not relate to their inner feelings.

Psychology is a laboratory-based scientific discipline, and it is therefore no sur-

prise that there is a strong experimental influence in studies of cross-cultural com-

munication, and the analysis of cultural influence and difference, that are

grounded in psychological theories of the self. However, quasi-experimental work

can also be found in research from the broader field of communication studies.

For example, Cocroft and Ting-Toomey’s (1994) analysis of facework in Japanese

and US populations was based on their research participants’ completion of beha-

vioral scales and their responses to hypothetical vignettes or scenarios, and used stat-

istical techniques. There are numerous other studies in which the rhetoric of

experimental science is prominent, where the research is framed in terms of hypoth-

eses to be tested, variables to be examined, measurements to be taken, and so on (for

example, Clancy, 1992; Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey, 1988; Kamimura and Oi, 1998;

Kim, Pan and Pak, 1998; Ting-Toomey et al., 1991; Wurtz, 2005).

In contrast to experimental research on cross cultural communication, and

analyses that focus on broadly defined social variables such as ‘loose’ and ‘tight’ social

structures, in this article we examine more naturalistic data via methods associated

with the study of interaction, specifically conversation analysis. Conversation analysis

(CA) examines the action orientation of talk, and provides qualitative, formal, and

fine-grained descriptions of the way in which utterances perform social actions in

interaction. Research in this tradition examines ‘real life’ interaction, rather than

intuition about how interaction works, or data that may have been artificially gener-

ated simply for the purpose of studying particular communicative practices. This is

because it seeks to explicate the tacit communicative competences and normative fra-

meworks that underpin language use, analytic targets that are neither accessible by

reflection nor responsive to experimental manipulation (Hutchby and Wooffitt,

2008; Schegloff, 2007). Although CA research has primarily examined recordings

and transcriptions of US and UK English, it has been used to analyse verbal interac-

tion in other languages, and from non-Western cultures (for example, Ford and

Mori, 2010; Moerman, 1977, 1988). A key task of these studies is to examine how

particular linguistic features and cultural conventions inform the ways that people

468 Y. Ohashi et al.

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use talk to manage generic social activities, such as turn-taking, person reference, and

the management of problems in interpersonal communication (see Sidnell, 2007, for

a review of this research). The focus on the management of generic social actions

provides the basis for cross-cultural comparison of communication practices.

In this article, we extend our understanding of communicative variation by

examining Japanese and English speakers’ accounts of extraordinary personal experi-

ences with a range of what are known as paranormal phenomena, such as appari-

tional manifestations, contact with spirits, and near-death experiences. We are not

concerned with the way that culture impacts the content of the accounts; following

broadly conversation analytic lines of inquiry, we examine communicative compe-

tences that inform descriptions of extraordinary encounters obtained through infor-

mal interviews. These preliminary analytic observations concern three features of

paranormal experience accounts that are common to both the Japanese and the

UK corpora: descriptions of the actual paranormal events that are the topic of the

account; the way in which the narrative is concluded by the speaker; and discursive

practices by which accounts of experiences may be structured to ensure that they are

heard as reports of objective events (as opposed to hallucinations, dreams, or the pro-

duct of psychopathology). By examining these core broad structural features we are

better able to identify subtle discursive differences in the ways in which they

are handled within the two linguistic corpora. By examining how the credibility of

the report may be warranted, we observe the negotiation of essentially epistemic

matters: how people present themselves as honest and authoritative reporters; how

the factual status of an account may be established; and how alternative skeptical

explanations for contested experiences may be addressed. This allows us to contribute

to the broader study of the management of epistemic matters in talk and text in

conversation analysis and related disciplines.

Data and Method

The Japanese corpus consists of recorded interviews in Japanese with 12 interviewees.

These interviews were conducted in 2009 by the first author. Six were conducted in

Japan, with academics and students at the first author’s university. Six interviews

were recorded in the UK with Japanese students studying at the University of York,

UK, at which the first author was a Visiting Fellow, 2009–2010. Some interviewees

had had one paranormal experience, but some claimed two or even multiple experi-

ences. Interviewees in Japan were recruited via word of mouth from students and

academic staff at the university at which the first author works. Japanese interviewees

in the UK were recruited via the University of York Japanese Society and the

University’s Overseas Students’ Association. Japanese interviewees were informed

that their accounts were being collected for a study of spontaneous unusual phenom-

ena. The first author transcribed the audio recorded interviews into Japanese. As this

was a preliminary analysis, a sub corpus of 10 accounts of discrete experiences from

six separate respondents was then selected for detailed analysis and translated into


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English. Initial translations were made by the first author, but then developed in

consultation with the other three authors, one of whom is a Japanese national who

has been residing permanently in the UK for over a decade, and who teaches Japanese

at the University’s foreign language teaching unit, and who therefore has considerable

experience of Japanese=English translation.

In making the translations suitable for empirical analysis, it was decided not to try

to produce a colloquial English version of the Japanese, but more literal translations.

This was because many of the key features of Japanese language would have been

obscured or edited from more polished translations, thus making comparative work

more difficult. For this reason, to the English reader, the translations of the Japanese

accounts may exhibit unfamiliar grammatical and syntactical features.

The comparative UK corpus came from a data set collected by the second author

as part of his doctoral research; some of these accounts were analyzed in his thesis

and subsequent publications, notably the monograph based on the doctoral work

(Wooffitt, 1992). To focus the comparative analytic work, experiences were selected

from that earlier English corpus to match—albeit loosely—the kinds of experiences

selected for detailed analysis from the Japanese corpus. So, for example, there are

accounts in both languages of levitating objects or figures, childhood bedroom

apparitions, near-death experiences, and spirit communication in mundane domestic

settings.

The UK corpus was transcribed according to conventions in conversation analysis,

developed by Gail Jefferson (Jefferson, 2005a). Absences of talk were timed, spates of

overlapping talk (if any) were identified using square brackets, and stress, change in

speech volume, sound stretching, and notable intonation shifts were identified via the

relevant symbols from Jefferson’s system. In the relatively literal English versions of

the Japanese transcripts it was not possible to achieve the same attention to detail.

Consequently, there are some aspects of the Japanese transcriptions that are relatively

undertranscribed compared to the UK data. However, as the final working transcrip-

tions were produced in discussions involving two native Japanese speakers, one of

whom works as a translator, we are confident that the transcriptions were sufficiently

detailed and accurate to sustain the kind of work we wanted to do, and they are

appropriate to the range of analytic observations that were subsequently generated

in our analysis.

Given that the English translation of the Japanese data are somewhat crude, in that

they were produced to preserve distinctive features of Japanese grammar and syntax,

it was not possible to engage with confidence in the kind of fine grained interactional

work undertaken by conversation analytic research on non-English data sets. How-

ever, the empirical analysis was informed by a broadly ‘conversation analytic men-

tality’ (Schenkein, 1978) associated with Sacks’ lectures (Sacks, 1992), in that

analysis of the structural and rhetorical features of these narratives was informed

by an ethnomethodological sensitivity to the normative underpinnings of discourse,

and the constitutive or sense-making properties of ordinary language use (Garfinkel,

1967; Smith, 1978; Wooffitt, 1992).


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Describing the Phenomenon and Narrative Completion

In this section we examine two ways in which Japanese and UK accounts display very

clear differences: the report of the actual phenomenon or experience, and the way

that respondents subsequently end the account.

In the Japanese accounts, the description of the actual experience is organized

economically, in that it is relatively short, and is not subsequently elaborated,

developed, or expanded. Extracts 1 and 2 provide illustrative examples. In the first,

the speaker is describing how, in his childhood, he saw an apparitional figure levitat-

ing, apparently walking above the ground in a graveyard. At the time of the experi-

ence, the speaker was a young boy being raised in a strictly religious family, and one

of his tasks was to ring the bell in the family temple. This experience happened while

he was ringing the bell, and just prior to this extract he has been describing where

the temple was in relation to the graveyard, his precise activities at that moment,

and the time of day that the experience happened.

(1) (J: ‘Graveyard levitating figure’. ‘Res’ is the respondent, ‘Int’ is theinterviewer. The language in which the account was produced is indicated by theletters ‘J’ or ‘UKE’)

1 Res: it was still light >at least that’s how I remember it<2 Int: yeah3 Res: then when I looked around casually as usual4 among the tombstones on the ground in the nearest row5 I saw a man walking above them6 no matter ho:w I looked7 for a second I thought like >eh! eh!<8 Int: yeah9 Res: That was my first experience.

The respondent reports that while engaged in ringing the temple bell, he ‘looked

around casually as usual’ (line 3), thereby establishing the routine or mundane character

of his activities at the time. There is then a description of the setting of what transpires to

be the apparitional experience: ‘among the tombstones on the ground in the nearest

row’ (line 4) and then the actual experience, ‘I saw a man walking above them’ (line 5).

The utterance that reports the actual phenomena has a minimal design, in that, at

that point, there is no elaboration of what the figure looked like (whether it was an old

man, or a young man), how long the experience lasted, the direction in which the

figure was walking, and so on. Indeed, the design of this report does not even explicitly

draw attention to what was paranormal about the experience: that the figure was

positioned above the tombstones is almost casually disclosed, and the use of the phrase

‘a man’ to describe the apparitional figure does not convey the otherworldliness of a

levitating figure, which, by the very fact of its movement through the air above the

ground, could not possibly be a man. Shortly after the report of the levitating figure,

the account is brought to a close. The subsequent report that this was the respondent’s

first experience of this kind marks the completion of the narrative of the encounter.

The minimal and mundane character of the description of the apparitional figure

is in contrast to the respondent’s report of his subsequent reactions, which portray


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his realization at the time that he was witnessing something extraordinary. He

reports that the figure was moving above the ground ‘no matter how I looked’,

which establishes that he examined the event carefully to ensure he was not mistaken

in what he saw. This is a routine feature of accounts of encounters with unexpected

or dramatic events (Jefferson, 2005b; Sacks, 1984; Wooffitt, 1992). There follows a

brief account of his reaction at the time, ‘I thought like >eh! eh!<’ (line 7). The reac-

tion is a form of direct reported thought and evocatively captures the extreme

response of the respondent. Studies of reported thought and speech suggest that

this is a rhetorical resource by which speakers can warrant the factual or authoritat-

ive status of claims to have experienced controversial or contestable events, or

to strengthen the epistemological status of argumentative stances in mundane

interaction (Haakana, 2007; Holt, 1996), work-related institutional contexts (Barnes,

2007; Phillips 1986), and research interview data (Buttny, 1998; Buttny & Williams,

2000; Castro, 2009). There is, then, a discrepancy between the way the respondent

describes his reactions, and the phenomenon to which he was reacting: His reactions

are, if not extreme, markedly portraying the highly unusual, paranormal events he

was witnessing; yet the characterization of the actual phenomenon is routine and

mundane.

There is a similar pattern in the same respondent’s report of an apparitional figure

he saw, again as a young boy, but in the context of a formal religious service. Prior to

the start of this extract, the respondent has been describing in some detail the

religious ceremony in which he was participating when he saw the figure, which

included description of the physical layout of the room and symbolic objects within

it, such as the ‘principal image’.

(2) (J: ‘Temple apparition’)

1 Res: when I was chanting the sutra2 I saw >definitely< a person3 was walking steadily [along4 Int: [mm hm5 Res: and er:: was crossing the shiny wooden floor6 going towards the principal image hh7 without being particularly surprised by that8 I continued with chanting the sutra at that time9 Int: um hm10 that was the kind of experience I had

Again there is the use of a mundane vocabulary to describe the actual paranormal

phenomenon: The apparitional figure is reported as ‘a person’’ (line 2). There is

additional description of the experience, in that the respondent not only describes

that the apparition was walking steadily, but that it traversed a wooden floor in

particular direction. However, this is the extent of the extended description, as

the respondent then moves immediately to a report of his (unsurprised) reaction

(line 7) which is then corroborated by the report of the resumption of his chanting.

The summative utterance ‘that was the kind of experience I had’ (line 10) concludes

the narration of the experience.


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Extracts 1 and 2 are two separate experiences reported by the same respondent. It

might be concluded that it is an idiosyncrasy of this individual that he generally offers

minimal descriptions of experiences, even exceptional ones such as these. However, it

is important to note that the brevity of the description of the experience is not

matched by his account of events and circumstances prior to the onset of the actual

phenomenon. For example, prior to the report of the levitating man in the graveyard,

there is a lengthy and detailed account of the setting of the experience, his boyhood

religious duties that led him to be at the temple at that time, and the location of the

temple in relation to the graveyard. There is a similarly detailed report of the circum-

stances prior to the apparition of the walking person. It is unlikely, then, that

the minimal design of that part of the account that deals with the actual experience

simply reflects a general language idiosyncrasy of this respondent.

Moreover, it is not the case that the respondent simply has no more to say. It is

quite common to find that respondents subsequently provide considerable detail later

in the account if pressed by the interview, or if the provision of further information

becomes relevant. For example, the following sequence comes from the same

interview from which extract 1 is taken.

(3) (J: ‘Graveyard levitating figure’)

1 Int: which grade at a primary school were you in?2 Res: it was probably fourth- fourth fifth grade of a primary school?3 Int: yes4 Res: I had a black:: spitz and he was still [alive5 Int: [yes6 Res: at that [time7 Int: [yes8 (0.3)9 Res: er there were tombstones and how can I say10 there were flowers or trees where rhinoceros beetles gather11 Int: yes12 Res: there were the:: trees with flowers close to the tops of the

tombstones and the man was above them13 Int: um um14 (.)15 Res: now I am trying to remember:: now my memory has become16 uncertain:: "a walking figure of (unclear) was a normal person17 [with legs¼18 Int: [um um um19 Res: also with hands er I think he was a man wearing a shirt

In response to the interviewer’s question about his schooling at the time of the

experience the respondent reports that it happened when he owned a particular

dog, and then spontaneously offers further details about the plants by the tombstones

where the figure was seen; he then offers further information about the figure which

is characterized as the result of deliberate effort to recall. The fact that the respondent

can produce further information about the experience suggests that the relative

economy of the initial description is a design feature of the organization of the


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account; and this raises the possibility that this feature of account design reflects or

instantiates broader cultural differences.

The brevity of the description of the actual experience in the Japanese accounts is

in marked contrast to the more extensive reporting recurrently found in accounts

from the UK corpus. For example, in the following case, the speaker is reporting

an event that occurred when she returned from work to check that her house had

been left secure after the delivery of some furniture.

(4) (UKE: ‘Floating photograph’)

1 Res: and I didn’t trust the fact that somebody else was left to lock up our2 house (0.3) so I came home from work at lunchtime. (0.7)3

.hh an’ I walked into the sitting room door. (.) in through the sitting room

4 door (1.5) an:’ right in front of me (0.3) was a sort of alcove. And a5 chimney breast like this (0.7)

.hh and a photograph of our wedding

6 (0.5).hh came off the top shelf, (0.2) floated down to the ground. (0.4)

7 completely came apa:rt. But didn’t break. (0.7) an’ it missed (.) th- the8 "television, the budgie cage, (0.2)

.hh and the fireplace. (0.7)

9 and it just landed on the carpet..hh a good four feet from where it

10 started o:ff (0.5) out into the room. (0.3) and just settled there. (0.7)11 and the whole room was sort of feeling (0.7) very peculiar (0.3)12 and I don’t know what it "was, (0.7) I don’t know why it should do it13 "then:, (.) but that is what happened.

The actual experience is that ‘a photograph of our wedding (0.5).hh came off

the top shelf, (0.2) floated down to the ground. (0.4) came apa:rt. But didn’t break’

(lines 5 to 7). This could stand as the complete account in that the report not only

conveys what made this a paranormal event, but also in that it captures the whole

experience: It subsequently transpires that no other event happened in addition to

this. However, the respondent does not end the account here. After this report she

then provides more detail of the unusual descent of the photograph, producing a

three-part list (Jefferson, 1990) of the items that it (conspicuously) misses on its

way to the floor. There is then a quantitative assessment of the distance the photo-

graph traveled away from the wall, and a report that it ‘settled there’ (line 10), both

of which further emphasize the extraordinary nature of its movement. There is a

subsequent report of the atmosphere of the room, and then the respondent sum-

marizes her bemusement by professing ignorance of what the experience was (or

what it meant), and as to why it should happen at that moment. It is only then

that she marks the end of the narrative by reporting ‘but that is what happened.’

(line 13).

To establish that this more extensive reporting is not a feature of this one respon-

dent, here is an account of an apparitional experience produced by a different

respondent.

(5) (UKE: ‘Glowing bedroom apparition’)

1 Res: must a’ been (.) when (.) I was: (1) nine, >eh< eight or nine.2 (1.2) a:::nd it was >when I was a kid (0.7) a::nd I was (0.5)3 ah went to bed (0.7) and later that evening after ah (.) I supposedly woke up


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4 (.) what I thought I woke up (.) a:nd (.) there was (.) some sort of (.)5 apparition come very (.) big (.) glowing thing (0.5) standing near the bed6 (1.3) er:m (0.3) it was a form it was a man (0.7) it was a very distinct form7 but very bright and very (.) glowing (0.7) ur:nd seemed t’ (0.7) seemed to8 fill the room ( ) the actual (0.7) er: light comin’ off (0.3) this particular9 person

.hh stood over me n’ looked down (.) ur: (0.3) into (0.3) where I

10 was (.) lying (0.5) a::nd just stared (.) un looked (down) (0.7) I was scared11 and round (.) closed me eyes (0.3) turned back round again (.)12 and uh (1.3) the actual apparition or whatever it was (0.3) had gone (1.5)13 that was it.

After the respondent’s report of his initial awareness of the figure there is substan-

tial additional descriptive work that addresses the human shape of the apparition, its

distinctive form, the illumination from the apparition, and its apparent focus of

interest on the respondent. Only then does he report that after turning away, the

apparitional seemed to disappear and he ends the narrative.

In the Japanese accounts, we find that there is an economical description of

phenomenon and then the respondent draws the narrative of the experience to

a close. In the UK accounts, however, there is more extended description of

the phenomenon, after which there may be further talk about the respondent’s

reflections on the experience or subsequent events. Further evidence for this

divergence comes from the two following accounts, in which both speakers report

encounters with spiritual entities in near-death experiences that occurred during

periods of severe childhood illness. The similarities between the experiences

allows for a clear focus on differences in the organizational features of the narra-

tives. In first account, from the UK corpus, the speaker has been reporting that he

had been suffering from pneumonia in both lungs, and that he subsequently

learned that the doctor had advised his mother that there was little hope for

his recovery. Just prior to this extract, he has been reporting his disrupted

sleeping patterns.

(6) (UKE: Near death experience=‘Father’)

1 Res: an’ ah musta bin do:zin’ there or somethin’ un u(h)r: suddenly this: light a2 very small light (.) must’ve started playing s:i:lly devils on the bottom o’3 the "bed ij’s kep- (.) bouncing about (0.3) like this an’ it got a little4 bit bigger n’ (.)

.hh all of a sudden it sort’ve settled down in a (.) (s-) (lie)

5 vibration (.) moves settled down.hhhh and then it sort’ve come

6 towards me an ah s- (0.5).hhh sort’ve y’know (.) mesmerised by it sort’ve

7 thing (0.5).hh an’ all of a sudden it jus: (0.7) grew bigger (.) bigger

8 (0.3) an’ out of this sort’ve (.) "VEry bright light it really was a bright (.)9 blindin’ light

.hh come the head and shoulders of me "father who

10 died when I was: (0.3) ‘bout eighteen months on.hhhhh an’ ‘e said don’t be

11 afraid my son this is your father (1) ‘e said are you ready to come12 with me. (0.5) an’ I said "no: no I screamed at the top o’ me voice13 screamed out loud.

.hhhhh in comemother un as mother opened the sort’ve

14 bedroom door: pushed the bedroom door whatever.hhh (.) the light

15 "f::::wuh::: (.) an’ it was go:ne like y’know (.) anyway she told the doctor16 next day an’ ‘e

.hhh doctor said I don’t knowmuch "about these things but


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17 had ‘e said (.) Yes: I was willin’ to go ‘e would’ve died ‘e would’ve18 given up (0.3) y’know and gone but e’s obviously fightin’ for ‘is life

.hh an’

19 ’e said no: ‘e’s not ready to go yet (.) an ‘e put up a good fight un20 (0.3) I think probably ‘e’ll make it now ‘e: ‘e said he seems a lot better21 today than ‘e was yes’day when I seen ‘im (.5) (>wh i-<) hhuh I Got22 BE(h)Tter

.hh

(The transcription ‘"f::::wuh:::’ in line 15 is an attempt to capture a breathy, semi-

whistled sound the respondent made to describe the way in which the apparition

of his father disappeared.)

In the Japanese account the respondent is reporting an experience that occurred

when she was suffering a severe fever as a result of contracting chicken pox.

(7) (J: Near death experience=‘Goddess’. To make the transcript more comprehen-sible the interviewer’s interjections—‘yeah’, ‘ah ha’ and ‘mm hm’—have beendeleted.)

1 Res: I seem to have had a fever yeah and at that time (.) >eh<it might have2 been a dream (.) my consciousness having dimmed3 I was climbing up a spiral staircase like this ((laughs))

.hh and

4 white::: a really pure white spiral staircase without (being tired) in5 everyday clothes further and further, further and further6 I kept on going up to a bright blue sky um there were clouds floating7 under my feet I kept going up further and further and then I suddenly8 looked upward if my height had been a length of a match stick9 there was a woman who would have been taller than a chopstick um10 wearing an amazing dress but I could see only around the hem of her dress11 her face appeared to be much further up and I heard the woman’s voice I12 think she was a goddess or something like that she said you are not13 supposed to come to this place yet therefore I came back14 and I immediately got well

There are some clear topical similarities: In the UK case the respondent reports in

some detail how the image of his deceased father emerged from a moving light; and

in the Japanese case, the respondent provides a report of walking up a spiral staircase

to her encounter with her spiritual entity. And in both cases, the entities interact with

the respondents, either inviting them to join them (presumably in the spirit world) or

stating that they have arrived too soon, and effectively denying entry to the afterlife. It

is implied that, as consequence of these encounters, both respondents recovered from

their illnesses.

What is striking is that in the Japanese case, the respondent’s report that she

recovered comes immediately after the report of the encounter with the spiritual

entity. Yet in the UK case, there is a considerable amount of discursive work that

occurs between the report of the encounter with the apparition of the father and

the report of recovery.

The respondent reports his extreme reaction to the spirit: ‘I said "no: no I

screamed at the top o’ me voice screamed out loud’ (lines 12 and 13), yet in the Japa-

nese case there is no account of the respondent’s reaction to the spirit’s injunction

that it was not yet her time.


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There is a report of the immediate consequence of his reaction to the spirit’s

inquiry, in that his mother enters the room (presumably to investigate the verbalized

response to the apparition); it is reported that his mother told the doctor of the event;

the doctor is reported as confirming the implied consequences of accepting the spir-

it’s inquiry (that the respondent would have succumbed to his illness); and there is a

report of the doctor’s (positive) assessment of the respondent’s health after the

experience. Only then does the respondent report his recovery.

There does seem to be suggestive evidence that there are differences in the organi-

zation of paranormal narratives: In the UK data, there seems to be extended descrip-

tion of the actual experience; and prior to the termination of the narrative there may

be report of a range of other related topics, such as the person’s response and

thoughts, the reactions of others, and so on. But in the Japanese cases there is an

economical report of the actual phenomenon. This economy is conspicuous: These

are narratives of extraordinary experiences, and it might be expected that the actual

phenomena—the very point of the story—receive a more extended description. The

conspicuousness of the economical description is further highlighted when we con-

sider that, first, respondents routinely provide extensive description of the setting of

the experience and events leading up to it, and second, they may provide more ela-

borated discussion after they have terminated the narrative, if subsequently invited by

the interviewer. Moreover, the economical description leads swiftly to the close of the

narrative. Indeed, given that in the Japanese accounts there is such swift progression

between the two narrative components, the economical descriptions may be under-

stood to be terminal implicative, in that the story ends so shortly after.

The adjacent positioning of economical description and story ending may not

merely be a recurrent structural feature of the organization of accounts in Japanese:

It may be informed by a tacit normative understanding that this is how accounts

should be brought to a close. Evidence of a normative dimension comes from the

following account in the Japanese corpus. Here the speaker is reporting a childhood

experience of seeing strange shapes or figures in her bedroom at night.

(8) (J: Bedroom apparition=‘Kagome Kagome’)

1 Res: The first thing was.hh (0.2) let me think when I was still

2 at nursery school.hhh we lived in a housing complex

3 Int: Yeah4 Res: And

.hhh at that time my room was next to the entrance hall [to the flat]

5 Int: hmm6 Res: And

.hhh um having put a bag out at the entrance for nursery school (.)

7 When I went to get it – it was night time and the lights were off in my8 room and the entrance hall

.hh hh (0.2) and as I went to get it

9 I just sort of glanced quickly into my room10 sort of

.hh (0.2) five- (.) there were about five people

11 >but< rather than people.hhh white dotted lines in the form of

12 human beings (.) turning around and around in a circle13 h >and sort of< like in a game young children play14 "ka:::gome #ka:::gome [like that game with one person sat in the middle¼15 Int: [hmm


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16 Res: ¼like this.hhh And there were about five people were turning

17 round and round, round in a circle18 Int: hmm19 Res: when I was at nursery school I (.) saw that in my room

This is an unusual case, in that, compared to other Japanese accounts, the respon-

dent does provide a more extended description of the actual phenomenon. She

initially describes the phenomenon as ‘five – (.) there were about five people

>but< rather than people.hhh white dotted lines in the form of human beings

(.) turning around and around in a circle (lines 10–12). This is not dissimilar to

the kinds of economical phenomenon descriptions that in other Japanese accounts

then lead to the completion of the narrative. However, she then offers further infor-

mation about how the figures were moving by drawing an analogy to activities in a

well-known child’s game in Japan (known as Kagome Kagome). At this point in the

account there is another opportunity to bring the narrative to a close. Instead,

though, she produces a partial repeat of the original report, ‘And there were about

five people were turning round and round, round in a circle (lines 16 and 17). Only

after this more economical description of the phenomenon does the respondent end

the narrative (in this case, by repeating information from the start of the account

about her stage of life when the experience occurred). So, spaces in the narrative that

follow elaborated description where the story could have been completed are not

taken up; and the story is only completed after the production of a second, repeated,

and more economical description of the actual phenomenon. This suggests that the

way the respondent completes the narrative is informed by tacit norms about the

appropriate design and ordering of the relevant narrative story components that

may be very different to the norms that inform English speakers’ accounts.

Authority and Persuasiveness in Narrative Design

So far, we have been comparing the ways in which Japanese and English speakers dif-

ferentially address structural requirements of their paranormal narratives. To con-

clude this analysis, we will briefly sketch some preliminary lines of inquiry that

focus more on the inferential features of narrative design. In extract 8 above, the

respondent says

6 Res: And.hhh um having put a bag out at the entrance for nursery school (.)

7 when I went to get it – it was night time and the lights were off in my

8 room and the entrance hall.hh hh (0.2) and as I went to get it

9 I just sort of glanced quickly into my room

In line 7 she embarks on a report of her activities just before she became aware of

the apparitional figures in her bedroom. However, she abandons that turn and reports

that it was night time, and that there were no lights on in her bedroom or the entry hall

where she had gone to retrieve her bag. She then resumes the narrative, ‘and as I went

to get it’, which is a partial repeat of the turn prior to the insertion about the time of

day and the lights being off. The strong similarity to the utterance prior to the


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interjection suggests that this turn marks the return to and resumption of a previously

initiated narrative trajectory; so, then, what is the purpose of the interjection?

Studies of accounts of controversial or contested events have found that narratives

will be organized to demonstrate the accuracy of their perception of the event at the

time, or their subsequent memories. There are a range of tacit communicative skills

and practices which people use in their accounts to warrant their implicit claim that

the experiences being described actually happened, and were not, say, the product of

self interest or personal investment, misperception, wish-fulfillment, or psychological

aberration (Edwards & Potter, 1992, 2005; Potter, 1996; Smith, 1978; Wooffitt,

1992). The requirement to produce authoritative and persuasive accounts of paranor-

mal experiences is particularly acute, as these are not recognized within mainstream

scientific orthodoxy, and may indeed be the basis for ascription of a range of negative

or even pathological personal attributes. One way that an authoritative account of a

paranormal experience may be produced is for the reporter to demonstrate that their

observation of the actual phenomenon was not impaired, thereby ruling out the skep-

tical reinterpretation that the claimed experience was simply the misperception of

something routine. An example of this can be found in extract 4, in which the respon-

dent reports that she was ‘right in front of’ that part of the roomwhere something extra-

ordinary was about to happen, thereby demonstrating that her view of the event was not

only unimpaired, but indeed optimal given the nature and location of subsequent event.

The respondent’s report in extract 8, though, initially seems to invite the inference

that her observation of the event was mistaken, in that she explicitly draws attention

to the fact that it occurred at night, and that there was no illumination from house

lights. However, the report of the darkness is designed with respect to the nature of

the phenomenon: She sees white dotted lines moving in a circle. The implication,

then, is that these white lines and their movement were visible by virtue of the

fact that the experience occurred in darkness. In this sense the interjection is inferen-

tially designed in that it addresses a possible skeptical response to her claims.

A clear parallel can be found in the following case from a UK respondent. Here she

is describing one of a series of apparitional experiences that occurred when she was in

bed. This setting potentially invites two kinds of skeptical response: that the experi-

ence was a dream, or that it was a normal event misperceived in night time darkness.

(9) (UKE: Bedroom apparitions)

1 Res: an’ (.) as I (.) was laid in bed (0.7) yuh know (.)2 sort uv propped up (0.4) >an ah thou(hh)ght< (.)3 and it was dark (.) yuh know4 i(t) sws er: I hadn’t me curtains drawn or anything5 hhh and (.) I saw this glo:w: (0.3) on the (ws) got rea:lly (0.3)6 glow (0.3) on the wall up above

The speaker’s account addresses and defuses both possible skeptical interpretations.

She reports that she was propped up in bed, thereby establishing that she was not sleep-

ing, and, therefore, not dreaming. She then goes on to report that her room was dark,

even going so far as to add that her curtains were closed, which would prevent a


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streetlight from illuminating the room. The experience she goes on to describe requires

darkness for optimal perception, as it begins as a glow on her wall; an event that may

easily be explained as the misperception of everyday light sources, were it not for the

ostensibly incidental report that the room was in darkness and the curtains were closed.

Extracts 8 and 9 provide suggestive evidence that both Japanese- and

English-speaking respondents employ communicative strategies to establish the credi-

bility and authority of their account, which in turn suggests a common tacit orientation

to the possibility of skeptical reinterpretations of their claims. While the communicat-

ive practices in these extracts are similar, other cases point to ways in which this com-

mon orientation to skeptical alternatives may be addressed in different ways in each

language. We will explore this by examining how speakers report their surprised reac-

tion to the phenomenon. (We are not in this article concerned with the fact that in

many accounts speakers express no reaction at all, nor with accounts in which respon-

dents explicitly remark on their lack of reaction, as in extract 2 in which the respondent

remarks that he was not surprised by seeing an apparitional figure; the question we

begin to address here is, when a reaction is reported, how is it done?)

It is easy to understand why people claiming to have had paranormal experiences

may report their surprise at the event: It points to the dramatic, non-everyday nature

of the experience; a display of surprise may also corroborate explicit or implicit

claims about the strangeness of the event; and it further demonstrates that the person

was not anticipating or seeking the experience, which could very easily be the basis

for recasting the experience as the fictitious consequence of a personal predisposition

or wish fulfillment.

In extract 1 above, the respondent explicitly reports his surprised reaction at seeing

an apparitional figure.

5 Res: I saw a man walking above them

6 no matter ho:w I looked

7 for a second I thought like >eh! eh!

As we noted earlier, he draws attention to his attempt to check his initial observation

(which implies a degree of unexpectedness about the event) and then report his

thoughts at the time, ‘>eh! eh!<’, which evocatively depicts a sense of bewilderment

and confusion at that time. Like the reports of the actual phenomenon, though, this

reaction report is minimally designed, and is not elaborated any further. Minimal reac-

tion reports are routine in Japanese accounts. For example, in the following extract the

respondent is reporting how she heard the voice of a recently deceased relative, who

provides information from the spirit world about ceremonial cushions in her house.

(10) (J: ‘Cushions’)

1 Res: at that moment.hhh I heard >sort of< the voice of my aunt

2 coming diagonally from the left- ah right behind.hhhh

3 Int: mm4 Res: "HA:::GHhhhh there are good cushions (h) I [suddenly heard5 Int: [hn mm6 Res so I was surprised I was like (.) what? eh what?


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Here the respondent reports that she was surprised (which seems conspicuously

understated, given that she has just heard the voice of a recently deceased relative)

and then reports, ‘I was like (.) what? eh what?’, a direct but minimal report of

her cognitions that instantiates her claimed surprise.

Reaction reports in the UK accounts, by contrast display a variety of features

absent from the Japanese reports. Consider the following case, in which the respon-

dent is reporting how she would hear a strange sound in her house (which later in the

account transpires to be caused by a spirit).

(11) (UKE: ‘Living room tune’)

1 Res: every time I walked into the sitting room, (0.3) er:m. (0.7)2 right by the window (0.3) and the same place always3 I heard a lovely (0.3) s:ound like (sings tune approx. 2 seconds)4 just a happy (.) little tu:ne (0.5) a:nd >of course<5 I tore apart ma window I tore apart the window frame6 I >did Everything< to find out what the hell’s causing that

Parenthetically: Note the extensive description of the actual phenomenon: It is

reported as ‘a lovely sound’; the respondent then provides a sung exemplification

of what the sound was like, and finally she calls it ‘just a happy little tune’.

Her response is similarly detailed. Although reporting a general reaction (rather

than a reaction to specific instance of the noise), she describes how she sought an

explanation for the noise, in that she examined her windows (thereby invoking

and defusing the common skeptical explanation that the sound was no more than

the rattling of ill-fitting or loose frames). However, it is not merely that she looks

for a natural explanation for the sound: This search is characterized as an obvious

response (‘of course’ she looked for an explanation), and as being urgent, in that

she ‘tore apart’ her windows. It is also exhaustive, in that she says she ‘did everything’

to locate the source. ‘Everything’ is an extreme case formulation, and these regularly

occur when people are trying to establish the appropriateness of their actions or opi-

nions, especially where they have grounds to believe that their accounts may receive a

skeptical response (Pomerantz, 1986). Finally it is noticeable that her claim to have

searched thoroughly for the source is further underlined by the emphasis and slight

change in volume in the production of ‘everything’. So, although the respondent here

does not explicitly say that she was surprised by the phenomenon, it is evident in her

extended and elaborate description of her response that she wishes to establish that

this was not treated as a routine or everyday matter. A similarly extreme reaction is

articulated explicitly by the respondent in extract 6 who reports that he screamed ‘at

the top of his voice’ in response to the spirit’s invitation to cross to the afterlife.

Discussion

The objective of this analysis was to explore the extent to which a perspective on

language and description informed by conversation analysis could identify differences

between Japanese and UK English communicative practices, thereby offering an

empirically grounded account of important cross-cultural variation. In this


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discussion, we assess this approach in comparison to more conventional approaches

to cultural difference, and suggest that it provides the basis for an ecologically valid

understanding of the interplay of culture and communication. To conclude, we

develop these arguments in relation to the different ways in which Japanese and

English speakers address epistemic matters in the design of their accounts.

In this analysis, we have identified differences between the Japanese and English

corpora that reside in the fine detail of the design of accounts. We have also exam-

ined how delicate inferential and interpersonal matters may also be handled in the

construction of the narratives. Compared to the fine-grained analysis of actual com-

munication, it can be argued that conventional approaches offer a less-detailed

insight into human conduct. This is because they are informed by overly broad classi-

fication of relevant social variables and analytic categories, often defined in terms of

two oppositional or competing influences. So, for example, as we noted in the intro-

duction, differences in cross-cultural communication have been examined in relation

to whether a culture is a guilt or shame culture; or whether it is a high-context or

low-context culture; or whether it in individualistic or collectivist culture; or in

relation to loose or tight social structures. Finally, this oppositional characterization

of relevant variables can also be found in more psychological theories of cultural vari-

ation: So for example, it is claimed that people have either independent or interde-

pendent construal of the self. These broad, theoretically informed categorizations

seem imprecise tools to investigate communicative practices, especially in light of

the detailed infrastructure of language in interaction revealed by methods such as

conversation analysis.

It may be the case that research informed by broad analytic categories might actu-

ally obscure precisely the kinds of communicative differences they are designed to

expose. A parallel can be found in the way that the concepts of discourses or reper-

toires are used in European social analysis and critical social psychology to illuminate

how moral, political, or ideological stances inform people’s language, and thereby

legitimize particular beliefs or conduct. Routinely, empirical studies in this tradition

(usually based on interview data) propose the operation of two or three oppositional

discourses or repertoires (see for example, Billig, 1997; Edley, 2001; Phillips and

Jørgensen, 2002). However, the ascription of broad repertoires often glosses at a gross

level important dimensions of communicative practices that can only be identified

through more interactionally focused analysis. Conversation analytically informed

reanalysis of empirical data purportedly exhibiting the operation of theoretically

loaded discourses or repertoires invariably reveals that those communicative practices

actually reflect more mundane interactional or interpersonal contingencies

(Widdicombe & Wooffitt, 1995; Wooffitt, 2005; see also Schegloff, 1997). With

respect to the study of cultural variation, the danger is, then, that research motivated

by generally defined and oppositionally positioned variables may artificially narrow

the scope of analytic investigation, and lead to the ascription of empirical claims that

are not supported by the detail of the communicative events that constitute its data.

Research into language variation on occasion relies on broadly experimental

methods, an approach that reflects the priority given to the role and effect of


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psychological traits and characteristics that reflect wider cultural influences.

However, experimental methods divert attention from investigation of the ways in

which communication is situated in, and designed for, the context of its production.

It is clear from the data we have examined that the accounts reflect the respondents’

tacit understanding of the requirements of the interview context in which they were

participating: For example, the relatively straightforward structural organization of

the narratives that provides an account of the experience without deviation or too

much diverting reflection; and the way that accounts are designed to address alterna-

tive skeptical explanations, thereby providing as robust a case as possible for the

objective reality of the experience. The exploration of the ways in which discourse

is fashioned to fit the respondents’ understanding of their context provides an eco-

logically valid axis upon which to assess language variation. (It may be objected that

our data are not ecologically valid, in that they were generated from informal inter-

views, and, therefore are not naturally occurring interaction of the kind studied in

conversation analysis or related fields. However, these interviews were not underta-

ken in order to generate accounts for this comparative analysis; both the English

and Japanese corpora were initially collected to allow analysis of discourse phenom-

ena intrinsic to each language. Moreover, accounts of experiences of the kind we have

examined here are precisely the kind of data routinely used in parapsychological

research, and in research on anomalistic psychology.)

Although this is an exploratory analysis, we believe that some robust differences

have emerged. It seems clear that in the Japanese accounts, the description of the

actual phenomenon or experience is terminal implicative, in that the narrative is

brought to a candidate completion shortly after its report. This is not to say that

further description may not be offered—in our data, the interviewer’s prompts elicits

further narrative; but without interviewer intervention it would appear that Japanese

speakers tacitly understand that the description of the experience constitutes the

onset of the first opportunity for the completion of the narrative. This is in stark

contrast to accounts from the English corpus, where a range of other discursive

activities then follows speakers’ reports of the phenomena, before they terminate

the account. In these accounts, then, description of the phenomena is not terminal

implicative.

It is useful to reflect on the kinds of additional discursive work that are pro-

duced in the additional description in the UK accounts. Take, for example, extract

6, in which the speaker is reporting how, during a serious boyhood illness, he

observed a spiritual entity, the appearance of which could have heralded his own

death and subsequent passage to the spirit world. After the report of the appear-

ance of the actual entity, he then details his verbal reaction to the spirit’s question

as to his readiness to pass over to the spirit world; he then reports his mother’s

entrance to the room (the implication being that she was bidden by his emphatic

verbal response to the spirit’s question); there is then an account of how he recov-

ered from his illness, confirmed by the introduction into the narrative of the doc-

tor who is reported as expressing his conviction that the speaker’s recovery was in

large part due to his resistance to the spirit’s beckoning. All of these narrative


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components work to authorize the implied claim that the experience happened as

reported: that it was an objective, real event. That the speaker shouted out loud

suggests the extraordinary vividness of the experience, marking it as distinctive

from a ‘mere’ dream. The mother’s appearance reinforces the vividness of the

experience in that it is portrayed as responsive to his audible interactions with

something in his room. Furthermore the introduction of the doctor—a high-status

narrative character—is the mechanism by which the reality of the experience is

further affirmed: The denouement of the story is that the speaker’s recovery was

in some way dependent upon his reaction to the inferably objective intervention

of the spirit. These additional narrative components, then, all serve epistemic func-

tions, in that they work to establish the authority of the account as a report of an

objective experience.

Research into the ways in which epistemic matters are handled in language and

interaction has been a longstanding focus of conversation analytic research. Studies

have explored how participants in ordinary conversational interaction design their

turns to address issues such as rights to speak, authority to speak on particular topics,

changes in their current understanding or state of knowledge, the status of explicit or

implied knowledge claims, and so on (Clift, 2006; Heritage, 1984; Heritage and

Raymond, 2005; Pomerantz, 1980, 1984; 1986; Raymond, 2000; Raymond and

Heritage, 2006; Stivers, 2005). A key finding of these studies is that epistemic auth-

ority does not automatically follow from variables such as the participants’ roles, rela-

tive status, or identities. Rather, research has shown how epistemic authority is the

achieved outcome of discursive activities embedded in routine communicative pro-

cedures, such as turn-taking and turn design. Moreover, there are various discursive

practices in interaction through which epistemic authority may be challenged, nego-

tiated, warranted, and defended. It is this kind of epistemic work that occurs in the

UK corpus after the speakers describe the actual phenomenon, and before they bring

the narrative to completion. In the Japanese accounts it is absent after the report of

the experience because speakers move quickly to terminate the account. This is not to

say, however, that the Japanese speakers do not exhibit a sensitivity to these epistemic

issues: For example, in the discussion of extract 8, it is clear that aspects of the design

of the narrative exhibit an orientation to epistemic matters, such as the ability to see

clearly a paranormal event that is occurring in conditions that might be thought to

impede accurate visual perception. What seems to be emerging is that there may be a

difference between Japanese and UK English speakers in the ways in which epistemic

issues are managed in the structure of their paranormal narratives. This is a prelimi-

nary empirical claim, and one that needs to be confirmed and elaborated by further

research. But it is at least suggestive. Analysis of tacit language practices by which

speakers address epistemic issues of authority and objectivity in the detail of experi-

ential narratives may constitute a novel line of inquiry in research on cultural

variation in language use.

It might be argued that by examining how an account is produced, we are reject-

ing investigation of the impact of cultural difference on what is said. In one sense

this is true: This article has modest intent, in that it is only about the practices of


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talk, not its content. There was no space to examine content. However, we argue that

by focusing on practices of description, we can offer something distinctive to the

investigations of cultural influence on variations in communication. This is because,

to an important degree, the procedural, tacit communicative competences on which

people rely to talk, and which we have attempted to describe, are sets of cultural

knowledge: of how to speak, of how to frame a recollection, and of how to structure

a narrative. Our investigation of the design of accounts of extraordinary personal

experiences is therefore a study of cultural knowledge in practice, mobilized for spe-

cific interpersonal goals in specific settings. Analysis of the competencies of com-

munication, as well as its content, can only enrich our understanding of language

variation.

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Appendix: Transcription Symbols

The transcription symbols used here are common to conversation analytic research,

and were developed by Gail Jefferson. The following symbols are used in the data.

(.5) The number in brackets indicates a time gap in tenths of a second.

(.) A dot enclosed in a bracket indicates a pause in the talk less than two tenths

of a second..hh A dot before an ‘h’ indicates speaker in-breath. The more h’s, the longer the

in-breath.

Hh An ‘h’ indicates an out-breath. The more ‘h’s the longer the breath.

(( )) A description enclosed in a double bracket indicates a nonverbal activity. For

example, ((banging sound))

- A dash indicates the sharp cut-off of the prior word or sound.


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::: Colons indicate that the speaker has stretched the preceding sound or letter.

The more colons the greater the extent of the stretching.

( ) Empty parentheses indicate the presence of an unclear fragment on the tape.

(guess) The words within a single bracket indicate the transcriber’s best guess at an

unclear fragment.

. A full stop indicates a stopping fall in tone. It does not necessarily indicate

the end of a sentence.

Under Underlined fragments indicate speaker emphasis.

"# Pointed arrows indicate a marked falling or rising intonational shift. They are

placed immediately before the onset of the shift.

, A comma indicates a continuing intonation.

? A question mark indicates a rising inflection. It does not necessarily indicate a

question.

CAPITALS With the exception of proper nouns, capital letters indicate a section of

speech noticeably louder than that surrounding it.� � Degree signs are used to indicate that the talk they encompass is spoken

noticeably quieter than the surrounding talk.�� Double degree signs have been used to indicate whispered or extremely quiet

talk.

Thaght A ‘gh’ indicates that the word in which it is placed had a guttural

pronunciation.

> < ‘More than’ and ‘less than’ signs indicate that the talk they encompass was

produced noticeably quicker than the surrounding talk.

¼ The ‘equals’ sign indicates contiguous utterances. For example:

[ Square brackets between adjacent lines of concurrent speech

] indicate the onset and end of a spate of overlapping talk.


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