K1
Japanese and German expert discourse in mono- und multilingual constellations (JadEx)

By examining presentational discourse and planning discourse as exemplary forms of expert discourse, our research project aims, firstly, at contrasting German and Japanese as spoken by L1 speakers in professional settings, and secondly, at comparing those findings to professional settings where L2 German is spoken by Japanese L1 speakers and L2 Japanese by German L1 speakers respectively. The latter discourse settings are termed multilingual constellations, the former monolingual constellations. Methodically we are working within the framework of Functional Pragmatics founded by Konrad Ehlich and Jochen Rehbein in the 1970s, which has since been continually enhanced and developed further. Accordingly, we employ a 3-Step approach (see Fig. 1). Firstly, we isolate comparable domains of purpose occurring within presentational and planning discourses. Our research is based on natural discourse data collected from the above mentioned forms of expert discourse, which exhibit various domains of purpose — such as e.g. suggesting a proposal, explaining, advising, giving reasons, justifying, assessing, describing. Currently we are working with a corpus consisting of 100 hours of mono- and multilingual discourse related to Economics and Science, which is being transcribed and analyzed according to HIAT conventions. Secondly, we analyze Japanese and German linguistic means of expression found in our data, specifically with regard to the domains of purpose they contribute to. Thus, it becomes evident that linguistic devices in Japanese and German, which are used for the same purpose of interaction, are procedurally assembled in different ways in each respective language and do combine in language specific manners. Speakers and hearers therefore will be required to display a language specific knowledge matching particular linguistic means with particular tasks in linguistic actions they serve, to be able to realize their specific purposes in German and Japanese respectively. Moreover, particular linguistic actions set off specific re-actions on the hearer's part (mental reconstruction, assessment and execution of adequate mental-cognitive, verbal, nonverbal or actional response), which may come out differently according to language specific linguistic means and their combinations. Thus, we gradually reconstruct the differences in linguistic means of expression, provided by German and Japanese respectively, which serve specific domains of purpose within expert discourse. Thirdly, we investigate L2 discourses in order to compare the results of the above mentioned contrastive analyses with the corresponding L2 Japanese and L2 German means of expression used in multilingual constellations. This leads up to questions such as whether speakers of German and Japanese have to employ fundamentally different means of linguistic expression in order to achieve comparable discourse purposes; and whether/how linguistic processing by L2 speakers as well als L2 listeners may be controlled by their L1 knowledge of purpose-related linguistic means.

Presentational discourse

Our findings so far, regarding Japanese and German presentational discourse, are suggestive of fundamental differences in the ways a speaker influences the listening process on the hearer's part. A speaker may accomplish this by a variety of linguistic means intervening at various stages of the listening process on the hearer's part, as of aural intake, mental reconstruction, and interpretation of speaker's linguistic actions. One point in case is the extensive use Japanese speakers usually make of discourse particles (e.g. “desu ne”, “ee”) in presentational discourse, thus repeatedly enacting expeditive procedures which reach out and intervene directly in the hearer's interactional and mental processes (see Ehlich 1986 inter alia for details on expeditive procedures and the extension of Bühler (1934)'s theory on functional fields of language), whereas speakers of German presentational discourse display a considerably smaller extent of comparable discourse particles (such as german “né”, “ních”, “ja”). Thus, throughout this basically monologue-like discourse form, a speaker of Japanese will use a range of linguistic means urging the hearer towards immediate mental response, since in professional settings of expert presentations the turn-taking mechanism is institutionally suspended, allowing for little or no response from the hearer during the speaker's talk. Our findings, when considered in the light of turn-taking, point to a more variegated functional spectre of Japanese discourse particles. Apparently, Japanese speakers use a lot of expeditive procedures in order to command the listeners's attention, and in order to steer their course of comprehension processes. This does not seem to be the case with German speakers of expert presentations. Moreover, Japanese presentational discourse exhibits a substantial amount of discursive predicates, whereas German presentational discourse predominantly deploys descriptive predicates (see Redder 1992 for this distinction). Discursive predicates serve to anchor verbalizations in the interactionally shared speech situation by identifying propositional contents as actions carried out by speaker or hearer. They reflect thus the established interactional system of cooperation between speaker and hearer connected to the current speech situation. Typical of discursive predicates are speaker deictic/hearer deictic means of expression (verbal morphemes of 1st and 2nd person in German, linguistic means of politeness in Japanese). Descriptive predicates, on the other hand, achieve detachment of verbalizations from an immediate speech situation by verbalizing propositional contents as events or actions carried out by a third party, independently of speaker and hearer. Typical are 3rd person predicates in German, “neutral” verb forms in Japanese (non-stylized forms ending “-u”/”-ru” without “-masu”-ending). In consequence of these characteristics, German presentational discourse presents us with strong textual qualities, as opposed to the more dialogue-like quality of Japanese presentational discourse, where hearers are frequently addressed and connected repeatedly to the shared speech situation and interactional system. These findings suggest, that, in Japanese, speakers of expert presentational discourse seek to entwine their audience in cooperation within the established system of interaction (Kooperation in einem gemeinsamen Handlungssystem), while in German, speakers of expert presentational discourse seek to eliminate connections to their actual speech situation and to attain a more general statement, which may hold independently of any actual speech situation. In addition and on a more general scale, our findings display differently assembled procedural combinations of linguistic means expressing the same purpose of interaction in Japanese and German. A striking example is exhibited in the interactional purpose of announcing, which is realized frequently in both Japanese and German expert presentational discourse. While in German presentational discourses a specific intonational pattern (expeditive procedure) serves to identify an announcement of a speaker's subsequent action, in Japanese presentational discourses quite often the Japanese particle KEREDOMO is used in utterance-final position to the same purpose. This expeditive function is derived from the sentence/utterance-internal position, where KEREDOMO works as a concessive connective, assembled from complex symbolic-operative procedures. The functional shift of a particle gaining an additional expeditive potential in the case of Japanese as compared to the basic expeditive procedure of a specific intonation contour in German is understandable partly through typological differences between Japanese and German. Yet, with respect to discourse form and each respective purpose of linguistic action involved the combination of various procedural devices may differ significantly.

Planning discourse

In planning discourse we can also determine fundamental differences in comparable domains of purpose. The linguistic realization of speaker-related assessments and action needs requires that, in both languages, the listener is permitted the possibility of considering a seperate position, without being influenced by the views and interests of the speaker. In this aspect the two languages are similar. However, in Japanese other means of expression, which are not found in German, are systematically deployed. For example, while the Japanese speaker attempts to place herself in the background, preferably achieving this through the use of impersonal constructions in utterances realizing assessments, e.g. “ka mo shirenai” (“one cannot know if … or”), the German speaker employs speaker-deictic constructions, e.g. “glaube ich” (“I think”). In regards to the linguistic realization of action needs, the Japanese speaker could offer, for example, the volitive form modalized through the use of the quotative plus a verb of thought, “-tai to omoimasu”. However, in German the corresponding action need would be marked as mental reality through the subjunctive II form “ich würde gerne”.
In two pilot studies we were able to show that in multilingual expert discourse constellations occur, bearing an apparent mismatch between linguistic means of expression deployed by the L2-speakers and action needs arising within the domains of purposes mentioned above.

Outlook

Until now it has remained open as to whether or not such potential conflicts concern mainly listener directed processes, or if they concern knowledge presentation as well. Thus, we are planning, in the second research phase, to concentrate on studying embedded representation of facts in sub-discourse found within presentation and planning discourse, e.g. reporting and explaining. New questions that have arised concern the mutual influence of the L1 and L2, as well as the comparison of bilingual versus second-language expert speech actions.

Cooperations

We maintain academic relations with following departments in The National Institute for Japanese Language in Tokyo, in which, among other things, Corpus Linguistics and Discourse Analysis are studied: (Japanese) Language System, Japanese Language Teaching, Language Conduct, and Phonetics.