Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:05:05.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Tone of voice in Japanese conversation1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Gail R. Benjamin
Affiliation:
University of Maryland

Abstract

An experimental study of the role of tone of voice in Japanese conversations, using both Japanese and American subjects, has uncovered situational determinants of voice quality not related to emotion. Some of these variations are perceived differently by the two sets of subjects, some in the same way. The nature of the situational determinants casts new doubt on the plausibility of ‘language’ as a natural subset of human communications. (Tone of voice, non-linguistic communication, ethnography of communication, Japan.)

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bailey, C.-J. N. (1972). The integration of linguistic theory. In Stockwell, R. and Macauley, R. (eds), Historical linguistics and generative theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2231.Google Scholar
Benjamin, G. R. & Creider, C. A. (1975). Social distinctions in non-verbal behavior. Semiotica II (I). 5260.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1964). Introduction: Toward ethnographies of communication. In Gumperz, J. J. and Hymes, D. (eds), The ethnography of communication (special issue of American Anthropologist 66 (6). Part II, 134.)Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1973). A case of precision timing in ordinary conversation: overlapped tag-positioned address terms in closing sequences. Semiotica 9 (I). 4796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendon, A. (1967). Some relationships between body motion and speech: an analysis of an example. In Seigman, A. W. and Pope, B. (eds), Studies in dyadic communication. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press. 177210.Google Scholar
Key, M. R. (1975). Paralanguage and kinesics. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1966). Social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Martin, S. (1964). Speech levels in Japan and Korea. In Hymes, D. (ed), Language in culture and society. New York: Harper and Row. 407–15.Google Scholar
Pittenger, R. E., Hockett, C. F. & Darley, J. (1960). The first five minutes. Ithaca, N.Y.: P. Martineau.Google Scholar
Sarles, H. B. (1969). The study of language and communication across species. Current Anthropology 10. 211–20.Google Scholar