Resumen de 'It has the ability to make the other person feel comfortable': L1 Japanese speakers’ folk descriptions of 'aizuchi'
Aizuchi refers to particular verbal and non-verbal listening behaviours in Japanese. Listeners perform these behaviours during interaction while the speaker has the floor. These responses attend to the speaker’s talk, by demonstrating understanding, continuation and other interactional functions. These responses include verbalisations such as un (‘yeah’), aa (‘right), ee (‘uh huh’) and non-verbal movements such as head nods. Previous researchers have claimed that L1 Japanese speakers have a heightened sense of awareness of aizuchi when compared to speakers of other languages. However, researchers have yet to formally establish the ways in which Japanese speakers are aware of this phenomenon. As a result, this study reports on L1 Japanese speaking participants’ descriptions of aizuchi. These descriptions were elicited through semi-structured reflective interviews and were folk linguistically analysed. The results indicate that participants can articulate accurate and detailed descriptions of aizuchi, when they were compared to previous research findings. Specifically, participants described aizuchi as a particular form, as an affective function, and/or as an interactional function. Participants also distinguished aizuchi responses from other forms of verbal and non-verbal listening behaviours, which they typically described as “reactions”. Consequently, a taxonomy of listening responses in Japanese is proposed in this study. Overall, this research establishes L1 Japanese speakers’ explicit knowledge about aizuchi, which may have implications for other languages, interactional-oriented studies, and Japanese second language classrooms.
