Ten Prosodic Patterns of Turn-Taking in Japanese Conversation

Nigel G. Ward

Speech Prosody, 2020

Abstract: In spoken dialog, proper management of turn taking is a cornerstone of effective communication. In many languages, including Japanese, prosody plays an important role, but previous work has described only a few aspects of this. Based on a systematic analysis of corpus data using automatic tools and close listening, this paper presents a more comprehensive account, including descriptions of the prosody and functions of ten patterns of turn-taking in Japanese, four of which have not been previously described, including some not observed in other languages.

日本語の会話における発話権交代を支える韻律パターンの一覧

だれがいつ話すかの管理は会話の参加者にとって重要な課題であり、韻律の利用で効率良く、効果的に行われている。しかしその具体的な解説はなかった。本研究は日常会話データの定量的分析と機能的分析により、ターン管理パターンのタイミングと韻律的特徴を特定し、ここで10個のパターンを網羅する。日本語にも他言語にもよく着目されてきた発話終了、相槌、フィラーのパータンの細かい説明、他言語に観察されなかった日本語の特徴的なパータンの解説もする。応用は日本語教育や音声対話システムの改善にある。

Full Paper

Presentation Video

Supplemental information

Constructions, Loadings Diagrams, and Audio Examples

Construction Loadings DiagramAudio Examples*
Basic Turn Exchange dim 2 hi marugame, yotei, gotenshita
Has Floor dim 1 hi koishii, tanjoubi, tairyoku
Backchanneling dim 3 hi onnanoko, minna, naruhodo
Topic Enthusiasm dim 4 hi harigami, hareru, dame, sankai
No Topic dim 4 lo tonkotsu, ya-demo, sooka
Particle-Assisted Turn Taking dim 5 lo kandou, ryokou, jikan
Filler dim 6 hi heee, hoshii, areba
Commentable Information dim 6 lo okashii, shaku, isogashikute
Turn-Internal Pause dim 7 lo naita, atowa, otokonoko
Rapid Turn Interleaving dim 8 lo shinkai, chanto, torainingu

*In each audio clip, the middle timepoint corresponds to the "0 ms" point in the loadings and description of the construction.

Numeric Values of the Feature Loadings for all Dimensions

Provenance of the Sample Clips