Transformative continuations, (dis)affiliation, and accountability in Japanese interaction

Abstract

Studies of joint productions have often focused on instances where a recipient anticipates through completions what a speaker might be about to say, or through expansion what that speaker could plausibly go on to say. However, recent work suggests that grammatically fitted continuations may also alter or redirect the projected trajectory of a prior speaker’s turn or utterance. In this paper, building on this prior work, we focus on cases in Japanese interaction where grammatically fitted continuations of one speaker’s turn or utterance by another speaker accomplished through “format tying” (Goodwin and Goodwin 1987) effects some kind of transformation of the action or stance implemented by that prior turn. We term these “transformative continuations,” and propose that while they are invariably disaligning, they may nevertheless implement both affiliative and disaffiliative stances. We propose that an analysis of transformative continuations thus leads us to a consideration of both the degree to which participants may orient to these as (dis)affiliative, as well as the ways in which the respective participants may be held accountable for such instances of joint production.