This is a continuation of the research above, and it further investigates native speakers’ linguistic knowledge of cooking recipes through a writing experiment. Among other findings, the study shows that native speakers’ receptive knowledge of recipe register does not transfer equally to their production knowledge. Compared with specialized vocabulary and text structure, register-specific written grammar is difficult to learn from mere exposure to recurring patterns for most participants. 

In this study, my student co-author and I investigate the similarities and differences between three sub-registers of Japanese recipe texts: cookbook recipes, online commercial recipes edited by professionals, and online user-generated recipes. The study finds that varied linguistic and textual features are motivated by different production circumstances, mediums, and relations among the participants.

This study examines a Japanese (pseudo-)cleft construction, [clause] no-wa [NP/AdvP/clause] (da), in four spoken and written registers: informal conversations, academic presentations, news reports, and newspaper editorials. It uncovers various register-oriented functions that show a varied degree of family resemblance with one another. Based on the results, the study proposes a realistic and inclusive (albeit complex) account of the relationship between grammatical forms, their functions, and the contexts of use. 

An analysis of the sentence-final tteyuu on Twitter (currently X), suggests that this discourse marker is shifting from a textual function of elaboration to a stance marker of lighthearted mockery. I argue this transition is attributed to its recurrent use in specific contexts, leading to invited inferences about the writer’s intentions in expanding upon an idea, which extend beyond purely informational to interpersonal and social concerns. The findings underscore the centrality of pragmatic inferencing in semantic changes as well as the context-dependent nature of meaning creation.

This study investigates the use of the utterance-final tteyuu [ʔtejɯː], a combination of the quotative particle tte and the verb yuu (‘say’). The analysis of 120 examples in varied contexts shows its general usage to clarify something expressed in the prior talk, which is a type of repair practice. More importantly, the analysis reveals how the participants’ understanding of the ongoing speech activity and multimodal cues affect its use and interpretation. Furthermore, some specialized usages appear to motivate activity-bound pragmatic inferencing, leading to emergence of a new construction. The findings demonstrate that even those expressions that are fixed in one context are in flux.

This study examines utterances of Karen Takizawa (滝沢カレン), a TV personality who is known for her unique Japanese (不思議な日本語). Though most of her utterances are grammatical, her utterances contradict the speech community members’ expectations based on linguistic repertoires of various sizes and associated conventional meanings beyond dictionary definitions. Some of her utterances also challenge their expectations concerning positional fitness and socio-relational concerns. Findings suggest that formulaicity in conversational discourse has less to do with fixedness in form and more to do with pragmatic meanings and discourse contexts. 

This study argues that meta-pragmatic awareness of conversation participants needs to be recognized beyond surface interactional patterns identified in conversation. The study identifies a previously undescribed construction [Noun (da) yo Noun] (It’s Noun, you know, Noun) in informal conversation and demonstrates how speakers communicated mutual trust to manage interaction by systematically leaving things unsaid. 

This study investigates multimodal strategies for balancing formality and informality online. In comment-reply interactions on a recipe sharing site, writers tend to avoid being overly formal or informal in their messages. Linguistic features, however, are not the only way through which the writers manage an appropriate level of formality and informality. This study examines the role of kaomoji or Japanese-style emoticons for the socio-relational work online. Some kaomoji provide local cues for how to interpret the sentences featuring kaomoji. All kaomoji, including those with local functions, work to enhance the social presence of the writers on the screen via pictographic gazes and gestures, which increase the perception of intimate rapport. Findings underscore the importance of a multimodal perspective in examining how people handle social relationships online. 

Conversational interactants rely on each other to cooperate with ongoing actions and activities both structurally (alignment) and affectively (affiliation). They monitor one another’s cooperative behaviors to detect any (potential) problems in alignment and affiliation. This study describes one interactional strategy Japanese speakers use to deal with detected problems in three non-main sequences (i.e., side, pre-expansion, and post-expansion sequences). In the practice I call anchoring shared knowledge, the action (or activity) initiator uses the utterance-final desho to request ratification of shared knowledge from the recipient. Positioning of this request relative to the main action makes the desho-speaker’s action interpretable to the recipient as seeking alignment to and affiliation with the main action. The study demonstrates (i) the interactants’ constant attention to alignment and affiliation, (ii) their orientation to the relevance of local practices to the main action or activity, and (iii) the complex interrelationships between epistemics, actions, and social relations. 

This study investigates the locally situated interactional functions of two epistemic modals that are generally considered plain and polite variants of the same form (daroo and deshoo). A detailed sequential analysis demonstrates that daroo and deshoo are used to perform various social actions rather than simply expressing the speaker’s conjecture. Deshoo has a rather fixed function of soliciting alignment or confirmation from the interlocutor. Daroo, on the other hand, works as part of larger constructions for various actions.