Japanese Quotation Marker “tte” in Conversation using Everyday Conversation Corpus*

Abstract

This study investigates what participants achieve by employing a Japanese quotation marker “tte” in everyday conversation. Specifically, the focus is what is done in the utterance when the marker is at the end of the utterance. In the cases in this study, the direct quotations with the end of “tte” and similar ones are employed in telling environment, in which one side of participants keeps the right to speak to tell something about their thought or experience, and the others just response of listening to it. It is found that the types of the quotation are employed in the middle of the telling and the contents of the quotation can be seen as a punchline though it is not. Thus, the teller have to deal with the possibility of misunderstanding that the quotation is the punchline of the story. Therefore, it can be said that quotation with “tte” enables receivers of telling to understand that the utterance is not the end of the telling. This contributes the co-construction of the story and mutual understanding of the status of the telling going on.