This is the first volume of the Kobe Study, a longitudinal project investigating the changes in language use in the speech of working-class Japanese women from the Kobe-Osaka region over thirty years (1989−2019). Social anthropologist Kaori Okano interviewed twenty-one women at regular intervals during this period, accompanying their life-course trajectories from the conclusion of high school until their mid forties. The first phase of the study centres on one of these women, Kanako, who starts the research as a final-year high school student experiencing the school-to-work transition and finishes it as a wife and mother of three who accumulates multiple identities. This volume focuses on interviews conducted in 1989 and 2000, seeking to examine how discourse produced in interactions between two individuals (Kanako and the researcher) changes over time, thus aiming to contribute both to the longitudinal study of language variation and the linguistics of Japanese. Employing the multi-analytical discourse approach (MAD), an interdisciplinary team composed by Okano and four linguists from diverse fields conducted analyses of the transcribed interviews, considering both linguistic and ethnographic data.

In ch. 1, the editors introduce and situate the study. Ch. 2 presents Okano's ethnographic account of Kanako's life from 1989 to 2000, investigating the social roles she accumulates and the multiple identities she performs over her twenties, when she navigates between being a student, a worker, a wife, and a mother, amongst several other roles. In ch. 3, Lidia Tanaka compares Kanako's use of discourse markers on both interviews (1989 and 2000), as well as her code-switching between Standard Japanese (SJ) and Kobe and Osaka dialects. The chapter contends that the participant's more recurrent use of SJ variants in 2000, combined with a less frequent employment of DMs, points to the construction of a more mature and experienced Kanako, whose speech has arguably changed over the decade due to her new life experiences. In ch. 4, Claire Maree discusses how interviewer and interviewee discursively engage in the negotiation of their multiple selves, as well as in the mediation of gender and sexuality expectations, arguing that laughter is used by both parties to align themselves with heteronormativity. Ikuko Nakane examines rapport development between Kanako and Okano in ch. 5, showing that there is a level of speech accommodation on both parts that may indicate a greater familiarity acquired over the years. Nevertheless, linguistic data also points to a more socially distanced attitude on the interviewee's end when compared to the interviewer. Finally, ch. 6 draws on conversation analysis to examine how information-seeking strategies in social science interviews change with the parties’ increased familiarity. In this chapter, Shimako Iwasaki focuses on question-response sequences in the 1989 and the 2000 interviews to analyse Okano and Kanako's change in epistemic stance and affiliation over time.

Overall, the book delves into Kanako's journey into adulthood, the shifting relationship between researcher and participant, and the linguistic resources that construct identities and rapport. It provides a rich interdisciplinary investigation for those who are interested in both linguistic and ethnographic data.