The large category of Japanese words or morphemes commonly labeled “particles,” or in Japanese joshi, has long been problematic for linguistics. This in large part is due to the variety of apparent grammatical or pragmatic functions the category encompasses. While some particles seem to function as more or less straightforward postpositions, others are said to mark case or discourse functions, and still others have pragmatic functions but no clearly agreed syntactic or semantic position. The two particles tackled by Emi Morita's new book, ne and sa, are of this last variety. Morita argues that these “interactional particles” serve important roles of marking stance or activity in ongoing talk-in-interaction. As Morita puts it, “The insertion of interactional particles may serve to ‘salientize’ or ‘set apart’ certain units of talk in order to make them interactionally relevant to immediately adjacent action” (p. 95).
Morita's opening chapter provides a brief overview of interactional linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 1996, Schegloff, Ochs & Thompson 1996), a type of linguistic analysis influenced by conversation analysis, which views linguistic structure as emergent from real talk in real time and positions the study within this framework. Chap. 2 provides a comprehensive summary of existing literature on the particles ne and sa, albeit one that could do with more synthesis of the existing work, or a greater attempt to position this analysis relative to previous studies.
The heart of the volume is located in chaps. 3, 4, and 5, which treat the overall concept of interactional particles and the specific functions of ne and sa, respectively. The basic claim here is that speakers use ne or sa to mark some portion of a turn-at-talk as interactionally relevant, and therefore provide a space for interlocutors to respond in a variety of ways. For example, Morita shows how the use of ne may, in different positions, help secure a turn-at-talk, call for a listener's gaze or minimal response, or mark some component – such as a hedge or assessment contained within a larger turn – as particularly salient. The functions of sa are similarly manifold, and subject to the specifics of a particular interaction.
All of this could appear rather unsatisfying for someone looking for the meaning of a particle. However, as Morita illustrates, such searches are probably misguided. Rather than looking for the meaning or function of a word or other linguistic structure prior to interaction, far more nuanced understandings are possible from the analysis of actual language use.
The main weakness of the book is its sometimes insufficient engagement with other frameworks. Morita presents interesting analysis but does not always explain how this complements or problematizes earlier work. Welcome exceptions to this critique come in discussions of intonational variation and of the function of ne as an “attention getter,” both areas in which Morita's conclusions fit with existing literature. A bit more of this engagement might show that interactional linguistics is not merely an alternative to cognitive or structural linguistics, but a means of both deepening and widening our understanding of language and social interaction.
