Backchanel and Japanese Language

Apr 10, 2008 at 1:17 PM
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The article we read for Thursday was really interesting to me because it is something that I have experienced first-hand. While studying abroad in Japan the use of the subtle grunt, "nn", to signify one's agreement or attention during a conversation was one the first things that I noticed while there. It is not altogether different from the use of "uh-huh" in American English but it something that strikes one as odd when it is first encountered. It took me a second to comprehend if they were actually interested in the conversation we were having at the time or if they were trying to show that did not care at all what I had to say. Also, the smiling and head-nodding that the article discusses is really true. They do a lot of it.

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I had always assumed that the smiling and nodding thing was a bad stereotype that we had. It is interesting that they seem to place even more of an emphasis on these expressions than we, though it is clear that we also do the same (just look around in class, there's a room full of nodding heads usually). What is also intersting is to think about to what degree the nods are - some are enthusiastic, while others are very understated - something seen quite often.

I thought the article and the study were interesting, also. I've heard things before about the Japanese accepting silence in interactions much more than Westerners do, so to see that they definitely have ways of continuing interaction when there is a transition or break was pretty neat.

Backchanel and Japanese Language

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