The effects of information relevance to speaker vs. hearer on the use of comment expressions and interrogative sentences in the Japanese language

Abstract

This study examined how the relevance of information to the speaker and the hearer affected the use of comments and interrogative sentences. Subjects read scenarios and rated the necessity of an expression (Experiment 1) or the naturalness of expressions (Experiment 2) in each of the situations. Experiment 1 investigated the use of comments, which preceded the information, to show the speaker's uncertainty about the information contents (subjects: 138 undergraduates). The less the information was relevant to the speaker and/or the more it was relevant to the hearer, the more the comments were judged to be necessary. Experiment 2 investigated the use of interrogative sentences, declarative sentences, and declarative sentences + a sentence final particle 'ne' (subjects: 96 undergraduates). Interrogative sentences were judged to be the most natural in the conditions where the information was relevant to the hearer and not to the speaker, whereas declarative sentences were judged to be the most natural where the information was relevant to the speaker and not to the hearer. Declarative sentences + 'ne' showed intermediate patterns of use between interrogative sentences and declarative sentences.