Study on Speech Level Control during Conversation among two participants

为了考察两名参与者对话中语音水平控制的实际情况和话语功能，作者用日语录下了两名同性大学生15分钟的几种对话。对所有数据进行转录，基于数据，并从以下三个方面进行分析：(1)基本语音电平(2)每个语音电平的频率(3)语音电平移位。研究发现：(1)大多数被试在得知同伴的年级信息之前，都选择正式语体作为初步的基本语体。在高年级和低年级学生对基本言语水平的选择中，低年级学生对基本言语水平的选择存在性别差异：30%的男生选择朴素风格，而100%的女生选择正式风格。(2)参与者通过控制言语水平，积极、动态地运用各种话语策略来实现由识别选择的正式形式和言语风格。(3)与日语为母语的人相比，日语为母语的人和非日语为母语的人都经常以正式形式结束句子，不加任何助词。这一发现可以用母语人士在与外国人交谈时的适应来解释。

To examine the actual condition and discourse functions of Speech Level Control during conversations among two participants, the author video and audio recorded several kinds of 15 minutes conversations among two university students of same sex using Japanese. All the data were transcribed, data-based, and analyzed from the following three aspects, (1) basic speech level (2) frequency of each speech level (3) speech level shift.The main findings are,(1) Formal style was chosen by most of the participants as a tentative basic speech level before getting the information about the grade of their partners. Among pairs of higher graders and lower graders, the selection of the basic speech level by the lower graders showed difference by gender : 30 % of male selected plain style while 100 % of female selected formal style. (2) Participants demonstrated communicating actively and dynamically making use of various kinds of discourse strategies by controlling speech level to fulfill the formal forms and speech styles chosen from discernment. (3) Both native speakers and non-native speakers of Japanese frequently end sentences with formal style without any particles added when compared with pairs of native speakers. This finding may be explained by adjustment by the native speakers as a foreigner talk.