Speaker
Description
This presentation examines how anger is expressed in Japanese close relationships, focusing on interactions among friends and family members. From a pragmatic perspective, it explores how patterns of anger expression are shaped through participation in social communities. Using Japanese media discourse as data, the study considers how such patterns contrast with English interactional norms and discusses implications for English L2 development, particularly in helping learners understand how emotional expression varies across social and cultural contexts.
References
Cowen, A. S., Fang, X., Sauter, D., & Keltner, D. (2024).
How emotion is experienced and expressed across cultures: A large-scale comparison of Japan, the United States, and Europe. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1350631. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1350631
Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H. C. (2016).
Culture and emotion: The integration of biological and cultural contributions. In L. F. Barrett, M. Lewis, & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (4th ed., pp. 296–312). Guilford Press.
Taguchi, N. (2019).
Second language acquisition and pragmatics: An overview. In N. Taguchi (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition and pragmatics (pp. 1–14). Routledge.
Keywords
pragmatics
anger expression
relational norms
media discourse analysis
Abstract
This presentation examines how anger is expressed within Japanese close relationships and considers how community-based interaction shapes pragmatic competence relevant to English L2 development. While Japanese communication is often described as indirect, anger expression appears to be organized primarily around relational context rather than general emotional restraint (Matsumoto & Hwang 2016; Cowen et al. 2024). Within close social groups, speakers frequently rely on shared expectations to express conflict more directly.
Using an interactional pragmatic framework, this study analyzes anger-related scenes from contemporary Japanese television dramas and films. The analysis focuses on pragmatic features such as direct speech acts, reduced mitigation, shifts into plain or rough registers, and explicit evaluation. These interactional practices are treated as community-based resources through which speakers negotiate meaning, responsibility, and social alignment.
From a cross-cultural perspective, differences in anger expression appear to lie less in intensity than in how strongly expression is adjusted to relationship type. Such patterns highlight the importance of community membership in shaping emotional language use. For English L2 learners, limited exposure to relationship-sensitive expressions of anger may hinder the development of pragmatic competence, particularly in emotionally charged interaction (Taguchi 2019). By linking anger expression to participation in social communities, this presentation aligns with the conference theme by emphasizing how language competencies are built through shared interactional experience.
Short summary
This presentation examines how anger is expressed in Japanese close relationships, focusing on interactions among friends and family members. From a pragmatic perspective, it explores how patterns of anger expression are shaped through participation in social communities. Using Japanese media discourse as data, the study considers how such patterns contrast with English interactional norms and discusses implications for English L2 development, particularly in helping learners understand how emotional expression varies across social and cultural contexts.
| Scheduling preference | Anytime on Saturday |
|---|---|
| Title | Anger Expression in Japanese Close Relationships |