Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnography in Tokyo and TV drama analysis, I will delineate how listeners adapt their senses of hearing, sight and touch, and how they control their bodies with the help of materials such as phones. This will reveal the complexities of Japanese communication and listeners' unspoken rules.

Paper long abstract:

In face-to-face conversations, people seem to know how to behave as listeners both consciously and unconsciously. Listeners can be said to follow unwritten rules, using listening behaviour to present themselves or to pretend to be listening. As Goffman (1990) notes that performers have tacit consent to behave and control their images to audiences. I found and named one of the unwritten rules of listening, which is nagara listening, a kind of listening as multitasking.

Based on ethnography in Tokyo and analysis of TV dramas, I found that during nagara listening, listeners adopt their senses of hearing, sight, and touch, and skilfully control their bodies with the supports of materials such as smart-phones or one's hair. Listeners use these materials (tentatively called 'auxiliary artefacts') as ways to control their senses, particularly eyes and hands for different reasons such as to reduce social unease or not to appearing threatening others. For example, there are two women in their fifties sitting in a Starbucks in Tokyo. One of them as a listener touches her smart-phone on the table with her left hand, smoothes her hair with her left hand and eats a slice of chocolate cake with her right hand, turns her face to her friend, nods and mumbles 'hō'. This can be explained by her trying to create comfortable mental spaces to the speaker by being engaged in nagara listening, such as smoothing hair or eating a cake as a way to control her hands and eyes. She also had to show bodily reactions such as nodding to prove she is not just hearing but also listening. In another example, although listeners use the same auxiliary artefacts and show similar behaviours such as checking phones or reading books while listening, a student is considered as a listener, but not a politician. It is clear that several aspects such as purpose, situational context, social status or gender must influence the listeners' unwritten rules.

Overall, analysing Japanese listeners' senses, bodily practices (behaviour), and auxiliary artefacts will offer better understandings of the dynamics of Japanese communication and reveal unspoken rules for listeners.