This research examined the use of gesture space between two speakers engaged in a joint geometric puzzle task. Pairs of participants determined a way to combine block pieces into a geometric pattern in low screen (visible) and high screen (non-visible) conditions. During negotiation, participants were not allowed to manipulate the block pieces. Results showed that visibility affected where gestures were produced. When gestures were visible, participants tended to produce gestures in the air (in front of their torso), where gestures were visually more accessible for the listeners. When gestures were not visible, more gestures were made on the desk. This suggests participants adjusted their gesture location based on the visibility of their gestures and how it affects their interactional goal.

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This paper looks at how incorporating thought and speech in a story helps to achieve effective storytelling. Incorporating thought and speech in the climax of a story brings the listener closer to the story, invites the listener's reaction, and contributes to the effectiveness of the story. Storytelling involves the interaction of both the teller and the listener; it is not merely constructed by the teller. For the story to be effective, the listener needs to be able to recognize the climax of the story and how the story will approach its end. This study looked at how thought and speech is used to allow the recognition of the climax of stories in conversation. Along with the verbal aspects of thought and speech, multimodal aspects, such as pitch, speed, and use of gesture, were also found to contribute. The use of these techniques were found to enhance the story and give more information to the listener. In conclusion, from our study we could see how the use of thought and speech in the climax of a story encourages the participation of both the listener and the teller, and leads them together to the end of the story.

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In this article, we examine how gestural matching (Lerner, 2002)-the synchronized coincidence of timing, forms, and trajectory of two or more gestures between participants-can be achieved by the detailed, finely tuned coordination of participants in talk-in-interaction. In particular, we focus on the role of gestural preparation (Kendon, 1972, 1980, 2004), which is conducted before the acme or thrust of the gesture emerges. The data reveals that preparation for a gesture can be made recognizable, and that such recognizable preparation plays a role in achieving gestural matching. That is to say, recognizable gestural preparation enhances the projectability of gestural conduct, thereby enabling recipients to anticipate the trajectory and timing of the upcoming thrust of the gesture. A conversation analytic investigation of video-recorded talk-in-interaction demonstrates how recognizability of gestural preparation is constructed by speakers and how participants use the enhanced projectability to coordinate their conduct and achieve gestural matching.

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This paper describes two studies we conducted to clarify how Japanese speakers' cognition relates to their use of the beneficiary verbs te-morau and te-kureru. In study 1, participants recalled their experiences of receiving support from others and were asked to describe the situations and dialogues between the benefactor and beneficiary. The results showed that when an offer of support from the benefactor was included in the dialogue, the participants often described the situation using te-kureru. In contrast, a request from the beneficiary in the dialogue did not seem to promote the use of te-morau. In study 2, participants were given support exchange scenarios (e.g., one person borrows an umbrella from the other) using either te-kureru or te-morau and asked to generate dialogues between a benefactor and a beneficiary. In the dialogues generated from the te-kureru scenario, the ratio of expressions of offer and support in the dialogues was 8:2. For te-morau, requests and offers were both about 50%. This suggests that te-kureru is tied strongly with a benefactor's voluntary act, whereas te-morau does not necessarily entail a beneficiary's request, as te-morau is also tied with a benefactor's voluntary act. We also discuss how the above results relate to the sentence structure of te-morau/te-kureru and to emotive expressions.

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This paper analyzes the usage of the verb chiagu, based on data of everyday conversation of university students from the Tokyo metropolitan area, focusing on the two new forms of chigau, chiga and cha. The analysis revealed the following: 1) These two new forms are the most frequently used variants of chigau; 2) These new forms are never followed by other forms (words or endings); 3) When chigau is not followed by any other forms, the new forms are used in 50% of the cases; 4) While these new forms are not used to express 'difference', they are used for negation and topic continuing; 5) When chigau is not followed by any other forms, the new forms were found to be used in about 50% of cases of negation and about 80% of topic continuing. The results suggest that the use of the new forms, chiga and cha, can be explained as simplification. Chiga, in particular, appears to involve analogy as a grammatical simplification.

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