Communicative stances in Japanese interviews: Gender differences in formal interactions

This study explores the communicative strategies used by Japanese males and females in gender-mixed formal interactions. It incorporates quantitative and qualitative analyses of television interviews. Quantitative results show that female and male hosts use polite strategies, but female guests are more assertive than male guests. However, the qualitative results show a much more complex picture; domineering and cooperative strategies are used by both, male and female, participants. Most importantly, the quantitative analysis demonstrates that communicative strategies are multi-functional and therefore linguistic, pragmatic or turn-sequential manifestations do not necessarily correspond to a particular stance.