Kuroshima2016

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Kuroshima2016
BibType ARTICLE
Key Kuroshima2016
Author(s) Satomi Kuroshima, Natsuho Iwata
Title On displaying empathy: dilemma, category, and experience
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Empathy, Experience Ownership, Formulations, Japanese
Publisher
Year 2016
Language English
City
Month
Journal Research on Language and Social Interaction
Volume 49
Number 2
Pages 92–110
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/08351813.2016.1164395
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This article examines several conversational practices by which people show empathy with others’ experiences of extremely distressing, life-changing events. We recorded and analyzed volunteers’ handling of evacuees’ experiences of the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami and the related Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. The article demonstrates three different practices in how the volunteers reacted: formulating the troubles-teller’s experience as uniquely owned, differentiating the troubles-teller’s experiences from others’, and invoking the volunteer’s similar experiences as a basis for empathy. By orienting themselves toward the issue of who owns an experience, and which categories they can identify with, recipients do more than simply agree—they also affiliate with the speaker’s stance and show their understanding of the nature of the speaker’s experiences. Data are in Japanese with English translation.

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