In everyday life, we often engage in interactional speech where the main purpose of the discourse is to achieve comity, i.e., to establish and maintain friendly relations between and among conversation participants through linguistic means (Leech 1983). A framework for studying comity strategies was proposed by Aston (1988, 93). Aston identified several maxims followed by NNSs (Non Native Speakers) in conversations that promoted comity. For example, he found that comity was promoted when NNSs demonstrated an appreciation for some benevolent act of the NSs (Native Speakers). However, specific strategies used by NNSs to realize this and other such maxims have not yet been fully described.
I will propose several such strategies used by novice learners (NLs) of Japanese derived from an analysis of naturally occurring conversational data. For example, the data demonstrate a general tendency for NLs to ask about every unknown word used in the conversation and for NSs to patiently explain the meaning of each such word. When NLs did not understand the meaning of the word after NS's initial explanation, NLs negotiated for further explanations. While NSs usually attempted to explain further, sometimes they "skipped" answering NLs' follow-up questions in several ways. Upon facing such acts from NSs, NLs often abandoned their questions, and proceeded with the ongoing conversation as if there were no ﾔgap' in the conversation. This pattern of discourse activity cannot be explained as NLs' incompetence in pursuing follow-up questions. However, such behavior can reasonably be explained as NLs' acknowledging NSs' burden of repeating explanations and as NLs' strategic attempt to lessen that burden of NSs to show appreciation for NSs' patience with NLs' elementary questioning.
The paper identifies several more strategic discourse acts which explains how novice level learners of Japanese promote positive interpersonal relationships with native speakers through discourse with fairy limited knowledge of Japanese.