How an utterance is regarded as implying disagreement: an analysis of confirmation requests in Japanese decision-making meetings

Abstract This study describes how confirmation requests can be regarded as implying disagreement in Japanese decision-making meetings. By using the methodology of Conversation Analysis, I examined two specific sequential environments where participants in meetings are more likely to imply their disagreements through confirmation requests: (i) after a participant reports on his or her proposal and (ii) after a silence caused by a stalled discussion. The detailed analysis of the composition and sequential location of confirmation requests in these contexts revealed that linguistic items, vocal stress, or even conversational contexts can make a confirmation request heard as implying disagreement. In addition, choosing a confirmation request to imply disagreement is not a random decision but a thoughtful selection depending on the asymmetrical epistemic status or related to the management of topic progression in meetings.