Care, control, and communication: Linguistic interaction between staff and residents in a Japanese nursing home for the elderly

This paper is about work in progress on communication between staff and residents in nursing homes for the elderly in Japan. The paper has two main objectives. Firstly, it provides a general introduction to the topic, its theoretical background, and how it has been addressed in previous research in differing cultural contexts. The second aim is to give a brief outline of a planned research project into linguistic interaction between caregivers and care receivers in a Japanese nursing home for the elderly. Both methodological and practical problems concerning data collection and analysis will be discussed. The paper concludes that, in view of Japan's rapidly aging population, it is vital to study the communicative background of institutional care so as to develop ways to improve it.