Chapter 12. Online advice in Japanese: Giving advice in an Internet discussion forum

This study investigates advice-giving in the context of a Japanese internet discussion forum on the topic of divorce. The first part presents an analysis of the form and content of advice messages in terms of the discursive moves that comprise them. Discursive moves are described in terms of their frequency, sequencing and the syntactic forms associated with them. The second part deals with the relational aspects of advice-giving: how an advice-giver expresses a stance and establishes a relationship with an advice-recipient. Distinctive characteristics of advice-giving in Japanese are identified, and their occurrence is related to cultural values and aspects of the discussion forum discourse context