ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the nature of care communication from a sociolinguistic perspective. It describes the socio-political background to eldercare in Japan and the dramatic demographic developments creating this background. The book presents few comparative observations about similarities and differences between research in Japan and research in other cultural contexts. It focuses on speech level as the most prominent type of Japanese addressee honorifics. The quantitative analysis shows that both residents and care workers mostly use a non-formal speech style, though it also reveals that there are greater individual differences. The book presents two deviating cases that show how a reversal of the turn structure can substantially increase a resident's degree of agency. It demonstrates how different tempo preferences of the care workers and the residents become manifest in the interactional flow of the exchanges.
