ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Kanako’s use of discourse markers and of regional morphological varieties. In 1989, her speech exhibited many discourse markers, as common in young people, and she mostly spoke in Kobe dialect. A decade later, she had almost completely stopped using any discourse markers except for toka and she deftly employed Kobe and Osaka dialects and Standard Japanese in the same interaction, showing a very complex picture of dialect usage. This study suggests that specific life events, including marriage and motherhood, job experience and place of residence and work might have had a strong influence in shaping her speech over a decade.
