@inproceedings{watahiki-etal-2026-developing,
title = "Developing a Guideline for the Labovian-Structural Analysis of Oral Narratives in {J}apanese",
author = "Watahiki, Amane and
Doi, Tomoki and
Kikuchi, Akari and
Ohata, Hiroshi and
Nakata, Yuki I. and
Niikawa, Takuya and
Shinozaki, Taiga and
Yanaka, Hitomi",
editor = "Piperidis, Stelios and
Bel, N{\'u}ria and
van den Heuvel, Henk and
Ide, Nancy and
Krek, Simon and
Toral, Antonio",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference",
month = may,
year = "2026",
address = "Palma de Mallorca, Spain",
publisher = "ELRA Language Resource Association",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.138/",
doi = "10.63317/3bfu9oz7fze4",
pages = "1750--1760",
abstract = "Narrative analysis is a cornerstone of qualitative research. One leading approach is the Labovian model, but its application is labor-intensive, requiring a holistic, recursive interpretive process that moves back and forth between individual parts of the transcript and the transcript as a whole. Existing Labovian datasets are available only in English, which differs markedly from Japanese in terms of grammar and discourse conventions. To address this gap, we introduce the first systematic guidelines for Labovian narrative analysis of Japanese narrative data. Our guidelines retain all six Labovian categories and extend the framework by providing explicit rules for clause segmentation tailored to Japanese constructions. In addition, our guidelines cover a broader range of clause types and narrative types. Using these guidelines, annotators achieved high agreement in clause segmentation (Fleiss' kappa = 0.80) and moderate agreement in two structural classification tasks (Krippendorff{'}s alpha = 0.41 and 0.45, respectively), one of which is slightly higher than that found in prior work despite the use of finer-grained distinctions. This paper describes the Labovian model, the proposed guidelines, the annotation process, and their utility. It concludes by discussing the challenges encountered during the annotation process and the prospects for developing a larger dataset for structural narrative analysis in Japanese qualitative research."
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<abstract>Narrative analysis is a cornerstone of qualitative research. One leading approach is the Labovian model, but its application is labor-intensive, requiring a holistic, recursive interpretive process that moves back and forth between individual parts of the transcript and the transcript as a whole. Existing Labovian datasets are available only in English, which differs markedly from Japanese in terms of grammar and discourse conventions. To address this gap, we introduce the first systematic guidelines for Labovian narrative analysis of Japanese narrative data. Our guidelines retain all six Labovian categories and extend the framework by providing explicit rules for clause segmentation tailored to Japanese constructions. In addition, our guidelines cover a broader range of clause types and narrative types. Using these guidelines, annotators achieved high agreement in clause segmentation (Fleiss’ kappa = 0.80) and moderate agreement in two structural classification tasks (Krippendorff’s alpha = 0.41 and 0.45, respectively), one of which is slightly higher than that found in prior work despite the use of finer-grained distinctions. This paper describes the Labovian model, the proposed guidelines, the annotation process, and their utility. It concludes by discussing the challenges encountered during the annotation process and the prospects for developing a larger dataset for structural narrative analysis in Japanese qualitative research.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Developing a Guideline for the Labovian-Structural Analysis of Oral Narratives in Japanese
%A Watahiki, Amane
%A Doi, Tomoki
%A Kikuchi, Akari
%A Ohata, Hiroshi
%A Nakata, Yuki I.
%A Niikawa, Takuya
%A Shinozaki, Taiga
%A Yanaka, Hitomi
%Y Piperidis, Stelios
%Y Bel, Núria
%Y van den Heuvel, Henk
%Y Ide, Nancy
%Y Krek, Simon
%Y Toral, Antonio
%S Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference
%D 2026
%8 May
%I ELRA Language Resource Association
%C Palma de Mallorca, Spain
%F watahiki-etal-2026-developing
%X Narrative analysis is a cornerstone of qualitative research. One leading approach is the Labovian model, but its application is labor-intensive, requiring a holistic, recursive interpretive process that moves back and forth between individual parts of the transcript and the transcript as a whole. Existing Labovian datasets are available only in English, which differs markedly from Japanese in terms of grammar and discourse conventions. To address this gap, we introduce the first systematic guidelines for Labovian narrative analysis of Japanese narrative data. Our guidelines retain all six Labovian categories and extend the framework by providing explicit rules for clause segmentation tailored to Japanese constructions. In addition, our guidelines cover a broader range of clause types and narrative types. Using these guidelines, annotators achieved high agreement in clause segmentation (Fleiss’ kappa = 0.80) and moderate agreement in two structural classification tasks (Krippendorff’s alpha = 0.41 and 0.45, respectively), one of which is slightly higher than that found in prior work despite the use of finer-grained distinctions. This paper describes the Labovian model, the proposed guidelines, the annotation process, and their utility. It concludes by discussing the challenges encountered during the annotation process and the prospects for developing a larger dataset for structural narrative analysis in Japanese qualitative research.
%R 10.63317/3bfu9oz7fze4
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.138/
%U https://doi.org/10.63317/3bfu9oz7fze4
%P 1750-1760
Markdown (Informal)
[Developing a Guideline for the Labovian-Structural Analysis of Oral Narratives in Japanese](https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.138/) (Watahiki et al., LREC 2026)
ACL
- Amane Watahiki, Tomoki Doi, Akari Kikuchi, Hiroshi Ohata, Yuki I. Nakata, Takuya Niikawa, Taiga Shinozaki, and Hitomi Yanaka. 2026. Developing a Guideline for the Labovian-Structural Analysis of Oral Narratives in Japanese. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, pages 1750–1760, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ELRA Language Resource Association.