Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 Linguistics and Language Education 1

—

**AND LINGUISTICS**

**TO JAPANESE LANGUAGE** 

PAPPALARDO, HEINRICH

**EUROPEAN APPROACHES** 

# **European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics**

edited by Giuseppe Pappalardo and Patrick Heinrich

European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics

# Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies Linguistics and Language Education

Collana diretta da | A series directed by Luisa Bienati, Paolo Calvetti, Toshio Miyake, Massimo Raveri

13 | 1

# Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies Linguistics and Language Education

#### **General scientific editors**

History and Society sub-series: Toshio Miyake (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Arts and Literature sub-series: Luisa Bienati (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Linguistics and Language Education sub-series: Paolo Calvetti (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia Religion and Thought sub-series: Massimo Raveri (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia))

#### **Scientific boards**

History and Society sub-series: Sonia Favi (The University of Manchester, UK) Kimio Ito¯ (Kyoto University, Japan) Toshio Miyake (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Andrea Revelant (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Steffi Richter (Universität Leipzig, Deutschland) Sven Saaler (Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan) Hirofumi Utsumi (Otemon Gakuin University, Japan) Marco Zappa (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia)

Arts and Literature sub-series: Tomoko Aoyama (The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia) Jaqueline Berndt (Kyoto Seika University, Japan) Luisa Bienati (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Katja Centonze (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Caterina Mazza (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Daniela Moro (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Carolina Negri (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Andreas Regelsberger (Universität Trier, Deutschland) Bonaventura Ruperti (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Silvia Vesco (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Pierantonio Zanotti (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia)

Linguistics and Language Education sub-series: Patrick Heinrich (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Hideo Hosokawa (Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan) Kikuo Maekawa (National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Tokyo, Japan) Marcella Mariotti (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Giuseppe Pappalardo (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Barbara Pizziconi (SOAS, University of London, UK) Aldo Tollini (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia)

Religion and Thought sub-series: Giovanni Bulian (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia) Andrea De Antoni (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan) Federico Marcon (Princeton University, USA) Tatsuma Padoan (University College Cork, Ireland) Silvia Rivadossi (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia)

#### **Executive coordinator**

Marcella Mariotti (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia)

#### **Head office**

Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea Università Ca' Foscari Venezia Palazzo Vendramin dei Carmini Dorsoduro 3462 30123 Venezia

e-ISSN 2724-2285 ISSN 2724-1203

URL https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/collane/ca-foscari-japanese-studies/

# European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics

edited by Giuseppe Pappalardo and Patrick Heinrich

Venezia **Edizioni Ca' Foscari** - Digital Publishing 2020

European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics Giuseppe Pappalardo, Patrick Heinrich (edited by)

© 2020 Giuseppe Pappalardo, Patrick Heinrich for the text © 2020 Edizioni Ca' Foscari - Digital Publishing for the present edition

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European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics / edited by Giuseppe Pappalardo, Patrick Heinrich — 1. ed. — Venezia: Edizioni Ca' Foscari - Digital Publishing, 2020. — 252 p.; 23 cm. — (Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies; 13, 1). — ISBN 978-88-6969-429-5

URL http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/libri/978-88-6969-429-5 DOI http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8

**European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics**  edited by Giuseppe Pappalardo and Patrick Heinrich

# Table of Contents



**European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics** edited by Giuseppe Pappalardo and Patrick Heinrich

# Introduction

Giuseppe Pappalardo Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

Patrick Heinrich

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

The study of language does not occur in a social vacuum. Scholars are part of society and for this reason their work reflects the period of time in which they live and the places where they work. The European tradition in the study of language has made many seminal contributions – theoretical, descriptive, or applied. While language and the study of language have been taught in academia for as long as universities have existed in Europe, it is generally agreed that linguistics only came into existence as a discipline in its own right with the posthumous publication of Ferdinand de Saussure's lectures on the study of language in 1916. Setting out from his seminal *Cours de linguistique générale*, students of language started looking at language as an autonomous and systematic whole where linguistic changes would need to be accounted for with reference to the overall systematic relations that constitute a language. This was a milestone for the development of philology and linguistics, and it was achieved in a European context. In Japan, the establishment of such a systematic and comprehensive study of language was greeted with much enthusiasm, and Saussure's *Cours* was published in a Japanese translation as early as 1928. Hideo Kobayashi, then professor of National Language at the Imperial University of Seoul, translated this work as *Gengogaku genron*, literally 'Principles of Linguistics'. What is more, he published new editions of his translation in 1940, 1941 and 1950 in order to share new insights gained from philological studies into Saussure's ideas on language. There are two lessons to be learned from this brief review for our present volume. Firstly, the study of the Japanese language in Japan was largely influenced by European linguistic theory, and secondly, the foundational linguistic theory was developed on the basis of European languages. It is thus unsurprising to find that this kind of linguistic theory was criticized for the limitations resulting from such developments. Again, Japan was among the first countries in which criticism emerged. The criticism was twofold. To start with, it was argued that a European language theory could not be forced upon non-European languages, and another point of criticism was directed at Saussure's abstract idea of langue. In 1941 Motoki Tokieda published a linguistic theory that was based on the Japanese language, departed from the Japanese tradition of language study, and that tackled language on the level of concrete utterances, i.e. on the level of parole. It is hardly a coincidence that the title of his book was *Kokugogaku genron* (literally 'Principles of National Linguistics'), which was then translated into French as *Cours de linguistique japonaise*.

The above introduction serves to illustrate one important point. The study of language needs to be based both on linguistic theory and on the particularities of the given language under investigation. Having said that, it is also clear that European approaches to the Japanese language make for a welcome occasion to reflect on the nexus between linguistic theory, on the one hand, and on linguistic structures and data, on the other hand. It is no exaggeration to state that scholars of Japanese in Europe have different accesses to linguistic theory, developments and discussions and that they have particular data from Japan to feed into such discussions and developments. Likewise, European scholars act as knowledge brokers that enable the critical exchange of insights between Japan and Europe. It is unsurprising, therefore, to find that European scholars have made many important contributions to the study of Japanese since linguistics was established as an independent academic discipline. The list of names is long and only a few can be mentioned here, by way of example. The work of Yevgeny Polivanov, Nikolay Nevskiy, Günther Wenck and Jiří Neustupný come to mind, as well as – in a more contemporary setting – those of Alexander Vovin, Bjarke Frellesvig, Florian Coulmas and André Wlodarczyk. Many researchers in Europe are following in these scholars' footsteps and the present volume features both already established figures and the latest newcomers to this tradition. We should also note in this context that 'European' today no longer refers to having a 'European nationality'. There are a great number of Japanese nationals employed in European academia and their work, too, is part of the European tradition.

Where, then, does the field of Japanese linguistics stand in 2020? We believe that there are two clear trends. For one thing, the field is extremely small, probably as an effect of the rise of social sciences in Japanology and of the limited positions that Japanese Studies can offer. Often, there exist only a handful of specialists per country. Given the ongoing and increasingly in-depth specialization in linguistics, this means that large areas within linguistic studies are not (well) represented in Europe today. At present, Japanese syntax, discourse linguistics and pragmatics come to mind as examples of understudied sub-disciplines in Europe. This is a problem, as the fields in question constitute important and thriving areas of language study. The second trend is ongoing professionalization. European scholars no longer simply serve as knowledge brokers between Japan and Europe, but make important contributions in Japan and in Europe. This professionalization is also reflected in the fact that specialists in Japanese Studies are increasingly and prominently publishing in journals dedicated to linguistics rather than Japanese Studies. However, it will take time for this professionalism to trickle down to all levels of academia and to be clearly felt in all teaching activities at European universities and in the European school system. Therefore, we may be well advised to keep track of how the study of Japanese language and linguistics continues to evolve in Europe, to further the many positive developments we see at the moment, and to point to tasks that have yet to receive the attention they deserve.

The volume comprises two sections: "Research Papers", in which different levels of linguistic analysis have been considered, including phonetics, phonology, morphosyntax, second language acquisition, pragmatics, translation studies, discourse analysis and sociology of language; and "Miscellaneous", whose papers provide new insights into the philosophy of language, sociolinguistics and language teaching.

In the first section, Giuseppe Pappalardo, in his contribution *Linguistic Factors Affecting Moraic Duration in Spontaneous Japanese*, analyses the phonetic level and provides quantitative data about the influence of linguistic factors on mora duration in spontaneous Japanese, using a large corpus of spoken language. The results of his analysis suggest that the notorious mora-timed rhythm cannot be maintained in spontaneous speech, since potential compensation effects are inevitably prevented by the linguistic factors considered in the paper.

The phonological level is analysed in Connor Youngberg's paper entitled *Syllable Weakening in Kagoshima Japanese: An Element-Based Analysis.* The author proposes the use of the Element Theory representational framework in order to describe the phenomenon of syllable weakening in Kagoshima Japanese.

Some insight into the morphophonology and morphosyntax of the Ainu language is offered in Elia Dal Corso's paper entitled *The Interaction of Relativization and Noun Incorporation in Southern Hokkaidō Ainu*, which thoroughly describes indirect evidential constructions and suggests new perspectives on their syntactic and pragmatic analysis.

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 **9** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 7-12

In their paper *Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events: English-Japanese bilinguals' L1 English and L2 Japanese Speech and Gesture*, Noriko Iwasaki and Keiko Yoshioka examine how learning a foreign language may restructure bilingual speakers' thinking-forspeaking, using as informants thirteen English-speaking learners of L2 Japanese describing motion events both in English and Japanese. As a result, lower-proficiency informants showed a L1-to-L2 influence in speech and L2-to-L1 influence in gesture, while higher-proficiency participants did not show any L1-to-L2 influence.

The pragmatic level is considered in Paolo Calvetti's paper entitled *Strategies of Impoliteness in Japanese Spontaneous Talks*, in which the author presents and classifies different phonetic and lexical mechanisms to render impoliteness in Japanese, providing evidence to show that the Japanese language shares impoliteness strategies common to other languages.

An interesting perspective on audiovisual translation is provided by Francesco Vitucci in his paper *Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling: The Japanese-italian Translation of a 'nyūhāfu' Genderlect in the Movie "Close-Knit" by Ogigami Naoko*. He analyses the Japanese speech of the transgender protagonist of the movie and discusses issues related to the translation of her genderlect into Italian.

Berhard Seidl uses a corpus of 1,200 Japanese newspapers for a study in the fields of discourse analysis and metapragmatics in his paper titled *Corpuslinguistics as a Tool for Metapragmatics in Japan*. He statistically investigates pragmemes on 'language decline' and demonstrates how many of them can be correlated with one or more of the main groups of discourse actors.

This section is concluded by an original study in the field of sociology of language entitled *Stirring the 'Language Policy Soup': Japanese in Language Education Policies in France and Finland* by Christian Galan and Riikka Länsisalmi. Japanese language education is illustrated through a culinary metaphor, by comparing it to Japanese restaurants: just as the number of restaurants offering a Japanese menu remains low and geographically dispersed – leaving potential customers dissatisfied – the number of schools and universities offering a Japanese language program is low. The paper offers an overview on language education policies in France and Finland.

The first paper of the "Miscellaneous" section is *L'esprit de celui qui parle: Wilhelm von Humboldt on Japanese and its Speakers* by Patrick Heinrich*.* He describes the notes produces by Humboldt on the Japanese language, based on the documents produced by Catholic missionaries. Through the study of the Japanese language, Humboldt tried to depict its perception by speakers, analysing some peculiar linguistic aspects.

*New Approach to Teaching Japanese Pronunciation in the Digital Era: Challenges and Practices* by Motoko Ueyama discusses the importance, necessity and effectiveness of teaching prosodic aspects of Japanese pronunciation and prosody from an early stage of acquisition. Her essay describes the typological rarity of Japanese prosody and suggests new teaching strategies.

Laura Pani's *The Role of the Japanese Language in Venice: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Japanese Linguistic Landscape* describes and analyses the Japanese linguistic landscape in the historic centre of Venice, shedding light on the role that the Japanese language plays in creating and modifying the linguistic context of the city.

Lastly, Aldo Tollini's contribution *A Consideration About Competence in Kanji and their Teaching* deals with learning and teaching Japanese kanji from an empirical point of view. Tollini suggests a new approach, based on the contextualization of kanji education in the actual learning process, focusing on the learners and on their difficulties.

We wish to express our gratitude to the Department of Asian and North African Studies for its generous support, to the editorial staff of Edizioni Ca' Foscari and to all the anonymous reviewers that have made the publication of this volume possible.

# **Section 1** Research Papers

**13**

# Linguistic Factors Affecting Moraic Duration in Spontaneous Japanese

Giuseppe Pappalardo

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** Japanese is often referred to as a mora-timed language (Ladefoged 1975): the mora has been described as the psychological prosodic unit in the spoken language, and it is the metric unit of traditional poetry (Bloch 1950). However, it is clear that morae are not strictly isochronous units (Beckman 1982). Thus, experimental studies have focused on detecting compensation effects that make average mora durations more equal through the modulation of the inherent duration of the segments involved (Han 1962; Port, Al-Ani, Maeda 1980; Homma 1981; Hoequist 1983a; 1983b; Warner, Arai 2001). Kawahara (2017) used the *Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese* to verify whether the durational compensation effect within a /CV/ mora occurs in natural speech, in addition to read speech in the lab. He observed a statistically significant compensation effect of /CV/ morae, in which vowel duration tends to vary in response to the duration of the preceding consonant. However, as the same author has pointed out, the compensation is not absolute because there are several linguistic factors that potentially affect segments' duration profiles. This study will support the idea that moraic isochrony does not occur in spontaneous Japanese by presenting empirical data on how linguistic factors can considerably affect variation in the average duration of morae.

**Keywords** Spoken corpora. Moraic isochrony. Durational compensation. Inherent segment duration. Vowel devoicing. Pitch accent.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 Methods. – 3 Results and Discussions. – 3.1 Inherent Differences in Segmental Duration. – 3.2 Vowel Devoicing. – 3.3 Pitch Accent. – 4 Conclusions.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 15** Submitted 2020-02-05 | Accepted 2020-05-19 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/001**

#### 1 Introduction1

Pike (1945, 35) classified world languages according to two types of rhythmic/prosodic patterns: stress-timed and syllable-timed. According to this classification, stress-timed languages, like English and German, tend to have isochronous interstress intervals, while syllable-timed languages, like Italian and Spanish, tend to have equal syllable duration.<sup>2</sup> Ladefoged (1975, 224) added the mora-timed type, in which isochrony is maintained at the level of the mora, a sub-syllabic constituent that includes either onset and nucleus, or a coda. The Japanese mora can be constituted by a sequence of a consonant and a vowel (/CV/), a single vowel (/V/), a moraic nasal (/N/), the first part of a long consonant (/Q/) or the second part of a long vowel (/H/). What makes all these sequences morae is that, in theory, they have the same duration.

Bloch (1950) was one of the first scholars to claim that the mora is a unit related to timing in Japanese. He states that morae have the same duration or are perceived as having equal length:

The most striking general feature of Japanese pronunciation is its staccato rhythm. The auditory impression of any phrase is of a rapid pattering succession of more-or-less sharply defined fractions all of about the same length. In any one utterance, or indeed in any one conversation or style of discourse, the perceived relative duration of successive phrases can be adequately compared in terms of these fractions: two phrases containing twice or three times as many fractions as another is heard as lasting just twice or three times as long. (Bloch 1950, 90-1)

Since he describes morae as sequences perceived as having the same duration, his description is limited to perception. Hockett (1955, 59) clarifies this point by pointing out that the mora "is defined fundamentally in terms of duration and nothing else". Instrumental analyses have been conducted in order to demonstrate the isochronous nature of the mora. Han (1962) claims that what gives Japanese its staccato quality is the fact that the actual length of each *onsetsu*<sup>3</sup> is approximately the same. Her instrumental analysis based on the observation of spectrograms indicates that a long syllable, that is a syllable consisting of a /CV/ mora followed by a long vowel mora (/H/) or a geminate mora (/Q/), is approximately twice as long as a short syl-

<sup>1</sup> Parts of this paper have been presented at the XI International Conference on Corpus Linguistics, held at the University of Valencia in Spain in 2019, May 15-17.

<sup>2</sup> Pike (1945)'s idea was further bolstered by Abercrombie (1967).

<sup>3</sup> The term *onsetsu* is used here with the meaning of mora, not syllable.

lable. She also points out that there is a compensation effect within the mora, whereby a consonant and a vowel balance each other in order to obtain equal duration with neighbouring units (Han 1962, 74). Homma (1981) confirms Han's theory on the isochrony of the Japanese mora: by demonstrating that the ratio of duration of a /CVQCV/ word (three morae) to a /CVCV/ word (two morae) is approximately 3:2, she argues that mora lengths remain roughly equal because of temporal compensation. Hoequist (1983a) reports that the durational ratio of /CVN/ and /CV/ is approximately 1.8:1: it is less than the expected 2:1 ratio, yet still higher than the ratio found in a syllable-timed language like Spanish. Port, Al-Ani, Maeda (1980) found evidence of compensation within /CV/ syllables, showing that vowels tend to get longer after inherently short consonants. Port, Dalby, O'Dell (1987) point out that the compensation effect is activated not only within /CV/ syllables but also at a higher level, in words. By investigating the duration of words with different numbers of morae, they discovered that the correlation between the duration of the word and the number of morae is stronger than that between the duration of the word and the number of syllables. However, they note that words with a geminate obstruent and a devoiced vowel uttered in fast speech are shorter than other words.

The theory of mora isochrony in Japanese has been called into question in the light of Beckman (1982)'s experimental analysis, whose results provide "no convincing evidence for the phonetic reality of the mora" (Beckaman 1982, 133-4). Beckman measures segment durations in particular of /CV/ syllables with a devoiced vowel and long consonants, and examines the compensation effect within a /CV/ syllable and across mora boundaries using as stimuli 75 test words uttered by five native speakers. Even though several /CV/ morae in which a compensation effect is applied have been observed, she claims that negative correlations between adjacent segments may be unreliable evidence for compensation, since some of them can be viewed as linguistic universals (for example, vowels in most languages are longer before a voiced than a voiceless obstruent). Beckman explains the staccato rhythm of Japanese, pointed out by Bloch (1950), as an influence of the writing system. The (moraic) spelling *kana* system and traditional poetic meter both date back to Old Japanese (712-794), which had only /CV/ syllables and few initial vowels.<sup>4</sup> Japanese native speakers divide words into morae not because these are real units in the spoken language, but because their intuitions are influenced by the segmentation of the *kana* writing system.

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **17** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 15-30

<sup>4</sup> Moraic nasals, moraic second parts of a long consonant and moraic second parts of a long vowel emerged form /CV/ syllables through sound changes which took place in Early Middle Japanese.

More recent studies have focused on structural factors other than isochrony, which may contribute to the perception of the so-called *staccato rhythm* of Japanese. Ramus, Nespor, Mehler (1999)'s study identifies structural factors that provide an effective criterion to distinguish between mora-, syllable- and stress-timed languages.<sup>5</sup> These factors are the proportion of the speech stream constituted by vowels and the standard deviation of consonantal intervals. While stresstimed languages, like English and Dutch, have high consonantal variability and low vocalic proportion, and syllable-timed languages, like Italian and Spanish, have relatively lower parameters, among the various languages analysed Japanese shows distinctive features, with a very high vocalic proportion and a very low variation in consonantal duration. Indeed, the distinguishing feature of Japanese is that it has few consonantal clusters and long vocalic intervals that make its rhythm different from that of other languages.

Warner, Arai (2001) undertake a thorough review of previous studies which attempted to demonstrate the isochrony of the mora and conclude that, rather than being a temporal and isochronous unit in Japanese rhythm, the mora plays a more structural role and influences duration only indirectly. They claim that the experimental studies that have hitherto sought to verify mora-timing are inconsistent and have serious methodological flaws.

The previous studies reviewed by Warner, Arai (2001) base their assumptions on experimental analyses which make use of small sets of stimuli read by speakers in the lab. In order to verify whether the compensation effect within a /CV/ mora, as pointed out by Port, Al-Ani, Maeda (1980), occurs in natural speech in addition to read speech in the lab, Kawahara (2017) uses a large corpus of spontaneous speech which includes all types of consonants. Whereas Port, Al-Ani, Maeda examine the compensation effect using morae which include only /a/ and /u/, Kawahara's study takes into account all the Japanese vowels and statistically examines the robustness of the compensation effect claimed in previous research. Kawahara's results show a statistically significant compensation effect, with vowel duration varying in response to the duration of the preceding consonant: the shorter the consonant, the longer the vowel tends to be. However, there are various factors that may have blurred the compensation effect claimed in Kawahara's analysis. First, he measured the me-

<sup>5</sup> The contribution of structural factors to the rhythm of languages was pointed out before Ramus, Nespor, Mehler (1999) by Dauer (1982). She compares data from syllable-timed and stress-timed languages and concludes that the two most essential factors are a) the presence/absence of vowel reduction and b) the presence/absence of complex consonantal clusters. According to her, conventional rhythm categories have little to do with segmental isochrony, with the characteristic "rhythm" of a language being determined largely by the phonotactic structure.

dian duration of each consonant in Japanese in relation to the median duration of the following vocalic segment, making no distinctions between vowels. As the author himself points out, the distribution of vowels after particular consonants may skew the results of the analysis. For example, the mora /dV/ seems to be a good example of compensation, since (1) the duration of the consonant is one of the shortest and (2) the following vowel is rather longer compared to vowels after different consonants. This can be explained by considering the fact that the vowels of the /dV/ segment are always non-high vowels,<sup>6</sup> which universally tend to be longer than the high vowels. Another example is the mora /cV/, for which a relatively long duration of the consonant and a relatively shorter duration of the vowel have been calculated. As one would expect, the phoneme /c/, which is phonetically realised in Japanese with the palato-alveolar affricate [tɕ] or the alveolar affricate [ts], tends to be realised as relatively long consonants in natural languages. However, the short duration of the following vowel may be attributed not only to the compensation effect but also to the fact that most of the vowels in /cV/ are high vowels, which are inherently shorter than non-high vowels. Second, there are several linguistic factors, not considered in his study, that may potentially affect segment duration in Japanese, like vowel devoicing (Beckman 1982) and pitch accent (Hoequist 1983a; 1983b).<sup>7</sup>

The aim of the current study is to expand the results of Kawahara (2017)'s study by analysing and quantifying the effect of linguistic factors, such as inherent segment duration, vowel devoicing and pitch accent, that may affect moraic duration in spontaneous Japanese and blur the potential compensation effect claimed in previous studies.

# 2 Methods

The empirical analysis that follows is based on the *Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese* (henceforth CSJ), which has been jointly developed by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NIN-JAL), the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), and the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Maekawa, Kikuchi, Tsukahara 2004).<sup>8</sup> This richly annotated corpus of spontaneous Japanese, which was also used by Kawahara (2017), contains more

<sup>6</sup> This is true only for the conservative variety. In loanwords (*katakanago*) the /dV/ segment is also attested with high vowels. However, the occurrence rate is rather low.

<sup>7</sup> Contextual effects on segmental durations are also found in the results of Venditti, van Santen (1998)'s analysis of read speech data.

<sup>8</sup> CSJ (The Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese) (2004). National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics and National Institute of Information and Communications Technology. URL https://pj.ninjal.ac.jp/corpus\_center/csj/en.

than 650 hours of spoken language. The data considered in the present study is the so-called *Core*, which is a smaller database extensively annotated with a mixture of phonemic and sub-phonemic labels. After an automatic alignment, all the annotations in the *Core* were checked by human labellers, who made further corrections. The *Core* includes about 45 hours (half a million words and almost a million segmental intervals) of spontaneous Japanese by 139 speakers – 79 males and 60 females – living in the Tokyo area, whose age ranges from 20 to 69 years. All speakers in the corpus spoke so-called Standard Japanese. As for the type of speech, the CSJ-*Core* includes three speech types: monologue (academic presentation speech [APS] and simulated public speaking [SPS]), dialogue (interviews on the contents of APS and/or SPS talks, task-oriented dialogues and free dialogues by the same speakers as in the monologues) and reproduction speech (reading aloud of the transcribed APS or SPS by the speakers who produced the original spontaneous speech) (Maekawa 2015a). The *Core* is in the RDB format, which can be queried using the SQL language (Maekawa 2015b). The use of this large corpus is extremely efficient for this kind of research because it allows us to perform various types of analysis by setting many search parameters simultaneously.

Using the CSJ-*Core* released in 2013, the average durations of morae with different characteristics will be calculated and compared through the analysis of the natural speech produced by 139 speakers. The duration of morae can be precisely calculated since in the CSJ-*Core* the start time and the end time of segments at each level (phone, phoneme, mora, *bunsetsu*, etc.)<sup>9</sup> is specified. For the purpose of this research, a new table with the following specification has been created: mora type, duration of the mora, duration of the consonant, duration of the vowel, vowel devoicing, and perceived accent. In creating the new table, the duration of the closure "<cl>" typical of plosives and affricates has been included in the duration of the consonant. Since only /V/ and /CV/ morae will be considered for this study, all the special morae with a long consonant, long vowel and moraic nasal – indicated respectively as /Q/, /H/ and /N/ in the CSJ – have been excluded from this table. Furthermore, morae preceded and followed by /Q/ and morae followed by /H/ or /N/ have been excluded from the analysis, since it is difficult to determine the mora boundaries in long consonants and in long vowels, and since vowels become longer in closed syllables (Port, Dalby, O'Dell 1987; Kawahara 2017). Previous analyses based on the CSJ confirmed the general assumption that special morae are shorter than independent morae with a ratio of 0.52:1, as they have quite a similar average duration to inde-

<sup>9</sup> The smallest parts of a sentence which can be uttered separately from each other in actual speech.

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **20** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 15-30

pendent morae constituted by the single high vowels /i/ and /u/ (Pappalardo 2020). Furthermore, morae included in fillers, such as *eeto*, *ma*, etc., have been excluded from the analysis, since in fillers segmental duration tends to be altered for prosodic and pragmatic reasons. In sum, the morae analysed in this study are all types of /V/ and /CV/ morae, not preceded by /Q/ and not followed by /Q/, /H/ and /N/ (633653 intervals in total).

The average duration of morae has been calculated considering the entire CSJ-*Core*. However, since the speaking rate may vary from speaker to speaker, in order to observe a potential individual variation, the average durations of four speakers will be also presented: a male and a female speaker (M1 & F1) aged between 25 and 29 at the time of the recording, and a male and a female speaker (M2 & F2) aged between 40 and 44 at the time of the recording. The speech of all four speakers is a monologue.

Through the comparison of the average durations of morae with or without particular characteristics, it will be possible to determine to what extent linguistic factors such as segmental structure, vowel devoicing and pitch accent contribute to altering the potential moraic isochrony and preventing segment compensation.

# 3 Results and Discussions

# **3.1 Inherent Differences in Segmental Duration**

Among the linguistic factors that cause mora duration to vary, Warner, Arai (2001) mention the segmental structure of the mora, which can be constituted by a single vowel /V/, a consonant and a vowel /CV/ (independent morae), a glottal stop /Q/, the second part of a long vowel /H/ or a moraic nasal /N/ (special morae). As one would imagine, in the absence of any compensation, a /CV/ mora would be longer than a /V/ or /H/ mora. Pappalardo (2020) used the CSJ in order to calculate the ratio of duration of special morae to independent morae in spontaneous Japanese, which is approximately 0.52:1. This result may in itself prove that mora isochrony is not maintained in spontaneous speech. However, even in independent morae, the duration may vary depending on the type of vowel or consonant. Universally, high vowels are shorter than low vowels and plosives are shorter than fricatives. To what extent does consonant or vowel type contribute to varying the average duration of a mora? Table 1 illustrates the average duration (AD) of /V/ and /CV/ morae with different structures throughout the whole corpus and among the four speakers considered.<sup>10</sup>

<sup>10</sup> Morae with a devoiced vowel have been excluded from this analysis.

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **21** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 15-30

#### **Giuseppe Pappalardo Linguistic Factors Affecting Moraic Duration in Spontaneous Japanese**


#### **Table 1** Average durations in seconds of morae with different structures

Both in the general results and across the four speakers, average durations are quite homogeneous: /i/ is always shorter than /a/ and /ri/ is always shorter than /ra/. There is a slight difference between the average durations of /si/ and /sa/: in F1 and M2 /sa/ is longer than /si/ in contrast with the general results. Since /a/ is generally longer than /i/, one would expect /sa/ to be always longer than /si/. However, the onset consonant is not the same at the surface level in the two morae, as the consonant in /si/ is allophonically realised as a palatoalveolar fricative [ɕ] instead of the alveolar fricative [s] of /sa/. The ratio of the shortest /i/ to the longest /si/ in general results is of approximately of 0.39:1, that is: /i/ is less than half the duration of /si/, very far from any form of mora isochrony.


**Table 2** Average durations in seconds of /ra/ and /sa/ morae

Table 2 illustrates the data about /ra/ and /sa/ morae, with details for the average duration of morae, consonants and vowels. The inherent difference in the segmental duration of /r/ and /s/ is homogeneous both in the general results and across the four speakers, with /r/ being always shorter than /s/. If a compensation effect is applied, the vowel /a/ should be slightly longer after /r/, but this has not been verified in all cases. While in the general results the vowel in /ra/ is longer than that in /sa/, this is not consistent across the four speakers: only in F2 can a clear compensation effect be observed. However, even in this case of compensation within a /CV/ mora, the ratio of /ra/ to /sa/ in F2 remains approximately 0.88:1.

# **3.2 Vowel Devoicing**

Vowel devoicing is a salient phenomenon of the Japanese language, which involves the complete disappearance of the sonority of close vowels (/i/ and /u/) when they occur between voiceless consonants or between a voiceless consonant and a pause (Fujimoto 2015). Although from a phonetic point of view the /CV/ mora in which the vowel loses its sonority is a segment that comprises only a consonantal sound, the status of the mora is maintained, since native speakers still "hear" the vowel. Beckman (1982) tests the mora hypothesis and tries to verify whether the duration of a mora with a devoiced vowel becomes shorter by comparing the length of /CV/ morae with voiced and devoiced vowels. She uses 54 pairs of morae uttered by five informants and concludes that in only four pairs (7%) the mora with a devoiced vowel is longer than that with a voiced vowel. Furthermore, by applying the less strict version of the mora hypothesis, Beckman compares only the duration of consonants, in order to verify whether the consonant within a mora with a devoiced vowel is longer than a consonant within a mora with a voiced vowel, that is whether there is a compensatory lengthening of the former. As a result, consonants which precede a devoiced vowel are neither consistently nor significantly longer than consonants which precede a voiced vowel. By using the CSJ-*Core*, the current study aims to verify whether Beckman's assumptions are also true for spontaneous speech and examines the ratio of duration of a /CV/ mora with a devoiced vowel to that of a /CV/ mora with a voiced vowel.

Figure 1 illustrates average duration in seconds of the morae /ki/, /ku/, /si/, /su/, /ti/ and /tu/ with a voiced vowel, on the left, and with a devoiced vowel on the right. As is clear, morae with a voiced vowel are comparatively longer than ones with a devoiced vowel. Moreover, this is due not only to the lesser length of the devoiced vowel but also to the duration of the consonant, which is always shorter than its counterpart in morae with a voiced vowel. In order to verify the reliability of general results based on the speech of 139 speakers, the average durations of morae with a voiced and a devoiced vowel have been observed in the four speakers selected (Figure 2). The results are consistent: morae with a devoiced vowel are generally shorter, with a minor duration of the consonant in most cases.11 No compensation effect can be observed in the segment duration within the /CV/ morae analysed. If we take a close look at the morae /ki/, /si/ and /ti/, we can notice that the length of the vowel does not consistently vary

<sup>11</sup> The only exception is the mora /su/ in M2 which is longer when the vowel is devoiced. This is probably due to a particular speaking style of the speaker, who presumably tends to pronounce the auxiliary *-masu* by lengthening the final devoiced vowel.

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **23** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 15-30

0 0,02 0,04 0,06 0,08 0,1 0,12 0,14 0,16 0,18 /ki/ [ki] /ki/ [ki̥] /ku/ [kɯ]/ku/ [kɯ̥ ] /si/ [ɕi] /si/ [ɕi̥] /su/ [sɯ] /su/ [sɯ̥ ] /ti/ [tɕi] /ti/ [tɕi̥] /tu/ [tsɯ]/tu/ [tsɯ̥ ] Consonant Vowel

**Giuseppe Pappalardo Linguistic Factors Affecting Moraic Duration in Spontaneous Japanese**

**Figure 1** Average duration in seconds of /CV/ morae with voiced and devoiced vowels in CSJ-Core

**Figure 2** Average duration in seconds of /CV/ morae with voiced and devoiced vowels in M1, M2, F1 and F2

0

/ki/ [ki] /ki/ [ki̥] /ku/ [kɯ] /ku/ [kɯ̥ ] /si/ [ɕi] /si/ [ɕi̥] /su/ [sɯ] /su/ [sɯ̥ ] /ti/ [tɕi] /ti/ [tɕi̥] /tu/ [tsɯ]/tu/ [tsɯ̥ ]

Consonant Vowel

in order to compensate the different duration of the consonants. We would expect a longer [i] after the plosive [k], which is comparatively shorter than the fricative [ɕ] and the affricate [tɕ], but the compensatory effect cannot be observed, since the vowel [i] in /ki/ is the shortest (table 3). For this reason, the data obtained by observing only morae with the voiced vowel [i] are not consistent with Kawahara (2017)'s findings.




Table 4 reports detailed data on the duration of morae with or without vowel devoicing, together with the ratio of duration between the two. The ratio of the morae with a devoiced vowel to those with a voiced vowel goes from 0.55:1 of the mora /si/ to 0.79:1 of the mora /su/. The data hitherto presented give further support to Beckman (1982)'s assumptions and confirm that vowel devoicing is a linguistic factor which considerably affects moraic duration in Japanese.


**Table 4** Average duration in seconds of morae with a devoiced and a voiced vowel

# **3.3 Pitch Accent**

In languages like Italian, the typical accentual system is dynamic and consists in emphasising the accented syllables by increasing loudness and by lengthening the vowel in open syllables. In the word *casa* [ˈkaːsa] 'house', the first accented syllable is longer not for segmental reasons, but because the dynamic accent affects its duration prosodically (Bertinetto 1980, 1981). Japanese has a pitch accent, whereby the acoustic correlate is the fundamental frequency determined by the rate at which the vocal cords open and close in voicing (Vance 1987; Beckman 1986). The accented syllable is marked by a drop from a relatively high pitch to a relatively low one. In this kind of accentual system, the length of the vowel in accented syllables is generally not subject to variation. Hoequist (1983a; 1983b) examines the effect on segment duration of dynamic accent in Spanish and English, and of pitch accent in Japanese, using as stimuli test words read in frame sentences by a few informants (the Japanese native speakers are five). In particular, Hoequist (1983a) reports that high pitch morae show a small, consistent and statistically significant duration increase compared to low pitch morae (the ratio calculated is 1.08:1), a lengthening which probably does not play any role in the perception of the accent, as is instead the case with the perception of duration in languages with a dynamic accent. In this study, we have tried to verify Hoequist's findings using the CSJ-*Core*, addressing the question of whether the minute lengthening in high pitch morae occurs consistently in spontaneous speech in addition to read speech in the lab. The morae examined are those with the consonant /k/, a voiceless velar plosive whose duration is comparatively short, followed by all five vowels (devoiced vowels have been excluded from this analysis).


**Table 5** Average durations in seconds of lexically accented and unaccented



Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **26** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 15-30


**Giuseppe Pappalardo Linguistic Factors Affecting Moraic Duration in Spontaneous Japanese**

Table 5 illustrates the average durations in seconds of the morae /ka/, /ki/, /ku/, /ke/ and /ko/ divided into lexically accented and unaccented. Looking at the ratios of morae from the entire CSJ-*Core*, the effect of pitch accent on the moraic duration seems to be inconsistent and almost inexistent. Hoequist (1983a) reports that high pitch morae are slightly and consistently longer than those with low pitch, but from the data obtained from the CSJ, cases in which the duration decreases are prevalent. Across the four speakers selected, the variation in duration between accented and unaccented morae is very irregular and presumably does not depend on the effect of the accent. In the general results, the ratio of duration of unaccented morae to accented morae varies from 0.95:1 to 1.03 and this is not consistent with Hoequist's findings. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that pitch accent cannot be included among the linguistic factors that affect moraic and rhythmic duration in Japanese.

# 4 Conclusions

In the present study we have analysed the effect of three linguistic factors that can potentially affect the duration of morae, using a large-scale corpus of spontaneous Japanese speech. We have reached the following conclusions:


fects, it has been observed that there is phrase-initial shortening and/or phrase-final lengthening especially with the presence of sentence-final particles, which lengthen durations considerably. Further developments of the research will include the above-mentioned factors in order to verify their effect on mora duration in spontaneous speech.

# **Bibliography**


# Syllable Weakening in Kagoshima Japanese **An Element-Based Analysis**

Connor Youngberg

LLING (UMR-6310) & Université de Nantes, France

**Abstract** This paper examines syllable weakening or *nisshōka* (入声化) in Kagoshima Japanese (KJ), where high vowel apocope feeds lenition, leading to correspondences such as Tōkyō Japanese (TJ) [kaki] 'persimmon' and Kagoshima [kaʔ]. The traditional pattern noted in the literature is quite clear. Apocope elides stem-final /u/ or /i/. The preceding onset is lenited in one of four ways: 1) stops and affricates are debuccalised (/kaki/ > [kaʔ] 'persimmon'); 2) fricatives undergo voicing neutralisation (TJ [kazu] > KJ [kas] 'number'); 3) nasals undergo place loss (TJ [kami] > KJ [kaɴ] 'paper'); 4) rhotics undergo gliding (TJ [maru] > [maj] 'round'). This paper presents an initial analysis of the data within Element Theory representational framework.

**Keywords** Japanese dialects. Phonology. Lenition. Kagoshima Japanese. Segmental Structure. Theory.

**Summary** 1 The Process at Hand. – 2 Kagoshima Japanese Weakening in Detail. – 3 A Brief Introduction to Element Theory. – 3.1 The Basics of Element Theory. – 3.2 Element Theory Consonant Representations in Japanese. – 4 Capturing Weakening. – 5 Further Directions.

# 1 The Process at Hand

Kagoshima Japanese (henceforth KJ) is spoken in Kagoshima City and the surrounding area in the south of Kyūshū Island. This dialect has been well described, with a full description of its grammar and lexicon presented in a volume edited by Kibe (1997a). In an overview of the phonology of KJ, Kibe (1997b) discusses the process of *nisshōka* or syllable weakening. Syllable weakening (henceforth weakening), is a two-step process consisting of high

vowel apocope and lenition of the preceding onset. As a result, Tōkyō Japanese (henceforth TJ) words terminating in a CV[+high] will correspond to C final words in KJ, as in TJ [kaki] 'persimmon', corresponding to KJ [kaʔ]. This chapter draws on Kibe (1997b) and Kaneko and Kawahara (2002) as well as field notes from April 2019 (17-20 April 2019, Kagoshima City), with additional cross-dialectal context given by Haraguchi (1984). Crucially, I present a first analysis of KJ weakening within the representational framework of Element Theory (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1985; Charette, Göksel 1998; Backley 2011), with syllabic representations framed within Government Phonology (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1990).<sup>1</sup>

# 2 Kagoshima Japanese Weakening in Detail

Weakening affects native Yamato words in KJ, including both nouns (e.g. /kaki/ 'persimmon') and consonant-final verb stems (e.g. /kam-/ 'chew'). All segments are affected and four output classes are identifiable; data drawn from Kaneko, Kawahara (2002) is given in (1).

1. Final apocope and lenition in KJ (Kaneko, Kawahara 2002, transcription from source):


<sup>1</sup> I thank my consultants Shibayama-san, Anraku-san and Kawabata-san as well as Shimadzu-san for her wonderful assistance in finding these consultants and Matsuoka-san for her crucial help in organizing this network. I would also like to thank Rihito Shirata (Shigakukan University) for joining me in one of the sessions and helping to confirm my intuitions.

This work was funded through a post-doctoral fellowship and associated project, awarded by the Université Bretagne-Loire and hosted by LLING (UMR 6310). I thank Dr. Sabrina Bendjaballah for her support, encouragement and advice. Finally, I thank the editors for their patience and support and the anonymous reviewer(s) for their helpful commentary. Any remaining errors or failings are mine alone.

<sup>2</sup> In contrast to Tōkyō and Kansai Japanese, Kagoshima Japanese retains labialized velar consonants and the *yotsugana* distinction, or the surface contrasts of four allophones of /d/ and /z/ before high vowels, giving a [dʑ]/[ʑ] contrast for /di/ and /zi/ and a [dz]/[z] contrast for /du/ and /zu/. See Shibatani (1990) for some discussion in English and Kibe (1997b) for discussion of this phenomenon in Japanese.



Stops and affricates are realized as either [t] or [ʔ] (Kibe 1997b, 10) while fricatives are neutralized to [ʃ] or [s], nasals reduce to [ɴ] and the liquid [r] is reduced to the glide [j], as discussed by Kibe (1997b) and Kaneko and Kawahara (2002).

Kibe (1997b, 10) points out that the realization of weakened stops is in fact related to politeness; the polite realization is [t] and the elsewhere realization is [ʔ]. In examples, the weakened variant of stops is transcribed archiphonemically as <ᴛ>. I transcribe the final lenited obstruent as a glottal stop following the realization of my speakers in April 2019, with this transcription also used by Kaneko and Kawahara (2002). I take the above data as representative of the dialect, with the above words and others elicited from consultants in Kagoshima City, April 2019 who all exhibited [ʔ], [s] and [ɴ] as outputs of weakening.

What is different in the speakers I have surveyed is that fricatives in (1b) either remained unaffected by weakening and a full syllable was realized (with speakers giving TJ [kadʑi] for 'fire' rather than the expected \*[kwaʃ]), while for /su/ final syllables, speakers exhibited final [s] in a possible interaction with TJ devoicing. No rhotic weakening as in (1d) was evidenced. I thus exclude the patterns in (1b) and (1d) from discussion as they were not active in the speakers I have consulted.

As a result of weakening, possible morpheme-final consonants in KJ are /ʔ, ɴ, s, ʃ, j/ in the surface forms of native Yamato verbs and nouns. For nouns, it is likely that weakening is diachronic as speakers produce consonant-final nouns such as [kaʔ] 'persimmon' and [kaɴ] 'paper' as such in citation form and preceding both consonant initial and vowel initial particles (field notes). It is clear, however, that weakening is active in verbal conjugations based on the available data (Kibe 1997b; Uemura, Nobayashi, Hidaka 1997; field notes). Consonant-final verb stems in the non-past such as /tat-/ 'stand' are realized with a lenited stem-final consonant, giving [taʔ] 'stand-NP'. Addition of the negative suffix /-aɴ/ allows the underlying stem-final consonant to surface, giving [kakaɴ] 'write-NEG'. This also occurs with m-final stems, as in /tanom-/ 'ask, request', [tanoɴ] 'ask-NP', /tanom-aɴ/ [tanomaɴ] 'ask-NEG'.

Weakening also affects the phonotactics of syllables word-medially in nouns and in compounding contexts, where possible consonants consist of the first portion of a geminate (or the *sokuon* Q), the moraic nasal N, and ʔ (Kibe 1997b; Kaneko, Kawahara 2002). Drawing from these sources, (2a) provides examples of medial ʔ, while (2b) simply exemplifies that as with TJ, N and Q are found word medially in KJ. (2c) exemplifies assimilation of medial nasal geminates and voiced geminates, with [ɴ] and [ʔ] undergoing assimilation. KJ thus has NC clusters, glottal-consonant clusters, voiceless geminates and voiced geminates. I complement the KJ data with TJ correspondences.

2. Word-medial consonants

a. Medial ʔ (KJ data – Kaneko, Kawahara 2002)


i. [kaminari] [kannaisaː] 'thunder' (\*kaminarisama) ii. [butsudaɴ] [budːaɴ] 'home shrine'

Of particular note is the transcription of voiced geminates in KJ as in (2.c.ii). Kibe (1997b) notes that the assimilation of morpheme final consonants affects 1) weakened nasals when adjacent to another nasal, as in \*kaminari-sama now realized as [kannaisaː] 'thunder-HON' and 2) weakened glottal stops when adjacent to another stop. Formation of voiced geminates through assimilation of a weakened stop has previously been noted by Kibe (1997b, 10) under suffix fed assimilation, namely /kuʔ-ga/ [kugga] 'mouth-NOM' (Kibe 1997b, 10), c/w Tōkyō [kuʨiga]. Voiced geminates can also be found word-internally; the Tōkyō word [butsudaɴ] is given as [obuddaŋ] in Uemura, Nobayashi, Hidaka (1997, 185). In my recording sessions in Kagoshima City, I verified the pronunciation of medial assimilated contexts in cooperation with two consultants, who ruled out a pronunciation \*[buʔdan] with a voiceless glottal stop and rejecting \*[budan], maintaining that the voiced consonant should be long. While further investigations of this particular facet of KJ phonology is intriguing in light of voiced geminate markedness (Kawahara 2015), I leave the details of assimilation to further investigation.

I now turn to the formal representation of KJ weakening and consider variation found in my fieldwork. Section 3 briefly introduces the framework of Element Theory and provides representations of Japanese consonants, while section 4 revisits weakening and frames it in terms of element suppression.

# 3 A Brief Introduction to Element Theory

Element Theory (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1985; Charette, Göksel 1998; Harris, Lindsey 1995; Backley 2011) represents all segments using a restricted set of 6 unary primes. Recent review of Element Theory is found in Scheer and Kula (2017). Elements have their roots in Dependency Phonology (Anderson, Jones 1974; Anderson, Ewen 1987), and unary primes are found also in Particle Phonology (Schane 1984). These three theories of segmental structure can collectively be classified as |AIU| models (Harris 2005). Privative feature approaches may also be found in works building on the binary features of Chomsky and Halle (1968), namely Feature Geometry (Clements 1985; Clements, Hume 1995), but the move to privative features here is not complete.

The choice of Element Theory and associated Government Phonology representations is motivated by a few factors related to desiderata for a phonological theory. The first is the reduction of generative capacity through the reduction of primes and application of privativity, a goal for the theory from Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud (1985) onwards (see also Bafile 2017). Breit (2013b) outlines possible generative capacities for Element Theory and binary Feature Theory and shows that Element Theory using six elements generates 256 expressions (assuming only one head in an expression), while Feature Theory generates 1,048,576 possible expressions with 20 binary features. The 256 expressions is more than sufficient to capture the phonology of the world's languages (in combination with syllable structure), and the generation of elements is further restricted through the use of Licensing Constraints (Charette, Göksel 1998) or element tiers (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1985, 1990; Harris, Lindsey 1995).

Two further interlinked benefits are the unification of vocalic and consonantal primes (Charette, Göksel 1998; Backley 2011), and the possibility of a unified analysis of consonant lenition (Kaye, Harris 1990; Harris 1992, 1997, 2005) and vowel weakening as element suppression. Let us first consider the role of unified features between consonants and vowels. In both Feature Geometry work (as in Clements, Hume 1995) and early Element Theory work (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1990) some features appear in both consonantal and vocalic domains and they may also be privative, such as [labial] or the element |U|. However, in both Feature Geometry and early Element Theory, certain features are restricted only to the consonantal domain, e.g. the early element |h| for consonants and |v| for vowels in Element Theory (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1985) or the aperture node found only in vocoids in Feature Geometry (as discussed in Clements, Hume 1995). A desirable goal pursed throughout Element Theory was not only the reduction of primes but also the pursuance of a unification in elements which can be realized in both the onset and the nucleus (Harris, Lindsey 1995; Charette, Göksel 1998). Within the version of Element Theory developed in recent years (e.g. Backley 2011), all elements may appear in both consonantal and vocalic contexts.

The benefit is that, on the one hand, we see all assimilation processes between vowels and consonants as the sharing of an element, and on the other hand, we can analyse disparate processes such as lenition and vowel reduction in English dialects (Harris 1994) and syllable weakening in Kagoshima Japanese as having one unified analysis: the suppression of elements triggered by the syllabic context. Assuming a Government Phonology (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1990) view of syllable structure, a further benefit is a linked triggering context for reduction, where weakness leads to element suppression. Here there is a direct and visible link between the nucleus (and its content) on the surrounding segmental and syllabic environment (Charette 1991; Harris 1992; Cyran 2010): if a vocalic position (or nucleus) is empty or is weakened through the suppression of an element, it does not have the same strength as a nucleus containing a full vowel to license a preceding onset and its full elemental content (Harris 1992). Likewise, if a vowel is not the source of licensing (i.e. the head of a foot), it is then a potential target for reduction (Harris 1994). "Lenition" is element suppression preceding an empty nucleus, while "vowel reduction" is element suppression in the weak position of a foot (understood to be two projected nuclei in a licensing relation). I propose that "syllable weakening" is similar, with the delinking of a final vowel triggering concomitant element suppression. While Feature Geometry and Feature Theory in conjunction with traditional syllable theory can adequately capture lenition, weakening and reduction through the loss of a node or change of a feature, the three processes require disparate analyses, with lenition relying on the coda or positional rules, vowel reduction relying on the foot, and syllable weakening relying on resyllabification in conjunction with coda rules and the reversal of these rules upon the addition of a suffix. Returning to Kagoshima Japanese, I will show that the analysis of syllable weakening can be rather straightforward.<sup>3</sup>

<sup>3</sup> I note that the Government Phonology conception of an environment for lenition involving emptiness is similar to what Labrune (2012) considers to be a deficient mora; a deficient mora is defined in Youngberg (2017) as a consonant vowel (or CV) pair with one position being externally licensed or governed, whether it is empty or full.

#### **3.1 The Basics of Element Theory**

In Element Theory, all segments are composed of one or more elements, which are used for segmental representations in both vowels and consonants. These elements are |A|, |I|, and |U| for place of articulation, and |L|, |H| and |ʔ| for manner of articulation (Charette, Göksel 1998; Backley 2011).

When associated to a nuclear position, the elements are interpreted as vowels. The element |A| is realized as an open vowel such as [a], |I| is realized as a front vowel such as [i] and |U| is realized as a vowel produced with lip compression or lip rounding, such as [u]. Elements may also be combined and create complex expressions, with the resulting expression retaining the broad qualities of each element. A vocalic expression composed of the open element |A| and the palatal element |I| would be |AI|, interpreted phonetically as [e], [ɛ] or [æ]. See the set of simple elements and their combinations below.

3. Example element combinations for vowels |A| = [a] |I| = [i] |U| = [u] |AI| = [e] |AU| = [o] |IU| = [y] |AIU| = [ø]

Further combinations are possible when one considers headedness, which fortifies or amplifies a certain element in a segment or defines a natural class. Here, a head is represented as being underlined in the right-hand position of an elemental representation. One example is the difference between [æ] and [e] in Finnish, with the former represented as |IA| and the latter represented as |IA| (Kaye 2001). The exact definition of headedness is debated, but for the discussion at hand I adopt the assumption that a head defines the natural class of segments in a language.<sup>4</sup>

Elements are interpreted as consonants when associated to an onset or coda.<sup>5</sup> The element |A| typically correlates to alveolar consonants, |I| to palatal consonants and |U| to labial consonants, with velar place being unmarked. The other elements |L|, |H| and |ʔ| produce manner effects, with |L| or the low tone element for voicing and nasality (Nasukawa 1998, 2005; Ploch 1999), |H| or the high tone element for frication and aspiration (Cyran 2010) and |ʔ| or the glottal element for obstruency (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1985; Har-

<sup>4</sup> See Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1985; Charette, Göksel 1998; Backley 2011, 2017 and Breit 2017 for in-depth discussion.

<sup>5</sup> The coda is not recognized as a constituent in Government Phonology or CV phonology – it is either a rhymal complement or final onset within Government Phonology (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1990) or a consonant followed by an empty nuclear position both internally and medially (Lowenstamm 1996). The latter view is taken to be correct for Japanese in work by Yoshida (1999) and Nasukawa (2005).

ris 1994). The voiced alveolar consonant would thus be represented as |AʔL|, with the elements encoding alveolar place, obstruency and voicing respectively.<sup>6</sup> These elements may also be found in vocalic inventories where they encode manner contrasts (Backley 2011), with |L| found in nasal vowels.

# **3.2 Element Theory Consonant Representations in Japanese**

Japanese has a rather simple consonant inventory, which I present below drawing from the TJ consonant inventory given in Youngberg (2017). Previous research on the Element Theory representation of Japanese for vowels and consonants has been presented by Yoshida (1996), Yoshida (1999), and Nasukawa (1998, 2005). Segments found only as the result of surface assimilation are given in italics. I focus only on selected consonants below as some alternations are not evidenced in the relevant Yamato words, e.g. there are no verb stems terminating in /p/ or /f/. Palatalized consonants are discussed in the aforementioned sources, but note that only allophones which will be discussed directly in this chapter are presented in (4a-e).


#### 4. The representation of Japanese consonants

6 A reviewer correctly suggests that obstruents and sonorants are divided by the presence or lack of |ʔ|. However, nasals and laterals have been argued to contain or lack |ʔ| depending on the language, with a consonant such as [n] containing |ʔ| in English (Harris 1994) and lacking |ʔ| in Bemba (Kula 2002). I also note that the interpretation of sonorants may also depend on their association to a consonantal or vocalic position, as in an onset nasal and a syllabic nasal in New York English [n]*o* and *butt*[ṇ]. I use |ʔ| in the nasal representations here for consonants found in onsets, but in non-head position.

All expressions above contain a head to capture each natural class. The tap and the glide are represented as simple place elements, while nasals contain headed |L|. Stops and affricates are unified in having headed |ʔ| to capture the natural class of obstruents and these segments differ only in affricates having complex place specifications. Fricatives, finally, have headed |H| to capture the class as having a hallmark of frication. A few assumptions are made in the above representations. First, the velar place lacks an elemental specification, as in Yoshida (1996) and Yoshida (1999). Second, voiced consonants are represented using |L|, with voiceless stops containing no marked laryngeal element. I contrast the use of |L| for voicing while headed |L| captures nasality to capture the natural class of nasals following Kula (2002) and Breit (2013a), *pace* Nasukawa (2005). Finally, consonants with complex place (e.g. alveo-palatals) contain both palatal |I| and alveolar |A|. KJ also exhibits the alveo-palatal segment [ʑ], which I represent as |AILH| with alveolar, palatal, voicing and frication elements respectively. In TJ, there is no distinction between [ʑ] and [dʑ].

# 4 Capturing Weakening

I propose that syllable weakening in KJ is rather easily captured as the suppression of a high vowel, with |I| or |U| being disassociated from a nucleus. The loss of a full vowel in the nuclear position then leads to an inability of the preceding onset to license and phonetically realize its segment fully. I assume a non-branching nucleus and onset representation for Japanese, following Yoshida (1999) and Nasukawa (2005). Crucially, a coda is understood to be a contentful onset followed by an empty nucleus. Various views of Japanese syllable structure are discussed at length in recent work by Vance (1987, 2008), Yoshida (1999), Nasukawa (2005), Labrune (2012) and Youngberg (2017). A full onset-nucleus pair in a word such as [ki] 'tree' is represented below in (5) using Government Phonology representations (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1990).

	- O1 N1 | | x x | | k i

Syllable weakening deviates from this fully formed structure. The first step in weakening is the suppression of the final high vowel, which leads to a surface empty skeletal position. This empty position is then a weak licenser of the preceding onset and its segment. This proposal combines two different proposals in the literature, the first where devoicing in TJ has been previously analysed as suppression of the |I| or |U| element by Yoshida (1996) and Yoshida (1999), while the second is that lenition is triggered by an empty position (Kaye, Harris 1990; Harris 1992, 1994). The idea is that a full nucleus can license the preceding onset and the interpretation of its elemental content (Kaye, Lowenstamm, Vergnaud 1990), while an empty nucleus or the nucleus in the weak position of a foot does not have the same potential to license its onset and its segmental content. The typology of vowel types and their effect on segments and syllable structure is expanded on in Cyran (2010) for languages such as Polish, Malayalam and Dutch.

Let us consider the case of stops and nasals, focusing on nonpast and Negative forms of the stems /jom-/ 'read' and /tat-/ 'stand'. These stems are realized as [joɴ] 'read-NP' and [taʔ] in the non-past, which I assume terminates underlyingly in the non-past suffix /-u/. I assume the verb ends in a suffix in the underlying grammar as all speakers speak both the Tōkyō Japanese-based common language<sup>7</sup> and Kagoshima Japanese, with the verbal paradigms and morphology being similar. The final syllables are shown in (6) where a floating element represents a delinked and uninterpreted element and a strikethrough represents an unrealized element. The final vowel /u/ is delinked and not realized.

6. Lenition in final /mu/ and /tu/, realized as [ɴ] and [ʔ]

O1 N1 | | x x | [ɴ] |L| |ʔ| |U| |U| O1 N1 | | x x | [ʔ] |ʔ| |A| |U|

7 This is a simplication of *kyōtsūgo* 共通語 or 'common language' and the concept of standard Japanese, but will suffice for the current discussion.

The full stem-final consonant is found preceding other suffixes containing a non-high vowel followed by another syllable as in the Negative forms suffixed with /-aɴ/, giving [jomaɴ] 'read-NEG' and [tata] 'stand-NEG'. The structures of the stem-final consonants followed by the full realized vowel [a] are given in (7), with a vowel linked to the nucleus and all elements interpreted.

7. Full realization of /ma/ and /ta/

O1 N1 | | x x | | [m] |L| |ʔ| |U| [a] |A| O1 N1 | | x x | | [t] |ʔ| |A| [a] |A|

What happens in weakening is represented in (6): the final vowel is not realized as the element |I| or |U| is disassociated from the nucleus. The final nucleus is thus empty and unable to license the preceding onset fully. The resultant onset does not have the strength to interpret its entire elemental expression. Following Kaye and Harris (1990), I propose that KJ weakening leaves only the head element and all other place or manner elements are suppressed; as such, only the elements |L| or |ʔ| surface. It is clear, however that the elements are not deleted, rather only suppressed when one considers the Negative forms of consonant final stems. The vowel in /aɴ/ 'NEG' licenses the stem-final consonant, with the Non-Past [joɴ] corresponding to [jomaɴ] 'read-NEG'. The conditions for weakening cannot be met here; the initial vowel in the negative suffix cannot be deleted as it does not fit the conditions for apocope – it is not a high vowel and it is not in final position. The onset is then fully licensed and all elements are realized acoustically. This analysis is also applicable to account for weakening found in Yamato nouns such as TJ [kami] 'paper' realized as KJ [kaɴ], albeit here the process of weakening is no longer productive and the final consonant can be considered lexicalized.

# 5 Further Directions

This chapter is a simple proposal to capture syllable weakening in Kagoshima Japanese using insights from Element Theory and Government Phonology, but a number of broader issues remain to be investigated fully. The first is the existence of empty positions in this framework and its impact on our understanding of the mora in Japanese generally; a definition of the well-formed and deficient mora and the involvement of full or empty positions is dealt with in Youngberg (2017) and a forthcoming article. Second, it is unclear how best to represent segments when one considers lenition of fricatives and the rhotics, where the representations adopted *a priori* from Tōkyō Japanese imply that all fricatives should be realized as [h] and /r/ should be realized simply as [r] if head elements remain; the elemental representations used must be adjusted through careful consideration of the full phonology of Kagoshima Japanese. Although my speakers did not exhibit the relevant lenition of fricatives and the rhotic, it is a pattern which must still be accounted for. An additional issue is why mid and low vowels do not disappear and trigger weakening. While diachronically we can claim that this process is linked to high vowel devoicing which is common throughout Japan, synchronically another solution must be found. I tentatively propose that this is linked to the idea that the element |A| is structure and which is unable to be altered, explored for Tokyo and Owari Japanese vocalic interaction in Youngberg (2017). Finally, further investigations must consider the role of word-medial weakening and the creation of consonant clusters and voiced geminates word medially, which were not systematically investigated in April 2019. These words must be the result of diachronic change, as weakening does not currently affect the word-medial context productively. The analysis presented would still be valid if this were the case, albeit with the modification that high vowels could be deleted more generally and not only in word final position. Further fieldwork and research will explore these issues in more detail.

# **Bibliography**


Ītoyo Kiichi 飯豊毅一; Hino Sukezumi 日野資純; Satō Ryoichi 佐藤亮一 (eds) (1982-86). *Kōza hōgengaku* 講座方言学 (Lectures on Dialectology). 8 vols. Tōkyō: Kokusho Kankōkai.


Kaye, Jonathan; Harris, John (1990). "Segmental Complexity and Phonological Government". *Phonology*, 7(1), 255-300. DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/ s0952675700001202.


Kibe Nobuko 木部暢子 (ed.) (1997a). *Nihon no kotoba shirīzu* 日本のことばシリ ーズ (Languages of Japan Series). Vol. 46, *Kagoshima*-*ken no kotoba* 鹿児 島県のことば (The Dialect of Kagoshima Prefecture). Tōkyō: Meiji Shoin.


Ploch, Stefan (1999). *Nasals on My Mind: The Phonetic and Cognitive Approach to the Phonology of Nasality* [PhD Dissertation]. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Scheer, Tobias; Kula, Nancy C. (2017). "Government Phonology. Element Theory, Conceptual Issues and Introduction". Hannahs, S.J.; Bosch, Anna (eds), *The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory*.Oxford: Routledge, 226-61.

Schane, Sanford A. (1984). "The Fundamentals of Particle Phonology". *Phonology Yearbook*, 1, 129-55. DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/s0952675700000324.

Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). *The Languages of Japan*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Uemura Kōji 上村孝二; Nobayashi Masamichi 野林正路; Hidaka Kōichirō 日高 貢一郎 (1997). "Hōgen Kiso Goi 方言基礎語彙 (Foundational Dialect Vocabulary)". Kibe 1997a, 67-215.

Vance, Timothy (1987). *An Introduction to Japanese Phonology*. Albany (NY): State University of New York Press.


# The Interaction of Relativization and Noun Incorporation in Southern Hokkaidō Ainu

Elia Dal Corso Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** This paper focuses on relativization in Southern Hokkaidō Ainu. Specifically, evidential expressions constitute the scope of this study since within this semantic domain a morphosyntactic layout reminescent of internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs) is found. Moreover, the structure of some evidential expressions suggests that what gives rise to an IHRC in those instances is classificatory noun incorporation (CNI). Following from past studies on Ainu, where IHRCs and CNI are never discussed, and with reference to cross-linguistic approaches to relativization and incorporation, this study addresses the interaction of these two processes in Southern Hokkaidō Ainu and suggests their reconsideration.

**Keywords** Relative clauses. Noun incorporation. Morphosyntax. Ainu. Complement clauses.

**Summary** 1 Scope and Aim of the Paper. – 2 The Indirect Evidentials of SHA. – 2.1 Semantics and Pragmatics. – 2.2 Morphophonology. – 3 Past studies on Ainu RCs and NI. – 3.1 Accounts on RCs. –3.2 Accounts on NI. – 4 The Morphosyntax of Indirect Evidentials. – 4.1 Structural Generalizations. – 4.2 Non-canonical Structures. – 5 Analysis. – 5.1 Possessive Constructions. – 5.2 Pseudo-Noun Incorporation and Noun Incorporation Proper. – 5.3 The Interaction of Relativization and Incorporation. – 6 Conclusions.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 47** Submitted 2020-02-14 | Accepted 2020-05-19 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/003**

#### 1 Scope and Aim of the Paper

This paper<sup>1</sup> investigates relativization in Southern Hokkaidō Ainu (henceforth SHA), with special attention to its interaction with noun incorporation. The Chitose, Nibutani, and Biratori dialects constitute my scope of investigation, as they plainly exhibit this interaction. The Nibutani and Biratori dialects are part of a larger dialect family referred to as the Saru dialect and, together with the Chitose dialect, can be grouped under the Southern Hokkaidō dialect family in light of their similarities in the grammar and lexicon (Asai 1974). The language data for this study come from a number of corpora of Ainu folktales collected between the 1950s and the 2000s from Ainu native speakers.

One more restriction I apply to the scope of this study concerns the semantic domain within which I address relativization and incorporation – that is, indirect evidentiality. Evidentiality is the linguistic category that has to do with source of information and with how information is acquired. Via evidentiality a speaker normally indicates where she has obtained information from and what was the physical or non-physical channel that allowed the acquisition of said information (Aikhenvald 2004). Within its evidential system, that also comprises direct evidentiality (Dal Corso 2018), SHA displays four indirect evidential forms (see § 2.1). In a number of indirect evidential constructions (henceforth IECs) where these forms are employed we observe a structural layout that suggests relativization has taken place giving rise to what resembles an internally-headed relative clause (IHRC); an exceptional circumstance for a language like Ainu that is reported to only exhibit (externally-)headed RCs (Bugaeva 2004, 94). Moreover, the morphosyntactic structure that allows this kind of RC construction seems to be instantiated by the presence of classificatory noun incorporation (CNI), a type of NI never before attested in Ainu.

As a start, in § 2 I consider the semantics, pragmatics, and morphophonology of SHA indirect evidentials. Section 3 presents a literature review of past studies on RCs and NI in Ainu, following from which I first present the most common morphosyntactic structure of IECs (§ 4.1). Then I move on to highlighting the oddities that some "non- canonical" evidential constructions display (§ 4.2). Section 5 is dedicated to the analysis of these non-canonical constructions, after which I provide a definition for the process of NI and outline my assumptions on RCs. By the end of this section, I argue that SHA features a case of IHRC construction within the domain of indirect ev-

<sup>1</sup> Parts of this paper have been presented during the 51st annual meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea at Tallinn University (29th August-1st September 2018).

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **48** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 47-70

identiality and that this is due to the presence of CNI in the same syntactic environment. Section 6 concludes. Though I shortly address the possible diachronic morphosyntactic development of IECs, the available data provide insufficient evidence to advance any specific claim on this matter. Therefore, I chiefly maintain a synchronic perspective throughout my analysis.

# 2 The Indirect Evidentials of SHA

# **2.1 Semantics and Pragmatics**

The domain of SHA indirect evidentiality includes source of information based on conclusions drawn from what the speaker sees, hears, tastes, smell, touches, or from what it is reported to her via conversation.

The dialects of SHA taken into account in this study count four indirect evidentials: *siri an*, *siri ki*, *humi as*, and *hawe as*. Historically, these evidentials originate from three nouns that semantically relate to sensorial perceptions – *sir* 'appearance', *haw* 'voice', and *hum*  'sound'. For these evidentials a number of alloforms are attested in the reference corpora (see § 2.2). *Siri an* and *siri ki* are used when physical circumstances allow the speaker to infer an event through sight. In addition, *siri an* indicates information relating to an event acquired through reasoning prompted by sight. *Humi as* indicates inference based on hearing, smell, touch, taste or some kind of internal "sixth sense", while *hawe as* indicates inference based on hearing or that an event is reported verbally. Example (1), featuring *siran*, serves as a first illustration of IECs of SHA.

1. *Epitta siwnin sinrus ne a p anakne easir ka*, all be.green moss COP PRF NMLZ TOP really even *so-ho a-kar apekor siran*. 3/floor-POSS 4S-3SO/make just-like IND.RSN 'It was all (covered) in green moss but really it seemed just like a carpet had been unrolled'. (Tamura 1985, 54)

As discussed in Dal Corso (2018), SHA indirect evidentials subsume different levels of source reliability, which partly depend on the inner semantics of the perception nouns involved in their formation. The same indirect evidential forms are also found synchronically to fulfill the function of aspectual markers or lexical verbs, in this latter case thus becoming the independent predication of the clause. In these instances their evidential function is lost. The polyfunctionality of *siri an*, *siri ki*, *humi as*, and *hawe as*, that from a wider perspective are better seen as perception predicates, is hard to ascribe to a specific diachronic development but, as it will become clear later, has much to do with the morphosyntax of the constructions featuring these forms.

# **2.2 Morphophonology**

In this subsection, I briefly examine the morphophonology of SHA indirect evidentials. Indirect evidentials are made up by a nominal and a verbal element. A number of alloforms of *siri an*, *siri ki*, *humi as*, and *hawe as* are attested in the corpora, that are partially ascribable to the phonological environment where the evientials are found. Phonological processes can explain namely the elision of the initial /h/ in *humi as* and *hawe as*. Rather, alloforms differ from "main" forms morphologically in whether the nominal element in the construction retains possessive morphology (e.g. *siran* vs. *siri an*). The only exception is represented by *siri iki* and *sir-iki*, alloforms of *siri ki*. Besides the possessive morpheme, here the morphological change also affects the verbal element, as we may find the intransitive *iki* 'do' instead of the synonymous transitive *ki*. As I discuss in more detail in the following subsections, the presence or absence of possessive morphology on the nominal element influences the morphosyntax of the indirect form as a whole.

Within indirect evidential forms, the nouns *sir*, *haw*, and *hum* always retain their stress (e.g. *sirí ki*, *hawé as*) while the verb remains unstressed. This happens consistently notwithstanding the presence or absence of possessive morphology (see below), which has the only effect to cause a stress shift from the first to the second syllable of the nominal constituent (e.g. non-possessive *háwas* vs. possessive *hawé as*).

The nominal elements *sir* 'appearance', *hum* 'sound' and *haw* 'voice' may appear in their non-possessive forms (as reported here) or in the shortened possessive forms, listed below.


This short form results from the omission of the segment *-hV* from the possessive morpheme -*(V)hV*, a phenomenon commonly attested in Saru Ainu (Tamura 2000, 85) and Chitose Ainu (Bugaeva 2004, 20). Since it is suffixed to a nominal root ending in a consonant, the possessive morpheme originally takes the -*VhV* realization when it accompanies the perception nouns, so that, although shortened, the presence of the possessive morpheme is overtly signaled as the remaining -*V* segment following the root. Indirect evidential forms feature three separate verbs. The intransitive verbs *an* 'exist' and *as* 'stand' occur when the nominal constituents are respectively *sir* or *hum* and *haw*, while we find the transitive *ki* or the intransitive *iki*  'do' in *siri ki*. Omission of the verbal constituent is not attested for any of the indirect evidentials.

Before I move on to discussing the morphosyntax of the IECs, let us review the past studies on Ainu RCs and NI.

# 3 Past studies on Ainu RCs and NI

# **3.1 Accounts on RCs**

Ainu is said to only display headed RCs (Bugaeva 2004, 94) and, with the exception of the alienable possessor and standard of comparison, all positions named in Keenan and Comrie's (1977) accessibility hierarchy can be relativized via the zero anaphora strategy (i.e. gap strategy) (Bugaeva 2015, 80). A basic distinction is the one between relativization of arguments (2) and non-arguments (3).


If the relativized noun is an argument of the verb in the RC, its function is marked via the gap strategy as in (2). If, on the contrary, the relativized noun is a non-argument, its original function in the RC is signaled via the retention of overt morphosyntax, as in (3) the postposition *ani* 'with'. The morphosyntactic markers must appear for a correct recoverability.

Since they are recognizable as adnominal constructions, Ainu RCs look very similar to noun-complement constructions (Matsumoto 1997), in that they attach a modifying clause to a head noun with no specific expression of the relation between the two. This kind of construction is referred to by Comrie (1998, 76) as the general nounmodifying clause construction (or GNMCC). However, GNMCCs are also said to lack extraction, so that the head noun cannot be seen as formerly included in the modifying clause. As proven by the strategies for the relativization of arguments and, even more clearly, nonarguments (where we see morphosyntactic retention), Ainu RCs do not fit the model of prototypical GNMCCs.

Bugaeva (2015) departs from these observations and takes into account RCs and nominalization proper in SHA, comparing them with non-prototypical GNMCCs that involve head nouns with specific grammatical functions and semantics. In particular, Bugaeva addresses Ainu noun-complement constructions that exhibit a possessive noun which simultaneously heads a clause and was not previously contained in this latter. According to her analysis, the possessive morpheme on the head noun cross-references the whole preceding clause (i.e. the clause is the possessor of the head noun).

4. *[Kamuy-utar nuwap kor okay]i haw-e<sup>i</sup> a-nu*. god-PL 3PS/groan PRG 3S/voice-POSS 4S-3SO/hear 'I heard the voices of gods' groaning' [lit.: 'I heard the voice (that) gods were groaning'.] (Bugaeva 2015, 79)

When words like *hawe* 'the voice of' and other perception nouns are used as heads of noun-complement clauses, it is difficult to categorize them as complementizers due to the morphosyntactic properties they retain, like the possibility of being followed by nominal particles (Bugaeva 2015, 92). This further distances SHA noun-complement constructions from prototypical GNMCCs. Nonetheless, Bugaeva concludes her discussion of perception nouns employed as heads of noun-complement clauses with some remarks on grammaticalization.

5. *[Pirka aynu a-ne] hum as*. be.good person 4S-COP sound 3SS/stand 'I felt like a good person' [lit.: '(There) stood the sound (such as) me being a good person'.] (Bugaeva 2015, 100)

In light of constructions such as (5), she argues that the possibility of having the head noun in the non-possessive form (e.g. [clause] + *hum as*) is the actual sign of an emerging GNMCC.

# **3.2 Accounts on NI**

Early accounts on NI appear in descriptions of Ainu such as Tamura (1973), Murasaki (1979), or Refsing (1986). Tamura and Murasaki single out Ainu verbs such as *sirpirka* 'be good weather' as having the morphological property of not allowing the use of personal affixes as a formal way of referencing arguments. The morphological unacceptability of personal affixes is assumed to indicate that these verbs do not require a subject or object syntactically.<sup>2</sup> Both Tamura and Murasaki discuss the process behind the formation of these verbs as a case of compounding, where a formerly intransitive verb combines with a noun which was originally its subject.

6. *Sirpirka*. be.good.weather

7. *Sir pirka*. condition 3SS/be.good 'The weather is good'. (Tamura 1973, 119)<sup>3</sup>

As the first scholar to discuss noun+verb combinations explicitly in terms of NI, Bugaeva (2004) recognizes zero-valency verbs as involving NI of a noun with the syntactic function of subject into an intransitive verb. As one piece of evidence in support to the presence of NI, Bugaeva (2004, 29-30) points at the stress pattern of zero-valency verbs. In cases like (6) only the first component of the complete verb (i.e. *sir*) bears the stress, while in cases like (7) both constituents are stressed. A unitary stress pattern signals that NI has occurred.

While Bugaeva addresses suprasegmental features as evidence for NI, Kobayashi (2008) returns to morphology and semantics by considering the incorporated noun of zero-valency verbs in terms of its semantic role, case marking, and grammatical function. In particular, Kobayashi (2008, 212) singles out those zero-valency verbs which involve incorporation of a noun that formerly has the semantic role of possessee. Before NI occurs, the noun is recognized as the subject of the intransitive verb, and it is marked as nominative at the case level.<sup>4</sup> The following schemes are taken from Kobayashi and exemplify how the functions of the noun are different before (8) and after (9) NI happens.

8. *A-kem-a pase*. 4-leg-POSS 3PS/be.heavy 'My legs are heavy'.

2 This is the foundation for the adoption of the term "complete verbs" (*kanzen dōshi* 完全動詞) commonly found in reference grammars. In Refsing (1986) the term "closed verbs" is used instead. In later reports on NI, for instance Bugaeva (2004), the theoretically more consistent term "zero-valency verbs" has come to substitute the languagespecific term "complete verbs".

3 Glosses added for clarity.

<sup>4</sup> The label 'nominative' does not appear under *kema* 'the legs of' in the scheme by Kobayashi, given here in (9).

**Elia Dal Corso The Interaction of Relativization and Noun Incorporation in Southern Hokkaidō Ainu**


The most relevant outcome of Kobayashi's report is that NI seems to systematically affect the grammatical function of the noun that undergoes incorporation (*kema* is not SUBJECT anymore after NI occurs), while the semantic role of this noun remains unchanged (*kema* is always THEME). As a result, the erstwhile possessor (i.e. 'I') is promoted to the grammatical function of subject and it is assigned nominative at case level, as indicated by the personal agreement marker -*an* in (9). However, any explicit claim about the syntactic properties of the incorporated noun is lacking from the analysis.

# 4 The Morphosyntax of Indirect Evidentials

# **4.1 Structural Generalizations**

In this section I proceed with presenting the most common morphosyntactic layout IECs exhibit. This is illustrated in (10). In this and other following examples I gloss evidentials to show their inner morphology for the sake of clarity.


Phonologically, evidentials such as *humas* exhibit a unitary stress. Specifically, the stressed element is always the perception noun (i.e. *húmas*) (see § 2.2). As pointed out in § 3.2, we can take such stress pattern as a piece of evidence that perception nouns are incorporated into the verb that constitutes the evidentials. Syntactically, the evidential form is adjacent to the clause over which it has its scope semantically, enclosed in square brackets in (10), while morphologically the perception noun within the evidential appears in its non-possessive form. Therefore, we see that this structure is in all analogous to the non-prototypical GNMCCs surveyed by Bugaeva (2015) in that a perception noun heads a clause and, at the same time, has clearly not been extracted from this latter (see § 3.1). Allegedly, this would be a development from structures like (4), where the perception noun retains the possessive morpheme that cross-references the whole clause which it is the head of. The underlying structure of (10) would then be one where the clause containing the scope predicate of the evidential is the element covering the function of possessor, while the perception noun would be the possessee. I illustrate these functions by indexing the possessor (*psr*) and the possessee (*pss*) in (10), delaying further arguments in favor of this assumed structure to § 5.1.

As it is, the morphosyntax of IECs appears quite linear. However, one question arises naturally at this point. If we take the sentence in (10) to be the result of grammaticalization of an analogous structure where the noun *hum* 'sound' still retained possessive morphology that co-referenced the preceding clause *aynu iwak* 'a person arrived', and if we assume *hum* to be now incorporated into the verb *as* 'stand', then what is the resulting syntactic status of the clause *aynu iwak*? This is just one of the issues we need to address, together with less evident ones that I discuss in § 4.2.

# **4.2 Non-canonical Structures**

#### 4.2.1 Stranded Possessors

Let us start our overview of non-canonical IECs by addressing the syntactic status of the clause that is semantically under the scope of evidentiality. If we take this clause as the possessor in an erstwhile possessive construction (§ 4.1), the incorporation of the (possessee) perception noun would leave it stranded. If this were the case, such behavior would be at odds with the assumed properties of NI in Ainu. In fact, NI as discussed in the literature is never reported to permit stranding of any type of modifier (e.g. determiners, numerals, relative clauses). Consider (11) and (12).


In (12) the otherwise grammatical *cepkoyki* 'to catch fish' makes the sentence ill-formed. Here incorporation of *cep* 'fish' into the transitive *koyki* 'to catch' is not possible as the former is modified by the numeral *tu* 'two'. If the modifier *tu* 'two' is left stranded as a result of incorporation, the sentence is unacceptable.

# 4.2.2 NI – Inconsistency Within the Evidential Domain

While we have quite consistent evidence coming from stress pattern that supports the hypothesis of incorporation (see § 4.1), morphosyntactic evidence is in contrast more incoherent. In fact, within evidential forms incorporated nouns often retain overt morphological features as in (13), where the noun *hawe* 'the voice of' exhibits possessive morphology differently from *hum* in (10). Alternatively, evidentials may be even separated from their incorporating verb by full syntactic constituents, though this is less common. This happens in (14) where the locative *ios* 'behind us' intervenes between *hum* 'sound' and its incorporating verb *as*.


14. *Aynu ek hum i-os as*. person 3SS/come.PC sound 4O-behind stand.PC 'It seemed a man came behind us'. (Kayano 24-3,2)

At this point, there is little to no evidence to argue that a perception noun such as *hum* 'sound' in (14) is incorporated, if we base our understanding of Ainu incorporation on previous studies. The main issue here is that indirect evidentials of SHA actually allow morphological complexity and syntactic freedom of the noun that constitutes them. Though we can simply see the former fact as a less common characteristic of SHA indirect evidentials, even so expected since possessives nouns can indeed be incorporated (cf. *kema* [leg-POSS] in (9)), syntactic freedom of the incorporated noun represents an outstanding behavior.

Even cases that seem to raise no such doubts about NI do not entirely comply with what has been said on this process in the Ainu literature.

15. *E-siknu haw-e ene haw-as i ka an kor*… 2SS-be.safe voice-POSS like.this REP NMLZ even 3SS/exist.PC while 'While the news is such that they even say that you have survived…' (Kayano 19-5,32)

In cases like (15) the perception noun is incorporated into the verb but is also echoed within the "possessor clause" by an external unbounded copy. The copy (here *hawe*) retains possessive morphology which does not appear on the incorporated noun (*haw*) within the evidential form – that is, what we call the external copy differs from its incorporated counterpart in terms of morphological complexity. On the other hand, as for their semantic specificity, the incorporated noun and its external counterpart are equal.

# 4.2.3 Indirect Evidentials and Relativization

As a third outstanding characteristic of IECs we have cases where their syntactic layout resembles the one of a RC. The peculiarity of this seeming case of relativization is that it concerns the perception noun within the evidential, which is found "reduplicated" after the latter covering a relative-head-like function for the clause where the evidential itself is found. The indirect evidential retains the perception noun, so that what we can call the relative head seems to be a displaced "copy" of the perception noun itself.


The morphosyntax of constructions like (16) presents a number of problems. Firstly, since we assume that SHA indirect evidentials constitute a case of NI, we would not expect a noun like *haw* 'voice' to be relativized. This prediction is sensible if we base our understanding of noun incorporation on syntactic approaches to this phenomenon like, for example, Baker (1988). Relativization of an incorporated noun would in fact violate lexical integrity. Secondly, the alleged relative head appears often to be morphologically more specified than its incorporated counterpart – note the possessive morpheme on *hawe*, which is not found on *haw* within the evidential form *hawas* in (16). Even admitting that indeed the incorporated noun undergoes relativization, we have no specific reason to expect it to bear a higher morphological specification for possession when used as the relative head.

# 5 Analysis

# **5.1 Possessive Constructions**

As a start to the analysis, I discuss IECs as erstwhile possessive contructions. Precisely, I recognize them as inalienable possessive constructions, given the presence of the morpheme -*V(hV)* on the perception noun, and this latter noun as the possessee since it structurally hosts the possessive morpheme (see § 2.2). Such analysis coheres with Bugaeva's (2015) assumption for clauses headed by a possessive perception noun (see § 3.1). With the perception noun covering the role of possessee, the clause that contains the predicate under the scope of evidentiality fulfills the role of possessor. This clause has therefore a nominal status, which results from clausal nominalization (Yap et al., 2011), also discussed as "zero-nominalization" for SHA (Bugaeva 2011).

17. *[Hunak un ka a-i-y-ani wa paye-an] psr* where to INT 4S-4O-0-carry and go.PL-4S *[hum] pss-i as.* sound-POSS stand.PC 'It seemed they went carrying me to somewhere'. (Tamura 1984, 4)

Evidence for the nominal status of the "possessor clause" comes from morphological referencing (or lack there of) found on the possessed noun, where no person agreement can be found and third person nullagreement is evidenced.<sup>5</sup> Although cross-referencing of the possessor with the subject of the verb within the possessor clause is imaginable, the subject-referencing reading appears to be merely semantically implicated by the meaning of the verbs that co-occur with the evidentials. Furthermore, the semantic confusion arises only with a third person subject on the possessor clause's predicate. Overt morphological cross-referencing would in fact be expected on the perception noun with other grammatical persons as subject of the predicate, but this is never accounted for.

<sup>5</sup> The inalienable possessor appears on possessed nouns in the shape of a personal agreement prefix (e.g. *ku-kisar-aha* [1S-ear-POSS] 'my ear'). Third person singular and plural possessors are marked via null-agreement (e.g. *sik-ihi* [3/eye-POSS] 'his/her/its/ their eye'), hence the evidence for cross-referencing of the nominalized clause as the possessor in the construction in (17).

#### **5.2 Pseudo-Noun Incorporation and Noun Incorporation Proper**

#### 5.2.1 Evidence for Pseudo-noun Incorporation

In light of the underlying possessive construction discussed in § 5.1, I argue that constructions like (18) represent a case of pseudo-noun incorporation (PNI) (Borik, Gehrke 2015).


Broadly defined, PNI is a kind of incorporation where the noun retains a certain degree of syntactic freedom, although it is incorporated into a verb as signaled by its general morphological bareness. That is, unlike noun incorporation proper (§ 5.2.2), PNI does not involve morphological combination but rather syntactic adjacency. PNI can involve not only bare nouns but also larger constituents that should be treated as phrases (Borik, Gehrke 2015, 11); the phrasal status of the incorporee being possibly flagged by the presence of modifiers. Modifers of the pseudo-incorporated noun (PIN) are included in incorporation and therefore PNI does not result in modifier stranding (see § 5.2.2). However, PNI imposes limitations to the kind of modifiers allowed to undergo the process, which are essentially semantic.<sup>6</sup> In fact, only modifiers that semantically comply with both the PIN and the event described by the incorporating verb are allowed. Nonetheless, Borik and Gehrke (2015, 20) do discuss some restrictions of PIN's modifiers that appear to be unmistakably syntactic, like the impossibility of having a relative clause as a modifier. In SHA the sole nominalized possessor clause is allowed as a modifier of the perception noun, which is due exactly to the expression being originally a possessive construction. In this sense, the restriction is not semantic and these instance of Ainu PNI would therefore fit in with those rarer cases showcasing a syntactic restriction of modifiers.

PINs need not to be morphologically bare, but they systematically display less morphological specification than non-incorporated nouns. Since the possessive -*(Vh)V* is the only morphology found on *sir*, *hum* and *haw*, they too qualify as PINs with limited morphological specifications, that are not completely bare. As for syntactic freedom of the PIN, this shows in full constituents being allowed to intervene between this latter noun and the incorporating verb. As (19) illustrates, this possibility is also attested in SHA.

<sup>6</sup> PNI is usually pragmatically reserved for expressing well-established situations commonly associated with stereotypical activities (Borik, Gehrke 2015, 13).

**Elia Dal Corso The Interaction of Relativization and Noun Incorporation in Southern Hokkaidō Ainu**

19. *[Aynu ek hum] i-os as*. person 3SS/come.PC sound 4O-behind 3SS/stand 'It seemed a man came behind us'. (Kayano 24-3,2)

In this example the locative expression *ios* 'behind us' intervenes between the pseudo-incorporated nominal *aynu ek hum* and the incorporating verb *as*, signalling that the former retains some syntactic independence from the latter.<sup>7</sup> Syntactic freedom is nonetheless limited, though less so than in NI, and, since syntax may also be diagnostic of PNI, the position of the PIN cannot be arbitrary. In SHA, clefting is not permitted. Neither the perception noun or its modifier (i.e. the possessor clause) can be displaced for pragmatic purposes. This is one more piece of evidence that noun and its modifier undergo incorporation as a whole complex nominal.

#### 5.2.2 Evidence for Noun Incorporation Proper

Noun incorporation proper (NI) is another syntactic process involved in IECs. Example (20) illustrates the structural layout attested for instances that display characteristics of NI.


In defining NI in this analysis, I start from Modena and Muro's (2009, 31) interpretation of this phenomenon as "any kind of morphosyntactic combining of nominal and verbal morphemes which are morphologically fully integrated as to form one single stem", where the involved morphemes are roots that cannot be morphologically analyzed further. As shown in (20), NI in IECs complies with this prototypical feature since both the nominal root (*sir*, *hum*, and *haw*) and the verbal root (*an*, *as*, and *(i)ki*) are not analyzable. Moreover, the incorporated nominal root is never found to be a complex root since it does not combine with any other root before undergoing incorporation, a possibility otherwise attested (Muro 2009, 108-17).

One more characteristic of NI central for the analysis at hand concerns the modifiers of the IN. A behavior we notice in (20) is that it

<sup>7</sup> Fluctuations in the retention of possessive morphology are a peculiarity of PNI and NI featured in IECs. Parallel to the present case displaying a bare PIN, cases where the IN is expanded via possessive morphology prior to incorporation are also attested. Nonetheless, the syntax of these IECs still supports the presence of PNI and NI respectively – in the present case the syntactic constituent intervening before the incorporating verb is diagnostic of PNI. See Dal Corso (2018, 163-5) for more.

is possible to have syntactic constituents intervening between the incorporated perception noun and the "possessor clause". The intervening syntactic constituents are coordinating or subordinating conjunctions, time or space adverbs co-occurring with a conjunction, or adverbials that convey a semblative-approximative meaning like *anki* 'about' or *noyne* 'as if'. This is quite different from what we saw in constructions involving PNI in § 5.2.1, where no such syntactic insertion is acceptable since the PIN and its possessor-clause modifier undergo incorporation as one complex nominal. Having syntactic insentions in between the IN and the possessor signals that this latter has been left stranded in the process. Muro (2009, 108-25) discusses the possibility of having modifiers left out of the verbal constituent that results from NI, and these cases of NI are said to involve precisely modifier stranding. The kind and morphosyntactic complexity of strandable modifiers is language dependent – demostratives, adjectives and RCs being among the most common stranded categories. Possessors may also be stranded after NI. Muro (2009, 123-6) argues that this kind of stranding does not leave out a genitival modifier, but rather that incorporation of a possessee instantiates the reanalysis of the stranded possessor as an argument in its own right to which a new grammatical function is assigned. Evidence for the reanalysis may come from morphology, as erstwhile possessors can be marked for direct or indirect case. Since Muro (2009, 81) argues that grammatical and thematic functions are assigned through a process of thematic projection that do not depend on the inner semantics of the incorporating verb, there are different possible outcomes of NI in terms of syntactic valency. In fact, depending on the case, NI may or may not result in syntactic saturation of the verb.

I propose that the instances of NI in SHA follow this trend. I argue that the whole clause containing the scope predicate *isam* 'not be' in (20), shown in square brackets, is the subject of the verb *sirki*, resulting from incorporation. After NI takes place, the possessor clause remains stranded and could potentially be regarded as a genitival modifier of the incorporated sensorial noun. However, as Muro discusses, here too the possessor clause, as a nominalized constituent syntactically acceptable in the function of argument, can be re-analyzed as the S argument of *sirki*, and thus should not be considered a modifier of the sensorial noun *sir*. One more piece of evidence supporting the promotion to subject of the possessor clause comes from analogous cases of possessee incorporation. Kobayashi (2008) discusses such cases (see § 3.2) highlighting how the erstwhile possessor is re-analyzed as the subject after NI applies, as it is evident from morphology. What follows from this conclusion is that NI in this instance does not cause the syntactic saturation of the incorporating verb – a welcome outcome given the assumptions on NI discussed above.

# **5.3 The Interaction of Relativization and Incorporation**

#### 5.3.1 Classificatory Noun Incorporation

The analysis up to this point only partially answers the questions left at the end of § 4. Namely, it accounts for the morphological complexity and limited syntactic freedom displayed by some PINs. Moreover, it clarifies the role of the erstwhile possessor clause that is reanalyzed as the S argument of the verbal element resulting from NI.

In this subsection, I finally address the interaction of incorporation and relative clauses by returning on example (15) repeated here as (21).

21. *E-siknu haw-e ene haw-as [h]i* 2SS-survive voice-POSS like.this voice-stand.PC NMLZ ka an kor… even 3SS/exist.PC while 'While the news is such that they even say that you have survived…' (Kayano 19-5,32)

As noticed in § 4.2, the peculiarity of these constructions is that they feature an unbound nominal which is semantically identical to the incorporated sensorial noun. Morphologically, the unbound copy may be marked for possession, like *hawe* in (21), or be completely bare. Conversely, the incorporated perception noun in these instances never bears possessive morphology.

Syntactically, these constructions showcase the properties of classificatory noun incorporation (CNI). In CNI, the IN is supplemented by an unbound nominal that is external to the verbal constituent. Although the external copy is usually semantically more specific than the IN, the two nominal elements may seldom be identical (Mithun 1985, 863-72). The analogies between the kind of construction treated here and prototypical CNI, are clearly visible, since in (21) the copy of the IN (i.e. *hawe*) is syntactically unbound and external to the verbal constituent *hawas*. The one characteristic that makes (21) deviate from the CNI prototype is that the external nominal is semantically identical to the incorporated noun, thus including CNI of SHA among those less common cases that Mithun reports. On the contrary, the possibility for the unbound nominal to be morphologically more marked than the IN is not mentioned openly in the literature. On the syntactic and semantic side, instances where possessive morphology appears on the external nominal and those where it does not, seem to show no difference.

The occurrences of CNI among the tokens consulted for this study are extremely rare – in my reference corpora, this kind of construction is encountered only three times. Nevertheless, the presence of CNI helps clarify the characteristics of another type of constructions involving indirect evidentials that I address in the following subsection.

# 5.3.2 The Emergence of an Internally-Headed RC

In an analogous way to (21), another group of IECs showcase the "reduplication" of the IN via a syntactically unbound nominal. The main difference with the constructions surveyed in § 5.3.1 is in the syntactic position of the IN copy, as it occurs after the incorporating verb.


The possessed sensorial noun *hawe* in (22) follows *hawe as* in a syntactic layout that suggests that the IN *hawe* has been relativized. Such a deduction is based on the general tendency of Ainu to form RCs via the gap strategy, where the relativized noun heads the subordinate clause (see § 3.1), but it also essentially contrasts with the nature of gap strategy as a way to form RCs. In fact, with the gap strategy the relativized noun no longer occupies its original position in the clause. Therefore, stating that the second *hawe* (according to linear order) appearing in (22) is the same *hawe* incorporated in the verb *as* which has been relativized raises the question of why relativization in this case does not result in an empty syntactic position within the RC. Furthermore, the relativization of *hawe* violates lexical integrity, since a syntactic process like relativization should be blind to internal morphological structures.

We can respond to these objections by arguing that the construction in (22) represents an instance of internally-headed relative clause (IHRC), a kind of RC where the relative head noun (RH) still appears inside the subordinate relative clause. The emergence of an IHRC is possible when we consider the underlying, non-relativized structure of (22) as involving CNI (shown in (23)). In this scenario, the original position of the syntactically unbound copy of the IN that appears after *hawe as* is within the same clause as this latter form. This original structure is in all corresponding to the one of (21).


Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **63** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 47-70

This assumption solves the impasse addressed above, which is problematic for an analysis of (22) as a RC. This way, the relativization of *hawe* complies with all other instances of relativization reported for Ainu, as it too is obtained via the gap strategy. The original position of *hawe* is regularly left blank when this *hawe* is promoted to head of the RC. Moreover, the process of relativization does not violate lexical integrity, since it is not the IN itself the noun that is relativized but rather its unbound syntactic copy.

24. *[Cisinaot onnay-un sesserke haw-e-as haw-eRH] RC* grave interior-to 3SS/cry voice-POSS-stand.PC voice-POSS *[ene an hi …]MC* like.this 3SS/exist.PC NMLZ 'It seemed from inside the grave [someone] cried and indeed [that] voice was like so: …' (Kayano 6-3,3)

As (24) better illustrates, the RC constitutes the constituents spanning *cisinaot* to *hawe*, while this latter element is the relative head (RH) in the construction.

Given this syntactic layout, my first remark is related to the categorial status of the RC. IHRCs are said to be nominalized clauses, whose categorial status may be signaled by overt nominal morphology but that do not function as argument of a verb (Culy 1990, 27-8). Alternatively, IHRCs may be zero-marked for nominalization – this is the stance Modena and Muro (2009) take in order to bypass the problem of providing evidence for the presence of null complementizers (Cole 1987) and to justify the use of the RC as a modifier of the MC. Internal-headedness as a process of nominalization then becomes a way to make a RC a modifier of a clause and not just a constituent of it. The IHRCs of SHA are among those IHRCs that are not marked as nominals via overt morphology, but that are instead zero-marked.

The syntactic behavior of the RH in the Ainu IHRC also appears to adhere to the tendencies observed by Basilico (1996) regarding the possible positioning of the relativized nominal within the RC, that can be fronted or moved outside of the VP. More concretely, the RH may not occupy a position consistent with the one it has in the non-relative construction. Since the RH *hawe* in (22) occurs after *hawe as*, I could argue that it has exited the VP, though still being within the RC, and it is thus in a VP-external position. However, to the best of my knowledge, there is no general agreement among scholars on how we define a VP in Ainu. In light of this theoretical gap, the claim that the RH *hawe* is found outside of the VP cannot be safely supported, and my assumption is merely based on the general tendency of Ainu of not having nominal constituents right-dislocated after the verb (Tamura 2000, 31). For the present purpose, and to avoid unnecessary theoretical speculation, I simply say that the RH is right-dislocated in a post-verbal position, while it is still included in the RC. Whether this position also happens to be VP-external is not a main concern here. The relevant conclusion is that the RH position is not consistent with the role the nominal had in the non-relative construction.

As Basilico (1996) states by referencing Diesing's (1992) mapping hypothesis, RH displacement may be a requirement for binding. Since the syntactic analysis of IHRCs I provide here is not framed within a specific syntactic framework, I deviate from Basilico's explanation of RH movement by excluding discussion of Diesing theory. Nevertheless, I do assume that RH displacement in the Ainu case is needed in order for the RH to be bound by the variables projected by an operator. This way, RH displacement becomes a syntactic strategy to avoid semantico-pragmatic ambiguity. In the case at hand, the operator only projects one variable relevant for binding, namely third person grammatical number, and targets the one nominal that cross-references the argument of the verb in the main clause. Semantically a case of quantification (Basilico 1996, 509), the RC itself determines the scope for binding. In other words, the nominal whose features agree with the variable projected by the operator must be within the RC. If we consider the sentence in (22), the feature "third person" is found in more than one nominal: the nouns *cisinaot* 'grave', and *onnay* 'interior', and the perception noun *hawe*. In order to solve the ambiguity, the RH must move to the right edge of the RC and it is the resulting non-canonical syntax that signals which nominal undergoes relativization and functions as the third person argument of the main clause verb.

# 5.3.3 Possible Diachronic Change

To conclude this subsection on the interaction of NI and relativization, I consider one more type of construction, that sheds light on the possible evolution of the IHRCs discussed in § 5.3.2. In these instances, the possessor clause is followed by a subordinating conjunction and appears to have lost its nominal status, functioning now as a subordinate to the MC. The RC is now reduced to the sole evidential form and the right-dislocated RH.


Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **65**

European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 47-70

'When I climbed just a little, what (= the feeling that) I felt was like so …' (Tamura 1984, 54)

At this stage, the RH *humi* appears as a leftover of the process of relativization that involved its dislocation to the right of the RC from its original syntactic position within the nominalized possessor clause (§ 5.3.2), where it functioned as the unbound copy of *hum* involved, in its turn, in CNI (§ 5.3.1). This peculiar syntactic layout might be at the basis of the emergence of a very rare structure where the relative construction is completely lost and the clause containing the perception predicate is coordinated to the main clause via a conjunction. The former RH is nevertheless present, but it has the sole function of an anaphoric nominal that cross-references the IN.

26. *"Ahun-ke yak pirka wa" sekor* 3SS/3SO/enter.PC-CAUS if 3SS/be.good FP ADV *haw-as wa haw-e a-nu.* voice-stand.PC and voice-POSS 4S-3SO/hear '"You may let him come in" it was said and I heard [that] voice'. (Bugaeva 2004, 257)

It is otherwise possible that the external RH in constructions like (26) has been re-analyzed as a nominalizer, since sometimes we find *ru*, *sir*, *hum*, and *haw* in complementary distribution with nominalizers such as *hi*.

27. *E-hekote kamuy opitta a-ko-caranke wa ene* 2SO-3SP/turn god all 4S-APPL-3SP/complain and like.this *sir-ki hi e-nukar kusu ne na hani.* appearance-do NMLZ 2SS-3SO/see INTN.FUT FP FP 'You will see that they complain to the gods that protect you'. (Nakagawa 2013, 193)

Although it could be that all the different constructions taken into account here are representative of diachronic development of these constructions in SHA, there is no consistent evidence to advance any safe claim on this regard. As far as we see, the development appears to be synchronic.

#### 6 Conclusions

In this paper I presented a morphosyntactic analysis of indirect evidential constructions (IECs) of SHA. After a discussion of their status as erstwhile possessive constructions (§ 5.1), I analyzed IECs as involving either NI or PNI in light of the discrepancies in morphological bareness and syntactic complexity of the evidental forms involved (§ 5.2). A small number of IECs otherwise showcase classificatory NI, which I argued to be the morphosyntactic process that allows the development of the IHRC construction that characterizes another small group of IECs (§ 5.3). CNI as a process namely provides the syntactic constituent that can be relativized without violating lexical integrity and via the gap strategy, thus bringing this case of relativization together with the others found in the language (§ 3.1). Pragmatically, these IECs can be seen as a case of lexical reinforcement (Aikhenvald 2004, 393) by which the speaker adds justification for her statement. Primarily, this study adds on previous studies on Ainu incorporation and relativization by suggesting new perspectives on these two processes.

As far as the data show, IECs displaying a IHRC construction are found synchronically to non-relativized IECs and the fewer ones featuring only CNI, and they also appear as an areal feature peculiar to Hokkaidō Ainu (Dal Corso 2018, 175). With regards to evidentiality in Ainu, this study addresses part of what seems an innovative process which, through the interaction of incorporation and relativization, resulted in a specific pragmatic use of indirect evidentiality. Moreover, the analysis above may be a contribution to our understanding of the development of noun-complement clauses in the language, and specifically it suggests that this development may have followed two separate directions – one bringing to the grammaticalization of syntactic structures involving incorporation of complex nominals into evidential strategies, the other bringing to the emergence of the GN-MCC, as proposed by Bugaeva (2015). It would be interesting to investigate whether internal headedness and CNI are accounted for also in other dialects of Ainu or within other semantic domains of SHA.

# **List of abbreviations**



# **Bibliography**

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (2004). *Evidentiality*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Basilico, David (1996). "Head Position and Internally Headed Relative Clauses". *Language*, 72(3), 498-532.


spective of 'Incorporation')". *Kita no gengo ruikei to rekishi* 北の言語類型 と歴史 (The Typology and History of the Languages of the North) Tōkyō: Sanseido, 191-201.


Tamura Suzuko 田村すずこ (2000). *The Ainu Language*. Tōkyō: Sanseido Co.


# Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events **English-Japanese bilinguals' L1**

**English and L2 Japanese Speech and Gesture**

# Noriko Iwasaki

Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan

# Keiko Yoshioka

Leiden University, Netherlands

**Abstract** Speaking a second language (L2) involves another way of "thinking for speaking" (Slobin 1996). Adopting Talmy's typological framework of motion event description, this study examined how learning Japanese as L2 restructures English-Japanese bilingual speakers' thinking-for-speaking. Thirteen English-speaking intermediate learners of L2 Japanese described motion events in English and Japanese. The analysis focused on speech and gesture describing 'rolling down' and 'swinging' events, for which English and Japanese native speakers' descriptions differ (Kita, Özyürek 2003). The results suggest some restructuring in their thinking-for-speaking.

**Keywords** English-Japanese bilinguals. Thinking-for-Speaking. Motion event description. Gesture. Talmy's typology.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 1.1 Thinking-for-Speaking. – 1.2 Describing Motion Events in English vs. Japanese. – 1.3 Japanese-English Bilinguals. – 2 Current Study. – 2.1 Research Objectives and Research Questions. – 2.2 Methods. – 3 Results. – 3.1 Rolling Event (Syntactic Influence). – 3.2 Swinging Event (Lexical Influence). – 4 Discussion. – 4.1 Rolling Event (Syntactic Influence). – 4.2 Swinging Event (Lexical Influence). – 4.3 General Discussion. – 5 Conclusion.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 71** Submitted 2020-02-14 | Accepted 2020-06-11 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/004**

#### 1 Introduction

# **1.1 Thinking-for-Speaking**

Speakers of different languages verbalize different aspects of a given concept or entity. For example, English speakers must always be aware of whether the entity is countable (e.g. 'apple') or not ('fruit'), and if countable, whether there is more than one of them ('an apple' or 'apples'). In contrast, Japanese speakers can be oblivious about countability or plurality of the concept when naming the entity (*ringo* 'apple/apples'). For this reason, Slobin (1991) proposed a hypothesis that a special kind of thinking is "carried out on-line, in the process of speaking" which involves "picking those characteristics of objects or events" (Slobin 1991, 11-12) that can or must be encoded in the language being spoken. Hence, languages train their speakers to attend to particular aspects of concepts/events that should be encoded and how they should be encoded.

Talmy's (1985, 2000) typological classification of how speakers of different languages lexicalize different components of motion events has been particularly significant in its contribution to research on the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis. In second language (L2) research, the question is how typological differences between their L2 speakers' first language (L1) and L2 affect their conceptual representations and processing patterns in their L1 and L2 production (Benazzo, Flecken, Soroli 2012).

It is not only speech that is used to express meaning. Speech and gesture coordinate to express meaning (e.g. Kendon 2004; McNeill 1992). Gesture is defined here as hand and arm movements which cooccur with speech, although the speakers are mostly not conscious about them (McNeill 1992). According to previous research, in describing motion events, gesture shows the speaker's construal of the events in a way that speech alone does not always reveal, both in L1 and in L2 (e.g. Brown, Gullberg 2008; Choi, Lantolf 2008; Negueruela et al. 2004; Stam 2006, 2015; Yoshioka, Kellerman 2006). In other words, thinking-for-speaking is reflected in gesture (McNeill 1997; McNeill, Duncan 2000). Speakers' description of motion events in L2 speech and gesture is therefore a fruitful area of investigation (Cadierno 2008, 2017).

In the current study, we examine L1 English and L2 Japanese bilingual (henceforth English-Japanese bilingual) speakers' motion event descriptions in speech and gesture – in both their L1 English and L2 Japanese – in order to shed light on the way they talk about motion events in a typologically different L2, and how this learning (i.e. new training) may affect the way they describe the same motion events in their L1. We will build on influential research by Brown and Gullberg (2008), who studied L1 Japanese and L2 English bilingual speakers' motion event descriptions in L1 Japanese and L2 English. We will use the same language pair but in the reverse direction: L1 English and L2 Japanese. We will explain our motivation for reversing the direction later.

Before we proceed, some terminological clarification is in order. In recent literature regarding L2 and multilingualism, those who learned L2 and use it in addition to their L1 are regarded as "bilingual" regardless of their proficiency levels, and we also call L2 users "bilingual". When bilingual speakers are compared with "monolingual" speakers in the relevant literature such as the studies we review below, the "monolingual" speakers are actually "minimally bilingual" (Cook 2003, 14) in that they have minimal exposure to L2 and do not engage in using any L2 actively. Following the terminological use in the literature, in this chapter we refer to those who use L2 as "bilingual"; and to those who are "minimally bilingual" native speakers of a given language as "monolingual". Bilinguals' L1 and L2 are indicated by the order in which the languages are given (e.g. bilinguals whose L1 is Japanese and L2 is English are referred to as Japanese-English bilinguals).

# **1.2 Describing Motion Events in English vs. Japanese**

#### 1.2.1 Speech

In Talmy's (1985, 2000) typological framework of motion event description, a motion event is an event where an object (Figure) moves through a path (Path) with respect to another reference object (Ground). Languages are classified by how they lexicalize Path, primarily into two types: Satellite-framed language (henceforth S-language) and Verb-framed language (V-language). In S-languages such as English and Russian, Path is indicated by particles (e.g. 'jump *out*'). In these languages, Manner of motion is usually expressed by manner verbs. English is known to have a large inventory of manner verbs (Slobin 2004). Manner refers to motor pattern of the movement of the Figure, the rate of movement, or the degree of effort involved in the movement (Allen et al. 2007, 20). In V-languages such as Japanese, Spanish, and Turkish, Path is typically encoded by verbs (e.g. *agaru* 'ascend'), and in these languages, Manner is characteristically expressed in adjunct clauses. In Japanese, Manner is said to be typically expressed by a subordinate clause, linked by the connector -*te*. However, it is now understood that some V-languages, including Japanese, have rich inventories of mimetics (also called 'ideophones') that can readily encode Manner (Ohara 2002)<sup>1</sup> as well as compound verbs (Croft et al. 2010).

Below are English (1) and Japanese (2a-c) examples describing a scene in a Sylvester and Tweety Bird cartoon called *Canary Row*, where Sylvester has swallowed a bowling ball and is rolling down a hill. The elements expressing Path are shown in bold.<sup>2</sup>,<sup>3</sup>

	- (b) *Korokoro saka-o kudaru*. MIM(manner of rolling) slope-ACC descend.NPAST "(He) descends in korokoro manner".
	- (c) *saka-o korogari-otita*. slope-ACC roll-fall.PAST "(He) rolled down the slope".

In the English example (1), Path (satellite, 'down') and Manner (main verb, 'roll') are expressed in the same verb phrase in the matrix clause. Kita and Özyürek (2003, 22) regard this type of description as "tighter packaging". In the Japanese examples (2a-b), Path can be expressed in the main verb, but Manner is expressed in another 'clause', *korogatte*, linked by -*te* as in (2a), or through the mimetic adverb *korokoro* as in (2b). In Example (2c), the compound verb expresses both Path and Manner. Allen et al. (2007, 30) regarded (2a) as "semi-tight packaging" and (2b-c) as "tight packaging". Kita and Özyürek (2003) regarded (2a) as typical in Japanese and considered packaging in English tighter than in Japanese. Indeed, Allen et al. (2007) found that Japanese native speakers (university students residing in Tokyo) preferred semi-tight packaging and used it most of the time while English speakers (university students residing in Boston) preferred tight packaging.<sup>4</sup>

<sup>1</sup> It has also been pointed out by Slobin (2004) that some languages can be classified as another type, "equipollently-framed", because in some languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Thai, Manner and Path are expressed by equivalent grammatical forms such as serial verb construction in which the Manner verb is often expressed together with a Path verb.

<sup>2</sup> The romanization system adopted here is basically *Kunrei-shiki*, which reflects phonemic representations of the linguistic elements.

<sup>3</sup> In glossing for examples, ACC refers to accusative case, CON connective, MIM mimetics, LOC locative particle, QUO quotative particle, NPAST unfinished.

<sup>4</sup> The authors described the participants as native speakers of Japanese or English. They did not report whether they were monolingual speakers or not, but the participants

Brown and Gullberg (2012), however, reported that Japanese monolinguals preferred tight packaging with the use of various alternative constructions, including compound verbs such as *korogari-ochiru* 'roll-fall' in (2c) and what they call complex motion predicates such as *korogatte iku* 'goes rolling'. We believe that one of the reasons for the discrepancy is due to differing ways of coding the sequences/sentences connected by -*te*, which "exhibit characteristics of both coordination and subordination" and "an extreme degree of semantic unspecificity" (Hasegawa 1996, 9, 17). For example, *korogatte iku* 'goes rolling', which Brown and Gullberg (2012) coded as a compound verb (hence "tight packaging"), may have been coded as "semi-tight" by Allen et al. (2007). In fact, Brown and Gullberg themselves state that their category of complex motion predicates "could have been coded as multi-clausal constructions" (Brown, Gullberg 2012, 43 fn. 6) by Allen et al. (2007) and Kita and Özyürek (2003).

Despite this discrepancy between previous studies, it remains the case that Japanese motion event descriptions involve interchangeable alternatives with varying degrees of tightness of packaging, while English motion event descriptions have the dominant lexicalization pattern of the usage of manner verbs expressing Manner, followed by a particle expressing Path. Hence, Japanese motion event descriptions can have looser packaging than English.

As the focus of our gesture analysis is to examine the specific types of gesture that Kita and Özyürek (2003) found to correspond to syntactic packaging in speech, we adhere to their method of coding packaging in this chapter. The differences between English and Japanese motion event descriptions in speech reported by previous studies are summarised in Table 1, where the characterisation of packaging is based on Kita and Özyürek (2003) and Allen et al. (2007).


**Table 1** Motion event descriptions in English and Japanese in speech

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **75** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 71-98

were living in the environment where they were actively using their native language.

It is likely that the English language trains speakers to pay attention to Manner of motion and select manner verbs, and to use satellites to express Path in the same clause (tight packaging), which then allows them to have an image of Manner and Path occurring simultaneously. The Japanese language does not necessarily train speakers to simultaneously pay attention to Path and Manner, possibly leading to a more decomposed image of Manner and Path.

#### 1.2.2 Gesture

Kita and Özyürek (2003) found gesture preferences corresponding to tightness of syntactic packaging when they analysed motion event descriptions by native English speakers and native Japanese speakers<sup>5</sup> (and Turkish [V-language] speakers, whose patterns were similar to those of Japanese speakers). Kita and Özyürek focused on two scenes in the Tweety Bird cartoon: one where Sylvester rolls down a hill (henceforth Rolling) and one where Sylvester swings across one building to another using a rope (Swinging).

When describing Rolling, most English speakers used gesture conflating Manner and Path (i.e. gesture describing a downward trajectory while simultaneously representing circular, rolling motion), while Japanese speakers tended to use gesture representing only trajectory or only Manner, though they also used some gesture conflating Manner and Path. Describing a Manner-salient motion event, such as the cartoon scenes, presents a "classic linearization problem in Levelt's (1989) sense" (Allen et al. 2007, 22). Because the speaker can only express one semantic component at a time, they need to linearly order Manner and Path, despite the fact they occur simultaneously.

When describing Swinging, English speakers paid attention to Manner of swinging to select the lexical concept for 'swing' in speech, and they consistently used gesture representing arc-shaped trajectory. In contrast, Japanese speakers often ignored the arc trajectory to select lexical concepts for readily available Japanese verbs (path verb *iku* 'go', manner verb *tobu* 'jump/fly'), and some Japanese speakers only used straight-shaped gesture. Kita and Özyürek attributed this Japanese pattern to the absence of a readily available verb describing arc-shaped movement. We summarise what Kita and Özyürek reported in Table 2 regarding the English and Japanese patterns in describing the two scenes.

<sup>5</sup> Kita and Özyürek report that their Japanese-speaking and English-speaking participants are adult native speakers of Japanese and those of American English, and no further information is given.


**Table 2** Motion event descriptions in English and Japanese in speech and gesture

Kita and Özyürek (2003) account for these differences by on-line planning of speech production and thinking-for-speaking for spatial representation. The gesture preference corresponding to syntactic and lexical features of each language emerges by feedback from the stage in which grammar is encoded during sentence production. "If languagespecific spatial representation is repeatedly generated for speaking, then it can become part of habitual non-linguistic thought about space" (Kita, Özyürek 2003, 27). Gesture and speech performance reflects a language-specific way of thinking on-line about space.

# 1.2.3 Previous L2 Studies. Cross-Linguistic and Bidirectional Influence

Recent L2 studies in the domain of motion have examined both interand intra-typological L1-L2 combinations, e.g. L1-L2 pairs differing in typology and L1-L2 pairs in the same typology (Cadierno 2017). Researchers have investigated whether differences between L1 and L2 affect speakers' motion event descriptions in L2, but the results are mixed. Here we focus specifically on studies which examined the intertypological L1-L2 pairs. For instance, Cadierno and Ruiz (2006) found that L1 played a limited role in motion event descriptions in L2, in that L2 learners of Spanish (V-language) whose L1 was Danish (S-language) and whose L1 was Italian (V-language) did not differ in the ways they expressed Manner; differences were found only in expressing Path.

Hohenstein, Eisenberg, and Naigles (2006) examined grammatical and lexical influence among early and late Spanish-English bilinguals and found bidirectional (L1-to-L2 and L2-to-L1) influence in lexical aspects and L1-to-L2 influence in grammatical construction. Lexically, late bilinguals used more path verbs in L2 English than English monolinguals and fewer path verbs in L1 Spanish than Spanish monolinguals. In terms of grammatical construction, only L1-to-L2 influence was found in the use of manner modifiers (e.g. *on all fours*) and bare verbs (lacking locative/ground information). Both early and late bilinguals used more manner modifiers and more bare verbs than English monolinguals, retaining Spanish speakers' pattern.

Negueruela et al. (2004) showed that English-Spanish bilingual speakers used gestures to encode Manner information when they had problems encoding Manner in speech. Similar findings have been reported by Choi and Lantolf (2008), who examined English-Korean and Korean-English bilinguals. These gestures can be interpreted as L1 influence in encoding Manner or communication strategies.

Some studies show that the proficiency levels affect L1 influence on L2, which is reflected in gesture. Stam's (2006, 2015) longitudinal studies show that the Spanish-English bilinguals who retained their L1 gesture when speaking English as their L2 changed their gesture to be more like gestures in the target language at the advanced level of proficiency. Similarly, in a cross-sectional study examining L1 speakers of Turkish (V-language) who speak English (S-language) as L2, Özyürek (2002) showed that at the advanced proficiency level, the speech and gesture when speaking L2 English were similar to those of L1 English speakers.<sup>6</sup> While beginner-level L2 English learners often used Manner-only or Path-only speech and gesture, advancedlevel learners used more speech expressing both Path and Manner and gesture conflating Path and Manner.

Furthermore, in addition to L1-to-L2 influence, the L2-to-L1 influence (i.e. bidirectional influence) was found in speech and gesture, often resulting in bilinguals' 'in-between performance', distinct from the monolingual patterns of their L1 or L2 (Hernandez, Bates, Avila 1994; Pavlenko 2014, 2016). This was found in bilinguals of typologically different languages: Spanish-English (Hohenstein, Eisenberg, Naigles 2006), Turkish-German (Daller, Treffers-Daller, Furman 2011), Russian-English (Wolff, Ventura 2009), and Japanese-English (Brown 2015; Brown, Gullberg 2008).

The bidirectional influence was not observed consistently, however. Hohenstein, Eisenberg and Naigles (2006) found bidirectional influence in proportions of manner and path verbs while they found only L1-to-L2 influence in grammatical construction. Furthermore, their within-speaker analysis showed that the bilinguals' L1 and L2 performances were distinct from each other. In contrast, as we review in the next section, Brown and Gullberg (2008, 2012, 2013) found the bidirectional influence was observed as convergence, where their bilinguals' L1 and L2 performances were similar.

<sup>6</sup> The elementary-level and intermediate-level Turkish speakers of L2 English were university students in Istanbul, and advanced-level speakers were lecturers at the same university.

#### **1.3 Japanese-English Bilinguals**

Brown and Gullberg (2008, 2012, 2013) conducted extensive research on motion event description by two groups of Japanese-English bilinguals (13 learning English as a Second Language while living in the U.S. and 15 learning English as a Foreign Language and living in Japan) and compared their performances with those of 13 English and 16 Japanese monolinguals. The authors did not find any differences between the ESL and EFL groups and collapsed their data. The participants described motion events in the Tweety Bird cartoons used also by Kita and Özyürek (2003).<sup>7</sup>

Brown and Gullberg (2008) focused on expression of Manner and showed that Japanese learners of English at the 'intermediate level' performed differently from both English and Japanese monolinguals, showing 'in-between performance' in speech and gesture. In speech, the bilinguals expressed Manner more frequently than Japanese monolinguals but less frequently than English monolinguals, when speaking L2 English. In gesture, they used more Manner modulation (gesture expressing Path when Manner is expressed in speech) than Japanese monolinguals when speaking Japanese, similarly to English monolinguals. Importantly, Brown and Gullberg (2008) reported that the bilinguals' L1 Japanese performance and L2 English performance did not differ from each other, providing evidence of bidirectional cross-linguistic influence, resulting in convergence.

Furthermore, Brown and Gullberg (2012, 2013) showed convergence in syntactic packaging. They found that both English and Japanese monolinguals preferred tight packaging, where Path and Motion are expressed in the same clause such as in Examples (3) and (4) below,<sup>8</sup> though as mentioned earlier the coding of the manner verb followed by -*te* in (3) may be rather arguable.

3. *korogatte iku* rolling.CON go "(He) goes rolling".

<sup>7</sup> This cartoon was used in many other previous studies that examined co-speech gesture (e.g. McNeill, Duncan 2000), and using the same video as the stimulus has made it possible to compare their findings. Hence, we do so too.

<sup>8</sup> Glosses and translations are modified to make them compatible with other examples in the current paper.

4. *guruguru gorogoro*-*to haitte itte*<sup>9</sup> MIM(manner of rotating) MIM(manner of rolling)-QUO enter.CON go.CON "(He) enters going in a manner of *guruguru*, *gorogoro*".

Brown and Gullberg (2012, 2013), however, found that Japanese-English bilinguals used multiple clauses to express Path and Manner in their L1 Japanese, using the Manner-only clause *subette* and Path-only clauses, similarly to the L2 English in (6). The square brackets indicate clauses. Note that though we agree that Example (5) has multiple clauses, *subette* seems to be a subordinate clause, making packaging 'semi-tight', contra Brown and Gullberg's (2012, 2013) analysis.


In a nutshell, Brown and Gullberg (2008, 2012, 2013) provided some evidence of bidirectional cross-linguistic influence among Japanese-English bilinguals who learned English as their L2 in different aspects of motion event descriptions, specifically in the ways they express Manner in speech and gesture and in syntactic packaging. Japanese-English bilinguals expressing Manner more often than monolingual Japanese speakers and less often than monolingual English speakers suggests convergence in their thinking (construal) of motion events.

Though Brown and Gullberg (2012, 2013) examined syntactic packaging in speech, they did not examine the bilinguals' gesture, that is, Manner-Path conflation, which is expected to correspond to syntactic packaging. Bilinguals' thinking-for-speaking is expected to be observed more easily in gesture than in speech because generating gesture would not be prevented by insufficient knowledge of L2. Hence, we examine two specific types of gesture claimed by Kita and Özyürek (2003) to show thinking-for-speaking, representing the spatial conceptualisation specific to Japanese and English (shown in Table 2).

<sup>9</sup> Mimetic adverbs are often used with the quotative particle -*to*, which is usually optional, and regardless of whether the mimetics are accompanied by -*to*, they are treated as structurally equivalent adverbs, and hence the presence of –*to* may not affect packaging here.

#### 2 Current Study

#### **2.1 Research Objectives and Research Questions**

A question arises as to whether bilinguals in the reverse direction, English-Japanese bilinguals, also show bidirectional cross-linguistic influence. The acquisition of English and the acquisition of Japanese involve different challenges. In speech, while Japanese-English bilinguals learn to encode Manner by (nearly obligatory) use of manner verbs in tighter packaging of Manner and Path in speech, English-Japanese bilinguals learn to use path verbs and express Manner (which is optional) in looser Manner and Path packaging. This difference may have different impacts on bidirectional influence. New patterns in speech may require changes in thinking-for-speaking, which may be observed in gesture.

Hence, the current study examines whether motion event descriptions by L1 English speakers of L2 Japanese show bidirectional influence in their L1 English and L2 Japanese when compared with English monolinguals' performance and Japanese monolinguals' performance reported in previous studies (Allen et al. 2007; Brown, Gullberg 2008, 2012, 2013; Kita, Özyürek 2003).

We focus on the two specific event descriptions examined by Kita and Özyürek (2003), namely Rolling, whose Manner and Path can be expressed in tighter or looser packaging; and Swinging, whose trajectory can typically be expressed differently in English and Japanese. We summarise alternative patterns for describing the events in speech and gesture in Table 3. Alternative (a) is compatible with preferred patterns reported for English monolinguals, and alternative (b) is compatible with preferred patterns reported for Japanese monolinguals by Kita and Özyürek (2003) though, as we mentioned above, findings in previous studies are somewhat contradictory with regard to syntactic packaging preferred by native Japanese speakers.


**Table 3** Motion event descriptions in English and Japanese in speech and gesture

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Specifically, we examine which alternatives English-Japanese bilinguals adopt in L1 English and L2 Japanese in order to determine whether they show bidirectional cross-linguistic influence. Because we endeavour to compare English-Japanese bilingual speakers' performances with Japanese-English bilingual speakers' performances reported by Brown and Gullberg (2008, 2012, 2013), and with (monolingual) native speakers reported by them and by Allen et al. (2007) and Kita and Özyürek (2003), we use the same Rolling and Swinging events from the Sylvester and Tweety Bird cartoon, and ask adult bilinguals (mostly university students) to describe them. In so doing, we aim to answer two questions:

#### (1) *Grammatical: lexicalization pattern and co-speech gesture*

Do English-Japanese bilinguals tend to use English patterns (manner verbs, Path+Manner descriptions, tighter packaging, conflation gesture) or Japanese patterns (path verbs, Path-only/Manner-only descriptions, looser packaging, Path-only and/or Manner-only gesture) when speaking L1 English and when speaking L2 Japanese?

(2) *Lexical: the availability/absence of the verb for swinging* Do English-Japanese bilinguals (attempt to) express the arc trajectory of swinging in L1 English and L2 Japanese in speech and gesture?

Research Question (1) is related to syntactic packaging, and the key to this question is the bilinguals' description of Rolling, for which Kita and Özyürek (2003) showed tight packaging and conflated gesture among English speakers but not among Japanese speakers. If bidirectional cross-linguistic influence is at work, the bilinguals will show L1 English packaging looser than that of English monolinguals and L2 Japanese packaging tighter than that of Japanese monolinguals, as 'in-between performance' in speech, and also show some tendency to use gesture separating Path and Manner even when speaking English and some tendency to use Manner-Path conflation gesture when speaking Japanese.

Research Question (2) is concerned with lexical availability of the manner verb 'swing' in English in contrast to Japanese, which does not have a commonly used manner verb for swinging. Kita and Özyürek (2003) reported that Japanese speakers tended to use verbs such as *iku* 'go' and *tobu* 'fly' in speech and use straight-trajectory gesture. The questions are: when English-Japanese bilinguals speak L2 Japanese, do they attempt to describe swinging by using a word borrowed from English (e.g. *suwingu-suru* 'swing') or by other creative means in L2 Japanese and retain the tendency to use arc trajectory in gesture (L1-to-L2 influence)? And when they speak L1 English, do they not describe swinging even in speech and use straight-trajectory gesture (L2-to-L1 influence)?

#### **2.2 Methods**

#### 2.2.1 Participants

A total of 14 English speakers residing in the UK originally participated. They were mostly university students in London, where the data were collected. They grew up in an English-speaking environment and spent most of their life in the UK, except for 1 participant who was born in Japan and spent a total of six years of her childhood in Japan. Her data were excluded, and the remaining 13 participants' data were analysed. Japanese oral proficiency was assessed by Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), following the standard protocol of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). The first author, a certified OPI tester at the time of the data collection, conducted OPIs and sent the audio files to the ACTFL for verification (agreed ratings) of the proficiency levels. The 13 Englishspeaking participants (7 women and 6 men, aged 19 to 33, mean age 21.5) consisted of 10 Intermediate-level (1 High, 5 Mid, 4 Low) and 3 Advanced-level (2 Mid and 1 Low) speakers. Table 4 shows their proficiency levels assessed via OPI and approximate CEFR levels, based on 'Assigning CEFR Ratings to ACTFL Assessments'.<sup>10</sup>


**Table 4** Participants' proficiency levels in L2 Japanese

Most of the participants in the current study are less proficient than the participants that Brown and Gullberg (2008, 2012, 2013) studied, who were regarded as "intermediate" and as B2. Brown and Gullberg highlight their finding of L2-to-L1 influence at the moderate level of proficiency. Hence, if L2-to-L1 influence is found among the current participants, the finding would be more striking. The participants

<sup>10</sup> CEFR stands for Common European Framework of Reference, and ACTFL provides information regarding the approximate CEFR level for each of their oral proficiency levels. URL http://www.actfl.org/news/reports/assigning-cefr-ratingsactfl-assessments.

had studied Japanese for one to ten years (average of 4.3 years). Four of them spent one year in Japan to study the language, and one spent two years working in Japan.

# 2.2.2 Stimuli and Procedure

The participants described motion events that they watched on two 41-second video clips from *Canary Row* (Warner Bros.), parts of a Tweety Bird cartoon containing Rolling and Swinging, as well as two other unrelated short video clips,11 both in English and in Japanese. They described these to an interlocutor who speaks English as her L1 and another interlocutor who speaks Japanese as her L1, respectively. They were both women in their 20s who had not viewed the video clips. They asked the participants for elaboration when the participants' description was brief, but in the current study only the participants' initially attempted descriptions, without any further elaboration, were examined. The order of the two languages was counterbalanced: half the participants, randomly assigned, described Rolling in English first and Swinging in Japanese first; the other half in the reverse order. They then described one of the unrelated video clips before the change of interlocutor. All participants' descriptions were video-recorded and transcribed. The video clips were uploaded to the ELAN programme, designed to analyse digital audiovisual data (Wittenburg et al. 2006).

# 2.2.3 Method of Analysis. Rolling Event

Because the foci were different for the two motion events, two different methods of analysis were adopted.

For the analysis of speech in Rolling, we first identified speech segments that described the rolling event and then examined how the events were described. Each description was classified as Path+Manner, Path-only or Manner-only. For the analysis of syntactic packaging, Path+Manner descriptions as well as Path-only and Manner-only descriptions immediately adjacent were coded by the first and second authors as tight (Manner and Path in the same clause), semi-tight (Manner in adjunct) or loose (separate clauses). It turned out that the participants did not use any semi-tight packaging. Inter-rater reliability was 92% for Japanese and 96% for English

<sup>11</sup> One of the aims of the project was to examine whether and how English-Japanese bilingual speakers use Japanese mimetics. Besides the motion events, they were asked to describe short noise-emitting disaster scenes (i.e. hurricane, earthquake).

speech. Example (7) shows an L2 Japanese example for tight packaging (Path+Manner description), and (8a-b) show examples of loose packaging (combinations of Manner-only and Path-only). Example (8a) consists of two adjacent sentences, and Example (8b) consists of two coordinated clauses in one sentence.


	- (b) P04 IM [Participant 04: Intermediate-Mid] *Michi-o it-te koro, korogaru*. road-ACC go-GER roll.NPAST "(He) goes on the road, (he) ro, rolls".

For the analysis of gesture, we first identified the use of iconic gesture, i.e. gesture representing Manner and/or Path in iconic ways (namely, gesture that represented either Manner or Path of motion). The type of gesture was then coded for Manner-only, Path-only, and Manner-Path conflation by the first and second authors, following Kita and Özyürek (2003). The inter-rater reliability was 88%. The video segments of the cases where the two coders did not initially agree (e.g. gesture indicating tiny curvy repetition can be either Manner of rolling or beating that typically occurs when planning what to say) were viewed by the two and discussed to reach agreement.

Once both speech and gesture were coded, the correspondence between the speech (tight vs. loose packaging) and gesture (Manneronly, Path-only, and Path+Manner) were examined.

# 2.2.4 Method of Analysis. Swinging Event

For the Swinging event, speech was transcribed and we examined the specific verbs used to describe swinging. The focus was on whether the participants used the verb 'swing' in English and if they tried to describe an arc-shaped event in Japanese in speech (e.g. using a word borrowed from English, *suwingu-suru*) or in gesture.

For the analysis of gesture, we identified the use of iconic gesture for each description and the gesture was then coded for Arc trajectory and Straight gesture independently by the two authors. When a given participant used more than one gesture during a single motion event description, each gesture was coded. The inter-rater reliability was 86%. The video segments of those cases where the two coders did not initially agree (typically a short or gentle curve) were viewed by the two and discussed to reach agreement. Following Kita and Özyürek (2003), the participants were then classified as those who used Arc trajectory gesture only, those who used both Arc trajectory and Straight gesture, and those who only used Straight gesture.

Once speech and gesture were coded, whether the Arc trajectory vs. Straight gesture co-occurred with the verb 'swing', or what other verbs co-occurred, was examined.

#### 3 Results

#### **3.1 Rolling Event (Syntactic Influence)**

The Rolling event was examined to answer Research Question (1), to determine whether English-Japanese bilinguals express Path and Manner in speech or gesture in ways that suggest restructuring such as convergence in their thinking-for-speaking.

All 13 bilinguals described Rolling events, though they did not always describe both Path and Manner. In their L1 English description in speech, 11 of the 13 participants described both Manner and Path. They all used manner verbs: 'roll' (11 of 13 participants) or 'pedal/ shoot' (both by 1 participant: P05, L2 Japanese AM level). In the English descriptions expressing both Path and Manner, the bilinguals consistently used tight packaging (12 of 12 descriptions), mostly using the expression 'roll down', retaining L1 English pattern. There were 2 Path-only (e.g. "goes down the hill" by P07, IL; "he falls into a bowling alley" by P12, IL) and 8 Manner-only (e.g. "just rolling around and can't stop" by P07) descriptions, 4 of which were produced by P07.

With regard to gesture in L1 English, however, while Kita and Özyürek (2003) reported that 70% of the English speakers used Manner+Path conflating gesture, in the current study only 5 of 13 participants (38%) did so. **[Fig. 1]** indicates the gesture types that each participant used (note that no or multiple gestures occurred for each speech description; hence the number of gestures does not correspond to the number of speech descriptions); the participants were ordered by their oral proficiency in Japanese from lower to higher proficiency (from left to right). Albeit with a small number of participants, it is interesting to note that those whose L2 Japanese proficiency was higher (Intermediate-High or above) did not use any gesture conflating Manner and Path; instead, they used Manner-only or Path-only gesture.

Of the 5 cases of gesture conflating Path and Manner, 4 co-occurred with tight packaging of Path and Manner, with the manner verb 'roll' in speech: 3 occurred with the particle 'down'; 1 with

**Noriko Iwasaki, Keiko Yoshioka Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events**

**Figure 1** Co-speech gesture in L1 English

'across'. The remaining case was a Manner-only description by P07 ("it's um lurking at the bottom of him"), referring to the ball in Sylvester's stomach. The Path-only gesture used by P06 (Intermediate-High) and P03 (Advanced-Low) co-occurred with the use of 'roll down' in speech, while a Path-only gesture by P05 (Advanced-Mid) co-occurred with "shoot along the street into a bowling alley", which did not specifically express manner of rolling.

In the bilinguals' L2 Japanese speech, 8 participants described both Manner and Path (but not necessarily in the same descriptions), using manner verbs such as *korogaru* 'roll' (3 participants), *rooringuo suru* 'do rolling' (1), *isogu* 'hurry' (1); path verbs *iku* 'go' (4), *ochiru* 'descend' (1), *sagaru* 'descend' (1); or the generic movement verb *ugoku* 'move' (2). Of the 8 descriptions expressing both Path and Manner, 6 (75%) were tight packaging, 2 (25%) loose packaging, and there was no semi-tight packaging. There were 13 Path-only and 5 Manner-only descriptions. The 6 tight packaging cases utilised manner verb *korogaru* 'roll' (P04, P10, both IM), mimetic adverbs (e.g. *korokoro*, *gorogoro*, both without the quotative -*to*) (P03, AL; P09, IM) and other adverbs (e.g. *hayaku* 'quickly', P08, IL; *zutto* 'all the way', P06, IH). Two Intermediate-Low participants (P07, P08) mentioned the English word 'roll' and tried to come up with the Japanese equivalent. Having failed to find the Japanese equivalent, they described Manner in alternative ways using the verb *ugoku* 'move' (P07), and *iku* with the adverb *hayaku* 'quickly' (P08). Another Intermediate-Low participant (P01) borrowed the English word 'roll' as *rooringuo shimasita* 'did rolling'.

With regard to gesture in describing Rolling in L2 Japanese, 3 participants used 6 gestures conflating Path and Manner. **[Fig. 2]** in-

**Noriko Iwasaki, Keiko Yoshioka Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events**

**Figure 2** Co-speech gesture in L2 Japanese

dicates the gesture types that each participant used when speaking L2 Japanese. Six of the participants used Path-only gesture exclusively, including higher-level participants P06 (Intermediate-High), P03 (Advanced-Low), and P13 (Advanced-Mid).

Of the 6 cases of gestures conflating Path and Manner, 2 by P05 (Advanced-Mid) and 1 by P09 (Intermediate-Mid) co-occurred with tight packaging of Path and Manner in speech. Three by P10 (Intermediate-Mid) included 1 immediately following a description with tight packaging, and 2 occurred with Manner-only descriptions such as *korogatte* 'rolling'.

# **3.2 Swinging Event (Lexical Influence)**

The Swinging event was examined to answer Research Question (2), to determine whether English-Japanese bilinguals' L1 and L2 descriptions in speech and gesture are influenced by the presence of the readily available verb 'swing' in English and absence of equivalent lexical items in Japanese. Two of the 13 participants did not describe the Swinging event in their L1 English or L2 Japanese descriptions; they seemed to have forgotten about the Swinging event depicted in the video. The following analyses are based on the 11 other participants' performance.

Table 5 presents the verbs each participant used in speech and each participant's gesture usage pattern. Following Kita and Özyürek (2003), participants were classified based on the patterns of usage of Arc and Straight gestures, namely those who used Arc gesture only, those who used Straight gesture only and those who used both Arc and Straight gestures. The order of languages in which each participant described the Swinging event is also indicated. Note that the number of total participants who used gesture in L2 Japanese description is 10, since 1 participant (P07) did not use any gesture when describing the event in Japanese.


**Table 5** English-Japanese bilinguals' Swinging event descriptions

In terms of verbs, most of the participants used 'swing' in L1 English, but 2 used the verb 'fly' and 1 used the verb 'sail'. It is plausible that the 2 (P10, IM; P13, AM) used the verb 'fly' because they had described the same event in Japanese first and had used the verb *tobu* 'fly'. In L2 Japanese description, most of the bilinguals used the verbs *tobu* 'fly' and *iku* 'go', similarly to native speakers studied by Kita and Özyürek (2003). One, P11 (IM), used a word borrowed from English, *suwingu-suru*, suggesting that she felt the need to describe the arc-shaped movement in speech. One participant, P01 (IL), abandoned describing the event in L2 Japanese. She said: "Swinging?" She then laughed and continued this part in English: "He swung there. He swung himself up to the window", using Arc-trajectory gesture. Prior to this, she attempted to describe the event in Japanese, saying: "*mado, mado no mae ni*…" ("The window, in front of the window…"). She did this while using Straight gesture.

**[Fig. 3]** shows the proportions of participants based on the patterns of usage of Arc and Straight gestures, following Kita and Özyürek's (2003) method of presentation of the gesture results.

In contrast to Kita and Özyürek's (2003) report that almost all participants only used Arc gesture, more than half of the English-Japanese bilinguals used Straight gesture either alone or together with Arc gesture in L1 English description. Moreover, 80% used only Straight gesture in L2 Japanese. Among Japanese monolinguals

**Noriko Iwasaki, Keiko Yoshioka Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events**

**Figure 3** Percentage of participants with patterns of gesture usage

studied by Kita and Özyürek, about 30% used only Straight gesture, and about 45% used both.

# 4 Discussion

# **4.1 Rolling Event (Syntactic Influence)**

The present study addressed the question of whether bidirectional cross-linguistic influence is observed in the thinking-for-speaking patterns in English-Japanese bilinguals' motion event descriptions. Specifically, we focused on the grammatical aspects (lexicalization pattern, syntactic packaging) in describing Rolling. The results showed that in their L1 English speech, the bilinguals mostly used descriptions encoding both Path and Manner in tight packaging, using the manner verb 'roll' (11 of 13 instances), retaining their L1 English pattern. The L1 English syntactic packaging is resilient to change, but this may be largely due to the availability of the expression 'roll down', suggesting the difficulty of teasing apart syntactic packaging from availability of commonly used phrases. However, it is notable that there were 2 Path-only and 8 Manner-only descriptions. Five of them (1 Path-only, 4 Manner-only) were produced by P07 (Intermediate-Low). Though he described Rolling first in English, having struggled to describe the cartoon in Japanese, he might have carried on his tendency to decompose his intended messages for the ease of description.

The bilinguals' gesture pattern in their L1 English diverged from English monolinguals' pattern of mostly using Path+Manner conflation (Kita, Özyürek 2003). Unlike monolinguals, less than half of the participants used Manner+Path conflation gestures. Instead, they mainly used Path-only and/or Manner-only gestures. Interestingly, it was mostly the participants whose proficiency levels were the lowest and highest who almost exclusively used Path-only and Manner-only gestures. The lower-proficiency participants (P01, P08, both IL) might have been decomposing their concepts for producing simpler constructions even when speaking in English, but the pattern observed among higher-proficiency participants (all participants whose Japanese proficiency was IH or higher) suggests L2-to-L1 influence on gesture.

Moving on to L2 Japanese description, only 3 of 13 participants used the Japanese manner verb *korogaru* 'roll'. Some lower-proficiency participants' attempts to search for the manner verb or to describe Manner suggested heightened attention to Manner, indicating English thinking-for-speaking pattern. One participant (P01) borrowed the English word. There were only 8 descriptions encoding both Path and Manner, 6 of which showed tight packaging, similarly to Japanese monolinguals studied by Brown and Gullberg (2012). Of the 6 descriptions, 2 utilised the manner verb *korogaru* and 1 utilised an innovative mimetic verb *koron-site* 'do *koron* (manner of rolling)', using a mimetic *koron*. There were 5 Manner-only and 13 Path-only descriptions, produced both by lower- and higher-proficiency participants. This suggests that both lack of knowledge with regard to Japanese ways of Manner encoding (at lower level) and the acquisition of thinking-for-speaking for Japanese (at higher level) can result in these Manner-only or Path-only descriptions.

The bilinguals' gesture patterns in L2 Japanese descriptions seemed rather mixed, but overall most participants (10 of 13) used Path-only or Manner-only gestures with no Manner+Path conflation, including those who were higher in proficiency (3 of the 4 who were Intermediate-High or above). The gesture patterns correspond to the speech patterns, i.e. frequent use of Path-only or Manner-only descriptions.

In summary, apparent L2-to-L1 influence was observed in lowerand higher-proficiency participants' use of Path-only and Manner-only gestures, but not in speech. L1-to-L2 influence was observed in the lower-proficiency participants' attempts to describe Manner and/or to use a manner verb in L2 Japanese.

# **4.2 Swinging Event (Lexical Influence)**

In the descriptions of the Swinging event in L1 English, there is no clear indication of L2-to-L1 influence on speech. Though P10 and P13 used the verb 'fly', this may be because they described the same event in Japanese first. Yet the fact that an Advanced-Mid participant (P13) used the verb 'fly' (without any hesitation) suggests his familiarity with the lexical gaps between English and Japanese. In gesture, however, more than half of the bilinguals used Straight gesture, showing some L2-to-L1 influence. Curiously, there were two cases where the participant used the verb 'swing' and yet produced a Straight gesture; such cases of 'speech and gesture mismatch' have not been reported in previous research.

In the descriptions of the event in L2 Japanese, L1-to-L2 influence was seen primarily because there is no Japanese equivalent for the English verb 'swing'. One participant overcame the difficulty by using a borrowed English word, *suwingu-suru*, which is an uncommon, innovative word. However, most of the speakers used *tobu* 'fly' or *iku* 'go', the verbs that L1 Japanese speakers commonly use. Similarly, their gesture pattern does not show clear indication of L1-to-L2 influence since only 2 participants used Arc gesture.

#### **4.3 General Discussion**

We did not observe any clear indication of L2-to-L1 influence on speech in the descriptions of the Rolling and Swinging events. English-Japanese bilinguals mostly retained their English patterns (using the manner verb 'roll' in tight packaging in Path+Manner descriptions in describing Rolling, and using the verb 'swing' in describing Swinging).

However, L2-to-L1 influence was observed in gesture in both Rolling and Swinging descriptions. Some cases of 'speech-gesture mismatch' (Church, Goldin-Meadow 1986) were also observed. This mismatch suggests L2-to-L1 influence in that the bilinguals are ready for change in their thinking-for-speaking in their L1. Such mismatches are understood to indicate a readiness to learn among children that is not observed in speech (Church, Goldin-Meadow 1986), and gesture-speech mismatch can cause a change in cognitive mechanism (Goldin-Meadow et al. 2001). The current results suggest the importance of multimodal approaches in examining subtle changes such as conceptual change in thinking-for-speaking.

L1-to-L2 influence is primarily observed among lower-proficiency participants. Because using English as L1 must have 'trained' them to pay attention to Manner (thinking-for-speaking hypothesis) and select manner verbs, they tried and struggled to describe Manner or find the manner verbs in Japanese that are equivalent to what is available in their L1 English. Part of the reason that L1-to-L2 influence was not observed among higher-level participants may be that for L1 English patterns (manner verbs, tight packaging, Path+Manner descriptions) to be observed in L2 Japanese, English-Japanese bilinguals need to use Japanese manner verbs and/or manner adverbs, which are found to be difficult to acquire even among advanced-level bilinguals (e.g. Choi, Lantolf 2008). Perhaps at the level higher than that of the current participants, L1-to-L2 influence (e.g. more use of manner verbs) may be observed.

Among lower-proficiency speakers (P01, P07, P08, P12), then, there is an apparent bidirectional influence, though it is not clear whether the L2-to-L1 influence shown in their Path-only or Manner-only gesture pattern was the influence of the Japanese pattern of thinking-forspeaking or the influence of their tendency to decompose concepts in L2 for the ease of verbalization, because they tended to decompose concepts when they could not find Japanese words that were equivalent to English manner verbs.

Though higher-proficiency participants (P03, P05, P13) did not show bidirectional influence, their L2 Japanese seems to have influenced their gesture (they used Path-only and Manner-only gesture when describing Rolling, and P13 used Straight-only gesture when describing Swinging in English). The examination of gesture turned out to be particularly important to reveal this. When considering all participants, including lower-proficiency participants and higher-proficiency participants, both L1-to-L2 and L2-to-L1 influence was observed.

We did not find clear bidirectional influence among the participants at approximately the same (or somewhat lower) level as Brown and Gullberg's participants, contrary to their findings. The difference may be attributed to two factors: the participants in the current study are less proficient in their L2 (mostly A2-B1); and the direction of the language pair is different, with English (S-language) speakers learning Japanese (V-language).

It is also important to note that monolingual speakers' performances in motion event descriptions in speech and gesture are rather variable, and what was reported (e.g. Kita, Özyürek 2003; Allen et al. 2007) was tendency. Speakers' performances may also depend on the types of motion events, particularly on how salient Manner is in the motion events. In the cartoon scenes examined here and in previous studies, Manner is salient and unusual. More research is desired to understand how speakers of different L1s restructure their thinking-for-speaking to describe various different events.

# 5 Conclusion

We examined English-Japanese bilinguals' motion event descriptions in speech and gesture. We found L1-to-L2 influence in speech and (apparent) L2-to-L1 influence in gesture only among lower-proficiency participants. Higher-proficiency participants showed L2-to-L1 influence in gesture but did not show any L1-to-L2 influence. If the phenomenon of bidirectional influence needs to be verified within the same individuals then we have not provided clear evidence, but we have shown that among English-Japanese bilinguals, there is both L1-to-L2 and L2-to-L1 influence.

The current study involved only a small number of participants (N=13) and we based our comparison on monolingual patterns reported in previous studies. Future research involving more participants, especially including bilinguals who are higher in proficiency in their L2 Japanese and including monolinguals, is desired to confirm the effect of the proficiency levels and direction on bidirectional cross-linguistic influence.

Most studies so far have examined speakers whose L1 and L2 are English and/or other major European languages. Research examining a non-European language like Japanese as an L2 has important potential to contribute to our understanding, especially because knowledge gained by previous studies on L1 Japanese serves as a basis or reference point. Given that many L1 speakers of various European languages are learning Japanese as L2, research on various contrasting L1s (e.g. V-languages such as Italian and Spanish vs. S-languages such as Dutch and German) would enable research into the impact of typological differences on restructuring thinking-for-speaking in L2 Japanese in future research.

#### **Acknowledgements**

We are extremely grateful to the editors of this special issue, Dr. Patrick Heinrich and Dr. Giuseppe Pappalardo. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for carefully reading the earlier version of the manuscript and for giving us important feedback for us to improve the quality of the paper. The data collection and initial analysis of the project was supported by the British Academy Small Grant SG-51954, and the initial gesture analysis was partially supported by a Meiji Jingu Japanese Studies Research Grant for SOAS staff in 2013, both awarded to the first author, Noriko Iwasaki. We express our gratitude to their support.

# **Bibliography**


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in English and Spanish". *International Journal of Applied Linguistics*, 14(1), 113-47. DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2004.00056.x.


# Strategies of Impoliteness in Japanese Spontaneous Talks

Paolo Calvetti

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** If, on the one hand, Japanese language, with its richness of marked allomorphs used for honorifics, has been considered one of the most attractive languages to investigate the phenomenon of politeness, on the other hand, a very small number of studies have been devoted to Japanese impoliteness, most of them limited to BBSs' (Bulletin Board System) chats on Internet. Interestingly, Japanese native speakers declare, in general, that their language has a very limited number of offensive expressions and that 'impoliteness' is not a characteristic of their mother tongue. I tried to analyse some samples of spontaneous conversations taken from YouTube and other multimedia repertoires, in order to detect the main strategies used in Japanese real conversations to cause offence or to show a threatening attitude toward the partner's face. It seems possible to state that, notwithstanding the different 'cultural' peculiarities, impoliteness shows, also in Japanese, a set of strategies common to other languages and that impoliteness, in terms of morphology, is not a mirror counterpart of *keigo*.

**Keywords** Japanese impoliteness. Spontaneous talk. Keigo. Pragma-linguistics. Japanese phonetics.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 Japanese Politeness. – 3 Japanese Impoliteness. – 4 Some Data. – 5 Trigger Expressions. – 5.1 *Dakara*. – 5.2 Omission of the Copula. – 5.3 Mitigation of Impolite Expressions. – 5.4 Further Investigations. – 6 Phonetic and Prosodic Features. – 6.1 Jump in Pitch Accent. – 6.2 Falling Intonation. – 6.3 Stressed Trill /r/. – 7 Conclusions: Distance Between Expected Register and Register Used.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 99** Submitted 2020-02-21 | Accepted 2020-05-14 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/005**

#### 1 Introduction

The aim of this article is to present some of the results of my research on Japanese impoliteness. Following the scheme proposed by Culpeper et al. (2003) for what he defined as *impoliteness superstrategies*, Calvetti (2014) pointed out, that in Japanese too face attacks are realised in the same way as in other languages, such as English or Italian.

As Japanese lacks overt derogative expressions (more precisely swear words), or at any rate only has a small number of them, what is more important in Japanese impoliteness is the distance between the expected expression in a certain circumstance and the expression actually used. In other words, in Japanese the simple use of an alternative form of the personal pronoun, one less honorific than the expected form, could be perceived as a genuine attack against the interlocutor, with the same derogative value as a true swear word in another language. One extreme case of this, quoted by Coulmas (2005), is the misuse of honorific terms, which triggered a violent reaction by a man addressed by his colleague with the intimate/colloquial -*kun* suffix. Mr. Yamada, one of two young employees, addressed his colleague as "Tanaka-*kun*" (instead of the probably expected "Tanaka-*san*") and "this made Mr. Tanaka so angry that he hit Mr. Yamada's head against the wall of the railway station […] causing him fatal injuries" and ultimately killing him (Coulmas 2005, 299). Indeed, in court, the misuse of honorifics was invoked by Mr. Tanaka to justify the accident.

Following a pragma-linguistic approach (Leech 2014, 13-18), in my new research I have tried to detect some trigger expressions that seem to be recurrent at the beginning or at the end of an impolite utterance. They are not (or at least are not recognized as) morphologically codified structures, as in the case of *keigo* (Japanese honorifics), but they are rather formulas suggesting to one's conversation partner that the following utterance is meant to break social conventions, thereby revealing the speaker's intention to clash with or contradict the other person's position. These patterns may be combined with phonetic variations, like a raising of the voice, specific intonation patterns or a particular way of expressing certain phonemes.

# 2 Japanese Politeness

We are often told that Japanese is a language marked by a widespread usage of honorifics and a very polite attitude in daily conversation. There is a huge (specialist as well as non-specialist) literature on "Japanese politeness", which usually stresses the peculiarities of Japanese honorifics, their morphological richness, and their important role in preserving "social harmony" (regarded as an important value specific to the Japanese case). The Japanese verbal strategy to convey politeness is described and represented as highly codified (Asada 2014). There exists a sort of prescribed code of usage, generally centred on the morphological mechanism of transformation of "neutral utterances" into honorific ones, which is commonly accepted in "formal society": for example, new recruits in a company, or salesmen working in department stores, undergo language training during their first months of service in order to teach them how to "properly" employ the honorific register of the language. Needless to say, in Japanese – as in other languages – politeness is acquired during the language-acquisition process and the variations of each native speaker depend on many factors like their social stratus, family environment, educational background, and prolonged interaction with speakers from other social strata. The acquisition of politeness competences, however, is subject to a sort of explicit "training" within family and school, in particular during school years, when children are exposed to normative *keigo* rules. Significantly, *Japanese politeness* is constantly regarded as an important aspect of the language, deserving attention and care also at an institutional level, as shown by the guidelines frequently issued by the Agency for Cultural Affairs (*Bunkachō*) of the Japanese Ministry of Education.<sup>1</sup>

Japanese politeness has been also a field of academic debate among those who maintain that the Japanese case should be analysed within a universal theoretical framework (Usami 2001; 2002a; 2002b; Pizziconi 2003), and those who stress the uniqueness of Japanese or deal with it as a particular case (Matsumoto 1988; Ide 1989; Matsumoto 2003).

# 3 Japanese Impoliteness

Given the importance attributed to Japanese politeness, research and papers on Japanese impoliteness are not so numerous, as pointed out by Nishimura (2019) who gives a recent up-to-date list of studies dealing with the subject. Moreover some studies deal mainly with single lexical or phrase forms and focus on curses or swear words (Hoshino 1974; Nishio 1998). In other cases "impoliteness" is included in the theoretical framework of "politeness theory" yet not investigated with concrete linguistic examples (Usami 2002a). In one of her papers on "discourse politeness" Usami, referring to her calculation of the "politeness value", states that "*impoliteness* could be consid-

<sup>1</sup> The Agency for Cultural Affairs has established a sub-committee devoted to *keigo* and the official documents are available on the internet site of the Agency: https:// www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/sokai/sokai\_6/pdf/keigo\_tousin.pdf.

ered as a verbal behaviour in which 'the politeness value', calculated as the difference of the estimate of the face threat between speaker and listener, is expressed as a value contained between 0-α and -1". This range of values (0-α to -1), according to Usami's scheme (2002a, 97), corresponds to what she defines as "minus-politeness". In doing so, Usami tries to include "impoliteness" within her comprehensive theoretical framework of discourse politeness, which derives from Brown and Levinson's (1987) classical theory of politeness.

Some authors even consider Japanese impoliteness a failure, an aborted formation, so to say, of utterances not properly formed.<sup>2</sup> Not necessarily in a Gricean way, this approach appears to rely on the unspoken assumption that conversation and communication should be performed on the basis of reciprocal cooperation, and that keeping harmony and peace between speakers should be the rule of human interaction, in particular in a society, like the Japanese one, where the concept of *wa* (social harmony) has been overvalued and mythicized.<sup>3</sup> This view fails to recognise the fact that impoliteness could be a deliberate strategy to attack the face of our communication partner – actually a recurrent situation in natural communication. As already noted, the absence of *keigo* morphology does not necessarily mean the formation of impolite utterances, whereas the use of morphological structures marked as "polite" in informal contexts could result in a face attack perceived as "impolite".

Calvetti (2014), following the schema of *impoliteness superstrategies* of Culpeper et al. (2003), demonstrates that "bald on record impoliteness", "positive impoliteness", "negative impoliteness", "sarcasm or mock politeness" and "withhold politeness"<sup>4</sup> are also used

<sup>2</sup> See, for example, Noguchi 2013.

<sup>3</sup> Social harmony (*wa*), like "cooperation", is an *a priori* element that is taken for granted in many sociological descriptions of the Japanese society (Benedict 1946; Nakane 1973; Hendry 1987), and which still shapes the image of Japan. It goes hand in hand with another myth, namely that Japan has a low number of legal controversies – which is not the case at all, as shown by many jurists specialising on Japan (Haley 1978; Foote, Ōta 2010; in Italian see Colombo 2012).

<sup>4</sup> Quoting Culpeper et al. (2003, 1554-5), we could describe these five categories as follows: "1. […] Bald on record impoliteness is typically deployed where there is much face at stake, and where there is an intention on the part of the speaker to attack the face of the hearer. […] 2. Positive impoliteness. The use of strategies designed to damage the addressee's positive face wants ('ignore, snub the other', 'exclude the other from the activity', 'disassociate from the other', 'be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic', 'use inappropriate identity markers, 'seek disagreement', 'make the other feel uncomfortable, 'use taboo words', 'call the other names'. […]) 3. Negative impoliteness. The use of strategies designed to damage the addressee's negative face wants ('frighten', 'condescend, scorn, or ridicule', 'invade the other's space', 'explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect', 'put the other's indebtedness on record', 'hinder or block the other – physically or linguistically', etc.). […] 4. Sarcasm or mock politeness. The use of politeness strategies that are obviously insincere, and thus remain

in Japanese to convey an impolite message, at least in daily conversation and oral communication.

Here I wish to focus on some recurrent expressions that appear to signal to one's conversation partner that the utterance conceals a hostile attitude and that it could be associated with what, in Culpeper's terms, is defined as "bald on record impoliteness" or "positive impoliteness".

#### 4 Some Data

For my research I mainly analysed excerpts from YouTube videos of critical situations like quarrels, discussions etc. in which, I assumed, people were more likely to face some impolite utterances. In addition, in order to check some of my intuitions on the use of "trigger expressions", I used the BCCWJ (Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese),<sup>5</sup> making use in particular of Japanese blog dialogues recorded in this corpus.

Differently from codified "polite expressions" (*keigo*), in which is possible to recognize morphological markers or fixed conversational models (often taught at school or in familiar contexts), to detect impolite expressions or impolite language acts it is important to identify the reaction of the interlocutor. Needless to say, it is in fact not the linguistic form in itself that determines a reaction, but how it is interpreted by the interlocutor who is the "target" of an impolite pragmatic act. On this assumption, I analyzed a series of "critical contexts" in which some kind of annoyed reaction is shown.

# 5 Trigger Expressions

Here I use "trigger expression" not as it is used in informatics, but as a word or phrase that initiates a process or a course in a dialogue. In this sense, Leech too uses *triggers* to define pragmatic actions that lead to a certain interpretation of language messages (Leech 2014, 237). Morphological, syntactical and lexical elements jointly contribute to form-

surface realizations. […] 5. Withhold politeness. Keep silent or fail to act where politeness work is expected".

<sup>5</sup> BCCWJ is a balanced corpus of about one hundred million words of contemporary written Japanese developed by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL). The compilation of BCCWJ started in 2006 as a five-year project and consists of three sub-corpora: The Publication sub-corpus, the Library sub-corpus, and the Special-purpose sub-corpus. The last of these contains a series of mutually unrelated mini corpora that include governmental white papers, textbooks, laws, best-selling books, and texts from the Internet.

ing "expressions" within which none of these elements, taken individually, could be identified as the marker of a polite or, on the contrary, impolite register. However, they seem to recur in impolite utterances to introduce some sort of face attack against the interlocutor.

# **5.1** *Dakara*

As I mentioned earlier, there are some recurrent expressions that act like signals of a strong will on the speaker's part to generate an imposition on the interlocutor or criticize his/her position. One is *dakara* ('that's why') at the beginning of a sentence, as in:

A: *Asobi ni ikō yo*. Let's go and play.

B: *Dakara ikitakunaitte*. I told you I didn't want to.

Literally, *dakara* is an explicative expression ('that's why' or 'that being so'), but in this case it is used to hint that the speaker's will (which is in contrast to the request or pressure from the interlocutor) has its reasons. It expresses and also underlines a subjective and personal opinion of the speaker and, generally speaking, this attitude seems to be regarded as "non polite". Thus the interpretation of the pragmatic meaning of *dakara* (in spoken language usually occurring at the head of a sentence) should probably be rather glossed as "listen, and get what I'm saying!". In my collection of data it is often found in co-occurrence with a rhetoric question formula (*itta darō*, etc. 'I told you [*didn't I?*]') at the end of the sentence.

A: *Nanji kara?* From what time?

B: *Dakara ichiji datte itta daro!*  I told you, didn't I? It's from one o'clock.

Or, as one can see from the next example taken from a video clip,<sup>6</sup> *dakara* often co-occurs with the final phrase *ja nai* (*desu*) *ka* ('isn't it?') when used in this impolite way.

6 "Tsukishima keisatsusho no munō, detarame o tsuikyū suru 1/3", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlzu3fd1U8Y (no more available but downloaded and saved in June 2013). It is the first of three parts of a video clip recorded by the Shuken o kaifuku suru kai, an ultra-nationalist Japanese organization, which usually posts its protests on the Web.

A: a protester B: policeman C: another protester

A: *Katte ni yatte ii n desu ka*. 'Is it possible to do it as one likes?' B: *Nani yaru n desu ka* 'What is it that you want to do?' A: *Dakara, itta janai?* 'That's the matter!' *Mō ikkai ikimasu yo.* 'I'll go [there] again'. C: *Yamero yo. Abunai kara.* 'Stop it! It's dangerous'. A: *Ikkai ittatte wakaranai kara.* 'I told them once but still they don't get it'.

These two examples imply a sort of criticism against the interlocutor's inability to remember the information previously received from the speaker or to understand what the speaker is saying. The explicatory meaning of *dakara* underlines that it is "because of" the dullness of the interlocutor that communication is not going on. In the second example this element is more clearly emphasized in the protester's (A's) last utterance, which explains that he is repeating his action because he "told them once but they still don't understand".

#### **5.2 Omission of the Copula**

Another syntactic construction suggesting an impolite attitude is the ellipsis of the copula in interrogative sentences like *Anta wa dare?*  ('Who are you?'), where the equivalent of the English verb *to be* is omitted ('Who [are] you?'). This sentence sounds impolite for the use of the pronoun *anta* (a particularly informal allomorph of the pronoun *anata*) and for the omission of the copula *desu*. These reinforce the negative implications of the fact that the sentence transgresses the *default* Japanese communicative (or behavioural) norm according to which one does not usually ask direct questions (on this *default* concept, see Agha 2007; Pizziconi 2011, 56-7).

Consider the two following excerpts from a YouTube video.<sup>7</sup> The first represents a verbal attack by the same representative of the Japanese ultra-nationalist group presented above, who addresses a woman in an inquisitorial tone, asking her if she is Korean:

<sup>7</sup> This is a scene from a protest by the same ultra-nationalist organization quoted above, against an exhibition about the so-called "comfort women", Korean women forced to work as prostitutes for the Japanese army during the Second World War: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvxj3luBMj4&list=PLFBE1AB54B1624DEB&index=14 (removed from the net, but downloaded and saved in June 2013).

*Chōsenjin, anta?* 'You Korean?'

B: *Chōsenjin yo!* 'Korean, yes!'

A: *Nan no shusshin*, *anta wa*? What's [your] birthplace, you? *Doko no shusshin*? Where [do you come] from?

The second excerpt shows the same man asking the Korean woman if she likes Japan:


In both examples, characterized by the scrambling of POS and the ellipsis of postpositions – features that are typical of spoken language – and by the absence of the polite colloquial suffix -*masu*, the impoliteness is also conveyed through the omission of the copula – in particular in the utterances by the male speaker – in nominal predicates (*doko no shussin* [desu ka], *chōsenjin* [desu ka], *anta*) and in adjectival noun predicates, as in *Nihon suki* [desu ka], *kirai* [desu ka]?

Again, in the following video excerpt<sup>8</sup> (a police check in an urban railway station in Tōkyō) the man questioned refuses to state his name and in return asks if it is legal for him to film the policeman. At the beginning he uses the copula in the noun predicate, but at the end he asks the same thing in a more rude form, without using the copula:

A: man B: policeman


Again, as shown in Calvetti (2014), the expression *no desu ka* ('It is that… ?'), along with its abbreviated variations, at the end of a sentence could act as a question "intensifier". It stresses the speaker's assumption that the interlocutor may indeed have some knowledge of something (this is the case with the verbs *shiru*/*wakaru* 'to know/

<sup>8</sup> "Kita Senjū eki de shokumu shitsumon ni aimashita", http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=j6nxwOV8fcI (last accessed in November 2015).

to understand'). For this reason it seems to be perceived as rough, inquisitive and hence "impolite", especially when it co-occurs with verbs like *wakaru* and *shiru*, whereby the speaker is effectively asking if the interlocutor is clever enough to get the point.

The following are just two examples taken from *Yahoo! Japan* and from a novel, both recorded in the BCCWJ:

*Dore dake ya na omoi shite sunde iru no ka, wakatte n no ka? Betsu no basho ni hikkoshitai. Mō, konna tokoro ni sumitakunai!!*

Do **you** know how much I'm suffering while living here? I'd like to move to another place. It's enough, I don't want to live here!! (*Yahoo!* 2008)

*Yamero. Omae jibun ga nani itteru no ka wakatte n no ka?*

Stop it! Do you understand what you're saying?! (Miyabe Miyuki, *Dareka*, 2003)

# **5.3 Mitigation of Impolite Expressions**

I now wish to quote some expressions, usually found at the beginning of sentences, or in parenthetic clauses, just before phrases containing impolite speech acts, that formally introduce an apology about what the speaker is about to say, like "I'm sorry to say that…" or "It's impolite to say that…". As noted by Culpeper, the result of this strategy is that it "seems to exacerbate the impoliteness" (Culpeper 2011, 178).

The pattern is the introduction of a mitigation expression followed by an adversative conjunction like *ga*, *kedo* ('but', 'however') etc. This acts as a warning signal to introduce the impolite phrase, as in the following examples:

*Sukina hito niwa mōshiwake nai kedo konna koto suru nara inakunare.* 

I'm sorry for those who like him, but if he does things like that, he can go and get lost! (*Yahoo! blog* 2008)

*Sono ue de, okugata to kodomo no namae made kaite kuru no de areba, shitsurei desu ga, tan n naru baka deshō.*

On top of this, if he even writes the names of his wife and children, I'm sorry, but he's nothing but a fool. (*Yahoo! Chiebukuro* 2005)

Here again, the imbalance between the formal aspect of the sentence and the real objective of the utterance (a face attack on one's partner) ends up enhancing the power of the attack, and increasing the level of the offence. This strategy too seems to be common to many languages and, differently from swear words, could be translated, almost word for word from Japanese.

# **5.4 Further Investigations**

In the near future, further research is likely to reveal other syntactic strategies and elements associated with impolite acts. For the time being, however, it is enough to note that, differently from the honorific language, where specific morpho-syntactic structures support the formation of polite sentences, in impolite utterances the devices used to signal the speaker's impoliteness rely on aspects of the language that are not symmetric to those of the honorific system of the Japanese language. Needless to say, also in the case of Japanese honorifics, it is not only the structure of the language and the selection of honorific allomorphs that contribute to the realization of so-called "honorific utterances". Indeed, in analysing Japanese, as well as in teaching it as a second language, much weight has been given to the morphology of Japanese honorifics. Teaching Japanese impoliteness (which is considered necessary at least for the sake of students' comprehension skills) requires a wider analysis of the pragmatic aspects of the language.

# 6 Phonetic and Prosodic Features

Lastly, I briefly wish to analyse some phonetic aspects of Japanese impoliteness. As is clear from the few examples I have already introduced, impolite intentions are often associated with prosodic features. Shouting at one's partner, interrupting him/her by rising one's voice, etc. are, in particular contexts in which impolite intentions are involved, universal aspects of impoliteness since they are strategies to show that the speaker is willing to attack the interlocutor's face.

I do not have comparative data about speech loudness across different languages. Therefore, I am unable to confirm the common impression that Japanese talk with a low voice compared, for example, to Italian or German native speakers in similar contexts. Yet, raising one's voice, speaking louder and changing the intonation are all relative phenomena within one language, and also in the case of Japanese, phonetic and prosody contribute to the formation of impoliteness.

Speaking of face attacks, I will focus on just three phenomena related to impoliteness strategies: 1. noticeable jump in pitch accent; 2.

**Paolo Calvetti Strategies of Impoliteness in Japanese Spontaneous Talks**

**Figure 1** Rising jump of the pitch accent uttering *dakara*

falling intonation denoting a "rhetoric question"; and 3. trill (stressed trill) /r/ marked as an "impolite" feature of oral communication.

# **6.1 Jump in Pitch Accent**

In the example provided for the trigger expression *dakara* (*dakara itta janai* 'I told you! That's the matter'), the man protesting against the policeman introduces the word *dakara* with a remarkable rising jump of the pitch accent **[fig. 1]**. Usually in *dakara* we have a falling of the pitch accent after the first mora, according to the pattern H-L-L (high, low, low). On the contrary, here we can observe a rising intonation (and a slight lengthening of /a/ in the first syllable /da/ [da˥ ːkaɾa])<sup>9</sup> that stresses the role of the explicative conjunction *dakara*. In this case, then, we can assume that the production of an impolite form is not only the result of the use of a particular lexical or phrasal form, but that it could also derive from the application of specific phonetic or prosodic elements.

# **6.2 Falling Intonation**

In the example of a quarrel between an old lady bothering a group of high school students with annoying requests, we find the question pattern "*janai desu ka*" ('isn't it…'), which is normally used to ask for confirmation of the speaker's belief.

<sup>9</sup> Here I have added to the IPA transcription the non-standard diacritics ˥ and ˹ to mark, respectively, the rise and the fall of the pitch accent, as in [da˥ kaɾa] (H-L-L) and [bɑ˹ɾɑ] (L-H).

**Paolo Calvetti Strategies of Impoliteness in Japanese Spontaneous Talks**

**Figure 2** Descending intonation for rhetorical question

*Sono imi ga wakannai tte itteru ja nai [de]su ka*

Am I not telling you that I don't understand what it means?!

Despite the "polite" form of the copula (*desu*), here we can notice the contracted forms of the verb and the verb auxiliary (respectively *wakannai* instead of *wakaranai* and *itteru* instead of *itte iru*), as well as the relaxed form *tte* instead of the quotation particle *to* that belongs to a colloquial register. Moreover, as we can see from the shape of the intonation, the blue line of the pitch is descending (by contrast to the normal trend for question intonation), and this indicates that the question is a rhetorical one, where no answer is expected from the partner **[fig. 2]**.

This is a strategy used to put pressure on the interlocutor, by attacking his/her positive face, and demonstrating that he/she is not able to understand what the speaker is saying. Rhetorical questions seems to be an effective tool (in a disputative context) to convey a sharp criticism of the positive self-evaluation of one's conversation partner, and hence to slight – albeit not in an overt way – one's counterpart during discussions and squabbles.

# **6.3 Stressed Trill /r/**

Normally in Standard Japanese we have only one type of liquid consonant, the so-called apico-alveolar flap, as in *bara* [bɑ˹ɾɑ] 'rose'. However, it actually seems that there are many individual variations of this: the flap can vary from an alveolar trill [r] to a retroflex flap [ɽ] or an alveolar lateral approximant [l]. In particular, the phoneme /r/ could be pronounced as an apico-alveolar trill with a strong vibration when the speaker wants to sound tough (Vance 2008, 89). This kind of sound is found in gangster slang, and it is not limited to Tōkyō's dialect.

**Paolo Calvetti Strategies of Impoliteness in Japanese Spontaneous Talks**

**Figure 3** Policeman's utterance

**Figure 4** Utterance of a man questioned at a police check

In the following examples we have an exchange of utterances between a man questioned at a police check and a policeman.<sup>10</sup> Both pronounce the word *yarō*, but the policeman only uses it when quoting the offensive words directed at him by the man. In this case the phoneme /r/ is realized as an apico-alveolar flap [ɾ] **[fig. 3]**, while the young man who wanted to offend the policeman uses the marked stressed alveolar trill [r] **[fig. 4],** as shown by the following instrumental analysis, where the repeated vibration of the trill is evident.

The same man, protesting against an underhand body search, shouts that the behaviour of the police is disgusting. He says *kimochi warui n da yo* ('It's disgusting!') and here again the phoneme /r/ in the adjective *warui* ('bad') is pronounced loudly, with a strong stress, as an alveolar trill **[fig. 5]**.

<sup>10</sup> "Keishichō jitsuroku 24ji. Asakusa keisatsu shukumu shitsumon 2", http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=uVoiVWmtRoQ (last accessed in November 2015).

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **111** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 99-114

**Paolo Calvetti Strategies of Impoliteness in Japanese Spontaneous Talks**

**Figure 5** Protest of a man searched at a police check

# 7 Conclusions: Distance Between Expected Register and Register Used

Differently from the construction of morphological patterns used in Japanese honorifics, for strategies of impoliteness we do not have commonly recognized and prescriptive codified patterns. Needless to say, also in the case of politeness, the use of honorific and polite forms (verbal or adjectival forms, polite noun prefixes, etc.) does not necessarily and automatically produce "polite utterances" (as discussed in Agha 2007, 302 and Pizziconi 2011, 62). On the other hand, the use of "plain" (not honorific and polite) morphology is not a marker of impolite language. The main strategy to cause offence in using the language seems to be the creation of a gap between the expected forms (lexical items, morphology, intonation) and the realized forms of utterance, as demonstrated by the extreme and exceptional reaction quoted by Coulmas (2005).

In this perspective, I have tried to select some forms that in face attacks help convey the speaker's intention to oppose the interlocutor's attitude and to behave in an uncooperative way, by suggesting that the conversation partner is not intelligent or quick-witted enough to get what the speaker is saying.

Along with the use of what I have called "trigger expressions", phonetic and prosodic features work together and jointly contribute to the formation of marked utterances that are perceived as impolite messages by native speakers, as well as by advanced speakers of Japanese as a foreign language.

When analysing strategies of impoliteness, we must always bear in mind that Japanese does not have a large number of terms used as offensive expressions. The simple change of a personal pronoun, for example, or the choice of the form of the copula or of the auxiliary verb etc. could be enough to create a gap between the interlocutor's expectations and the speaker's utterance.

While it is possible to state that the strategies of Japanese impoliteness follow general mechanisms outlined by Culpeper (2003) in his theoretical framework about the *impoliteness superstrategies*, it is also true that is possible to detect different levels of subtlety in the mechanism for the realization of face attacks.

In conclusion, it is possible to say that the mismatch of forms is one of the most productive mechanisms for the realization of impolite utterances in Japanese. This strategy can be observed, as we have seen, in cases where trigger expressions are employed or where inappropriate speech levels are chosen. In a language that is not very rich in offensive expressions and swear words, the simple choice of a personal pronoun unsuited to a certain context is equivalent to the use of a swear word in other languages like Italian or English.

Similarly, the use of expressions that imply a low opinion of the interlocutor's capability to understand things, like reiterated rhetorical questions or underlined explanations, accompanied with particular intonation patterns or phonetic features, could be enough to realize an impolite linguistic performance.

#### **Bibliography**


Haley, John O. (1978). "The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant". *Journal of Japanese Studies*, 4(2), 359-90.

Hendry, Joy (1987). *Understanding Japanese Society*. London; New York: Routledge.


Nakane, Chie (1973). *Japanese Society*. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.


# Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling

**The Japanese-Italian Translation of a** *nyūhāfu* **Genderlect in the Movie** *Close-Knit* **by Ogigami Naoko**

#### Francesco Vitucci

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Italia

**Abstract** This study focuses on the translation of the genderlect uttered by the transgender protagonist of the Japanese movie *Close-Knit* directed by Ogigami Naoko (2017) within the context of interlingual subtitling in the Japanese-Italian language pair. According to recent research in the field of AVT, gender translation may disclose important clues about the way identity-related issues are perceived in a source and in a target language. In particular, the rendition of 'liquid' genderlects challenges the belief that Japanese society is naturally divided into two sexes/genders and that there are two separate linguistic codes for female and male speakers. By utilizing a constructionist framework that treats gender as a complex and fluid cultural construct, this study intends to stress the importance of disentangling gender norms from dominant heterosexist discourses, and how sociocultural markers of the spoken language need effective transposition in subtitles. Especially, when gender issues emerging from Japanese movies must be translated for non-English speaking target audiences.

**Keywords** Subtitling. Audiovisual translation. Japanese. Italian. Gender. Queer speech.

**Summary** 1 Gender Studies in Audiovisual Translation and Japanese Sociolinguistics. – 2 Intralingual Characteristics of Rinko's Genderlect. – 3 Japanese-Italian Subtitles and the Survey Dataset. – 4 Scene analysis: Rinko's Genderlect (Intralingual Level). – 4.1 Scene 1: Rinko and Tomo in the Bedroom. – 4.2 Scene 2: Rinko and Tomo in the Living Room. – 5 Scene Analysis: Rinko's Genderlect (Interlingual Level). – 5.1 Scene 1: Rinko and Tomo in the Bedroom. – 5.2 Scene 2: Rinko and Tomo in the Living Room. – 6 Final Remarks and Future Perspectives.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 115** Submitted 2020-02-14 | Accepted 2020-05-14 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/006**

# 1 Gender Studies in Audiovisual Translation and Japanese Sociolinguistics

Recent studies on audiovisual translation (AVT) of gender (Alfano 2018; De Marco 2006; 2009; 2016; Díaz Pérez 2018; Dore, Zarrelli 2018; Hok-Sze Leung 2016; Ranzato 2012; Ranzato, Zanotti 2018; von Flotow, Josephy-Hernández 2018) have brought to light the fundamental role of translation as a tool for an inclusive reimagining of the *queer* identity. These studies also highlight the underlying difficulties for those who are charged with intercultural mediation, as they risk employing stereotypes that further reinforce latent or manifest forms of social exclusion.

As a site of a discursive practice, audiovisual media and its translation play a special role in the articulation of cultural concepts such as *femininity*, *masculinity*, *race*, and *Otherness* among others. It can contribute greatly to perpetuating certain racial stereotypes, framing ethnic and gender prejudices. (Díaz-Cintas 2012, 281-2)

In particular, as for Ranzato and Zanotti (2018), the relationship between language and translation can itself become a tool for further gender liberation or segregation, precisely because it can reassert the *status quo*, or bring it into discussion. Because of this – as De Marco (2016) suggests – it would be better to employ an *engendering* approach, rather than a *gender* approach, as the English verb *engender* can be considered both in its original meaning of 'to cause', 'to originate', as well as 'underscoring the central role of gender issues', as emerged in very recent studies in the fields of sociology and economics. Therefore – according to De Marco – an *engendering*  approach should provide the right level of awareness regarding the subject of gender in the realm of audiovisual translations, as well as rendering it an integral part of the mediation. This allows us to not only understand how potential problems may arise in translation, but also to challenge and overcome them when necessary.

The literature on translation studies and AVT studies is now in line with the most recent sociolinguistics research on how gender is a cultural construct tied to the time, the place, and the societies where men and women operate (Ranzato, Zanotti 2018). Harvey (2000) tells us that when considering *queer* identity, it is important to remember that the characteristics of gender are fluid, unstable, and dynamic and therefore, can no longer be categorized using the ineffective and obsolete idea of a male and female pole. On the key relationship between language and gender, Abe (2010) confirms the shared constructionist view from a sociolinguistic standpoint, by which: Sex difference in language approach based on an essentialist dualism of women and men must be abandoned and replaced with the constructionist view of gender, which treats gender as a complex and fluid cultural construct. In the constructionist framework, gender is not seen as a natural binary categorization or attribute, nor as something we own. Rather it is something we do, perform, and try to accomplish with the help of repeated linguistic practice. (Abe 2010, 5)

This viewpoint is in agreement with other related research in the field of Japanese sociolinguistics (Itakura 2015; Lunsing, Maree 2004; Maree 2010; 2018; Michiura 2018; Okamoto 2016) which asserts the need to study and analyse the phenomenon of speech in context, in specific language use cases. In fact, it should be noted that when analysing the *genderlects* of speakers with non-conforming identities, negotiating the linguistic prescriptions – as well as the norms of reference regarding gender and sexuality – will necessarily run into a sense of multiple identity. These contextual/situational pressures on speech often result in creative uses of language. According to Maree (2010), this phenomenon occurs by exploiting the sociolinguistic resources and cultural references available to the speakers. These speakers, as social actors, make certain pragmatic choices that influence not only a personal construction of relationship, but also the construction of their own identity.

Regarding diageneric variation in Japanese, Nakamura (2010; 2013) and Hasegawa (2012) state that, since it is possible to manifest one's own gender identity by adapting the available linguistic (and other) resources according to the situation, the speakers, and the mood, it is important to keep the concept of *variability* in mind when speaking about linguistic practices associated with an individual's biological sex and gender identity. It is also important to consider *indexicality* when referring to the relation between linguistic expression and the context of utterance.<sup>1</sup> As Okamoto (2016) points out, in Japanese the concept of variable indexicality in linguistic gender markers is easily noted since elements that are typically marked as solely masculine or feminine<sup>2</sup> can be interpreted in different ways based on the speaker and social context. Referring to the concept of in-

<sup>1</sup> From the point of view of an individual speaker, however, the multiplicity of sociocultural meanings associated with linguistic practice would include the spatio-temporal locus of the communication situation (deixis, use of adverbs of time and place), the personal characteristics of the speaker (age, sex, geographical origin), social identity (belonging to one or more groups), speech acts, social activities (debates, narrations, dialogues), as well as affective and epistemic attitudes.

<sup>2</sup> Referring to the use of certain personal pronouns, suffixes, and certain phenomena of lexical modulation.

dexical field introduced by Penelope Eckert (2008), Okamoto suggests that a set normative relationship, when found in a different context, can acquire added semantic value that integrates with the established meanings in each indexical field. This occurs because indexical fields are naturally fluid and open. An example of this is the way that some young Japanese women use male first-person pronouns among close friends in order to express shared intimacy and solidarity and convey freedom and rebellion, not necessarily mere *masculinity*. A further example in the *queer* sphere (Abe 2010) is the lesbian speech patterns used by some bar employees in the *Shinjuku ni-chōme* district, which demonstrates how some speakers use typically masculine linguistic forms in work-related contexts to signify their social position (*chii*), experience (*kanten*), and their hierarchical role (*yakuwari*) while interacting with clients, or even to simply show emotions such as anger, or other specific speech acts. Abe refers to how, even though a few of the speakers interviewed tended to adapt their firstperson pronouns by using the pronoun *jibun*, perceived as more neutral compared to *watashi* or *atashi* (considered to be too feminine) or *boku* (considered, instead, to be excessively masculine), the pronoun *ore* (definitely a vulgar register and directly tied to masculinity) was seen when confronting regular clients (i.e. when expressing anger). Abe suggests that this practice supports not only the hypothesis that language can be utilized as a resource to construct different identities based on the context, but also that the identity of an individual is not predetermined, but rather potentially multiple and variable. Consequently, the interpretation of certain linguistic forms traditionally stereotyped as *masculine* or *feminine* should remain as a mere notion of normative ideology (Okamoto, Shibamoto Smith 2004).

# 2 Intralingual Characteristics of Rinko's Genderlect

As will be illustrated below, the complexity of the translated subtitles is immediately apparent when looking at the *genderlect* by Rinko, the protagonist of *Close-Knit*. In the first place, *they* speak in motherese in the scenes where *they* are reassuring *their* niece (Tomo), or when mentoring/educating, yet every time – always in the presence of Tomo – *they* switch to narrative or descriptive speech *they* resorting to a completely different linguistic register that allows *them* to more clearly define *their* own identity. In this case, Rinko utilizes a few morphosyntactic and lexical elements that are typical of Japanese spoken by females (*joseigo*), though it is not emphasized and is intermixed with more neutral gender elements (Inoue, 2003; Matsui 2018). In the context of interlinguistic translation, – also according to Zabalbeascoa (2012) – the person creating the subtitles is in the difficult position of having to mediate between an accurate description of the character's uniqueness and the risk of slipping into stereotypes, given the spatio-temporal limitations of the subtitles. The fact remains, though, that it is impossible to ignore the microtextual characteristics of the audiovisual dialogue and still maintain an ethically equivalent translation without running the risk of subconsciously manipulating the identities being represented. As Díaz-Cintas recalls (2012):

Translators cease to be linguists in the traditional sense – i.e professionals with knowledge of two languages –, to become intercultural agents and mediators, whose allegiances emanate from their works and can be untangled somewhat by scholars. Migrating from a passive role as mere transmitters of information, translators are now considered to be active agents participating in the shaping of the ideological discourse of their culture, whose system of values they may consciously or unconsciously accept, contributing to their dissemination or subversion. (Díaz Cintas 2012, 282-3)

As mentioned above, Rinko's speech includes examples of *motherese*, also known as *mother talk*, *mommy deixis*, *caretaker speech*, *child directed speech*, and *baby talk* (Bernal 2012; Hyams 2008; Snow 1986). From a sociolinguistic perspective, *motherese* is referred to as the linguistic variance spontaneously utilized by adults when speaking to children. It's found in a wide variety of languages and, along with the general tendencies, it can present elements of differentiation according to a language's respective cultural and linguistic characteristics.<sup>3</sup> The literature in this field (Burnham et al. 2002; Burnham, Kitamura 2003; Saint-Georges et al. 2013) finds that *motherese* shows both qualitative and quantitative characteristics that involve all structural levels of communication, such as: 1. Phonologic and prosodic patterns involving simplified and controlled phonetics, as well as paralinguistic characteristics such as higher tones of voice; 2. Morphosyntactic modulation through short senten-

<sup>3</sup> As Roger Brown notes in the introduction to Ferguson and Snow's volume (1977), the peculiarities of this idiolect are the result of two existential factors that distinguish communications held with children: factors of affection held within the field of social interaction that characterize a child's need to be cared for of by an adult figure, as well as linguistic factors derived from differences that adults and children have in their mastery of language. Indeed, the use of *motherese* varies in function according to the child's age (usually used from twelve or sixteen months onwards, gradually diminishing towards seven or eight years of age), as well as the adult's characteristics. As will be seen in the case study of the film in question, even though Tomo (a young middle-schooler) doesn't belong to the typical age group of *motherese*, we can see how Rinko voluntarily makes use of it in order to emotionally comfort Tomo, and also to affirm Rinko's new role as an acquired mother.

ces with a net prevalence for parataxis; 3. Lexical variations through the use of diminutives, terms of endearment, onomatopoeias, repetition, the substitution of adjectives, pronouns, and nouns, expressions of guidance, deixis (the insertion of adverbs and demonstrative pronouns), as well as lexemes commonly found in infantile speech (e.g. in Italian *bua* instead of *ferita*; *nanna* instead of *dormire*); 4. Extraverbal activity through gestures, physical contact, gazes, and facial expressions (*hyper-speech*).<sup>4</sup>

Japanese *motherese* (*hahaoyago*) also shows many of these characteristics, manifesting as a set of linguistic, vocal, and extraverbal elements. Some of its main characteristics are: redundancies, phonetic alterations, the use of onomatopoeias, *bikago*, as well as a high timbre and tone of voice. On a phonetic and lexical level, Ishiguro (2013) illustrates how there is a common tendency to simplify and modify some sounds which are complicated to pronounce. For example, in *motherese*, the Japanese syllables *sa*/*shi*/*su*/*se*/*so* transform into *ta*/*chi*/*chu*/*te*/*to* forming the words *okaasan* (→ *okaatan*, translation *mother*), *oishii* (→ *oichii*, translation *good*), *daisuki* (→*daichuki*, translation *I love you very much*). Analogously, the *tsu* syllable becomes *chu*, as in *oyatsu* (→ *oyachu*, translation *snack*), and *zu* becomes *ju*, as in *omizu* (→*omiju*, translation *water*). On a lexical level, the use of *bikago* terms is frequent, as in *omimi* (instead of the neutral term *mimi*, translation *ears*), and *omikan* (instead of the neutral term *mikan*, translation *mandarin*), as well as the syllabic reiteration of terms with honorific prefixes such as *omeme* (instead of the term *me*, translation *eyes*), *otete* (instead of the term *te*, translation *hand*). Other common uses include redundant onomatopoeias accompanied by the verb "to do" (*suru*) instead of single verbs, such as: *nenne suru* (instead of *neru*, translation *to sleep*), *tonton suru* (instead of *tataku*, translation *to knock*), or the insertion of suffixes alongside proper nouns, signifying closeness and affection, such as -*chan* for girls, and -*kun* for boys.

As mentioned earlier, the recurring phenomenon of *language shift*  that characterizes Rinko's speech means *they* employ a *genderlect*  that's quite close to female speech (*lady talk*) each time *they* begin describing and/or narrating events. In Japanese this idiolect (called *joseigo*) often resorts to lexical prefixes of courtesy such as *o*/*go* (*obentō→* Japanese box lunch; *ocha→* green tea; *okaban→* bag) and is characterized by the absence of verbal imperative and negative forms (*tabero! →* eat it!; *taberu na! →* don't eat it!) as well as by the tendency not to use profanities and masculine-oriented lexicon. On the contra-

<sup>4</sup> For the analysis of the interlinguistic Japanese-Italian subtitling in *Close-Knit*, it's important to specify that this study will concentrate specifically on the morphosyntactic and lexical levels, as the multimedia nature of the text makes it possible to extrapolate the prosodic and extraverbal functions (which, in translation, cannot be modified).

ry, it often resorts to an exclusive use of neutral/feminine first person singular pronouns (*watashi*, *atashi*, *atai* or *uchi*) and second person singular (*anata*, with the partner), feminine suffixes (-*kashira*, -*wa* in raising tone in its forms -*wane* and *-wayo*) and interjections (*maa*, *arama*, *araa*, *kyaa*). Finally, it is worth noting how Rinko's speech often tends to eliminate the copula -*da* after *-na* adjectives and nouns, making it followed by the particle *ne* (*gomen ne! →* forgive me!), or replacing the neutral suffix -*no desu* (or its masculine version *-ndayo*) with its feminine version -*noyo* (Abe 2010; Gottlieb 2006; Nakamura 2013; Wakabayashi 1991). However, Rinko is not even consistent in *their* use of *joseigo*, as *their* idiolect tends towards a third type of speech that is more neutral and plain (*futsūgo*) when *they* are creating a relationship of trust with their interlocutors. This speech pattern is particularly noticeable when Rinko wants to reassure *their*  niece, Tomo, by asking questions, when Rinko begins reflecting or monologuing, and when *they* talk about their own personal experiences, as Rinko drops all diageneric markers (lexical and morphosyntactic) in both *motherese* and *joseigo*. It is precisely this sophisticated intertwining of the two sociolinguistic concepts of *variability* and *indexicality*, including endogenous and exogenous factors pertaining to the process of linguistic mediation, that renders the translation of this *genderlect* extremely complex.

# 3 Japanese-Italian Subtitles and the Survey Dataset

Before introducing the dataset used in this research, it is important to mention a few brief considerations regarding Japanese-Italian subtitling, as well as gender themed film distribution in Italy. Unfortunately, apart from a few presentations at international festivals, the author would like to note that the majority of these films (which, truth be told, are not very numerous even in Japan) have not made it into Italian cinemas, leading to a complete lack of official translations (both dubbing and subtitling) for the translation pair under investigation. This scarcity of films results in a substantial lack of datasets available for an in-depth analysis on AVT.<sup>5</sup> In most cases, the translations from Japanese to Italian found online are created by amateurs (*fansubbing*), often mediated through English and they reveal – as indicated in recent studies (by Bruti, Zanotti 2012; Bruti, Buffagni, Garzelli 2017; Díaz-Cintas 2014) – not only an incomplete knowledge of the source language – but also a true absence of theoretical and technical knowledge about translation (Ōta 2007; Vitucci 2013, 2016a, 2018, 2019).

<sup>5</sup> Compared to the situation for most modern European languages.

To remedy this situation, for the Japanese-Italian subtitling of the film *Close-Knit* (2017, Ogigami Naoko) investigated in this study, a mini-corpus of twenty-four interlingual subtitles was used, with corresponding back-translations in English that were extrapolated from four scenes in the film (a total of eight minutes). This corpus was created by six groups of students, enrolled in an audiovisual translation course sponsored by the Emilia-Romagna region, between March and July of 2018 (500 hours of lessons on theory and workshops). In each group there were five students divided equally by sex who – before subtitling – have deepened sociolinguistic gender issues within the realm of audiovisual translation studies for the Japanese-Italian pair. No restrictions were imposed and the translation was the result of an autonomous coordination that took place in each group. For the aims of this study, two of the four scenes were chosen for the following intralinguistic characteristics: 1. Rinko is the main speaker; 2. Tomo (the niece) is the main person being spoken to; 3. Rinko synchronically uses mixed elements of *motherese*, *joseigo*, and neutral speech (*futsūgo*) in *their* utterances and in every scene. The distinctive markers of *motherese* and *joseigo* will be analysed through the morphosyntactic and lexical levels of dialogue, following the indications of Ishiguro (2013) and Nakamura (2013). The final aim of this study is to: 1. Accurately describe the *genderlect* of the transgender protagonist in the film (Rinko); 2. Analyse the interlinguistic subtitling produced by the six groups involved in the creation of the subtitles; 3. Understand the degree of reliability of the translation from an identity perspective and track any ideological manipulation of gender, if it emerges.

# 4 Scene analysis: Rinko's Genderlect (Intralingual Level)

Rinko, the protagonist of *Close-Knit*, is a young transgender person (male-to-female transsexual, *nyūhāfu* Japanese) who lives with Makio, *their* partner, in the Tokyo suburbs. One day, Makio comes home with his niece (Tomo) who was abandoned by her mother. Rinko and Makio decide to take care of her and, despite Tomo's initial reticence, the bond that blossoms between Rinko and Tomo soon becomes an intense, authentic mother-daughter relationship.

# **4.1 Scene 1: Rinko and Tomo in the Bedroom**

Setting In this first scene, Rinko discovers that Tomo was having nightmares. Tomo woke up after having dreamt she had heard her missing mother's voice. Rinko kneels down on the futon and tries to comfort her. Reassured by Rinko's presence, Tomo makes an odd request, asking to touch Rinko's breasts. Rinko accepts, in good spirits, and Tomo thus establishes her first physical contact with her new *transgender* mother.

**Figure 1** Rinko and Tomo in the bedroom

#### **Scene 1**


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**Francesco Vitucci Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling**


Analysis Rinko's quasi-monologue immediately unfolds in a maternal manner that is first visible on an extra and paraverbal level, then gradually becomes clear on a verbal level. Rinko's affectionate attitude is immediately apparent on an intralinguistic level in the first few lines, 2 (*Daijōbu, daijōbu* → *Nothing happened*) and 3 (*Daijōbu dayō…* → *Don't worry*) characterized above all by elements of prosody (softly spoken in a soothing rhythm) and extraverbal elements (sitting behind Tomo while caressing her back and gently patting her back rhythmically). On a verbal level, however, Rinko's role as a mother becomes more apparent starting from line 4 (*Taoru boro boro dane* → *That handkerchief is a disaster*), where Rinko uses the agglutinative suffix *dane* (→ *Isn't it?*), intentionally using modes of expression aimed at establishing the initial affectionate contact with Tomo. This behaviour becomes more marked in line 6 (*Mada mada akachan ndanā!* → *You're still small*) where certain morphosyntactic strategies are purposely employed, such as using the noun *akachan*  (→ *Baby*), followed by the informal suffix -*ndanā* with a long *a* vowel (→ *Aren't you?*), used to establish empathy with the speaker. In line 7 (*Akachān! Ii ko dechunē! Hai! Dakko shimashō. Mada akachan ndanā!*  → *Come here love. You're my little one*) Rinko uses the syllabic modulation of the courtesy suffix -*desu* (*dechu*) which is typical of *motherese*, then enters into declarative syntax (*Dakko shimashō!,* → *Let me hug you*) which is used to reassure Tomo, and is said with an ascending tone in the guise of a musical ditty. This declarative speech pattern occurs again in line 8, with the same prosody (*Oppai, oppaī!* → *Let me cuddle you*), but this time with a clear reference to nursing a baby (*Oppai* literally means *Breast, bosom*) which seems to complete Rinko's immersion into the role of Tomo's new mother. The tone of the dialogue suddenly changes only when the child asks if she can touch Rinko's breasts. Here, Rinko appears to present *themself* as more of an equal with the interlocutor when the typical markers of *motherese* disappear from *their* speech patterns and move to a neutral and more friendly tone where the sole aims seems to be establishing a bond of mutual trust and eliminating hierarchy. This is particularly noticeable in line 10 (*Ii yo!* → *Go ahead!*), 11 (*Hommono yori katame rashii yo* → *Compared to real ones, mines are much harder*) and 12 (*Dō?* → *Don't you think so?*) where there is an evident phenomenon of *language shift* with identity; the *motherese* gives way to a plain register of Japanese (*futsūgo*) that only presents connotations of informality, without any further connotation of gender.

# **4.2 Scene 2: Rinko and Tomo in the Living Room**

Setting In the second scene selected, Rinko is at home sitting in the living room alongside Tomo. Tomo has just been involved in an unpleasant interaction at the supermarket where the mother of one of her friends, surprised to see her with Rinko, told Tomo not to hang around with "strange" people. Bothered by this woman's intrusion, Tomo sprayed her with dish washing soap, forcing supermarket security to intervene. Although Tomo's reaction was justifiable, since she refused to apologize to her friend's mother, Rinko decided to talk to her about it, once they got back home.

**Figure 2** Rinko and Tomo in the living room

#### **Scene 2**


**Francesco Vitucci Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling**


Analysis After the unpleasant incident at the supermarket, Rinko understands that she should comfort Tomo, and make her feel that she's on her side. Even though Rinko doesn't want to admit it, they know that the reason behind the confrontation was the other mother's discriminatory attitude against them. Rinko takes advantage of this to break the ice, and asks Tomo some questions in line 1 (*Atashi ni ay-* *amarete nande ano obasan ni ayamarenakattano?* → *Tell me why you apologized to me and not to that lady?*) and 3 (*Moshikashite atashi no koto?* → *Did she say something about me?*). These are marked on a paraverbal level by a soft tone of voice, and on a verbal level by the Japanese suffix -*no*, used in its interrogative form, as well as the personal pronoun *atashi*, both typical of the feminine gender. In this context, Rinko appears to present *themself* in the role of a mother and/or friend, showing openness and willingness to listen to Tomo, who is quite embarrassed. This behaviour is emphasized on an extraverbal level analysing the posture (Rinko is sitting on the couch, with legs crossed and hands together in *their* lap) and eye contact (Rinko is looking towards Tomo, while Tomo is rigidly staring at the table in front of the couch) (Figure 2). Rinko continues in the role of friend/ confidant during the next few lines, which are also marked by typical *joseigo* elements: it is noticeable at the beginning of line 4 with the use of the discourse marker *ne* (→ *Ehi*), in line 6 with the agglutinative verb *shicha* (instead of *shitewa*), as well as the reiteration of previous linguistic strategies seen in lines 8 and 13 (suffix -*no* used as an interrogative) as well as lines 10, 14, and 18 (female pronoun *atashi* and discourse marker *ne* at the end of the sentence). On an extraverbal level, postural analysis reveals Rinko is even more deeply involved emotionally: though *they* are sitting next to Tomo on the couch, *their* body is turned to face Tomo, trying to maintain direct eye contact. From a literary-theatrical point of view (Vitucci 2019), Rinko is in the act of admonishing Tomo and advises her to keep calm and never act out against people without good reason. From a visual standpoint, however, it is interesting to note how the director frames this dialogue in a shot that gradually focuses onto the two speakers, as if the scene were underlining the importance of this verbal exchange.

On a sociolinguistic level, the conversation's tone suddenly changes in line 15, while Rinko is explaining to Tomo how to calm down. The dialogue unexpectedly changes to an interior monologue, where the prevalent linguistic markers are a diageneric neutral register that's occasionally vulgar. This is particularly noticeable in lines 15 (*Zakkenjanēyo!* → *Ugly idiots!*), 16 (*Chikushō! Chikushōtte!* → *Fuck! Fuck!*), 17, 18 and 19 (*Hitome hitome aminagara, sō suru to ne, itsunomanika kokoro ga sutto taira ni naru* → *Knit after knit, I do like this. And after a while I cool down*) where Rinko's *code-shifting* as signalled by the plain register (*futsūgo*) seems to intentionally draw the viewer's attention to *their* personal experience, juxtaposing it with the more feminine and maternal register that Rinko uses when speaking to Tomo. The translation of this passage shows how extremely complex it was for the Italian subtitlers in terms of identity, as it requires recreating an emotional and psychological state in the target language (Vitucci 2016b), which in Japanese is rendered extremely clear on a lexical and morphosyntactic level. This attitude can also be found in the following lines, when Rinko, having vented *their* frustrations, asks if she can knit Tomo something to wear, while maintaining an extremely "fluid" *genderlect* on a sociolinguistic level which resorts to the same linguistic register as before, simply without the markers of either *hahaoyago* or *joseigo*. This is apparent in lines 21 (*Sō yo!* → *Of course!*), 22 (*Tomo ni mo nanka tsukutte ageru* → *I can knit something for you too*), 23 (*Mafurā demo. Sētā demo. Tebukuro demo* → *A scarf, a sweater, maybe some gloves*) and 24 (*Nani ga ii?* → *What would you prefer?*) in the same scene. Most likely, the only elements that remind the viewer of Rinko's transgender identity can be found on a paraverbal level in *their* tone of voice (which is low and peaceful), on an extraverbal level in clothing choices (Rinko is wearing female clothing with a feminine haircut), and in Rinko's body language (keeps knitting while looking down at the knitting needles).

# 5 Scene Analysis: Rinko's Genderlect (Interlingual Level)

A quick analysis of the mini-corpus, composed of twenty-four interlinguistic subtitlings, created for the film *Close-Knit*, by a group of six students enrolled in the audiovisual translation course, demonstrates a rather low level of reliability in the translation of gender. Of the fifty-seven lines translated into Italian which are present in the four scenes (eight minutes of screen time) being investigated in this study, only 15% attempted to maintain the diageneric markings of Rinko's *genderlect* in Italian and in 49% of the sample, the markings were completely erased. On the other hand, the remaining 36% (concerning the lines in the "neutral" Japanese register), while more easily translated into Italian, did not contribute to the description of Rinko's personality, but simplified and flattened *their* identity through translation solutions that did not fit well with the rest of the original lines. As Zabalbeascoa (2012) suggests, these inconsistencies could be driven by causes endemic to the translation process, such as: spatio-temporal limitations of the subtitles, typological differences in the languages given in the translation pair, and intersemiotic difficulties of translation due to both icon and subtitles sharing the space on the screen (Chaume Varela 2004; Taylor 2016; Vitucci 2018, 2019). In other recent studies (Von Flotow, Josephy-Hernández 2018), these inconsistencies emerge from factors external to the translation process, such as potential self-censoring on the translator's part (known as the moral gate keeper's effect), their personal experience in the field of translation regarding gender themed films, as well as possible censoring by intermediaries or those paying for the translation.<sup>6</sup> The following will analyse the interlingual results obtained from one of the six translations of the film, specifically referencing the two scenes introduced in the previous paragraph.

#### **5.1 Scene 1: Rinko and Tomo in the Bedroom**

#### **Scene 1**


6 With the specific translation used for this study, however, the subtitles were not commissioned for commercial distribution.

Analysis In Scene 1 there are six lines where Rinko defines *their* identity verbally (lexis and morphosyntax) and paraverbally (through tone of voice), intentionally moving into the feminine sphere. According to Japanese scholars Nakamura (2010; 2013) and Hasegawa (2012), Rinko manifests *their* gender identity by adapting the available linguistic and paralinguistic resources based on Tomo's presence, being in the bedroom with her late at night, and immersing *themself* in *their* new role of being a mother. In this situation, it's easy to note how Rinko's use of language includes more *variability* than would be expected from either *their* original biological sex or *their* gender identity. The relationship between one's own idiolect and the speech context leads to a reinterpretation of the meaning of various words in this new context of translation. From an interlinguistic point of view, it's important to note how the elements of prosody in lines 2 (*Daijōbu, daijōbu*) and 3 (*Daijōbu dayō*) that are present in the source language (softly spoken in a soothing rhythm) and are easy to attribute to intimate and maternal speech, become diluted in the diamesic passage into Italian, turning into a completely neutral subtitle on a diageneric level (2 → *Non è successo niente*; 3 → *Tranquilla!*). Something appears to change, though, in line 4 (*Taoru boro boro dane* → *Quel fazzolettino è un disastro!*), where the agglutinative suffix -*dane*, typically used in the feminine sphere,<sup>7</sup> transfers into Italian by modulating the lexis with a diminutive (*fazzolettino* → *little hankerchief*) and inserting the noun *disastro* (→ *mess*, *disaster*) both acts signify Rinko's feelings of maternal attention towards a frightened Tomo. This translation approach is also found in line 6 (*Mada mada akachan ndanā!* → *Sei ancora piccolina, d'altronde*) where the intralinguistic use of the noun *akachan*, followed by the informal suffix -*ndanā* with an elongated *A* vowel, is rendered with the diminutive *piccolina* (→ *small*, *little one*). In line 7 (*Akachān! Ii ko dechunē! Hai! Dakko shimashō. Mada akachan ndanā!* → *Vieni qui amore. Sei la mia piccolina*!), we can see the insertion of the noun *amore* (→ *my dear*, *my love*) and, yet again, the diminutive *piccolina* in place of the syllabic modulation of the courtesy suffix -*desu* (*dechu*), which is typical in *motherese* and in declarative statements made in an ascendant, prosodic tone, in the guise of a musical ditty (*Dakko shimashō!*). The Italian subtitle, though, returns yet again to a rather sterile mood in line 8 (*Oppai, oppaī!*) when Rinko, with the same tone and a clear allusion to the act of nursing a baby, is translated as saying → *fatti coccolare!*, which cushions the emotional impact of the original term, as well as Rinko's intent to communicate and demonstrate that *they* are a real mother. The tone of this conversation suddenly changes when, in line 9 (*Ne, oppai sawatte mitai*), Tomo asks Rinko if she can touch Rinko's breasts. From this moment onward, Rinko assumes a more egalita-

<sup>7</sup> At least, regarding normative ideology.

rian mood, taking on the role of a close friend for Tomo. This line does not pose any particular difficulties on an interlinguistic level. The language shift phenomenon marked by the switch from *motherese* to a neutral tone in line 10 (*Ii yo*), 11 (*Hommono yori katame rashii yo*), and 12 (*Dō?*), facilitates the process of adapting precisely because it does not require a shift in the character's identity, nor does it impose added semantic value that could in some way integrate other meaning into the specific indexical fields.

# **5.2 Scene 2: Rinko and Tomo in the Living Room**


#### **Scene 2**

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#### **Francesco Vitucci Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling**


Analysis The second scene proves to be extremely complex when translating into Italian, due to the protagonist's code shifting, which amplifies interlinguistic difficulties quite a bit. Rinko, who is worried about Tomo's rash behaviour, asks her some questions in line 1 (*Atashi ni ayamarete nande ano obasan ni ayamarenakattano?*) and 3 (*Moshikashite atashi no koto?*), paraverbally marked by a soft tone of voice, and verbally marked by the Japanese suffix -*no* used in its interrogative form, as well as the personal pronoun *atashi*, both typically used by females. With these lines, the Italian subtitles give use a translation that's substantially sterile and that does not offer the target audience the shades of meaning contained in the original prototext. Not surprisingly, this means the translations (1 → *Spiegami perché non ti sei scusata con quella signora?* and 3 → *Ti ha detto qualcosa su di me?*) end up influencing the intersemiotic cohesion of the text, creating a gap in the translation between the onscreen image and the protagonist's *genderlect*. Again in the following, when Rinko falls perfectly into a motherly role of teaching Tomo how to behave with adults (in lines 3 to 14), it becomes noticeable how the Italian translation is no longer able to integrate the constant incursion of typical *joseigo* elements. For example, the discourse marker at the beginning of the sentence *ne* (→ *Ehi*) in line 4, the agglutinative verb *shicha* (instead of *shitewa*) in line 6, the reiteration of the -*no* suffix used in its interrogative form in lines 8, 13, and 10, as well as the choice of the feminine personal pronoun *atashi* and the discourse marker -*ne* at the end of the sentence in lines 14 and 18. In these lines, the Italian translation produces an "asexual" genderless tone that does not contrast with the scene where Rinko intentionally adopts a more neutral language stance. The result is that Rinko's creative use of language, which allows *them* to carefully nuance *their* identity while speaking to Tomo, all but vanishes. The reasoning for this translation approach can be partially found in the typological differences between the two languages: Italian does not offer the same richness of pronouns as Japanese (*io* does not carry the same indexical characteristics as *atashi*); and a few of the pragmatic elements in Japanese (such as the *-no* suffix) are inevitably lost in the different sentence constructions available in the target language. However, the impression is that the Italian subtitles would have improved if specific translation strategies had been used to harmonize with the multimedia context, for example, lexical modulation.<sup>8</sup>

Rinko's "fluid" speech loses more of its efficacy in the following lines when the plain Japanese *futsūgo* register gradually loses the markers of *joseigo* to mark an internal quasi-monologue where Rinko bares all, revealing *their* weaknesses. The expletives in lines 15 (*Zakkenjanēyo!*) and 16 (*Chikushō! Chikushōtte!*), as well as the brief description of *their* state of mind and the therapeutic effects of knitting, between lines 10 and 19, clearly demonstrate how Rinko goes

<sup>8</sup> The use of nicknames and terms of endearment, or the repetition of adjectives (Vitucci 2016).

beyond diagenesis and beyond the limits of the male/female duality. This appears when, after Rinko abandons the markers of feminine speech and begins swearing (which is primarily part of masculine sphere in Japan), *they* immediately find refuge in a narrative style that favours factual storytelling without any gender markers. In Italian, these lines lose the original intralinguistic emphasis signalled by the adverbs (*suggē*), ideophones (*sutto*), lexical repetition (*hitome hitome*), and postpositions (-*toka*), turning into a flat chronicle of events that describes, perhaps due to the limited space available to subtitles, a person who is less engaged and with less conviction than in the original version (→ *Io faccio così, quando sono arrabbiata oppure triste da morire. Lavoro a maglia. Invece di spruzzare la gente con il detersivo. Brutti idioti! Merda, merda! Punto dopo punto. Faccio così e dopo un po' mi calmo*). In this case, we could even sustain that not adequately rendering this diageneric shift ended up directly influencing this character's identity construction in the target language. Therefore, it is also not surprising that in lines 21 to 24 (*Sō yo! Tomo ni mo nanka tsukutte ageru! Mafurā demo. Sētā demo. Tebukuro demo. Nani ga ii?*), Rinko's excitement when offering to knit Tomo some new things to wear seems to be diluted in the translation, which does not convey the attention a mother would show her own child. The effect is that of a different Rinko, who's described as stranger who's struggling in a cold and detached way with a child *they* barely know. (→ *Posso fare qualcosa anche per te. Una sciarpa, un maglione, dei guanti. Cosa vorresti?*). Unfortunately, there is no trace of Rinko's complex inner feelings, personal experience, *their* special relationship with Tomo, or any characteristics of *their* identity.

# 6 Final Remarks and Future Perspectives

Díaz-Cintas (2014) reminds us that the concern for sociolinguistic variations and the scarce intercultural capacity of subtitles has become nowadays a theme of great relevance in our society where exchanges acquire an increasingly audiovisualized and multilingual nature. In particular, as Santipolo (2006) suggests in this regard, since the analysis of diageneric variation reveals the anthropological and sociocultural schemes of the societies under investigation together with the roles gender plays within them, translators should be particularly attentive not to convey and reinforce stereotypes in their target cultures when transcoding them (De Marco 2006; 2016; Okamoto, Shibamoto Smith 2004). As also illustrated in the above scenes, Rinko's *genderlect* challenges the belief that Japanese society can be naturally divided into two sexes/genders and that there are two separate linguistic codes for female and male speakers: on the contrary, *their* talk mirrors how "liquid" identities can be molded by carefully modulating lexicon, morphosyntax and prosody according to the roles speakers intend to assume (Fay 2011; Lunsing, Maree 2004; Maree 2010; 2018; Okamoto 2016; Zottola 2018).

From a translatological perspective, this study shows the complexity of rendering Japanese gender into Italian, both for typological reasons (therefore intrinsic to the translation pair), and for reasons external to the realm of translation. In our opinion, a significant role was played by the gender assumptions the subtitlers involuntarily reflected into the Italian translation. The objective difficulties in the verbal rendering of these diageneric shifts that are present in Rinko's speech patterns, stem from a different conception of identity in Japanese and how it is rendered verbally. Thus, we find ourselves in a somewhat "diageneric void" when subtitling from a different cultural latitude. From an intralingual perspective that is naturally generative (*engendering*, in fact), we can reflect on the possible strategies to adopt when fluid and non-conforming identities must be spoken from outside the geo-cultural borders of the source society that produced the work. As already shown in the studies by Nakamura (2010; 2013) and Okamoto (2016), when *linguistic variability* (i.e. the relationship between biological sex and language) facilitates manifestations of identity that exist partially between one language and another, or sociolinguistic behaviours that tend to be predetermined at the normative level, then the phenomenon of *indexicality* (the relationship between linguistic expressions and context) becomes quite complex to manage in the case of *queer* identities. This is due to the interweaving of the speaker's multiple identities with the contextual / situational pressures of speech that often leads to creative uses of language, thus providing added semantic value that integrates with the consolidated meanings, in the specific indexical fields of reference.

Undoubtedly, respecting these identities is not an easy task for the translator. Nevertheless, in order to find new ways of conveying "liquid" identities in translation, subtitlers must overcome interlinguistic and intercultural distances and losses by conferring to their translation a more dynamic aspect (Osimo 2014) which – especially in the case of diageneric adaptation from Japanese into Italian – can include hypocorism, diminutives and profanities. In addition – in order to reach this goal – it could be also necessary a creative manipulation of the linguistic and extralinguistic resources at hand with the purpose of avoiding stereotyped registers in the target language (*yakuwarigo* in Japanese) and creating a so-called *catabolic effect* (Nakamura 2013) thanks to the semiotic cohesion produced by the complex relation between text and images (Chaume Varela 2004; Perego 2005; 2009; Vitucci 2013, 2018, 2019). This delicate operation will compel the translator to not only connect the verbal pattern of characters with their sociocultural context, but also to transmit their ethnic, social, sexual and geographic identification (Katan 1999; Massidda, Casarini 2017; Osimo 2014; Sato-Rossberg, Wakabayashi 2012). According to Abe (2010), Japanese *transgenders* and *crossdressers* continually break down the barriers in their speech imposed by cissexism. Therefore, translation becomes a fundamental tool in challenging dominant heterosexist ideologies, especially in patriarchal societies such as Italy. Particularly in the field of audiovisual translation, subtitling can take on this challenge and provide an opportunity to give voice to minorities and differing gender perspectives, in the overarching goal of greater social inclusion. In order to overcome the obstacles that exist today leading to poor renditions of sociolinguistic variation in certain audiovisual materials (Díaz-Cintas 2014; Katan 2014; Ranzato 2012), especially for the translation pair of Japanese-Italian under investigation, it is necessary to: 1. Extend the number of datasets available to researchers by adding official (not amateur) translations of new films on this topic; 2. Concentrate research efforts on intra and interlinguistic analysis, avoiding translations from English to extend the literary corpus of reference for audiovisual materials; and 3. Through this, capture any trends or practices established in the subtitlings that have been analyzed.

# **Bibliography**


Ishiguro Kei 石黒圭 (2013). *Nihongo wa kūki ga kimeru – shakaigengogaku nyūmon* 日本語は空気が決める・社会言語学入門 (Japanese Determines the Context – Introduction to Sociolinguistics). Tōkyō: Kōbunsha shinsho.

Itakura, Hiroko (2015). "Constructing Japanese Men's Multidimensional Identities: A Case Study of Mixed-gender Talk". *Pragmatics*, 25(2), 179-203.

Katan, David (1999). *Translating Cultures*. New York: Routledge.


in Japanese". Martin, Fran et al. (eds), *AsiapacifiQueer – Rethinking Genders and Sexualities*. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 76-93.


Okamoto, Shigeko (2016). "Variability and Multiplicity in the Meanings of Stereotypical Gendered Speech in Japanese". *East Asian Pragmatics*, 5(39), 6-39.

Osimo, Bruno (2014). *Manuale del traduttore*. Milano: Hoepli.


Saint-Georges, Catherine et al. (2013). "Motherese in Interaction: At the Cross-Road of Emotion and Cognition?". *PLoS ONE*, 8(10), 1-17. DOI https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078103.


Annals of Bucharest University. Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures), 1, 37-53.


# Corpus Linguistics as a Tool for Metapragmatics in Japan

Berhard Seidl

Universität Wien, Österreich

**Abstract** Language change has always reflected transformations of socio-cultural realities. However, in modern Japan, change in 'the Japanese language' in its conception as a monolithic vehicle of Japaneseness has been frequently perceived as a deterioration of linguistic substance, and by extension, as an erosion of order and culture. In this paper, software-based corpus linguistics methodology is applied to a corpus of newspaper articles within the framework of discourse analysis, with the aim of describing discourse actors and extracting pragmatic idiosyncrasies of the newspaper-mediated public metalinguistic discourse centred on language decline. My findings suggest that several pragmemes can be correlated with one or more of the main groups of discourse actors. These include the use of symbolic language, implications, objectifying language, and the construction of change as something happening (only) in the present.

**Keywords** Language criticism. Pragmatics. Metalanguage. Discourse analysis. Corpus linguistics.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 Discourse (Analysis) and Metapragmatics. – 3 The Japanese Discourse on Language Decline. – 4 Building the Corpus. – 5 Workflow Wrap-up. – 6 Pinpointing Pragmemes. – 6.1 Living Language. – 6.2 Foreign Floods. – 6.3 Objectivity of Statements. – 6.4 Temporal Proximity. – 6.5 Unity of Language, Culture (and Nation?). – 6.6 Demand for Action. – 6.7 Ideal Language. – 7 Concluding Remarks

# 1 Introduction

When Japanese sociolinguist Yonekawa Akihiko wryly pointed out that "for a person of culture, it is practically common courtesy to complain about the decline of language, to bemoan its sorry state and to declare one's worries about it (or at least to pretend being worried)" (Yonekawa 2002, 70), he skil-

fully encapsulated the essence of a broad discourse spanning more than one hundred years, most outlets of mass media and many areas of society in modern Japan.

The decline of language is one of the central topoi of post-war Japanese language criticism. *Kotoba no midare*, the focal term in this discourse, has been in use for many decades. Being a catch-all term for whatever rubs someone's linguistic sensibilities the wrong way, its essence has remained unchanged: language that is considered good, aesthetically pleasing and correct is threatened by elements which are seen as being at odds with this "good language".

While some discourses of aesthetics and questions of good or bad remain the domain of intellectuals and have little bearing on day-today life, language criticism is different. Philologist Gerd Antos argues that people are mainly interested in areas of language and communication that they feel are either fun or problematic (1996, 3). Since every native speaker, having been born and raised in an environment saturated in their mother tongue(s) can be considered to be an expert in their native language(s), it seems natural to assume that, notwithstanding their level of education, they can and indeed often will have an opinion on what makes good or bad language. Considering that the permanent use of a common language can be seen as a condition for the permanent constitution of a shared social reality (Keller 2013, 26), it is not difficult to see why anything that seems to threaten this permanence will quite inevitably be met with criticism.

This paper will focus on the "problematic" part of Antos' assertion, which can often be found to be related to manifestations of language change. Using corpus linguistics on a purpose-built corpus of newspaper articles, I will try to shed light on the question of what is seen as problematic about language (change), and how metalinguistic commentary is constructed.

# 2 Discourse (Analysis) and Metapragmatics

Discourse in the context of this paper is used in the post-structuralist sense of critical discourse analysis, which itself has been subject to a lot of debate. Based on thorough examination of meta-discourse, Andreas Gardt pointed out several key features of post-structuralist discourse (cf. Gardt 2012). These can be summarized by describing discourse as a form of text- or speech-based public debate on a given topic which is not only shaped by pre-existing attitudes of the involved social groups and institutions, but which in turn also shapes social reality regarding the topic in question, or, as Rainer Keller puts it, discourses are "[a]nalytically circumscribable ensembles of practices and processes of attribution of meaning, based on common structuring principles, i.e. spatiotemporal principles, as well as processes of social construction, circulation and mediation of interpretative schemes, patterns of legitimisation and modes of action" (2013, 46). I will follow Gardt's and Keller's understanding of discourse in this paper.

True to the etymology of (meta)*pragmatics*, language criticism is concerned with actual language practice in a sociocultural context (cf. Silverstein 1993, 34). Analyzing social discourse can be seen as having an inherently metapragmatic side; discourse is shaped by language acts with specific goals, which themselves may and indeed often do become the subject of contemplation. In a similar way as "discourse", the term "metapragmatics" invites a number of more or less divergent readings (cf. Silverstein 1993; Mey 2001; Bublitz, Hübler 2007, 1). In this paper, I will use the term in the sense of pragmatics of metalanguage, along the lines of John A. Lucy's reflexive language. Lucy maintains that "metalinguistic activity is [...] fundamentally metapragmatic" (1993, 17), as reflective activity will typically deal with the appropriate use of language in specific contexts of communication.

Haugh (2018) demonstrates the usefulness of corpus-based metapragmatics within the wider scope of conversation analysis, but I would like to go a step further and connect corpus linguistics with metapragmatics and (non-linguistic) discourse analysis. This is broadly similar to Wright and Brookes' (2019) corpus-assisted study of right-wing British media and Saft and Ohara's (2006) study of Japanese newspaper editorials, but differs in terms of methodology and aim. Saft and Ohara use CDA as their practical framework, although the actual makeup of the corpus and the methodology used to analyze the corpus remain largely nebulous. Wright and Brookes explain their approach in detail, but use only basic corpus linguistics methodology since they are more interested in topoi than pragmemes, which I will focus on in this paper.

Pragmemes, to extrapolate from Capone (2005, 1357), are speech acts with the goal to shape social reality within the restraints of sociocultural context, essentially signifying a structure that is "intrinsically made up of language, culture, and society" (Capone 2016, xviii; see Mey 2016a for an in-depth discussion of the term). Pragmatics approaches language use from a holistic viewpoint, encompassing language embedded in its social and cultural surroundings in a way that a purely linguistic approach cannot cover (Senft 2014, 3-4). I believe this is essentially where discourse analysis, with its focus on untangling the knot of involved sociocultural norms and ideas, motivations and actions, intersects with (meta)pragmatics.

I have found the structured and accessible approach of Siegfried Jäger's critical discourse analysis (Jäger 2015) to lend itself very well to a basic structure for a corpus-assisted discourse study, and the outcome may go some way towards what Jacob L. Mey calls the "responsibility of pragmatics seen through a societal prism", consisting in "'unveiling' cases of linguistic manipulation." (Mey 2016b, 128).

# 3 The Japanese Discourse on Language Decline

*Kotoba no midare* can be loosely translated as "language [falling into] disarray", but for all intents and purposes, it denotes a decline of language.<sup>1</sup> While there is a case to be made for a pre-discourse within the broader debate on what the new, standardized language should be like, and therefore also what constitutes linguistic behaviour that goes against the grain of these newly-found ideals (i.e. debate about dialects as an impediment to national unity [*hōgen ronsō*; see i.a. Heinrich 2012, Seidl 2010], or the moral panic surrounding young women's deviant speech in the 1930s [cf. Inoue 2006, 37-41]), it was not before the 1950s that a public, broad metalinguistic discourse facilitated by newspapers and magazines emerged. While during the first two decades this discourse was to a large extent concerned with orthography reforms and other regulations, the 1950s also saw the spread of (*kotoba*/*nihongo no*) *midare* as a central term of language criticism in professional journals, and with the protocol of the 37th session of the Kokugo shingikai<sup>2</sup> (KSK) 1958, also a first mention in a document related to language policy. The term and its variations are increasingly visible in the KSK protocols from the 1970s onwards, and in the protocols of the 13th KSK (108th session, 1978) it is debated whether the current *midare* is to be understood as a call for action. This means that by the end of the 1970s, language decline had apparently become an issue of political consideration.

# 4 Building the Corpus

The discourse on the decline of languages can be observed to have become steadily more distinct during the 1970s. A thorough scouring of the *Asahi* and *Yomiuri shinbun* (the two largest Japanese newspapers) data archives returned 230 articles that refer to *midare*, its synonyms, or phenomena discussed as manifestations of *midare* in either headlines or the database-intern tags between 1945 and 1983.

The corpus used for research was built iteratively by adding keywords gathered from the results of queries for headlines containing *kokugo* and *nihongo* in the *Asahi Shinbun*, which also served as a

<sup>1</sup> Incidentally, *midare* has a history of being used to denote various sorts of "decline", i.e. of ethics or morals.

<sup>2</sup> Language advisory board to the Secretary of Culture, Science and Education.

base to assess the proportion of articles dealing with language criticism within the larger frame of metalinguistic discourse. Additionally, specific terms that came up while analyzing the corpus later were also used for database searches. Two corpora were built; one consisting of pre-digital age articles (1945 to ca. 1983) in the form of scanned pages, the other consisting of digital text (1983-2019).<sup>3</sup> In this paper, I will focus on the part of data that was available as digital text. Since full text searches could be executed for these articles, additional query strings with Boolean operators were used.

The final corpus consists of 1,121 articles (623,320 tokens; *Asahi* and *Yomiuri* combined). The full text of these articles was copied and pasted in chronological order into a plain-text UTF-8 encoded file. Unnecessary metadata (header items: category, issue type etc.) was removed using regular expressions in a text editor. Other irrelevant text data was also deleted to forestall statistical distortion, i.e. irrelevant parts of multi-feature articles whose other parts were not connected to the research subject. The combined corpus 1945-2019 can be seen in graph 1, with both newspapers contributing roughly the same amount of articles:

**Graph 1** Number of articles per decade in the corpus, *Asahi* and *Yomiuri Shinbun*)

The steep increase from 1985 to around 2005 was found to mirror a general increase of *nihongo* or *kokugo* (the Japanese language) in the headlines, with *nihongo* taking the far larger share. Several factors come to mind: Apart from the introduction of CTS in the mid-

3 The exact date varies between data bases.

1980s potentially leading to more articles in newspapers (Shiratori 2005, 510), a large part of *nihongo*-related articles cover Japanese as a foreign language (funding, promotion abroad, speech contests etc.), and the popularity of the Japanese language abroad. Additionally, an increasing number of articles deal with topics related to the spoken language (*nihongo*) from the 1990s onwards. This includes a large number of articles dealing with *kotoba no midare*. The decline of articles in the last decade can be regarded as a cooling of the inflated discourse of the 1990s, which was arguably fuelled by several factors, including language policy, business interests, and a phase of return to traditional values in the face of economic decline and the looming turn of the millennium.

#### 5 Workflow Wrap-up

Corpus linguistics, i.e. analyzing large amounts of data with a focus on language patterns, can be a valuable tool for sociolinguistics and (meta-)pragmatics. Starting from the observation that "social acts lead to statistically salient language patterns" (Bubendorfer 2009, 2), I tried to identify such patterns through statistical analysis in order to uncover assumptions regarding language practice, languagemediated symbols and pragmemes used in conjunction with topics, timeframes and discourse voices.

For analysis in this research, the program *KhCoder* was used, which was developed and is actively maintained by sociologist Higuchi Kōichi at Ritsumeikan University.<sup>4</sup> *KhCoder* was developed to analyze large corpora of Japanese or English<sup>5</sup> text, using morphological sequencer engines *Chasen* and *Mecab*, and the free *R* library of statistical computing as a base for many of its tools. The workflow described here is essentially inductive; using various tools, conspicuous word clusters and correlations are inspected, and working assumptions are built. These are then formalized as codes and tested on the corpus.

Before proceeding with the actual analysis, statistically salient ngrams were identified via the *Word Clusters* module and added as user-defined lemmata. The corpus was then tagged, i.e. through the use of xml tags, units of text were circumscribed for ease of analysis, specifically as decades, years, and single articles. In this paper, articles as units of analysis will be marked by adding [a] to the description or result of the operation; [p] for paragraphs, [s] for sentences.

<sup>4</sup> *KhCoder* is available for free from https://khcoder.net/en/.

<sup>5</sup> Via Stanford POS tagger. Support for other languages is rudimentary as of v3.Alpha.17.

The first step of analysis was to generate a list containing all tokens arranged by POS-type in order of term frequency. Words with an unexpectedly high frequency and words that seemed out of place in the corpus were noted for subsequent analysis. For a first overview of conspicuous word clusters, a co-occurrence network (CON) was generated based on the Jaccard coefficient.<sup>6</sup> While Jaccard is commonly used in corpus linguistics, it has the inherent disadvantage of lacking a clear-cut way to determine significance thresholds (Biruhs 2010, 31), which have to be determined heuristically (Moore 2004, 333). Jaccard coefficients in this paper are therefore not illustrative as, for instance, percentages or chi-squared values, and are supported by explanation and interpretation of context.

*KhCoder* allows for the use of codes, i.e. containers for arbitrary collections and combinations of tokens that can be combined using a syntax of Boolean and other logical operators. Analysis via coding allows for rather abstract conditions to be formulated and was employed frequently, though some caution is required. For example, if a correlation between two codes is determined, this only signifies that two codes are present within the same corpus segment. They would not necessarily have to be connected. To alleviate this problem, care was taken to train all codes on a manually selected set, adjusting the codes as needed for better efficiency and eliminating false positives as far as possible. Furthermore, methodological triangulation in *Kh-Coder* (predominantly KWIC searches, hierarchical cluster analysis, word association analysis [WAA] and code correspondence analysis) was used to fine-tune codes and confirm findings.

#### 6 Pinpointing Pragmemes

Media texts are a treasure trove of pragmemes and indicators of metapragmatic awareness; a qualitative, critical approach will readily reveal devices like rhetorical questions, categorical assertions, hedging etc. along which implications, propositions or presuppositions (Hardman 2010, 263; Overstreet 2010, 267; cf. Wright and Brookes 2019). While I decided to focus on statistically salient pragmemes, this does not mean I completely dispensed with (con)textual qualitative examination of texts. Rather, focused cases served as illustrative examples, and, more importantly, helped formulate working assumptions.

There were found to be three distinct actor groups involved in shaping the discourse. These are editors, readers, and experts. While it

<sup>6</sup> Some statistical operations in *KhCoder* can be optionally carried out using other algorithms, i.e. log-likelihood.

is true that ultimately all text in the corpus is likely to have passed through the hands of newspaper editors, the code \*Editors (5.6% of all articles) encompasses only articles that are designated as editorials or opinion pieces, which appear as columns with distinct names and are typically situated in a prominent spot among the first pages of the paper. They are thought to represent the official stance of the newspaper and can be expected to be consciously penned with the goal of influencing public opinion (Saft, Ohara 2006, 85). \*Readers (30.7%) contains all articles that are either clearly designated as letters to the editor or that were determined to consist largely of reader/non-editorial input, e.g. small-scale, largely uncommented manon-the-street interviews conducted by the paper. The third category \*Experts (21.4%) describes articles containing references to "experts" on linguistic matters, i.e. linguists, playwrights, lyricists, stage actors etc. Articles in \*Experts were found to often take the form of an interview, a guest commentary, or to be part of a multi-feature piece written by one or several experts. Articles that could not be clearly connected to any of these three types were grouped as \*Misc.

# **6.1 Living Language**

Likening language to an organism is not new symbolism; it can, for example, be found in 19th century German critical literature (Heringer, Wimmer 2015, 63). This "organic view" of language can be easily expressed in a code, which was found in 5% of all articles and appears in all decades. While most instances use the direct metaphor of a living creature (*ikimono*), a smaller number encapsulated the same image in a clause (e.g. "since language is alive, …").

There is a strong correlation between \*Organism and words and phrases that are used to indicate change or transformation (*henka*, *kawaru*, *utsurikawaru* etc.). \*Change occurs in 33% of all sentences which contain \*Organism. This can be read as acknowledgement of the processual nature of language in a society: "Living things must always evolve. Therefore, language must change, too." (YS 2003-06-05).

However, this naturalistic view of language change is not necessarily always used in a straightforward, accepting way. About a third of all instances of the code are followed by a concessive clause used to put this view into perspective: even if change is not to be avoided, it may not be wished for, especially if personal linguistic sensibilities are offended:

• "Language is a living organism and it may well change over time, but simply exchanging *reru* for *rareru* would be very problematic" (AS 1992-11-02);


If language is a "living thing", it would seem natural to find instances of comparing *kotoba no midare* to death or dying, but this extension of the organic metaphor is almost non-existent in the corpus. Likewise, there are only a handful of instances that liken the state of language (use) to disease. These typically appear only once or twice and it remains contextually unclear whether this disease is of the language or of the speaker; e.g. *tachiageru-byō* (a "disease" characterized by the use of the verb *tachiageru* in various contexts thought to be inappropriate) or *riron fumei shōkōgun* ("illogicality syndrome", the use of syntactically incoherent sentences).

# **6.2 Foreign Floods**

The most conspicuous metaphor found in this corpus is the image of a torrent or flood (*hanran*; occasionally also *zōsui* or *kansui*) in the sense of an inundation of unwelcome linguistic elements. In a similar way as with the organic metaphor, this plays into Link's notion of a collective symbol; indeed, flood (*Flut*) is an example Link gives for a symbol with an inherently negative connotation (Jäger 2015, 62). The commonly understood implications of such symbols are what makes them useful; for example, a flood will damage carefully cultivated fields and human infrastructure and, being a natural disaster, there is precious little that people can do about it. To put it slightly more dramatically, it carries with it the image of being at the mercy of an existential threat: "Does this torrent of *katakana*-words not mean chaos and calamity for the Japanese people and their culture?" (AS 2000-03-07).

\*Flood is found in 9.5% of all articles and is almost exclusively associated with \*Foreign\_words (J[p]=0.14; cf. the next best match \*Officialese<sup>7</sup> J[p]=0.05). A WAA limited to nouns confirms this and shows that the most statistically salient collocators for \*Flood are *katakanago*, *gairaigo*, *gaikokugo* (predominantly used to denote foreign words not written in *katakana*), *rōmaji* and *yokomoji*, all of which were found to be used largely synonymously in the corpus and could therefore be collected in a code. The frequency of this code can be seen in graph 2.

<sup>7</sup> Language used in public administration; described as convoluted and inundated with loanwords.

**Bernhard Seidl Corpus Linguistics as a Tool for Metapragmatics in Japan**

**Graph 2** Frequency of \*Foreign\_words in the corpus 1985-2019; y-axis: percentage of articles in that year containing the code

Testing via code correlation confirms that approximately two thirds of all instances of \*Flood are concerned with these topics. The rest is rather mixed and includes a variety of topics (buzzwords, incorrect *keigo*, exclamation markers in Japanese text, or youth language in general).

*Hanran*, as an image for the threat of foreign words, seems to have emerged in the newspapers in the mid-1950s, and by the end of the 1980s *gairaigo no hanran* had been firmly entrenched as a stock phrase, to the point where it made its way into the 5th session of KSK 17 (1988), where we can find a section regarding the "problem of what is referred to as flood [*iwayuru hanran*] of foreign words<sup>8</sup> and loanwords".

A closer look reveals the "foreign influence" on the Japanese language to be anglicisms; a WAA [p] shows *eigo* (English) as one of the top three collocations for \*Foreign\_Words (J=0.09), the other two being *nihongo* (J=0.11) and *iikae* ("rephrasing"; J =0.1).

*Iikae* bears closer examination: it is a keyword in the sub-discourse on foreign language/words in Japanese in the 2000s, and may be seen as an effect of the flood pragmeme. It is hardly surprising that a loud enough warning call against a flood was answered with efforts

<sup>8</sup> *Gaikokugo*, which is semantically ambiguous, since the suffix -*go* can denote a language or a word.

to build dams, to stay in the realm of metaphors. Indeed, when Culture Secretary Tōyama Atsuko commissioned the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) in 2002 to form a committee on the question of foreign words/loanwords in Japanese, with an expressed goal of finding Japanese<sup>9</sup> alternatives for *katakana*-words that were deemed difficult to understand, this can be seen as an effort to build a dam for protection against the flood. This was certainly fueled by the severe lashing the newspapers had been giving the *katakana*-inundated "officialese" since the late 1990s.

The project with the bulky title "Proposal for exchanging foreign words in favour of beautiful Japanese [words]" (*Gairaigo ni kawaru utsukushii nihongo no teian*) was launched with the immediate goal of dealing with this "officialese" (YS 2002-06-26), and both *Yomiuri* and *Asahi* regularly covered the committee's actions and word lists. In a 2004 survey conducted by the NINJAL, 61.3% of the surveyed people were found to be supportive of initiatives like the *Gairaigo iikae teian*, but at the same time, the majority of the respondents also said they were in favour of *katakana* words rather than Japanese words in the cases of unwieldy words (e.g. *kōkyōshokugyōanteijo*, employment office → *harō wāku* ["Hello work"]) or expressions with negative connotations (e.g. *rōjin*, elderly [person] → *shirubā* ["silver"]) (NINJAL 2004).

This hints at a certain ambivalence towards *katakana*-words, which is also visible in the large number of relevant dictionaries and books published in the 1990s and 2000s. On one hand, this confirms the view of *katakana* as something of an obstacle to communication, but, on the other hand, many of these books have a distinctively playful makeup and their titles and blurbs often imply the prospect of an increase in social prestige for being "in the know".

Notwithstanding this ambivalence, the discourse is clearly dominated by the critical voices. The following examples are quite representative of the sentiments that are particularly pronounced in \*Readers:


<sup>9</sup> Somewhat ironically including *kango* (Chinese loanwords).

• "There is a flood of *katakana* words and abbreviations. It makes me sad to witness beautiful Japanese words disappear. I know that language is always fluctuating, but that should be even more reason to preserve our beautiful Japanese words." (YS 2013-04-23).

In the early 2000s, the government's push for the introduction of English into primary school curricula re-ignited the debate. Even radical right-wing politician and erstwhile writer Ishihara Shintarō, then Governor of Tōkyō, regaled the public with his opinion on the matter: "They haven't even mastered Japanese yet, and still they are supposed to learn a foreign language via Japanese? What's the point? You just need to take a quick look at the gibberish in the media to see that Japanese is going downhill fast" (AS 2006-04-08).

While some sub-discourses and topics have proved to be rather ephemeral, the debate about foreign elements in the Japanese language can be observed to be very persistent. After many decades, as Stanlaw (2004, 1) succinctly puts it, it remains ultimately unclear to the observer how society actually does regard foreign elements in the Japanese language: as "[a] problem (Yokoi, 1973), an obstacle to communication (Hirai 1978), something 'stylish' (Kawasaki, 1981), or some kind of pollution (Kirkup, 1971; Morris, 1970)". Within the discourse on language deterioration, at least, "foreign words" seem to be one of the most popular scapegoats.

# **6.3 Objectivity of Statements**

Another salient pragmeme is the use of passive verbs to imply objectivity or a general validity to the statement. Passive clauses in principle do not need a subject/agens, so it stands to reason that using the passive voice is used to convey a certain detachment of the speaker from the message; it can be understood as an expression carrying "[t]he nuance that this is some kind of expert or public opinion rather than the speaker's own." (Oyamada et al. 2012, 62). While this structure can be found in all types of articles in the corpus, statistically, the likelihood of article types containing it in the context of language criticism was highest for \*Readers (J[a]=0.11) and \*Experts (J[a]=0.1). \*Misc were found to be less likely (J[a]=0.08) and \*Editors rather unlikely (J[a]=0.02) to contain this kind of passive clause.

In \*Readers, passive clauses are often used as an opener, as in the following examples (translated as passive for illustrative purposes and underlined):

• "It has been said that the deterioration of our language has become intolerable. There are many things going on in our language lately that I find quite unacceptable" (AS 2005-09-10);


As can be seen from these instances, the use of passive is actually frequently followed by an explicitly subjective statement. It seems to me that this kind of opening statement helps facilitate the subjective statement following it. After all, it is not "I" who is complaining; rather the writer merely subscribes to a point of view that is implied to be general knowledge or common sense, and hence places the personal misgivings voiced in the following statement on solid ground.

# **6.4 Temporal Proximity**

\*Readers were found to have another feature much less present in other article types. A WAA [a] based on \*Readers yields *tadashii* (correct), *utsukushii* (beautiful), *saikin* (lately), *omou* (to think, be of the opinion that), *nihongo* (Japanese), *midare*/*midareru* and *terebi* (TV) as 8 of the top 10 collocations (the remaining two are *koe* and *kiryū*, names of columns for letters to the editor). None of these words are a statistically salient collocation for other types of articles in the corpus.

Visualizing the results as a CON confirms that a direct reference to *midare* framed as something contemporary and put into contrast with how Japanese is supposed to be (correct, beautiful) can indeed be seen as a salient pragmeme of \*Readers; even without allowing for synonyms, 45% of all instances where *midare* and *saikin* co-occur within one sentence are found in \*Readers. This can be interpreted as an implicit form of *argumentum ad antiquitatem*: something is now different from how it used to be. If it has always been that way, that way must have been good. Changing things therefore must be bad.

Ultimately, this kind of linguistic conservatism is what drives the whole discourse by creating a sense of loss and urgency. Finding this pattern in the corpus also confirms Keller's observation that "[i]t is only ever the present state of the language that is threatened by decline and decay; there has never been a discourse on how 'deteriorated' or bad some historical language or variety was" (Keller 2004, 4). Language decline happens in the world that the critic lives in, and is asserted by contrasting the present state of the language with how it used to be (i.e. good, beautiful etc.), with no regard, it might be added, to actual history: current critics rarely reflect upon the fact that the same decline of language was likely lamented regarding their own generation and its language use, and that linguistic norms and rules were at no point in time so clear-cut as to allow for a simple verdict about right or wrong to be made in most cases. To paraphrase Heringer and Wimmer: many critics yearn for their language to revert to the state it was never in to begin with (2015, 15).

# **6.5 Unity of Language, Culture (and Nation?)**

Upon observing a high frequency of words like culture and tradition via POS frequency lists, synonyms were gathered and factored into \*Culture\_Tradition, which was found to be present in 19.5% of all articles. \*Change, \*Language and \*Ideal\_Japanese were found to be the strongest collocator codes [p]. This was taken to be indicative of an association between the concepts of culture and language, and using both codes on sentences yielded numerous examples to corroborate this assumption:


Further investigation yields interesting results indicating notions of community and continuity. The top collocators for \*Culture\_Tradition [s] are *nihon* (Japan), *mamoru* (preserve, save), *gengo* (language), *nihonjin* (Japanese [people]), *kuni* (nation), *rekishi* (history), *shakai* (society), *taisetsu* (important), *utsukushii* (beautiful), -*iku* (auxiliary verb). *Taisetsu* and -*iku* bear closer examination: the first is mostly used as an adverbial phrase *taisetsu ni suru* (to take care of, to cherish), the latter is used to express a sort of projected continuity, indicating actions that start in the present and will be or should be continued in the future. Together with *mamoru* and *rekishi*, -*iku* is used to construct an imagery of continuity. Constraining the results to adjectives, the results can be grouped into words describing necessity and/or care[fulness] (*taisetsu*, *jūyō*, *daiji*, *hitsuyō*), language ideals (*tadashii*, *utsukushii*, *yutaka*), youth and novelty/freshness (*wakai*, *atarashii*).

In summary, the concepts of language and culture often seem to be linked, which potentially elevates the discourse on language decline by some order of magnitude: if language and culture are intertwined, the deterioration of one must have an ill effect on the other, which, of course, has been a major argument of language critics everywhere. "Damaging" the language can and must be seen as a severe problem if it is believed to lead to a damage of cultural substance. In this way, an implication is made to the discourse participants that nurturing "proper" language is an ethical duty to one's nation or community. I will examine this pragmeme of "demand for action" separately.

This kind of reasoning is not without its problems in the light of the nationalist appropriation of *kokugo* (the national language) from the Meiji period to the end of WW2. For example, in *Kokugo to wa nanzo ya* (1942), Yamada Yoshio stresses the inseparable ties between nation, national spirit and national language, and argues that treating the national language irreverently is tantamount to damaging the national spirit and, therefore, ultimately the nation; further, the key work *Kokugo no tame* (1897) by Ueda Kazutoshi bears the motto "*Kokugo* is the bulwark of our imperial family / *Kokugo* is the loving mother of our people" on its first page.

While less direct, examples of this kind of identification of language with culture and nation can also be found in the corpus, as in this interview with writer Moriuchi Toshio in the *Yomiuri*: "We think about things and concepts using language. A deterioration of language therefore means a decline of culture, and ultimately a decline of our nation. This is a most serious issue" (2002-06-16). This is a slippery slope fallacy, further examples of which can be found scattered all over the corpus. Take, for instance, this *Asahi* editorial, which incidentally contains most of the pragmemes mentioned so far:

Language is a living organism; it changes over time. Even so, we must cherish the connection between language, history and tradition. Take, for example, the flood of foreign words or the confusion about how they are written. Some people say this contributes to variety in the language. However, a laissez-faire stance will undoubtedly end up endangering communication, widening the gap between generations, and may ultimately even lead to the demise of the Japanese language. (AS 1986-03-08)

Tessa Carrol argues that the often observed link between nation, order and language in many cases points to a certain affinity towards *nihonjinron* thought (2001, 77), and Komori (2003) sees a clear link between the Japanese language boom of the 2000s and the rise of an inward-looking nationalism (also cf. Kayama Rika's concept of a "mini nationalism syndrome"). It has been argued that, in general, "language is a prime determinant of nationalist identity" (Billig 1995, 29 in Wright, Brookes 2019, 59), and I think that this is quite visible in the discourse on language decline: while upholding the unspoken premise that there is only one Japanese language rather than the multitude of varieties and indeed languages (cf. the Ryūkyūan languages) that together make up a rich and varied garden, Japanese is used as an implicit symbol for notions of national unity and uniformity. This is by no means limited to newspapers; on the contrary, it is my impression that this kind of thinking is much more obvious and common in the language-critical popular literature, where a yearning for the beautiful and now lost "language of yore" can be read as a bemoaning of a better Japan long lost, or as a fear of losing cultural identity: haplessly swept away in a torrent of foreign words or youth language, as it were.

#### **6.6 Demand for Action**

There are numerous ways in which a demand for action can be expressed in Japanese, but for this corpus, the following patterns could be determined: *Tai*-form (volitional) to express a desire for action to be taken, *hitsuyō da*/*ga aru* to denote the necessity of action, and finally *nakereba*/*nakute wa ikenai*/*naranai* and the suffix *beshi* to indicate that something ought to be done. These can be understood to differ not in essence, but in intensity, conveying varying levels of urgency (Saft, Ohara 2006, 96-7). While the distinction between more or less urgency is surely a worthwhile one to make in Saft and Ohara's research on the pursuit of militarism in Japan as reflected in the media, I decided this to be of less importance for the language-critical discourse. Therefore, all these expressions were combined as (demand for) \*Action.

This code was found in 57% of all articles in the corpus, but could not be clearly connected to any of the actor groups. A demand for action can therefore, rather unsurprisingly, be seen as a general characteristic of the language-critical discourse. The object or audience of demand can again be gathered from a combination of WAA and CO of codes [a,p]. \*Youth and \*School (both J[p]=0.08) were found to be the concepts most distinctly associated with \*Action; \*Polite\_language and \*Foreign\_words (both J[p]=0.07) were the most related topics. Simply put, demands here can be expected to concern the language use of young people and/or the significance and shortcomings of *kokugo* (the school subject Japanese) on one hand, and the need to address the problem of foreign words, buzzwords and neologisms on the other. This confirms the centrality of young people as discourse actors without a voice, and of topics related to semantic change as the most visible manifestation of language change. Because of this visibility and the immediacy felt when confronted with (new) words one does not understand, semantic change is therefore also the most likely target of language criticism, and subsequently a demand for action to be taken to hem in the detrimental effect on the Japanese language is to be expected.

Interestingly, \*Action was not found to necessarily correlate with the visibility of a topos in the discourse; for example, the question of *ra-nuki kotoba* (the practice of dropping /*ra*/ in the potential forms of certain verbs) is one of the most long-lived and pervasive topics in the corpus, with 21% of all articles containing some reference to it, but it could not be found to correlate significantly with \*Action (J[p]=0.03).

# **6.7 Ideal Language**

Even in language communities with a standard language, there is no such thing as universally accepted, objective criteria of "good" or aesthetically pleasing language. Still, it is precisely the notion of "bad language (practice)" that is perceived as a threat to the integrity of the language (community). It is therefore interesting to examine how good and bad language is constructed in the discourse. Two general practices can be discerned that I will investigate further in the next two sections: circumscribing good language indirectly by describing bad language, and defining desirable language directly through its attributes. Both can be approached through WAA aided by KWIC analysis for clarifying context when necessary, and subsequent grouping.

# 6.7.1 Definition Through Examples

Overall, the results show that definitions of bad language can be based on almost every linguistic criterion, and can be roughly grouped (with overlaps) as follows:


All of these categories consist of a variety of topoi, and mapping the most prevalent ones on a timeline shows the short lifespan of some and the perseverance of others. The rise and fall of some of them can be seen to reflect changes in society: the sub-discourse on women's language, for example, was a central issue in the late sixties and seventies, with its own topics and pragmemes, but the focus slowly changed from the decline of women's language (seventies to early nineties) to a measure of grudging acceptance of the changing reality of gender images (mid-nineties to mid-2000s), and has all but disappeared by 2019.

While I have already touched upon the topic of foreign words, I would like to examine the category of semantics closer, as lexical changes are typically the most easily noticed and therefore most readily used to symbolize bad language practice.

Semantic change was found to be mostly associated with youth (language), and focused on neologisms (*shingo*), buzzwords (*ryūkōgo*) and abbreviated words (*ryakugo*), with the combined code \*New\_ Words having the highest frequency of all codes describing a thematic category (43.4% of all articles). In essence, the sub-discourse staked out by these terms revolves around mostly short-lived words that are claimed to be incomprehensible and/or unacceptable. The often equally short-lived, but sometimes intense attention some of these words receive is reminiscent of a (small-scale) moral panic, with a sudden explosion of comments that are quick to extrapolate from the words to their users, and from linguistic deviance to moral decline, before ceasing as abruptly as the use of the offending word(s) themselves. Incidentally, this is not limited to topics linked to lexicality and can be observed with a variety of topics in the discourse on *kotoba no midare*.

It is noticeable that \*Experts tend to explain youth language in a more positive light. This observation can be somewhat substantiated by combining \*Experts with \*Youth\_language / \*New\_words into one code and examining its co-occurrence with \*Negative\_assessment, which tries to circumscribe the various forms of negative, disparaging or concerned commentary found in the corpus. While the correlation of the combined code with \*Negative\_Assessment is highest [a] with \*Editorials (J=0.16), and lower for \*Readers (J=0.12) and \*Others (J=0.09), the correlation for \*Experts is lowest of all (J=0.06). The following statement by philologist Koyano Tetsu in the *Asahi Shinbun*  is an explicit example for this tendency:

Young people always keep making up new words. They possess the freedom needed for a playful use of language. This kind of language is typically used only when they are with their friends, so I don't see why people make such a fuss about it. In fact, I rather think this only leads to young people losing their power to break rigid patterns, and saps the vitality of language. (AS 1999-03-11b)

# 6.7.2 Direct Definition

The shape of ideal Japanese as an antithesis to *midare* can be gleaned from comparing the results of a WAA of \*Japanese and \*Language\_ Decline [s] and limiting the results to adjectives, which gives beautiful (*utsukushii*, *kirei*), correct (*tadashii*), and rich/colourful (*yutaka*) as the top collocates used to positively describe language.

In 35% of the corpus, at least one of these is used to describe Japanese, with 8.7% of all articles containing a combination of two or all three, and "beautiful" the most frequent. Expressing these qualities as codes and comparing their co-occurrence [a] with that of other codes which were compiled in the course of this project hints at who these qualities are mostly demanded from: \*Youth (J=0.3), \*Mass\_ media (J=0.29), \*Women (J=0.23) and \*Education (J=0.2).

While correctness may in theory be argued by appealing to a higher authority (norms established through language policies, exegetical literature<sup>10</sup> and experts), "beautiful" and "rich" are every bit as problematic as "deterioration" due to the inherently subjective nature of these terms: pointing to language norms is of little use here, and so the question arises as to what exactly language critics mean when they use them. There are only a few articles in which examples are given, and these are far removed from day-to-day communication (traditional poems, storytelling arts, Japanese classics), which is typically the bone of contention.

A WA/KWIC analysis of \*Beautiful\_language [p/s], limited to \*Readers (found to have the highest prevalence of sentences describing desired language), reveals which specific qualities are presumably meant: A fluent/eloquent (*sawayaka*), gentle/kind (*yasashii*; *egao*), rich/colorful (*yutaka*), and/or correct (*tadashii*) language having a pleasant (*kokochiyoi*; *utsukushii*) sound (*hibiki*), which has to be strived for (*kokorogakeru*), or which needs to be preserved (*mamoru*; *taisetsu ni suru*) because of its close association with culture (*bunka*).

Thus, inherently subjective attributes are credited with a high argumentative value, typically without bothering to explain the rationale for this judgment: language is beautiful or ugly, correct or incorrect because the language critics say it is. This kind of ambiguity can also be found in official documents describing language in the context of language preservation policies. The KSK, for instance, described an ideal Japanese language in a working paper (*Kokugo kyōiku no shinkō ni tsuite*, 1972) as *heimei* (clear, unambiguous), *tekikaku* (precise), *utsukushii*, and *yutaka*. Later institutions of language policy used an almost identical array of qualities to describe language considered beneficial, also without clarification.

# 7 Concluding Remarks

Implicitness is sometimes seen as a characteristic feature of pragmatic studies (Jacobs 1999, 5) and typical of media texts (Hardman 2010, 264), and it was indeed observed to be central to most pragmemes in the corpus: the meaning of the structures I described does not end with

<sup>10</sup> Selling "correct Japanese" through books, language certificates for native speakers, TV shows and video games has been a big market segment since the late 1990s.

conveying certain information. Rather, they carry with them a wealth of implications. In a similar way, metaphors have been described as a "paradigmatically pragmatic phenomenon" (Camp 2010, 264), and were also found to be distinctly visible in the corpus. Drawing on Jürgen Link's concept of collective symbols (Link 2012, 135-7; Jäger 2015, 60-1), I regard metaphors in the context of social discourse as more than simply a stylistic choice. Imagery such as a 'flood' of foreign words represent a slice of "the entirety of what may be called the 'imagery' of a culture; the entirety of a culture's most widely understood allegories, emblems, metaphors, exemplary cases, and illustrative patterns" (Link 1997, 25). These symbolic cues for emotions can be expected to be subconsciously picked up by the intended audience, and therefore also to have a distinct influence on the language critical discourse.

On a more comprehensive level, it is neither its existence nor its core tenets that sets the Japanese discourse apart from that of other nations. The question of language decline is not a unique characteristic of Japanese metalinguistic discourse; it can be expected to be found in some form in most nations with a normative standard variety. What makes the Japanese discourse somewhat of a special case, then, is its size and extent. While I have sketched some of it briefly, it goes well beyond the scope of this paper to describe the foundations of this Japanese fascination with the Japanese language, but, as early as 1942, linguist Ishiguro Yoshimi noted that "[the] last years brought a large number of articles in newspapers and magazines concerning the problems of our language, and there are constantly new books being published. This shows the great interest of the people in matters of the language" (Ishiguro 1942, 53).

More recently, million-sellers like *Nihongo renshūchō* (1999), *Koe ni dashite yomitai nihongo* (2001) or *Jōshiki toshite shitte okitai nihongo* (2002) are only the professional tip of an iceberg of "amateur linguistics": books, magazines and other media explaining the peculiarities, weal and woe of their mother tongue to the Japanese. To an extent this can be seen as a manifestation of the language-critical discourse in a society which has been perpetuating the narrative of a widespread decline of the language, but the same discourse also ties in a broad multi-media narrative of Japanese as a symbol and vehicle of culture, or "Japaneseness". In fact, I would argue that the self-exoticizing and sometimes outright nationalistic *nihonbunkaron*literature intersects considerably with the broader Japanese metalinguistic discourse.

From a more sociolinguistic point of view, language criticism in the sense of a negative outlook on language change can be regarded as a natural side effect of language standardization and the determination of linguistic norms. But standard language does not exist in a cultural or social vacuum, and will therefore be subject to societal stress caused by change at some point, invariably leading to the periodic incorporation of some manifestations of change into the frame of the standard language. Indeed, it seems to me that standard language dynamically thrives in the tug-of-war between agents of change (the criticized; young people) and the custodians of continuity (the critics; the older people in charge). In this way, leaving aside the question of nationalistic overtones, a lively discourse concerning the state of the language may be regarded as an indicator of a healthy and thriving language (community). This also means that the question of whether there actually *is* such a thing as a decline of the language is ultimately pointless: the reality of language deterioration is created and perpetuated in the shared minds of all those who participate in the discourse through the pragmatic mechanics of the very discourse itself. As TV anchorwoman Yoshikawa Miyoko put it in an example of an *argumentum ad populum*: "Stores are teeming with books on how to talk properly and good diction. I guess that shows how sorely they are needed" (AS 2014-02-23).

The focus of this paper was on presenting the potential of using corpus linguistics as a tool for metapragmatics within the larger framework of discourse analysis, and although I have only scratched the surface on some exciting aspects of this approach, I hope to have succeeded in demonstrating that investigating macro speech acts offers an exciting way to get a glimpse into the collective state of mind of a community and its ways of negotiating challenges.

# **Bibliography**<sup>11</sup>


<sup>11</sup> Newspaper articles cited in this paper are referenced as AS (*Asahi Shinbun*) or YA (*Yomiuri Shinbun*) and the publication date of each article is given in YYYY-MM-DD format.


Gardt, Andreas (2012). "Diskursanalyse – Aktueller theoretischer Ort und metheodische Möglichkeiten". Warnke, Ingo H. (Hrsg.), *Diskurslinguistik nach Foucault, Theorie und Gegenstände*. Berlin: De Gruyter, 27-52.

Hardman, Dean (2010). "Media Discourse". Cummings, Louise (ed.), *The Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia*. London; New York: Routledge, 262-4.

Haugh, Michael (2018). "Corpus-based Metapragmatics". Jucker, Andreas et al. (eds), *Methods in Pragmatics*. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 615-39.

Heinrich, Patrick (2012). *The Making of Monolingual Japan. Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity*. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.


Jacobs, Geert (1999). *Preformulating the News. An Analysis of the Metapragmatics of Press Releases*. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins.


Mey, Jacob (2001). *Pragmatics: An Introduction*. Oxford: Blackwell.

Mey, Jacob (2016a). "Pragmatics Seen Through the Prism of Society". Allan, Keith et al. (eds), *Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use*. Springer: ebook, 105-32.

Mey, Jacob (2016b). "Why We Need the Pragmeme, or: Speech Acting and Its Peripeties". Allan, Keith et al. (eds), *Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use*. Springer: e-book, 133-40.

Moore, Robert C. (2004). "On Log-likelihood-ratios and the Significance of Rare Events". SIGDAT-ACL (ed.), *Proceedings of the 2004 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing*. Barcelona: ACL, 333-40.

NINJAL (2004). "Gairaigo ni kan suru ishiki chōsa: Zenkoku chōsa 外来語に関する 意識調査: 全国調査 (Public Opinion-poll Regarding Loanwords: National Survey)". URL https://repository.ninjal.ac.jp/?action=repository\_ uri&item\_id=2319&file\_id=22&file\_no=1.

Oyamada, Yuki et al. (2012). *An Interim Report of the Semantic Annotation of Auxiliary Verb reru / rareru*. https://www.ninjal.ac.jp/event/specialists/project-meeting/files/JCLWorkshop\_no2\_papers/ JCLWorkshop2012\_2\_08.pdf.

Overstreet, Maryann (2010). "Metapragmatics". Cummings, Louise (ed.), *The Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia*. London; New York: Routledge, 266-8.

Saft, Scott; Ohara, Yumiko (2006). "The Media and the Pursuit of Militarism in Japan: Newspaper Editorials in the Aftermath of 9/11". *Critical Discourse Studies*, 3(1), 81-101.

Seidl, Bernhard (2010). "Dialekt als Diskursobjekt: Japanische Varietäten Im Spiegel von Wissenschaft und Medien". *Minikomi*, 79, 12-26.

Senft, Gunter (2014). *Understanding Pragmatics*. Oxon: Routledge.

Shiratori Hiroshi 白鳥裕 (2005). "Insatsu to kurosu media 印刷とクロスメディア (Print and Cross Media)". *Jōhō chishiki gakkai-shi* 情報知識学会誌 (Journal of the JSIK), 18(5), 509-11.

Silverstein, Michael (1993). "Metapragmatic Discourse and Metapragmatic Function". Lucy, John A. (ed.), *Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 33-58.

Stanlaw, James (2004). *Japanese English: Language and Culture Contact*. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Ueda Kazutoshi 上田万年 (1897). *Kokugo no tame* 国語のため (For Our National Language). Tōkyō: Fuginbō.

Wright, David; Brookes, Gavin (2019). "'This is England, Speak English!': A Corpus-assisted Critical Study of Language Ideologies in the Right-leaning British Press". *Critical Discourse Studies*, 16(1), 56-83.

Yamada Yoshio 山田孝雄 (1942). "Kokugo to wa nan zo ya 国語とは何ぞや (The Meaning of National Language)". *Kokugo gairon-hen* 国語概論編 (Definitions of National Language). Tōkyō: Asahi shinbun-sha, 1-19.

Yonekawa Akihiko 米川明彦 (2002). "Goyō no kakusan (Tokushū nihongo wa midarete iru ka!? – kotoba no henka to kachi handan) 誤用の拡散(特集日本 語は乱れているか!? 言葉の変化と価値判断)[The Spread of Incorrect Language Use (Special: Is Japanese Deteriorating!? Language and Value Judgement)]". *Gekkan gengo* 月間言語 (Language Monthly), 8, 70-3.

# Stirring the 'Language Policy Soup' **Japanese in Language Education Policies in France and Finland**

Christian Galan Université de Toulouse, France

# Riikka Länsisalmi

University of Helsinki, Finland

**Abstract** This paper compares and contrasts the 'Japanese language policy soup' as it is currently cooked in a bottom-up and top-down manner in schools in two EU countries, France and Finland, with different culinary and educational traditions and practices. The Authors describe and analyse not solely the end result, Japanese language education at schools, but also the roles of the various stakeholders who partake in Japanese language policy making in the French and Finnish language ecologies.

**Keywords** Japanese Language Education. Upper secondary school. Language Education Policy. France. Finland.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 Japanese in Language Education (Policy) Soup. – 3 Who Is the Chef? Japanese Language Teachers in Schools. – 4 Menus and Recipes for Japanese Language Education (Policy) Soup. – 5 Pots and Pans. Where to Cook the Japanese Language (Policy) Soup? –6 The Future of Japanese Language Education (Soup).

# 1 Introduction

The study of Japanese has different roots and histories in France and Finland, but recently various measures and reforms have affected the role of Japanese in language education in schools in both countries. This paper maps the evolving status of Japanese language learning in (basic and) secondary education

from the perspective of language education policies as they are currently manifested at the macro and micro level. Both countries are affected by EU language education policy, but there are also notable differences between them which make a comparison between France and Finland insightful. We will develop these in the course of this paper, but we can already state here that Japanese language education in France is more widely and profoundly established in comparison to Finland and that this manifests in various ways in which Japanese language education is organized and conducted.

García and Menken (2010, 256-7) compare language education policy making to a kitchen staff team, with a chef, sous-chefs and other members of staff. While attending to different tasks in the same enterprise, they simultaneously collaborate and compete. Even if it is the educator in his or her classroom who wears the chef's hat, *la toque blanche*, and stirs the soup, other kitchen staff – government officials, official policy makers, communities, rectors, curriculum planners, textbook writers, test makers and assessors, researchers, parents and students – add their own distinct spices. The language policy soup is cooked according to changing menus in various types of pots and pans, consisting of the physical educational environment and context – that is, existing learning materials and facilities, appropriate terminology, test apparatuses, financial support, and so forth – not to mention the actual Japanese restaurant; access to education.

In secondary education in France, Japanese is at present in a paradoxical situation. While selected by a large number of learners, it is also officially recognized as one of the four 'big international languages' (together with Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Arabic) which are included in the Matriculation Examination (*baccalauréat*). Japanese language education is based on a complete and coherent system of guidelines and resources extending from junior to senior high school. It can be studied and selected in the Matriculation Examination as first, second or third foreign language (*langue vivante* LVA, LVB or LVC), as an optional language, as an 'international option' or in professional courses (BTS, Brevet de Technicien Supérieur). Two state exams for recruiting teachers exist: *agrégation* since 1985 and *CAPES*<sup>1</sup> since 2017.

In Finland Japanese has enjoyed a similar popularity as in France for a number of years and the 'Japanese boom' does not seem to be fading. Japanese has been taught in tertiary education for several

<sup>1</sup> The *agrégation* is the most prestigious and demanding hiring contest for recruiting teachers in France. Successful candidates are qualified to teach in secondary and tertiary education. The *certificat d'aptitude au professorat de l'enseignement du second degré* (CAPES) is a professional diploma, which can be obtained by fulfilling the disciplinary and professional requirements in a hiring contest (external, internal or reserved for public service employees). CAPES qualifies successful candidates to teach mainly in secondary education.

decades, longest at the University of Helsinki since 1938, but, compared to France, its history in secondary education is relatively short. Sporadic Japanese language courses have been offered in (basic and) upper secondary education for roughly two decades, mainly at the initiative of a handful of eager and interested instructors.

The inclusion of Japanese as an officially recognized optional foreign language in the Finnish National Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Schools had to wait until as recently as 2015 (implemented since August 2016). Finland does not have a system of state exams or contests for recruiting schoolteachers, but subject teacher education is carried out at universities in collaboration by subject departments, teacher education departments and practice schools. Subject teacher education in Japanese (and Mandarin Chinese) in Finland has been organized solely at the University of Helsinki since 2014-15.

This kind of official recognition and the popularity of Japanese among high school students, however, is not reflected in the number of schools where the language can be studied in either country. Enthusiastic students face this paradox not only in secondary education, where finding Japanese courses is difficult or even impossible, but also in the beginning of their university careers. Masses of 'frustrated students of Japanese' fill – or, in the Finnish case, try to fill – university BA courses in Japanese and Japanese Studies, particularly in the first year.

To put it in a culinary metaphor, while in both countries the number of 'restaurants' that have Japanese in their menus cannot satisfy the needs of an increasing number of avid clientele, there is also a shortage of 'chefs' who have learnt to cook this type of Japanese cuisine – or who have learnt to cook at all.<sup>2</sup>

#### 2 Japanese in Language Education (Policy) Soup

Japanese language education in secondary schools in France started off in a few educational institutions in large cities in the 1980s but began to develop only in the late 1990s. This did not happen at the initiative of authorities eager to promote a new language, but as a reaction to an increasing demand from pupils and their families and with the good will of certain education authorities and heads of school to respond (at least partially) to the demand.

The foundations for contemporary language policies in Finland were laid in the late 1970s (Huhta 2011), but Asian languages started to gain ground in policy discourses only from the 1980s and 1990s

<sup>2</sup> More thorough accounts of the situations in France and Finland are available in Galan (2017) and Länsisalmi (2019).

onwards. In the 21st century the role of Japanese language has been discussed in language education and internationalization policies as well as in various surveys on higher education and language education either in the context of Asia, particularly East Asia, or that of non-European languages.<sup>3</sup>

The demand for Japanese can largely be explained by the general infatuation of young people with Japan and the Japanese language – a situation which has existed in France and Finland much like in other parts Europe for the past two decades. For many it is now the Japanese 'soft power' (*manga*, *anime*, music, digital arts, fashion, etc.) which has superseded American popular culture. France has become the most important *manga* market in the world outside Japan, and the Japanese way of life, real or imagined, fascinates young people more and more. This Japanese boom shows no sign of fading away anytime soon in the 21st century.

Quite the contrary, the boom only seems to be gathering speed. In France this can be seen in the constant increase of learners of Japanese in public and private junior and senior high schools: 1995-96: 1,838 pupils; 2002-03: 2,177 pupils; 2005-06: 2,983 pupils; 2012-13: 3,491 pupils; 2016-17: 4,232 pupils and 2019-20: 4,886 pupils.<sup>4</sup>

In Finland official figures are not available, making a direct comparison with the French data not possible here. Japanese is lumped in the category of 'other languages', typically representing only less than 1% of languages learnt in secondary education. After a hiatus of nearly one decade, surveys on educational development in Finnish tertiary education have recently concluded, once again though, that:

It is likely that there will be more need for Chinese and Japanese language instruction […] and therefore there will be more demand for instructors and specialists of these languages. (UNIFI 2015, 15; translation by Riikka Länsisalmi)<sup>5</sup>

<sup>3</sup> *The Asia Action Programme* stressed language skills as "key factors when operating in Asia" and called for "continuity for studying Asian languages from the primary level via the secondary and up to the tertiary level". It concluded that "[t]he development needs for teaching languages […] will be reviewed and necessary action will be taken on this basis" (Finnish Ministry of Education 2006, 20-1). Next, the Finnish Language Education Policies Project (KIEPO) was launched and its recommendations returned the ball to the Ministry: "The Ministry of Education, in cooperation with other experts, formulates a national strategy for lesser taught languages (Russian, German, French, Spanish) and non-European languages (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese)" (Luukka, Pöyhönen 2007, 459, translation by Riikka Länsisalmi).

<sup>4</sup> All the figures listed in this paper refer only to metropolitan France and the overseas departments and regions (DOM and TOM) and exclude New Caledonia, which needs to be treated separately due to its geographical and administrative situation.

<sup>5</sup> A recent investigation into the current state of the national language reserve, language levels and development needs was commissioned by the Ministry of Education

The great demand from pupils interested in learning the language thus constitutes the first core characteristic of Japanese language education in secondary school in France – quite different from other languages taught in school. As one senior high school principal put it: "It is quite rare that our students reveal their interest to actually learn something – and when that happens, we should not hesitate [to offer them the education they desire]". In Finland there is a similar tendency, which nonetheless becomes more visible in the transition phase from upper secondary education to tertiary education.<sup>6</sup>

In France, this interest in the Japanese language and the increasing demand for learning opportunities coincided, nonetheless, with a period of financial trouble. In the end of the 1990s and in the beginning of the new millennium the French state – and therefore the Ministry of Education – faced serious budget restrictions, which limited new educational endeavours at schools to 'existing resources'. In other words, the creation of something new required that something else had to be cut. Principals and other authorities thus faced a dilemma and had to make difficult choices: which courses should be discontinued in order to start new ones in Japanese? Or: who (teachers, partner countries, lobbyists, etc.) should be angered by reacting in a positive manner to those willing to study Japanese?

In Finland, consolidating the status of Japanese as a school subject has to a large extent been a micro-level policy-making effort, led by a limited number of active instructors, many of whom are mem-

and Culture in 2017. One of the multiple recommendations concerned a division of labour and collaboration in the teaching of Asian and African languages in higher education "in basic level education at language centres and similar places" (Pyykkö 2017, 126; translation by Riikka Länsisalmi). Collaborative online education was suggested as one of the means to be developed – even across national boundaries with other Nordic countries and Estonia.

<sup>6</sup> The University of Helsinki, Faculty of Arts, is the only university in Finland which offers Japanese language education from the beginner's level in the BA Programme in Languages (180 ECTS, European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) until the advanced level in the MA Programme in Languages (120 ECTS). Since the establishment of these news programmes in autumn 2017, Japanese language has been one of the most competitive study options. Due to the extremely limited number of full-time personnel, the Japanese language track in the BA Programme in Languages has intake only once in two years. In its inaugural year in 2017, 189 students applied for a total of 12 slots, i.e. only 6% of the candidates were accepted after an entrance exam. In 2019 the number of applicants was 228 and they competed for 16 slots. Thus 7% were admitted. Until 2019-20 Japanese was a free minor option for students enrolled in other educational programmes, but, due to its extreme popularity, from 2020 onwards an internal minor entrance exam will be established. None of the students enrolled in the new BA Programme in Languages/Japanese Language track since 2017 have reached the MA level thus far, but external applicants and students who graduated from the pre-2017 BA Programme in Asian Studies have been accepted in the MA Programme in Languages/ Asian Languages track. The number of Japanese language students continuing to the MA Programme directly from the BA Programme is likely to rise in the near future.

bers of the Finnish Teachers' Association of Japanese Language and Culture (JOY).<sup>7</sup> The Ministry of Education and Culture, on the other hand, appears to have shifted its focus from Asia and Asian languages towards an overarching concept of a 'national language reserve'. A more practical policy advocator role, by contrast, has recently been fulfilled by the Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI), which regularly allocates state subsidies for education development and internationalization and has supported a number of projects involving Japanese at school (e.g. *Ippo Project* 2012-18 and the ongoing *Asian and African Languages Project* 2018-20).<sup>8</sup>

Steering and organization of language education focus on enhancing access to education (*getting in*) (Kyckling et al. 2019). From this perspective, teachers have an important role in promoting accessibility, but also in Finland it is largely the school principals who are the actual gatekeepers. They hire teachers and decide how many pupils or students are required to form a group that is large enough to secure continuity. Although schools may list a respectable amount of possible foreign languages in their promotional material, the reality of *getting in* is often very different when only a handful of candidates sign up for language X and the course does not start. While the number of students willing to study any other foreign language than English is diminishing (KIEPO s.d.), also resistance from instructors of 'established' languages towards new – possibly popular – ones, such as Japanese, is understandable.

This constitutes the second core characteristic of Japanese in secondary education which applies both to the French and to the Finnish cases: when compared to other 'major' languages taught at school, the development of Japanese language education has been slow, hindered by socioeconomic considerations and choices based on budget limitations. As a result, Japanese can be studied only in very few

<sup>7</sup> The Finnish Teachers' Association of Japanese Language and Culture (JOY, s.d.), established in 1993, has an important role as a national network of instructors in the field. It is currently the only Finnish member in the Japan Foundation's JF Nihongo Network (the 'Sakura Network'), and the number of members in the past years has risen to 50- 55. Members of the JOY board run the action in their free time.

<sup>8</sup> *Ippo* focused on Japanese Language education in Finnish secondary schools and was coordinated by an active instructor of Japanese and English at Rajamäki Upper Secondary School in Nurmijärvi, ca. 35 km from Helsinki. The project formed a network of twenty schools, developed and produced learning materials, organized events, coordinated a trainee placement programme in Japan, motivated and activated students, created a blog, and played a key role in the planning of the 2015 National Core Curriculum of Asian and African Languages (Ippo-hanke 2012, 2016a, 2016b). The aims of the Asian and African Languages Project include attracting interest towards Arabic, Chinese and Japanese and new teaching and learning models, creating national curricula for these languages in basic education, consolidating teachers' networks, and promoting the status of Chinese and Japanese as potential future languages to be included in the national Matriculation Examination (Aasian ja Afrikan kielten hanke 2019).

educational institutions, which are mainly located in the biggest cities: in France 75 junior and senior high schools in total, half of them public and the other half private; in Finland Japanese was listed as an optional language by 10 upper secondary schools and one school in basic education in an informal Teachers' Association survey in autumn 2019 (Japanin kielen ja kulttuurin opettajain yhdistys ry 2019).

The third major characteristic of Japanese in secondary education in France and in Finland is related to competition with Mandarin Chinese. In this competitive setting Japanese has been a direct 'victim' on the *institutional level* – a fact which is reflected in the quantitative development of Japanese language education in comparison with Chinese.<sup>9</sup>

Although student numbers at the beginning of the 1990s were rather similar in both languages in France (ca. 2,700 in Chinese and ca. 1,900 in Japanese in 1995), they later evolved in very different ways. The number of students choosing Chinese began to increase in the late 1990s, before exploding in the 2000s, and is today more than 45,000. This is ten times more than students choosing Japanese. This explosion was not due to a stronger student demand for Chinese rather than Japanese but to political and diplomatic decisions. China has in fact included the development of Chinese language education in its economic negotiations with France, a criterium which France has accepted. The development of Chinese as a language taught at school has, thus, been imposed on the Ministry of Education, which, without this request, would probably not have allocated so many resources (positions of teachers, inspectors, number of institutions, etc.) to Chinese language education.

Similarly, in Finland large cities (e.g. Helsinki, Tampere, Espoo) are eager to promote Chinese rather than Japanese. At present it is possible to select Chinese as a foreign language as early as in the first grade of basic education in some schools. A bilingual Finnish-Chinese curriculum has also been offered in Helsinki for a number of years.

These political and economic choices have had several dramatic consequences for Japanese language education; in the context of economic crisis and reduced budgets, considerable resources put into the development of Chinese (may) have been taken from other languages and have thus prevented their development – in the first instance that of popular Japanese. In the eyes of national and local representatives of the Ministries and other authorities, Japanese and Chinese are 'almost the same' and only one Asian language – in this case the more 'lucrative' one – is considered to be sufficient.

<sup>9</sup> It must be added, though, that to some extent Japanese has also been able to 'jump on the same bandwagon' with Chinese in Finland, thanks to a handful of persistent and active Japanese language instructors.

To sum up, the situation of Japanese language education in secondary school in France and Finland is not too dire, and some positive development can be attested. This development could, nonetheless, match better with the high demand of aspiring students – a situation which should also be recognized by the authorities in charge. When analysed from the perspective of access to education on a national level, it is clear that students are not treated equally. More than 95% of France constitutes a 'black zone', where one has no chance to study Japanese in junior or senior high school. The situation is very similar in Finland. This is a clear paradox. Japanese is one of the favourite languages of young people, a language they want to study spontaneously. In reality, however, they only have a very small chance to be able to study it. In other words, wherever Japanese is offered, the number of pupils studying it is growing steadily, but the number of schools in which this language can be selected remains very limited. Large areas of France and Finland are a desert for Japanese.

Our kitchen metaphor illustrates the paradoxical situation: while the number of students interested in enjoying Japanese cuisine is increasing, the number of restaurants offering their favourite menu remains low and geographically dispersed – leaving potential customers dissatisfied.

#### 3 Who Is the Chef? Japanese Language Teachers in Schools

In France, Japanese language education is at present (2019) in the hands of roughly 90 teachers (public and private junior and senior high schools). This group of instructors is very heterogeneous both in terms of status as well as competencies. 13 are qualified teachers who have passed the prestigious *agrégation* exam (*professeurs agrégés*), 7 are qualified teachers who hold the CAPES (external) qualification (*professeurs certifiés*), 6 hold the CAPES reserved/internal promotion of contract employees (*professeurs certifiés*) and the remaining ca. 60 instructors have varying positions (replacements, contract-based instructors, assistant teachers, etc.). To put it differently, this means that only 20 instructors or ca. 22% have been hired based on a national examination, which assesses their Japanese language proficiency and has enabled prior pedagogical education.

An important step in the development of Japanese language education in France was the creation of CAPES in 2016, linked particularly to qualitative improvement. This is reflected in the increasingly prestigious position of Japanese in secondary education and the willingness of the Ministry of Education to acknowledge the situation and to improve the quality of existing education. Thus far the examination has been organized four times in 2017-20, every time with three vacancies (and four in 2020). At the moment the situation is satisfactory, as, like in the case of the *agrégation*, it is important to organize the examination regularly. It is also important to announce a reasonable number of teaching positions each time in order to attract the best MA or PhD graduates in Japanese, for whom such positions offer a new professional career option.

The instructors without formal qualification can be divided into two major categories: those with Japanese roots (ca. 70%) and locals. The former are employed solely because of their background and usually do not have formal pedagogical education or understanding of the structure and demands of the French education system. The latter have a BA or (more rarely) an MA degree in Japanese, but no pedagogical education. In addition, some of them have a rather weak Japanese language proficiency.

A systematic mapping of the role of educators and other agents in the enterprise in Finland is yet to be undertaken, but it is clear that bottom-up 'unplanned planning' sparked up or supported by active local personae has played an important role in the context of secondary education. The determination of the source for language instructors and how they would be educated has been a topic of negotiations between universities, largely the University of Helsinki, and the Ministry of Education and Culture.<sup>10</sup>

From the perspective of enabling learning (*getting it*), both preservice and in-service teacher education are highly significant. Teachers play the role of 'chefs' in the classroom and "can promote pupils' prerequisites for learning with suitable high-quality pedagogy" (Kyckling et al. 2019). In Finland primary school teachers teach grades 1-6 in basic education (ages 7-13), while subject teachers usually teach grades 7-9 and at upper secondary school (ages 13-19). Subject teachers typically teach one major and another minor subject (Lavonen s.d.), in the case of foreign languages for example French and Spanish. For a subject teacher qualification, a minimum of 120 ECTS of study in total is required in the major subject to be taught and 60 ECTS in the minor one. A teacher of English and Japanese may therefore have studied English as a major in a BA and MA programme and Japanese as a minor. Subject teachers must have a BA degree (180 ECTS) and an MA degree (120 ECTS), which usually includes 60 ECTS of pedagogical studies – another requirement for a qualified instructor.

Subject teacher education in Japanese and Chinese in Finland has been organized solely at the University of Helsinki since 2014-15, initially in the MA Programme of East Asian Studies, and since 2017-

<sup>10</sup> How access to Japanese language is achieved – or not – on a local level at schools is a topic that would require more understanding of how power operates at the microlevel of situated discourses and practices.

18 in the newly established MA Programme in Languages.<sup>11</sup> Those who wish to become Japanese language subject teachers at school (basic and upper secondary education) select the specific Japanese Subject Teacher Education track, which includes 60 ECTS of general pedagogical studies, offered by the Faculty of Educational Sciences. In pedagogical studies only three slots are currently available for aspiring students of Japanese, but only one or two have been filled annually thus far.<sup>12</sup>

The organization of teaching practice in Japanese is a typical 'chicken or egg' situation; who can offer a practice placement and function as a supervisor in a situation where only a handful of trained Japanese language instructors exist and only very few have full-time teaching jobs in schools? In Finland, those lucky ones who have managed to land teaching jobs in Japanese usually teach also another language as their major subject, typically English, or function simultaneously as part-time instructors in various schools and other educational institutions.<sup>13</sup>

Such diverse 'chefs' play a non-negligible role in how daily Japanese language education is organized at schools. Some are, indeed,

12 Students must be enrolled or planning to enrol in the MA Programme in Languages and they have to pass an internal application process, which includes an interview at the Faculty of Educational Sciences. In the case of students of Japanese and Chinese, usually one of the two interviewers is a representative of the Asian Languages Track.

13 In addition to the regular subject teacher education as part of an MA degree, at the University of Helsinki separate extra studies are offered to those who have prior tertiary level education (in Japanese). Native speakers, who have some experience and educational background in Japanese (as a foreign language) and who can follow instruction in Finnish, can also apply for extra studies to complement their subject expertise, i.e. the requirements of 60 ECTS in Japanese taught as a minor subject at school. The Faculty of Arts reviews the application and the person in charge of the Japanese language curriculum at the Department of Languages gives a recommendation on whether to accept the application and, if so, which courses the applicant should take. The faculty can issue an equivalency certificate as a proof of (extra) studies that correspond to subject studies required of a subject teacher. The certificate must be requested in writing and at present costs 126 EUR. It must be stressed, though, that the certificate alone does not qualify anyone as a subject teacher. A qualified teacher must have completed the required 60 ECTS of pedagogical studies on top of proven expertise in her or his own teaching subject(s). By the end of 2018 eight students had been issued an equivalency certificate in Japanese and in 2019-20 two are still in the process of completing their studies. The option of extra studies seems to be rather attractive and new applications are submitted by candidates with varying backgrounds on an annual basis.

<sup>11</sup> This programme is a combination of 10 learning tracks and offers education in a total of 22 languages. The Asian Languages track (120 ECTS) includes Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Urdu. Students major in one of these languages (or Hindi and Urdu). Thus far no other university in Finland has held the training responsibility of Asian languages allocated by the Ministry of Education and Culture, but in 2019 Chinese was added to the responsibilities of the University of Turku. A Chinese language education programme will start in Turku at the School of Languages and Translation Studies in 2020 (Turun yliopisto 2019).

permanent qualified teachers, but others are replacements and contract-based part-time instructors. The former have a certified level of Japanese language proficiency and at least some understanding of didactics and of what it means to be a teacher. They have job security, a relatively good salary and an institutional status. The latter have not passed any (national) examinations and have been hired only because there was no other candidate available. They are in a precarious situation, their salary is low and their institutional status is (nearly) non-existing, perhaps limited only to the informal recognition from the part of their students and their students' parents. As far as the target language is concerned, those with Japanese roots naturally have an excellent command. This is not necessarily the case with local temporary instructors. A shared characteristic of these two types of instructors, however, may be their lack of pedagogical education and the fact that they have often landed teaching jobs accidentally or by default.

In sum, along the lines of our culinary metaphor, there are thus various types of 'chefs' in the kitchen. A minority has learned to cook and their competencies have been tested and assessed in national examinations or formal pedagogical training. The large majority, however, has never been assessed and they have ended up as 'chefs' solely because they come from families who already own a 'Japanese restaurant'.

# 4 Menus and Recipes for Japanese Language Education (Policy) Soup

What do these chefs cook? Even if the menus are imposed or proposed by the French Ministry of Education and the Finnish National Agency for Education, the recipe for each plate is grounded in the instructors' know-how and personal tastes.

In France until the 2000s every foreign language was taught according to specific curricula adapted to different options (first, second or third foreign language) and grades. At present they have been replaced by a single common curriculum for all the languages, which is based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and adjusted to the various courses and grades. Consequently, the Ministry of Education has decided to opt for action-oriented language pedagogy (acquisition of competencies by conducting various tasks), with a focus on communicative skills (CEFR). In addition, a choice was made to teach foreign languages via culture. These curricula, imposed on the instructors, are complemented with language-specific resources (examples of progression, sample classes, etc.), which the teachers are free to use for inspiration but are not obliged to resort to.

While the Ministry of Education and Culture (formerly the Ministry of Education) is the highest authority of public education and responsible for higher education, it is the National Agency for Education (EDUFI, formerly the Finnish National Board of Education) that holds responsibility for pre-primary, basic and general upper secondary education in Finland. The core curricula issued by EDUFI constitute the basic foundation for drawing up more specific local curricula and outline the objectives and core contents for each school subject.

In the present 2015 National Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Schools, Japanese is included under the title of 'Asian and African Languages'. As responding to the needs of such diverse languages as Japanese, Chinese and Arabic is not an easy task, common objectives and core contents are described rather loosely. Rather than stressing specific target levels, the focus is on communicative, socio-cultural and socio-pragmatic skills. Students are encouraged to locate inspiring learning materials and methods, and the described courses are built around specific themes. Based on the national curriculum, local school districts create their own more detailed syllabi. Even in the local version, specific to Japanese, there are no guidelines as to what vocabulary, grammatical structures or *kanji* should be taught in each course.

In the case of Japanese, it is not an easy task to conform these institutional frameworks, including their programmatic and pedagogical options, with the profile of the instructors as described above. Given the fact that not only has the vast majority (in the French case up to 80%) of the instructors never learnt to 'cook' this type of cuisine, many of them have never even tasted it themselves.<sup>14</sup>

The major difficulty these instructors face is not necessarily Japanese language education *per se*, but rather the capacity and attitude they possess – or not – to function in the French or Finnish educational system, in the framework of official French or Finnish learning materials and in front of pupils whose mother tongue is usually French, Finnish or Swedish and who, in any case, are not Japanese and do not behave in a Japanese manner. It is thus not solely Japanese language pedagogy that is a point of concern here, but instructors' challenges are more related to the transmission of knowledge, behaviour in class and the knowledge and acceptance of official texts and the related target groups – all aspects linked to pedagogical competences.

The teacher's profession is something that one has to learn and embrace in a given institutional context. Instructors must be able to reflect on their teaching practices as teachers, not only as teachers of Japa-

<sup>14</sup> The Japanese native speakers may have been recruited purely because the school had no tenured teachers available and because these individuals happened to be in France for their own personal reasons but were not originally involved in language teaching.

nese. Access to language, for example, is organized in the French educational setting in a specific manner, that is, *via culture*. This is what the official curricula demand and this cannot be negotiated. There are no other optional routes; one enters the language via culture and not vice versa. This principle, however, is often neglected by many instructors simply because they rely on a non-French pedagogical framework (not to say Japanese), which is almost exclusively focused on the Japanese language alone – syntax, vocabulary, *kana* and *kanji*.

For these instructors, the principal challenge is to manage to reflect on their own pedagogical practices even before they enter the profession. If one is put in a situation where one has to teach, while one has never learnt to teach and has never really thought about the art of teaching, one either – and most likely – imitates one's former teachers or tries to teach on the basis of imagined representations about the teacher's profession one has nurtured earlier. However, such – Japanese – methods, much like the representations, cannot work in the French or Finnish context.

Entering through culture obviously does not mean inserting vocabulary such as *sushi* or *kimono* in the expressions to be studied, but that language learning and acquisition of proficiency are motivated by a direct link to the capacity to communicate and function in the target culture where the language is used. Teaching a language – in this case Japanese – does not happen in a language-only vacuum, but in a very specific institutional, material and cultural context and, to point it out once more, in a context where the students' mother tongue (and not Japanese) forms the basis of their linguistic understanding.

Teaching Japanese in Finland and teaching Japanese in France therefore require very different pedagogical solutions and strategies due to the learners' native languages. Speakers of Finnish or Swedish, which is the second official language of Finland, are equipped with linguistic know-how and awareness which is not identical to that of their French-speaking peers. In other words, in order to prepare the same dish, the French 'chefs' need to use quite different recipes and ingredients compared to their Finnish colleagues. In addition, they need to be aware of this, they must have learnt the trade and they should have the adequate utensils and ingredients at hand.

#### 5 Pots and Pans. Where to Cook the Japanese Language (Policy) Soup?

As Kyckling et al. (2019) point out:

Language hierarchies are presently visible in the access to education (*getting in*), the enabling of learning (*getting it*) and the value of learning (*getting out*).

These counterproductive language hierarchies are intertwined with the various stakeholders and their ideologies, attitudes and beliefs, as well as the 'pots and pans' of language education policy-making.

In Finland, Japanese has only a very short history in the national core curriculum and is lumped in the category of 'Asian and African languages'. On the other hand, viewed through pink glasses, the latter title can also be seen as a welcome sign from the part of the authorities to provide more entrances to additional languages – a more ecological approach to language education policies at best.

Internationally, the Japanese Government, through the Japan Foundation, develops the JF Nihongo Network (the so-called 'Sakura Network'), which is defined as "a global network linking the core Japanese-language institutions and teacher associations in order to promote the spread of Japanese language efficiently" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2019). While France boasts eight network members, including four universities, the only Finnish member is the voluntary-based Finnish Teachers' Association of Japanese Language and Culture (Japan Foundation 2019a).15 In terms of direct support for Japanese language education activities and development, European cities and countries without a Japan Foundation (JF) office are in a less favourable position than those with continuous JF presence. Online workshops for instructors have been developed in recent years, but due to varying educational frameworks, teaching philosophies, local needs, etc., creating 'one size fits all' sessions is not a realistic task.

In both countries the 'chefs' or 'apprentice chefs' who teach Japanese in secondary education thus face serious 'administrative' challenges. Their kitchens are poorly equipped and lack many basic ingredients and utensils, more specifically something that many, particularly Japanese instructors, consider essential – adequate textbooks.

Learning materials constitute a core element in pedagogy. This is even more the case in Japanese language education, where instructors with Japanese roots are accustomed to organizing their pedagogical activities around the textbook – which in France and Finland typically has a very different function.

In Japan the textbook is in fact the principal pedagogical instrument. It is compulsory to use one, the textbook is totally adapted to the curricula with which it forms a coherent whole, and it must be finished by the end of the relevant school year. In short, although it totally deprives the instructor of any pedagogical freedom, it also of-

<sup>15</sup> It is unclear what criteria are used to select members. The sole educator of Japanese language instructors in Finland, the University of Helsinki, for example, was denied membership. Membership in the network is listed as an asset in the application guidelines for Japan Foundation's Japanese-Language Education grants, but "[u]nfortunately, there is no plan to add new members to the Network for the time being" (Japan Foundation 2019b).

fers relief. The teacher does not have to worry about what to teach and when; just follow the textbook…

In France and Finland, the textbook is a pedagogical tool among others. It is not compulsory to use a textbook and teachers alone decide whether or not to use one or which one to use. In most cases they use the textbook only as a teaching aid and almost never from the beginning until the very end. In principle the textbook is adapted to the curricula, but it may as well be based on a particular pedagogical idea or teaching philosophy. In short, the textbook never offers a 'complete' pedagogical solution. It does not provide answers to the didactic questions asked by the instructor; at best it can help the instructor to make practical choices in daily life at school.

When French and Finnish or Japanese instructors of Japanese request a textbook they are thus not talking about the same thing. Quite often the textbook is in fact related to the instructor's professional experience conversely. Those with less teaching experience are eager to use a textbook and unhappy without it. The more the teachers have experience, the less likely they are to be upset without a textbook or desperate to acquire one. Experienced instructors know that a textbook will never correspond to their needs and practice and that they would only use it partly, if at all. As they will never be able to find a textbook that would suit all their students, they often prefer to create their pedagogical materials themselves.

From an institutional perspective and when thinking about the development of Japanese language education as a goal, it could be suggested that publication of genuine Japanese language textbooks for French and Finnish schools is necessary for three reasons. First of all, they place Japanese language education in the institutional setting among the other disciplines (the textbook is a pledge, an important carrier of institutional legitimacy). Second, they suggest and develop terminology and language pedagogical theory relevant to the students' native languages and provide natural localized contexts for language practice and use. Third, they can help and reassure unexperienced instructors by offering them an initial working framework – a framework from which they can quite naturally detach themselves as they gain more teaching experience. From a purely pedagogical perspective, by contrast, the existence of such textbooks is much less urgent, if not unnecessary.

What is in fact a 'genuine school textbook'? It is a manual that is: manufactured in large quantities by a private publishing house; whose contents are in accordance with the teaching guidelines and national programmes and curricula; which is renewed with each new programme reform; which is written for a specific school year; and which is not expensive.

In this sense the pedagogical Japanese language education materials that exist in France are not school textbooks. They are not manufactured in large quantities; their contents may be (or not) in accordance with the teaching guidelines and national programmes at the time of their writing, but they are not renewed with each new programme reform; they are not written for a specific school year or even a specific public; and they are expensive. The cheapest ones, and therefore the most likely to be recommended by schools, available on the market, are mainly created by Japanese or foreign publishers and pose many problems of use for teachers.

In Finland, it is only as recently as in 2019 and 2020 that a handful of experienced teachers have published Japanese language textbooks or similar materials independently (on demand) or online with the support of EDUFI, specifically for secondary education.

*Marugoto* is an example of textbooks and resources developed by the Japan Foundation. However, as explained above, using such textbooks in local educational contexts is problematic – and this is the case in France, where *Marugoto* is rarely used in classrooms, if at all. And when it is, teachers are not really satisfied with it and only use it 'for want of a better one'. Why? Simply because *Marugoto* is a self-contained method and completely disconnected from the social and human reality of classroom teaching due to its universal and transnational vocation.

As a textbook designed to be used in any country, *Marugoto* is necessarily based entirely on the language it teaches (Japanese) and progresses from simple to complex material. However, a method that moves from simple to complex rarely works with pupils because 'simple' and 'complex' refer to the subject matter which is studied and not to learners' abilities.

Moreover, by choosing to focus on the 'average' learner of an 'average' age, *Marugoto* may appear too difficult or too easy depending on the audience. It reassures certain young instructors who can cling to it as a pedagogical tool, but it does not make their lives easier because they have to complement, reformat and adapt it to the curriculum. This is in fact the case with all the books used as textbooks in France (*Minna no nihongo*, *Hirake nihongo*, *Genki*, etc. produced in Japan, and *Manekineko*, *Neko no te*, *Sanpo*, etc. produced in France).

In reality the 'best' or in any case the most efficient instructors do not use textbooks in class or resort to them only sporadically as supporting material. They create their pedagogical materials independently, based on various existing resources. In this sense, it is the learners' 'notebook' – a personalized compilation of recipes – which, little by little, class after class, builds up, plays the role of the textbook and is much more effective.

#### 6 The Future of Japanese Language Education (Soup)

The French situation described above is reality at present but perhaps not in the future. The Ministry of Education has in fact undertaken an important and radical reform, in effect as of 2021, of the most important French school diploma, the *baccalauréat*. This reform affects not only the educational programmes and resources, but also the place of foreign languages in the curricula. Even if the infatuation of French youth with the Japanese language does not seem to be fading anytime soon, the position of Japanese as a third foreign language in secondary education, the most popular option chosen by students, is uncertain. In the new examination a third foreign language will in fact no longer accumulate any points to be included in the final grade. Will students and their families thus continue to spend time (and a lot of time) studying a discipline which does not bring them any immediate profit? In addition, the financing of third foreign languages will in the future depend uniquely on the budgets of educational institutions. Will school principals, in charge of increasingly and dramatically diminishing budgets, therefore continue to maintain courses which 'will be of no benefit' for the students? It is perhaps too early to say, but there are several signs which point to the direction that Japanese language education – along with other so called 'rare' languages – may be facing a difficult period.

This is in fact another characteristic of Japanese language education – and other school disciplines – in France: multiple and repetitive reforms of the education system at the discretion of political changes in the government. The past two decades have witnessed multiple reforms and they continue to affect the institutional and pedagogical framework where education is embedded. They do not offer the possibility for instructors to improve the quality of their work, but rather repeat a cycle of reforms that always reform the previous ones, modifying the rules, expectations, targets, etc. in their course.

In Finland, too, soon after the 2015 curriculum came into effect, the new government decided on a complete reform of general upper secondary education, and the legislation on upper secondary schools was rewritten in 2019. A new Act and Decree entered into force in January 2020, and consequently the National Core Curriculum was rewritten in the same year. The new, totally revised curriculum now applies to students who will start their education in August 2021.<sup>16</sup>

<sup>16</sup> The 2019 curriculum now includes syllabi for Asian and African Languages as 'B3' and 'A' languages, which start in upper secondary school and basic education respectively. Ability to interact and understand and produce texts/discourse are described loosely as CEFR target levels A2.2–B1.1. in an 'A language' and A1.3–A2.1 in a 'B3 language' (Opetushallitus 2019, 177). Students can continue to study an 'A language' throughout their schooling until the end of upper secondary education. Levels A.2.2–

Simultaneously, university entrance exams will be reformed in order to allow easier admission based on Matriculation Examination grades attained in secondary education.17 The relative weight of subjects such as mathematics in this reform is likely to have a negative impact on the attractiveness of foreign languages.

EDUFI and the Ministry of Education and Culture (2018) have continued to finance projects, which aim at diversifying the repertoire of foreign languages taught at schools and included in the Finnish Matriculation Examination, but such efforts suffered an apparent unexpected setback in the most recent legislative reforms on education. The 2019 Government Decree on the Matriculation Examination now enumerates the foreign languages in which the exam can be taken: English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Latin and Portuguese and the three autochthonous Sámi languages that are spoken in Finland, Northern Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi (Finlex 2019) – this contrary to the Ministry's most recent recommendations to add Japanese, Chinese and Estonian to the exam (Rinta-Aho, Mikkola 2018, 37).<sup>18</sup>

Finally, to return to our culinary metaphor, it is as if 'chefs' would be forced to prepare their dishes in a kitchen which is continuously refurnished and reorganized and where the places of ingredients and materials would be changed non-stop. They should always learn new recipes without any time to be able to get to know them and modify them again as soon as they would have finally mastered them. Tiring, frustrating and discouraging. This is the state French and Finnish 'chefs' are in. And not only those working in Japanese 'restaurants'.

B1.1 refer to post-basic education. If offered, at the end of basic education by grade nine pupils should reach level A2.1 in an Asian or African language (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese). School districts are given free hands to apply the guidelines of other 'A languages' to locally drafted syllabi, but for a 'B3 language' a total of 8 modules are specified on two levels: basic elementary (3 modules) and basic (5 modules). Each module now consists of two credits, while one credit corresponds to 19 x 45 min lessons (Opetushallitus 2019, 9, 197-201). Besides common themes such as school, hobbies, free time, daily habits and traditions, core contents include also basic elements of linguistic knowledge, such as introduction to variation in the target language.

<sup>17</sup> At the completion of general upper secondary school studies, students take the national Matriculation Examination.

<sup>18</sup> When questioned by a journalist about the rationale for maintaining Latin, Portuguese and Italian while disregarding Japanese and Chinese, the Matriculation Examination Board Secretary General simply replied: "Portuguese, Italian and Latin have a long history in the Matriculation Examination" (Grönholm 2019). Despite the long history, the number of examinees in foreign languages has been decreasing remarkably in recent years. Portuguese, for example, has had on average only 11 candidates per exam in the past five years (Ylioppilastutkintolautakunta 2019, 3).

# **Bibliography**


port-on-access-to-language-education-in-european-comperensive-education\_english\_summary-1.pdf.


# **Section 2** Miscellaneous

**185**

# *L'esprit de celui qui parle* **Wilhelm von Humboldt on Japanese and its Speakers**

#### Patrick Heinrich

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** Unbeknownst to most, Humboldt studied also Japanese in order to better grasp universal aspects of language. Humboldt's interest in Japanese is based on his teleological view of language. According to Humboldt, language is the expression of a nation's worldview and is, over time, subject to development and refinement. Japanese served Humboldt as an example to step back in time, so to speak, and he attempts to gain new insights into the origin of language by studying selected aspects of the Japanese language. While deeply original in his analysis, Humboldt falls victim to the Eurocentric bias of his approach. He uncritically perceives European languages as a yardstick to assess and interpret non-European languages.

**Keywords** Worldview. Linguistic relativity. Personal pronouns. Adjectives. Late Middle Japanese. Kokugaku philology.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 On Humboldt's Notes. – 3 Humboldt on Japanese. – 4 Humboldt's Notes on Japanese in Context. – 5 Conclusions.

#### 1 Introduction

It is generally known that Wilhelm von Humboldt studied a wide range of languages to develop his theory about the origin of language. Humboldt was an authority on languages as diverse as, for example, Basque, Old Javanese or Malay. However, very few know that he had also studied Japanese. As a matter of fact, he never published anything on Japanese, and Japan was at time closed to the outside world when he studied the language. Relatively little

information on Japanese was available to Humboldt in his lifetime (1767-1835). All that reminds us of Humboldt's efforts of study Japanese is a folder with some 30 pages of handwritten French notes in the Prussian Cultural Heritage Archive (*Preußischer Kulturbesitz*). One third of these notes are simply revisions of his first draft. These fragmentary and unpublished notes on Japanese are discussed in the following. More concretely speaking, I present the sources on which his notes were based (part 2), portray Humboldt's analysis of Japanese (part 3), in order to then place them in their philological context of its time (part 4). While Humboldt did not arrive at insights that remain relevant for the study of Japanese today, his struggle to account for particularities of a given languages (Japanese) but at the same time also for universal features of language remains relevant (see, e.g., Everett 2012 for a recent discussion).

The Japanese language that Humboldt dealt with is Late Middle Japanese (13th to 16th century). In this period, Japanese was subject to a wide range of changes. Many archaic elements were shed, and Japanese approached its modern form (Frellesvig 2010, 297-373). Japanese had not yet entered its long process of standardization (Sanada 2001). Linguistic descriptions of Japanese were often based on the local variety of Kyōto. Written and spoken language had not yet been unified, and residues of a Japanese-Chinese diglossia remained in the way that the grammar and the lexicon of written language was nobody's first language but had to be acquired separately (Heinrich 2005). However, since the grammars Humboldt studied were intended to serve the Christian mission of Japan, these descriptions also paid attention to spoken Japanese. Humboldt would not extent his study of Japanese beyond the notes discussed in this article. His notes on Japanese are therefore simply fragmentary sketches.

# 2 On Humboldt's Notes

Humboldt's studies of Japanese were limited to two grammars, Melchor Oyanguren's *Arte de la lengua japona* (1738) and a shortened version of the *Arte da lingoa de Iapam* by João Rodrigues. The latter work had been translated by Ernest Landresse (1825) into French<sup>1</sup> as *Elémens de la Grammaire Japonaise*. 2 Melchor Oyanguren de Santa

<sup>1</sup> Many of the French titles and quotes do not follow present-day orthographic conventions. I refrain in the following to add [sic] to diverging orthographies as there are no problems of intelligibility, and the current conventions did not exist at the time these utterances were written.

<sup>2</sup> Note in passing that Humboldt did not have access and did not know about the existence of Diego Collado's *Ars grammatica Japonica linguae*, a work that had been published in Rome in 1632.

Ines (1688-1747) was a Spanish missionary who had been dispatched to the Philippines and New Spain.<sup>3</sup> He had studied Chinese and Japanese despite never having been to any of these two countries. Wilhelm von Humboldt obtained a copy of Oyanguren's Japanese grammar from his brother Alexander von Humboldt, who had acquired it during his fieldwork in New Spain. The main source of information for Humboldt was however Rodrigues's grammar. João Rodrigues (1561-1634) had studied Japanese in Nagasaki where he arrived in 1577 at the age of 15. His grammar of Japanese appeared in three volumes between 1604 and 1608. This makes it the oldest surviving grammar of spoken Japanese today. It is also undoubtedly the most impressive work on Japanese from this period, and it remains an important source on Late Middle Japanese (Spear 1975, 2). Rodrigues did not start from scratch, though, but derived most of the grammatical categories he applied to Japanese from the influential Latin grammar of Emmanualis Alvarez. In 1610, Rodrigues was eventually expelled from Japan along with other Portuguese missionaries following an armed conflict between Portuguese traders and Japanese samurai. Rodrigues subsequently went to Macao, where he published his Short Grammar of Japanese (*Arte breue da lingoa Iapoa*) in 1620. It was only in this second grammar that he freed himself from the model of Latin grammars.

In comparing Oyanguren's *Arte de la lengua japona* and Rodrigues's *Elémens de la Grammaire Japonaise*, Wilhelm von Humboldt concludes that the grammar of Rodrigues is the more comprehensive and precise. He criticizes both, however, for basing their analysis and descriptions on the model of Latin grammars. Humboldt also notes that Oyanguren had not consulted the work of Rodrigues, writing that:

L'on ne voit pas même qu'il ait consulté le travail du P. Rodrigues, duquel il s'éloigne en plusieurs points importants. (Hum, boldt, s.d., 94)

He does not even see that he consulted the work of Father Rodrigues, from whom he differs in many important issues.<sup>4</sup>

Humboldt is in general critical of the fact of Spanish and Portuguese missionaries depart from Latin grammars in their studies of Asian and American languages, and he therefore recalls:

<sup>3</sup> Oyanguren is remembered today in particular for his remark that the Japanese writing system is a work of the devil, devised to prevent missionary work in Japan.

<sup>4</sup> All translations from French into English are mine.

Il faut toujours séparer soigneusement la manière dont telle ou telle forme grammaticale se trouve réellement dans la langue, de celle dont elle est représentée par l'Auteur. Tout cet étalage de modes, de gérondifs, de supins et de participes que l'on trouve dans les grammaires des PP. Rodrigues et Oyanguren, disparoitroit devant une méthode adaptée au vrai génie de la langue. (Humnboldt, s.d., 95)

It is always necessary to carefully distinguish between the manner with which a given grammatical form is actually part of the language, and the way this form is presented by the author. All this array of modes, gerunds, supines and participles that we can find in the grammars of Fr. Rodrigues and Oyanguren would all disappear of one applied a method adapted to the true genius of the language.

Humboldt is from the onset determined to not follow this direction of study. He seeks to uncover the 'true genius of the language' by studying Japanese.

Humboldt's first draft of notes (Humboldt, s.d., 113-28) was subject to various revisions by himself (Humboldt, s.d., 91-112). The fact that we can contrast the original notes with his revisions allows us to gain some more insights into his thought processes. Humboldt's revised version of his notes is about 500 words shorter that his first notes. Most of the roughly 60 changes and corrections are of stylistic nature. However, Humboldt also inserted two new passages in the manuscript. In the discussion of Japanese adjectives, Humboldt adds that the perception by the Japanese nation, i.e., the people of Japan, corresponds exactly to the verbal expressions in Japanese, and he notes the following:

Il est même certain que toutes les phrases de cette nature en renferment proprement deux réunies dans une seule, puisque la réflexion que la montagne est haute a dû précéder l'expression: la haute montagne. (Humboldt, s.d., 100)

It is even certain that all sentences of this nature properly unite two issues in one since the reflection that the mountain is high must have preceded the very expression: the high mountain.

As we will see below, Humboldt diverges considerably from the analysis of the grammars that he had consulted in his discussion of Japanese adjectives. He claims that the structure of Japanese is the result and expression of a particularly Japanese way of perception. In a second passage added to his second draft, Humboldt further expands his analysis on personal pronouns. It now also includes reflections on Malay. Humboldt is interested in pronouns because he regards them as the outcome of a historical abstraction processes. His curiosity on adjectives, on the other hand, is due to some particularities in Japanese.

Humboldt did not have access to Japanese research. In the West, only the Portuguese missionary João Rodrigues (1620) had processed these insights from Japanese research in his Short Grammar of Japanese (*Arte breue da lingoa Iapoa*) (Maes 1982, 19). Japan's closed country policy from 1639 onwards would actually result in the loss of this knowledge for many centuries, because the shogunate had ordered the destruction of all western books as part of their seclusive policy.<sup>5</sup> Humboldt did therefore not have access to the *Arte breue da lingoa Iapoa* by Rodrigues. Japanese research developed after Rodrigues would have benefitted Humboldt. From the 17th century onwards, Japanese philologists (*kokugakusha*) known also as 'Edo-nativists' (Harootunian 1988) tried to reconstruct orthographic and grammatical conventions of Japan's first written sources such as the *Kojiki* (Records of Ancient Matters) and the *Man'yōshū* (The Collection of Ten-thousand Leaves). Towards this end, the Edo nativists conducted several linguistic studies that we would call 'diachronic' today. The objective of *kokugaku* was to undercover Japanese language structures before the language came in contact with Chinese. This is a complicated undertaking because many orthographic reforms occurred between the 8th and the 17th century (Eschbach-Szabo 1989; Lewin 1982). By returning to a historical period of Japanese where the language had not been influenced by Chinese through Chinese writing, Japanese philologists sought to reconstruct an original, and in their view, 'genuine Japanese spirit'. The Edo nativists achieved impressive results that went far beyond what was known in Europe about Japanese (Miller 1975). Just like Humboldt, the Edo nativists dealt extensively with the question of the 'essence of language', and in the case of *kokugakusha* of an alleged 'true Japanese spirit'.

# 3 Humboldt on Japanese

Humboldt never aimed at a comprehensive description or understanding of Japanese. He studied Japanese to gain an understanding of how expressive acts of perception and thought shaped language. He therefore zoomed in on issues he thought were most revealing to this end. In his notes on Japanese grammar, Humboldt deals only with three topics: personal pronouns, adjectives and verbal inflection. Since lan-

<sup>5</sup> Only two copies of Rodrigues Short Grammar of Japanese remain today. They are archived in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University and the British Library in London, respectively.

guage for Humboldt is action (*Tätigkeit*) and not structure (*Werk*), the performing subject and the actions performed constitute to him the timeless and universal centre of language. This results in his profound interest in personal pronouns and verb forms, which he regards as "die Angeln, um die sich die ganze Sprache bewegt" (the pivots around which the entire language revolves: Humboldt 1903-1936, vol. 6, 205).<sup>6</sup>

Humboldt took much interest in Japanese verbal adjectives (*keiyōshi*). These have an inflectional apparatus that is similar to that of verbs, and they can also be used as a predicate to a subject without a verb or the copula.<sup>7</sup> In contrast to verbal adjectives, nominal adjectives (*keiyōdōshi*) require the copula in the predicate. Furthermore, verbal adjectives are inflected in adnominal position, whereas nominal adjectives are connected to the noun by a particle. It is precisely this distinction that has led to a differentiation between these two types of adjectives in the study of Japanese grammar. The verbal qualities of the *keiyōshi* have some far-reaching consequences. Contrary to European languages such as German, French or English, the Japanese main parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives) do not exactly coincide with the main pragmatic functions of utterances (proposition, predication and attribution). Verbal adjectives can be used for predication. They have therefore much in common with verbs. Nominal adjectives, on the other hand, have much in common with nouns. The situation for Humboldt was further complicated because adjectives underwent fundamental changes in Late Middle Japanese. Put simply, verbal adjectives merged from two classes into one, while nominal adjectives underwent a similar process of unification between two types of inflections only in adnominal position, but not in the predicative function (Frellesvig 2010, 339-41).

Humboldt quickly noted that verbal adjectives can be used as a predicate. For him, this lack of a clear-cut differentiation between verbs (predication) and adjectives (attribution) in Japanese indicated that the language (and its speaker's perception) had not yet fully developed. According to Humboldt, the adjective as an independent category (i.e.detached from the category of verbs) requires an abstraction process where property (expressed by the adjective) is viewed in isolation from the object (expressed by noun). The fact that verbal adjectives can also serve as a predicate is for Humboldt therefore an evidence of their 'verbality'. In other words, it is a proof for the lack of abstraction in language (and in perception). Particularly the 'ver-

<sup>6</sup> All translations from German to English are made by the Author.

<sup>7</sup> Edo nativists did for a long time not differentiated between nominal adjectives and verbal adjectives as a result of this. It was *kokugaku* scholar Suzuki Akira (1764-1837) who introduced a clear distinction between nominal and verbal adjectives in Japanese. The misleading Japanese term *keiyōdōshi* (literally 'adjective verbs') for nominal adjectives is due to a direct loan-translation from Dutch (Numata 1964, 17).

bal quality' of verbal adjectives in adnominal position calls for an explanation. Humboldt does not agree with the analysis of Rodrigues who saw adjectives in adnominal position as the Japanese equivalent to relative clauses in European languages (Humboldt, s.d., 99). According to Humboldt, such an interpretation is nothing but a 'Western perception' of Japanese. It does not do justice to the Japanese language and the Japanese mode of perception. For Humboldt, Japan is a nation in an earlier developmental stage than European societies, and the Japanese are therefore very well capable of expressing a perception such as *takai yama* ('high is mountain'). Impressed by the height of the mountain, Humboldt claims Japanese first state (and perceive) '[it] is high' and only then add 'the mountain' (Humboldt, s.d., 100). This interpretation leads him to two conclusions. Firstly, since he sees verbal adjectives primarily as verbs and only secondarily as adjectives, he declares the stems of the verbal adjectives, e.g., *tako* or *siro* ('high' and 'white', respectively) without any further ado to be 'real adjectives' (Humboldt, s.d., 97). Secondly, he considers the verbal qualities of the 'dictionary forms' of the verbal adjectives to be the result of a lack of abstraction. Humboldt thus regards the expression *takai yama* as a 'different perception' and not simply as a 'different grammatical structure'. He therefore literally 'translates' the Japanese structure into a Japanese experience, arriving thus at 'it is high, the mountain' (Humboldt, s.d. 99).

Humboldt's analysis of verb inflection was less problematic. He had no difficulty in recognizing bound morphemes as auxiliary verbs, because he is clearly aware of the agglutinating character of Japanese. This is more worthy of attention that might appear at first sight. For a long time, Japanese linguistics had difficulties to distinguish between words and morphemes (Morioka 1969). To be more precise, since the bound morphemes of the auxiliary verbs were seen as a word class, i.e., as 'auxiliary verbs', access to the concept 'word' was virtually blocked as already 'morphemes' were seen to constitute 'words' (see Heinrich 2002, 61-5). However, Humboldt had no difficulties in accepting bound morphemes as auxiliary verbs. He was actively seeking different ways in which languages could be structured.

While Humboldt attests adjectives to have a high verbal quality (see above), he sees Japanese verbs to having little verbal character, writing that:

Le verbe Japonais porte moins que le verbe d'autres langues, le caractère verbal par la circonstance que ses inflexions ne varient jamais d'après les personnes. (Humboldt, s.d., 102)

The Japanese verb carries less verbal character than verbs of other languages by the circumstance that its inflections never vary according to (grammatical PH) person.

Since grammatical person is not a grammatical category of Japanese, he declares Japanese verbs to be weak in 'verbal character' (*le caractère verbal*). This assessment is reinforced when he notes that Japanese personal pronouns are also not incorporated into the verb, as it is for example the case in Coptic or in the indigenous American languages that he had studied. He therefore states that Japanese pronouns are 'rather isolated' from the verb. In his discussion of verbs, Humboldt misjudged the pragmatic function of honorific language, which does not simply serve as some form of 'linguistic décor' as he perceived it (Humboldt, s.d. 102). Rather, honorific language is an aspect that pervades Japanese on all pragmatic levels. In Japanese, the choice of the verb needs to be marked according to the level of politeness or modesty, and this enables conclusions to be drawn on the participants involved (or discussed) in an utterance. The social positioning of the speaker in relation to the speaker is firmly encoded in the sociological language system (Coulmas 2005, 92-4). Actually, all of this is linked to perceptions by speakers, but since this matter is deeply situational and contextual, Humboldt does not engage in a closer study. His interest in language is always teleological, and context and situation were rather uninteresting phenomena for such a theoretical orientation.

By contrast, the importance of the social gradations of Japanese personal pronouns immediately catches Humboldt's attention. He identifies this social gradation as the main reason for the large number of Japanese personal pronouns (Humboldt, s.d., 104). In Modern Japanese, the number of personal pronouns reduced both as an effect of language change and contact as of deliberate language planning (Heinrich 2012, 76-81), but even the remaining number of personal pronouns has led to discussion whether these are pronouns or not (see Miller 1967, 340-3). The comparatively high numbers aside, Japanese personal pronouns also share morphological and syntactic aspects with nouns, and this can be seen to work against a clean-cut differentiation between nouns and pronouns in Japanese (see Sugamoto 1989). Humboldt correctly recognizes the large number of Japanese personal pronouns to be the result of a genesis that drew by and large on personal titles and forms of address (Humboldt, s.d., 105). As before, Humboldt is critical of the treatment of Japanese in the two grammars that he had studied. The contradictory discussion of pronouns that he finds in them makes him once more doubt their reliability:

Il est infiniment à plaindre que le Chapitre dans lequel nos deux grammairiens traitent du pronom, soit précisement un des plus imparfaits et des plus embrouillés. (Humboldt, s.d., 105)

It is a great pity that the chapter in which our two grammarians discuss pronouns, is surely one of the most imperfect and confused.

The cause of the contradictory analysis of Japanese pronouns, he suspects, must be based on an inability of the two authors to comprehensively grasp Japanese linguistic etiquette. Such etiquette, he speculates, could take the form of directly saluting a present person with a third person pronoun (see also Humboldt 1984, 87). To test this hypothesis, one would have to examine the etymologies of the Japanese pronouns, a task which was not possible due to the limited information on Japanese for him. Unsurprisingly, therefore, neither in *Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus* (On the Diversity of Human Language-Structure: Humboldt 1903-1936, vol. 4, 169-70) nor in *Über die Verwandtschaft der Ortsadverbien mit dem Pronomen in einigen Sprachen* (On the Relationship of the Local Adverbs with the Pronoun in some Languages: Humboldt 1903-1936, vol. 4, 317-19) do we find further discussions of Japanese pronouns. Humboldt was blocked in his endeavour to deepen his insights into Japanese by the lack of information available to him.

For Humboldt, Japanese personal pronouns were important for developing his theory of language as the result of perception. By studying Japanese personal pronouns, he hoped to find 'the human spirit' (*der menschliche Geist*) at work. Humboldt claimed that the use of pronouns was based on abstractions, and that such abstraction would develop rather late in what we call today 'first language acquisition'. He speculated whether all personal pronouns could have their origin in references for concrete persons. Humboldt believed that this was the case for Japanese and that it had developed a pronominal system based on references to nouns rather late. Also, the absence of person as a grammatical category could be understood as a residual of a historical under-differentiation (Humboldt, s.d., 108). According to Humboldt, the conceptualization of first and second person was based on a constantly changing interplay of 'speaker' and 'listener'. Expressing a constantly changing assignment of 'speaker' and 'listener' through non-changing personal pronouns requires abstraction. It is for this reason that small children take time to acquire personal pronouns. In the following passage, we see the gist of Humboldt's epistemological stance, in that he relates the language used by children (which need to develop) with language of foreign nations (that need to develop). To Humboldt, difference in language is a in difference in abstract development, and the place where such difference rests in the nation.

L'habitude des enfants de parler d'eux mêmes en 3. personne prouve que l'idée du moi est difficile à saisir. Celle du toi semble plus facile. Mais elle ne l'est guère. Car prise dans son sens rigoureux, elle sépare un être de tous les autres pour le mettre en opposition avec celui qui parle; elle renferme par là celle du moi. L'idée abstraite du Pronom, c'est à dire de la personne dénuée de toute autre qualité, a dû en général exiger une réflexion plus profonde. (Humboldt, s.d., 107)

The habit of children to speak about themselves in 3rd person shows that the idea of the 'self' is difficult to grasp, while that of 'you' appears to be easier. But this is not the case. Taken in its strict sense, (the third person PH) separates a being from all the others, to put it in opposition with the one who speaks. It thus contains (notions of PH) the self. The abstract idea of the pronoun, that is to say, of the person devoid of any other quality requires in general a deeper reflection.

Humboldt sees a similar historical pattern in the genesis of personal pronouns in Japanese, in Malay and Chinese. In the development of personal pronouns, he sees the human spirit at work, which is increasingly replacing the concrete with the abstract. The result of changing perceptions is linguistic refinement. This implies that grammar does not reside in structure – in the words of Humboldt in the 'language material' (*le matériel du langage*) – but in the 'spirit of the speaker' (*l'esprit de celui qui parle*: Humboldt, s.d., 126). Language is an activity (*Tätigkeit*), and it needs to be studied and analysed as such.

# 4 Humboldt's Notes on Japanese in Context

We have seen above how language always follows a teleological development for Humboldt. At the apex of the linguistic development are inflectional languages such as Latin, and the loss of inflections such as in English can be understood as decay of language and speakers' perceptions.

According to Humboldt, the most profound and sublime thoughts are only to be had in the inflectional languages. Languages lacking the inflectional apparatus can be seen to contain more primitive thoughts. (Gundersen 2002, 53)

Difference in language is a difference in development, and the further one goes back in these developments, the closer one gets to the origin of language. Between inflectional languages such as Latin or Sanskrit and isolating languages such as Chinese, he positioned Japanese as an agglutinating language. By putting typologically different languages in relation to one another, Japanese came in very conveniently. Humboldt perceived it to be located between European languages, on the one hand, and Chinese, on the other hand. It is simply for this 'teleological position' that he is interested in Japanese. Wilhelm von Humboldt's reflections on Japanese are thus based on a view that languages are artifacts. This is a view that remains imperative to this day in linguistic anthropology (see Gumperz, Levinson 1996). There is, however, an important difference between the work of Humboldt and contemporary linguistic anthropology. Humboldt developed a theory according to which linguistic and cultural differences can be attributed to different experiences (as in linguistic anthropology), but in addition these experiences can also be related to each other in Humboldt's theory. Humboldt places languages on a 'temporal' axis of refinement, with isolating and agglutinating languages being closer to the origin of language than inflectional (synthetic) languages. Furthermore, inflectional languages serve him as the yardstick to assess the development of non-inflectional languages. In Humboldt's notes on Japanese, this view is particularly evident in his analysis of adjectives.

Humboldt's linguistic theory could have been crucially undermined through access to the philological work of the Edo nativists. The reception of their works could not only have influenced his analysis of Japanese, but it could have also put his perspective on the 'spirit of language' and the 'spirit of the speaker' to a serious test. Lacking insights into their work meant that Humboldt's epistemology was never seriously challenged, and he thus continued to 'rank' languages according to their stage of development and degree of abstraction. It is in this point that Humboldt falls victim to a Eurocentric bias. He always and inevitably perceives the West as normal, mature and refined. Non-western languages and cultures act simply as contrast and as a data-mine. They never constitute a fundamental challenge to his theoretical position. Humboldt drew on ideas expressed by his contemporaries, most prominently on those of August Ferdinand Bernhardi (1805) whose ontological and epistemological positions he shares. Just as Bernhardi, Humboldt is interested in how perception (*Erkenntnis*) is determined by languages, or, seen the other way around, how language is determined by perception.

Humboldt's work crucially contributed to a dramatic ontological and epistemological shift in European philosophy at the time. Its former preoccupation with 'representation' receded in the early 19th century. What transcends time, individuals and place was now seen to reside in the 'object' itself (see Foucault 1974, 244). For Humboldt, this object is language, and this makes the study of language complicated. No longer is simply 'structure as representation' the object of linguistic study. Language is now seen as the results of putting thought through sound, drawing thereby on the perceptions and practices of formers speakers. This is the epistemological position which gave rise to the romantic view that a nation's worldview resided in its language. Accordingly, speaking a language implied using a present 'sedimentation' of prior uses of that language. It is in this sense that "every language user stands in the middle of the history of language" (Gundersen 2002, 62) or, in the terminology of Wilhelm von Humboldt, that language is not a representation of ideas and objects (*ergon*) but a cultural practice (*energeia*).

The Edo nativists had surprisingly similar insights. In a first analytical step, they had differentiated between *tai* (体, substance) and *yō* (用, accident), that is to say, between representational, objective parts of speech, on the one hand, and parts of speech expressing the human spirit at work, on the other hand (Wlodarczyk 1989, 12). The distinction between *tai* and *yō*, borrowed from Chinese Studies in premodern Japan, would later find its way into the modern study of Japanese grammar. In his famous process theory of language, Tokieda Motoki (1941) stated that Japanese syntax was characterized by a mutual sequence of *tai* and *yō* elements. The *yō* elements should thereby be understood as a direct expression of 'the essence of language' in communication, while *tai* would refer to concrete objects and concepts. According to Tokieda, an utterance such as *takai yama* (high mountain) would be expressed and perceived as a process-like act, where the adjective inflection -*i* of *takai* is *yō* (underlined in the following) and placed between the two *tai* elements *taka* (the adjective stem) and *yama* (the noun). The process of uttering such a statement would thus unfold as follows: (1) 'high', (2) 'high adnominal', (3) 'high adnominal mountain'. The listener of such a statement perceives 'mountain' as the complement to 'adnominal high' and thus comes to understand the utterance as 'the high mountain'. Just as Humboldt, Tokieda also perceived language not as structure but as an activity (Ōno 1995), and he prominently drew on the work of the Edo nativists by doing so (Negoro 1985, 3-15). However, since Humboldt did not distinguish between substance and accident, he could not but see *takai* in any other way than as 'being high', even in adnominal position.

# 5 Conclusions

While only fragmentary in nature, the Humboldt's study of Japanese is a manifestation of an entirely new way of studying language. Language is seen as an artifact, as the product of its speaker, and it is this which unifies all languages (and separates speakers of different languages). Being a man of this time, Wilhelm von Humboldt could not but place languages and their speakers onto a telos of development, abstraction and civilization, a continuum where Indo-European languages represented the very apex of development. None of this remains valid today of course. What remains important today is the need to align etic and emic aspects of language and to therefore not ignore the speakers and their perceptions. Humboldt's own conclusions in his notes remain therefore surprisingly fresh and relevant today:

La Grammaire réside bien plus dans l'esprit de celui qui parle, que dans ce qu'on peut appeller [*sic*] le matériel du langage, et que pour apprendre à connoitre [*sic*] le mécanisme des langues, il faut bien se pénétrer de l'importance de cette distinction (Humboldt, s.d., 110)

Grammar resides much more in the mind of the speaker, than in what is called the material of language. In order to learn the mechanism of languages, it is necessary to grasp the importance of this distinction.

# **Bibliography**


#### **Sources**


# New Approach to Teaching Japanese Pronunciation in the Digital Era **Challenges and Practices**

Ueyama Motoko

Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Italia

**Abstract** Pronunciation has been a black hole in the L2 Japanese classroom on account of a lack of class time, teacher's confidence, and consciousness of the need to teach pronunciation, among other reasons. The absence of pronunciation instruction is reported to result in fossilized pronunciation errors, communication problems, and learner frustration. With an intention of making a contribution to improve such circumstances, this paper aims at three goals. First, it discusses the importance, necessity, and effectiveness of teaching prosodic aspects of Japanese pronunciation from an early stage in acquisition. Second, it shows that Japanese prosody is challenging because of its typological rareness, regardless of the L1 backgrounds of learners. Third and finally, it introduces a new approach to teaching L2 pronunciation with the goal of developing L2 comprehensibility by focusing on essential prosodic features, which is followed by discussions on key issues concerning how to implement the new approach both inside and outside the classroom in the digital era.

**Keywords** Teaching Japanese pronunciation. Teaching Japanese prosody.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 Prosody First. – 3 Typologically Unique Characteristics of Japanese Prosody. – 3.1 Rhythmic Component. – 3.2 Tonal Component. – 4 New Approach to Teaching Japanese Pronunciation.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 201** Submitted 2020-02-14 | Accepted 2020-05-14 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/010**

#### 1 Introduction

It is not hard to imagine that any dedicated language learner strongly wishes and hopes to be able to perform oral communication successfully in their target language. The acquisition of oral communication is one of the major goals of the communicative approach, the current leading approach to foreign/second language teaching. There is also an increasing demand in linguistic and cultural mediation in speech communication among speakers of various languages, including Japanese. Japanese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is spoken by more than 128 million people and is ranked thirteenth on the list of world languages by total number of speakers (as L1: 128,229,330; as L2: 121,500).<sup>1</sup> The number of learners of Japanese has been increasing as globalization continues. Japan Foundation, which publishes a survey report on Japanese-language education abroad every three years, released the interim report for its latest survey in 2018. According to the report, 3,850,000 learners of Japanese are spread across 142 countries, and it showed not only an increase in learners (+5.2%) but also in teachers (+20.3%) and institutions (+15%).<sup>2</sup> The number of visitors to Japan is also skyrocketing, having doubled since the beginning of the present decade (124,492 in 2019), according to Japan National Tourism Organization (2019). The number of foreign workers is expected to grow in Japan, which is facing a continuing decline in the labor population. Thus, the acquisition of oral communication is more important than ever.

To learn oral communication, one of the logical initial steps to take is to learn the pronunciation of the target language. Pronunciation training improves speaking abilities by helping learners to develop clear speaking skills that improve intelligibility and minimize effort for interlocutors (Darcy 2018). It also improves learners' perception abilities (Linebaugh, Roche 2015). Successful L2 communication cannot take place without correct pronunciation (Celce-Murcia et al. 2010).

Generally, however, there tends to be very little emphasis on teaching pronunciation in a language classroom (Macdonald 2002), which is also the case for teaching Japanese as a foreign or second language (JFL and JSL, respectively henceforth). There is more than one reason for the lack of pronunciation teaching (Isomura 2001; Toda 2009; Abe et al. 2017). First, there is a belief among teachers that there is no problem in that even though learners have an accent, what they say is understood. Second, it is considered difficult to allocate limited class time to teaching pronunciation. Third, there has been no established method of teaching Japanese pronunciation, and the ma-

2 Japan Foundation 2019.

<sup>1</sup> Ethnologue 2019.

jority of textbooks do not deal with pronunciation systematically. No lexical accent information is provided for new vocabulary except in China (Abe et al. 2017). Fourth, teachers may not feel confident either about their knowledge of Japanese pronunciation or their ability to evaluate students' pronunciation and correct their problems. The latter problem is considered true particularly for non-native-speaking teachers who constitute 70% of the total number of Japanese teachers in the world (Japan Foundation 2015).

The lack of pronunciation instruction could result in learners' difficulties with pronunciation regardless of their L1 backgrounds and proficiency levels, as shown by Toda (2008a; 2009). She conducted a wide-scale survey among 1,216 international students from 47 different countries who enrolled in Japanese pronunciation courses offered by Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan). In their responses, they were able to describe their specific pronunciation errors which they knew how to correct. Their voices also showed how pronunciation problems could hinder not only smooth communication but also learning other linguistic aspects (e.g. vocabulary, listening comprehension). Limited pronunciation skills could lower learners' self-confidence and result in negative effects for learners in estimating their own social credibility and abilities (Morley 1998). This is indeed the case for the participants in the survey as well. They received comments from native speakers, such as that they sounded funny or strange, what they said was not understandable and so on. Such experiences caused frustration, ruining their sense of accomplishment.

It seems reasonable to generalize the problems reported in Toda's study as common among JFL learners in Europe. With the intention of making a contribution to improve the situation, this paper has three goals. The first is to show the importance, necessity, and effectiveness of teaching prosodic aspects of Japanese pronunciation from an early stage of acquisition, which is particularly the case for JFL learners whose L1 backgrounds are major European languages. The second is to provide a panoramic overview of major characteristics of Japanese prosody, which is challenging for leaners to acquire because of its typological uniqueness. The third is to introduce a rising approach to teaching Japanese pronunciation in the digital era that is aimed at developing learners' autonomous learning skills.

# 2 Prosody First

What is prosody? The word 'prosody' derives from ancient Greek, where it was used for a "song sung with instrumental music" (Nootboom 1997). Indeed, prosody is sometimes called the "musical" aspect of speech, since it involves variables used to describe music such as pitch contours (melody), rhythm, phrasing, emphasis, timbre (voice quality), silence (pause), and so on (Truax 2000, 39). In modern phonetics the word 'prosody' and its adjectival form 'prosodic' are used to refer to those properties of speech extending over larger units of speech than individual sounds or segments. Prosody is also commonly called suprasegmentals.

Frontier approaches to teaching Japanese pronunciation put emphasis on prosody, not on segments, as shown by the dominance of prosody exercises in major textbooks of Japanese pronunciation, as shown in Table 1 that lists the titles of units of *Hitori demo manaberu nihongo no hatsuon* ('Learn Japanese Pronunciation by Yourselves', Kinoshita, Nakagawa 2019). Units to exercise individual sounds are in gray, occupying only one unit in each textbook. Much more emphasis is placed on prosody than segments for several reasons. The first reason is because Japanese is much more difficult to learn at the prosodic level than at the segmental level. Japanese is one of languages whose phonetic inventory is relatively small. This means that Japanese phonemes are likely to be available in learners' L1s, which is very likely to result in less probability for errors.<sup>3</sup> This is also the case for five representative European languages – i.e. English, German, French, Italian and Spanish – whose phonemic inventory is larger than that of Japanese, as shown in Table 2.

The second reason is the great importance of prosody in speech communication. Prosody conveys not only a broad range of linguistic information such as lexical information, syntactic information, chunking the stream of speech in phrases, signaling new and contrastive information and disambiguating sentences, but also rich paralinguistic information, i.e. information related to the identity, age, gender, and emotional state of the speaker (Lengeris 2012). Prosodic information present in fluent speech helps the listener perceive the utterances. Words, like musical notes, are grouped together into phrases by their rhythmic and durational properties as well as their tonal pitch. This organization of prosodic phrasing (grouping of words within an utterance) affects the understanding of sentences (Frazier, Carlson, Clifton 2006). The comprehension of spoken language is a complex skill to map the acoustic signals of the speaker's output onto linguistic units, such as phonemes, syllables, and words

<sup>3</sup> As for learners whose L1s are Romance languages, the exception is /h/. In Romance languages, the alphabetic letter *h* is not pronounced (e.g. homme /om/ 'man' in French; ha /a/ 'have (third person singular)' in Italian; hola /ola/ 'hello' in Spanish). This characteristic tends to result in errors such that /h/ is not pronounced when speakers of those languages learn a language with phonemic /h/: e.g. English *hair* and Japanese *hai* 'yes' pronounced as *air* and *ai*, respectively. However, note that the availability of phonemes of a target language does not guarantee segmental acquisition, although it tends to facilitate, as shown by /h/ lenition observed among Indonesian learners of Japanese although /h/ is phonemic in Indonesian (Hatasa, Takahashi, Ito 2016).

(Ayasse, Alexis, Wingfield 2018). At the sentence level, prosodic cues help the listener to detect the lexical meanings of the expressions uttered, determine the syntactic structure of the utterance, and comprehend utterance meanings. The importance of prosodic functions is also held in L2 speech communication. In the perception of L2 speech by L1 speakers, prosody plays a more significant role than individual sounds, as reported in earlier research. Studies comparing the relative contribution of segmental vs. prosodic features in degree of foreign accent have shown that deviations in prosodic features may affect listeners' judgement more than deviations in segmental features (Lengeris 2012). Specifically, prosody has been found to be linked to intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness of L2 speech (for a review, among others, see Lengeris 2012). This is also the case for L2 Japanese. A stronger effect has been found not only on native Japanese speakers' evaluation of L2 Japanese pronunciation (Sato 1995) but also on the comprehensibility and naturalness of L2 Japanese pronunciation as perceived by L1 Japanese speakers (Kato et al. 2012; Saito, Akiyama 2017).

**Table 1** Titles of units of *Hitori demo manaberu nihongo no hatsuon* ('Learn Japanese Pronunciation by Yourselves', Kinoshita, Nakagawa 2019)<sup>4</sup>


3) Slash reading 2 – how to express emotions

4) Noun and adjective accent – pitch control

5) Verb accent – mountain-shaped, plateau-shaped accent and intonation

6) Sentence-final intonation 1 – *ka, ne, yo*

7) Sentence-final intonation – *janai, yone, kana, kane*

8) Rhythm 1 – long vowel – geminate – coda nasal N

9) Rhythm 2 – rhythmic patterns of words and – senryū

10) Vowels and consonants – how to pronounce

11) Sound changes – gender and dialect variations

12) How to express feelings 1 – politeness

13) How to express feelings 2– roles and characters

14) Conclusion – toward future pronunciation learning


**Table 2** The numbers of phonemic consonants and vowels in Japanese, English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish

The third reason is its overall complex nature, as shown earlier. Prosody consists of multiple components; two essentials are tonal and rhythmic components. In modern linguistic theories, both components are considered hierarchical with different levels of organization (for reviews, see Jun 2005 for intonation; Arvaniti 2009 for rhythm). Every language has prosodic grouping and prosodic prominence at multiple levels (word, phrase, utterance), but different languages use them in very different ways (Jun 2005). Languages differ in their inventory of prosodic units, way of grouping prosodic units (i.e. prosodic grouping), and way of expressing prosodic prominence. To learn and teach Japanese pronunciation, it must be worthwhile and helpful to be familiar with essential characteristics of Japanese prosody.

Lastly, more attention needs to be paid to prosodic aspects since Japanese prosody is particularly challenging to learn regardless of learners' L1 backgrounds, as is well known from both research and practice. Earlier studies have shown that common errors that occur regardless of learners' L1 backgrounds are related to prosody, as opposed to segmental errors that tend to be found among learners whose L1s are specific<sup>5</sup> (Kondo 2011).

# 3 Typologically Unique Characteristics of Japanese Prosody

Why is it so challenging to learn Japanese prosody? It is mainly due to its typologically unique characteristics (Hayashi 2018). Among a wide range of its functions, two key essential elements of Japanese

<sup>5</sup> For example, the aforementioned problem of silent /h/ tends to occur only in the production of L2 Japanese by learners whose L1s do not have /h/ (e.g. French, Italian, and Spanish), while this error tends not to occur among learners whose L1s have /h/. Similarly, Korean learners of Japanese have difficulty in pronouncing ザ、ズ、ゼ、ゾ /za, zu, ze, zo/ since /z/ is not a part of the Korean phonemic inventory.

prosody at the lexical level are *lexical pitch accent* and *mora*. Both have lexical functions: i.e. they are used to distinguish meanings of words. Japanese intonation is generated on the basis of the distribution of lexical pitch accent, while rhythm is organized with the use of mora as a basic unit. The mora is subsyllabic, the smallest of prosodic units of languages. For this, Japanese is classified as a *pitch-accent language* from a pitch or tonal point of view and as a *mora-timed language* from a rhythmic point of view. Japanese is one of the very rare languages classified as a pitch-accent, mora-timed language. This typological uniqueness tends to result in difficulties in learning Japanese prosody for learners whose L1s have very different prosodic characteristics.

The specific elements of L2 Japanese speech that are difficult for a large number of learners to acquire are the properties of Japanese speech that are typologically unique: the phonemic length contrasts for both consonants and vowels and pitch accent. Both are listed as the most common problems by Toda (2009) and Kondo (2011), based on results of their wide-scale surveys.<sup>6</sup> To further understand the nature of learning difficulties, Japanese phonemic length contrasts and pitch accent will be explained mainly from a typological point of view in the rest of this section, considering essential phonological and phonetic characteristics within the rhythmic and tonal components of Japanese speech. Issues related to the L2 acquisition of those properties will be also mentioned.

# **3.1 Rhythmic Component**

# 3.1.1 Mora-timed Temporal Organization

In terms of rhythm or temporal organization, languages are typologically classified into three types: stressed-timed, syllable-timed, and mora-timed (for reviews, among many others, Dauer 1983; Arvaniti 2009). This classification is originally proposed, on the basis of the isochrony hypothesis that claims two points: 1) every language belongs to one particular rhythm type; and 2) rhythm types are defined in terms of a timing unit (syllable, foot, mora) that is of equal duration. A number of studies were conducted to test the theory, but ex-

<sup>6</sup> Kondo (2011) conducted a survey among 103 Japanese teachers to discover pronunciation problems. Their responses reported pronunciation errors observed among learners from 21 language groups, also showing that common pronunciation errors were those of moraic length contrasts and also moraic coda nasal /N/. These problems were the most common ones that emerged from Toda's (2009) survey study introduced in § 1 of the present paper.

perimental results were too inconsistent to support the theory (Dauer 1983; Arvaniti 2009).

Later studies have proposed that different timing types are characterized rather by the combination of different properties of speech, such as syllable structure, the distribution of word stress/accent, the phonetic realization of lexically prominent syllables (e.g. stressed and pitch-accented syllables in English and Japanese, respectively), the reduction of unstressed/unaccented syllables, and so on (Arvaniti 2009). In stress-timed languages (e.g. English and German), more complex syllable structures are found in stressed syllables, and syllables with more complex structures tend to be stressed (Dauer 1983), and are longer in duration and greater in intensity. Syllable structure and stress are more likely to reinforce each other in a stresstimed than a syllable-timed language. The inventory of syllable types is more limited in syllable-timed languages like French, Italian, and Spanish with less vowel reduction, and even more limited in moratimed languages like Japanese with neither accentual lengthening nor vowel reduction (e.g. Beckman 1986). The proportion of CV, a syllable consisting of one consonant preceding a vowel, is remarkably higher in Japanese than in English and Spanish, thus showing a smaller proportion due to a wider distribution among different types of syllables. These differences in multiple properties of speech lead to the greatest durational contrasts between stressed and unstressed syllables in stress-timed languages, the smallest durational contrasts between accented and unaccented syllables in Japanese (a mora-timed language that does not have a stress accent system), and somewhere in the middle in syllable-timed languages.

The majority of languages are stress-timed or syllable-timed, and only a few modern languages are classified as mora-timed. Japanese timing patterns are phonetically characterized by the small amount of durational malleability at the prosodic level (Ueyama 2012) mainly due to the absence of lengthening accented syllables and the absence of the vowel reduction of unstressed syllables.<sup>7</sup> These characteristics are difficult to acquire, especially for learners whose L1s are stress-timed languages with a greater amount of durational malleability that is manifested with stressed-syllable lengthening and unstressed-syllable reduction.

<sup>7</sup> This does not mean that there is no vowel reduction in Japanese. High vowels /i/ e /ɯ/ tend to be reduced in two phonological contexts: 1) both /i/ e /ɯ/ between voiceless obstruents (e.g. *sushi* [sɯ̊ ʃi] 'sushi' where /ɯ/ is not voiced fully); and 2) high back vowel /ɯ/ in sentence-final position (e.g. *ikimasu* [ikimasɯ̊ ] 'go (polite present affirmative form)'.

# 3.1.2 Moraic Length Contrasts: Characteristics and L2 Acquisition Issues

Apart from the aforementioned factors, Japanese rhythm is determined largely by phonemic length contrasts. Japanese has two phonemic lengths for consonants as well as for vowels: e.g. *kite* 'wear (request form)' vs. *kit:e* 'postal stamp' for single vs. geminate consonants; *kite* 'wear (request form)' vs. *ki:te* 'listen (request from)' for short vs. long vowels. Some languages have only phonemic vowel lengths (e.g. Fijian, Thai, Scottish Gaelic, Swedish, Vietnamese) while some have only consonant lengths (e.g. Italian, Turkish). Only a few languages have both consonant and vowel length contrasts such as Arabic, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, and Japanese. This may partly explain why they are very difficult to learn for the great majority of learners.

There has been continuous research on the L2 acquisition of phonemic length contrasts that is still ongoing. A set of general findings emerges from the results of earlier studies (see Hirata 2015 for a comprehensive review). At an early stage of acquisition, L1 backgrounds of learners affect perception significantly. Learners that are not familiar with phonemic length contrasts in their L1s do not perceive Japanese length contrasts with clear and stable categorical boundaries like native Japanese speakers do. Their perception varies depending on phonetic contexts such as lexical pitch accent, speech rate, and positions in a word (e.g. word-initial contrasts are the easiest to perceive), while L1 Japanese perception is stable. In contrast, learners whose L1s have phonemic lengths (e.g. Finnish, Arabic) can perceive Japanese length contrasts in a categorical way similar to that of native Japanese speakers. Vowel length tends to be easier to perceive than consonant length, but it is possible to learn to perceive both types of length contrasts eventually. Production is more challenging than perception: learners improve their production as they advance their study of Japanese, but there always seems to be individual variation in the degree of improvement.

# **3.2 Tonal Component**

# 3.2.1 Pitch-accent Language

The world's languages have been classified into three categories according to their use of pitch at the lexical level (Jun 2005): tone languages, stress (accent) languages, and pitch-accent languages. Japanese belongs to the third category. The exact percentage for each category is not available. However, the World Atlas of Language Structures/WALS (Haspelmath et al. 2005; Dryer, Haspelmath 2013), i.e. a large database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages that were gathered from descriptive materials (such as reference grammars) provides information on word prosody for 176 out of the 200 sample languages included in the database. Since the database is quite representative, we can have an idea of the distribution of the three types: 141 (80%) use stress, and 28 (16%) have only lexical tone or pitch accent (Goedemans 2010). This information indicates that pitch-accent languages such as Japanese are the minority.

The majority of tone languages are spoken in Asia, such as Mandarin Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese and also in Africa, such as Akan, Igbo, and Yoruba. Each tone language has its own inventory of lexical tones (contour tones and level/register tones in Asia and Africa, respectively) applied to a syllable that are phonologically distinctive by showing unique pitch patterns to convey different meanings. In contrast, in both stress (accent) languages and pitch-accent languages, only one syllable or mora in a word is more prominent than the others. A major difference between lexical stress and pitch accent<sup>8</sup> is in which acoustic correlate it is involved. In stress languages, word stress involves multiple acoustic parameters as in English where word stress is produced with changes in fundamental frequency (F0), intensity, duration, vowel quality, and so on (among others, Beckman 1986). In pitch-accent languages, lexical pitch accent is achieved principally by pitch change. Other than Japanese, major modern languages that have been identified as pitch-accent languages are Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Norwegian, Persian, Punjabi, Swedish, Western Basque, and certain dialects of Korean (among others, Jun 2005; Hyman 2006). Some have both pitch accent and stress,such as Serbo-Croatian, Norwegian, and Swedish, but Japanese has only pitch accent. Some have both lexically accented and accentless words, such as Japanese and Northern Bizkaian Basque. Lastly, some languages do not have any lexical tones, stress or accent; French and Seoul Korean belong to this category. In these languages, intonation patterns are determined only based on post-lexical tones (Jun 2005).

As mentioned earlier, a major difference between pitch accent and stress (accent) is that only pitch is involved for the former while multiple correlates exist for the latter. This difference explains one of

<sup>8</sup> In a current common intonation model, the autosegmental-metrical (AM) approach (among others, see Ladd 1996; Jun 2005), the term *pitch accent* is used also for postlexical prominence that is assigned to a word in a certain speech context. Thus, there are two types of pitch accent: lexical accent and post-lexical pitch accent. Post-lexical pitch accents do not have distinctive functions without changing the lexical identity of the word, opposed to lexical pitch accents that are used to distinguish meanings, as in Japanese.

the common problems among learners whose L1s are stress (accent) languages; they tend to use their L1 stress in place of the Japanese of pitch accent by lengthening vowels and/or using more intensity at an early stage of acquisition, as shown in past experimental studies (e.g. Ueyama 2012 for L2 Japanese-L1 English; Asano, Gubian 2018 for L2 Japanese-L1 German; Ueyama 2016 for L2 Italian-L1 Japanese). Since Japanese has phonemic vowel lengths, non-native extra durational stretch native Japanese speakers' perception of (C)V as (C)VV: e.g. /wakaˈɾɯ/ 'understand' is perceived as / wakaaˈɾɯ/ with long vowel /aa/. Learners whose L1s do not have a lexical accent face a different problem that is also caused by a difference between their L1s and Japanese. They simply use their L1 tonal shapes at the sentence level.

# 3.2.2 Japanese Lexical Accent: Characteristics and L2 Acquisition Issues

The lexical or word accent system of Tokyo Japanese<sup>9</sup> is characterized by the following principal properties. There is only one type of pitch accent, HL,10 a high tone followed by a falling tone. The presence, absence, and position of pitch accent HL are contrastive (e.g. McCawley 1968, and many others). Only one HL pitch fall is allowed within a word, and pitch cannot rise again within the same word once it goes down: i.e. there can maximally be one prominence within a word (Kawahara 2015).

The following steps or rules are applied to have final tonal shapes. If there is no lexical accent on the first mora of the word, pitch rises from low to high from the first onto the second mora of a phraseinitial word (i.e. phrase-initial pitch rise), and pitch stays high up to the lexical accent. The three tonal patterns of two-mora words with three distinctive meanings are presented in **[fig. 1]**: *ha\*shi-da* 'they are chopsticks'; *hashi\*-da* 'it's a bridge'; *hashi-da* 'it's an edge' (the underlined syllable is lexically accented while the asterisk marks the approximate location of pitch fall). These three tonal patterns can be abstractly represented by a sequence of high and low tones: H\*LL,

<sup>9</sup> Different Japanese dialects are characterized by varying characteristics of different properties of speech, including word accent.

<sup>10</sup> H\*+L is alternatively used to represent lexical pitch accent mainly in research works conducted with the AM approach as well as in the J-ToBI prosodic labeling scheme (Venditti 1997; for the extended version of J-ToBI, Maekawa et al. 2002).

**Figure 1** An example of a minimal set of two-mora words distinguished by pitch accent **Ueyama Motoko New Approach to Teaching Japanese Pronunciation in the Digital Era**

LH\*L, LHH.<sup>11</sup> In this way, a tonal pattern of one-word unit, *bunsetsu*, 12 can be explained or predicted by a small set of steps once the presence, absence, and position of pitch accent HL are found.

#### 3.2.3 The L2 Acquisition of Japanese Lexical Pitch Accent

Lexical pitch accent is another element, along with phonemic length contrasts, that causes difficulty for learners of Japanese; L2 acquisition of lexical pitch accent has been studied extensively up to today (for reviews, see Hirata 2015; Hatasa, Takahashi, Ito 2016). Main findings that emerged from past studies are as follows. The degree of perceptual accuracy for different pitch accent patterns and effects of syllable structures depends on learners' L1s. The learners show higher accuracy in those pitch accent patterns that are similar to the prosodic patterns of their L1s, but accentless words and words with word accent on the last mora (e.g. LHH and LHH\*, respectively, for threemora words with no word-internal pitch fall) are perceived more correctly than words with a pitch fall within a word (e.g. H\*LL and LH\*L).

Perceptual accuracy varies across individuals, regardless of their history of Japanese language study. Even advanced speakers cannot reach close to a native level of perceptual accuracy, unlike the case of phonemic length contrasts that advanced speakers are able to perceive with native-like accuracy. A similar tendency is found also in

<sup>11</sup> Using a binary system of H and L tones has been criticized since it is considered not to represent phonological and phonetic characteristics of Japanese accent patterns, and these days, it is more common to indicate only the position of pitch accent. However, the binary system is employed in this paper for the ease of explanations of L2 patterns in this section.

<sup>12</sup> *Bunsetsu* is a morphological unit of accentuation consisting of a content word such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives with or without being followed by a string of function morphemes such as particles or postpositions, as defined by Hattori (cited in Nagano-Madsen 2015, 200).

production (among others, Sakamoto 2010 and Muradás-Taylor 2019 for English-speaking learners; Pappalardo 2017 for Italian-speaking learners). Commonly, the same learners produce more than one accent pattern for the same lexical item (Ueyama 2012; Hatasa, Takahashi, Ito 2016), which strongly reflects the nature of interlanguage that is characterized by non-systematic variability (Selinker 1972).

Similar to the acquisition of phonemic length contrasts, production seems to lag behind perception (Hirata 2015; Hatasa, Takahashi, Ito 2016). This general tendency is shown by Sakamoto (2010) who investigated both the production and perception of the same learners. "The experienced learners with an average of 3.7 years of Japanese study with 1 year of stay in Japan showed perception of the three types of pitch accent similar to that of NJs, but their production was still significantly lower than that of native speakers" (cited in Hirata 2015, 737). Difficult patterns to learn do not seem to be the same in production and perception, as pointed by Hatasa and colleagues (2016), based on the results of their comparison of findings of earlier research on the acquisition of Japanese pitch accent by Englishspeaking learners.

Lexical pitch accents are fundamental components of the phraselevel intonation of Japanese. Japanese intonation can be largely determined at the lexical level based on the distribution of lexical pitch accents and interacting with post-lexical processes such as phraseinitial pitch rise (see also § 3.2.2) and downstep<sup>13</sup> (Pierrehumbert, Beckman 1988; Venditti 1997; Maekawa et al. 2002; Jun 2005; Igarashi 2015). The lack of acquiring lexical pitch accents at the production level could result not only in misunderstandings of meanings of words but also in unnatural intonation at the sentence and discourse level, which may interfere with smooth communication by reducing the comprehensibility of learners' speech.

# 4 New Approach to Teaching Japanese Pronunciation

The overview of the essential characteristics of Japanese prosody mainly at the lexical level has shown two points: 1) common difficulties in learning prosodic features are largely due to their typological uniqueness; and 2) such difficulties cannot be easily overcome by adding experiences of learning Japanese with no pronunciation instructions. Under these circumstances, the logical solution is to

<sup>13</sup> Downstep is a phonological process in which the local pitch height of each accentual phrase typically consisting of one lexical word plus any following particles (Igarashi 2015), i.e. *bunsetsu*, is reduced when followed by a lexically accented phrase, which results in forming a staircase-like effect of accentual phrase heights in sequence (see Jun 2005).

Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 **213** European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 201-220

teach Japanese pronunciation from an early stage of learning. Then the next question is how? The following points are keys to answering the question.

The first point is a general goal: i.e. teach *comprehensible* pronunciation. In the last decade, there have been on-going shifts in pedagogical implications for pronunciation teaching (Levis 2005, cited in Saito 2018). The traditional approach focuses equally on all L2 pronunciation features to teach native-like accurate pronunciation. The new approach instead focuses selectively on certain features affecting comprehensibility or intelligibility with a goal of teaching comprehensible L2 pronunciation based on the fact that many successful L2 speakers remain accented but highly comprehensible (Saito 2018). The goal of the new approach is also the basis of ongoing efforts to improve the problematic situation of teaching Japanese pronunciation in a classroom.

Second is the need to teach essential prosodic features in a classroom. This line of instruction was proven to be effective in Oyama's (2014) experimental classroom study. Eight sessions of 20 minutes were carried out for one month, focusing on selected prosodic features such as rhythm and mora length contrast, major characteristics of lexical accent patterns (e.g. pitch accent, accent type, compound accent, simple word accent) and those of intonation. In every session, students also practiced dialogues by focusing on accentual phrases. The comparison of results of pre- and post-tests showed the significant effects of instructions. As pointed out in the conclusion of the study, the important function of this type of training is to provide learners with metalinguistic knowledge about Japanese phonology and phonetics. As reported by Toda (2008b, 2008c), successful learners have learned such knowledge and utilize it to monitor their pronunciation critically.

The third key issue is that teachers need to continue to follow up on instructions in classrooms, especially for pitch accent. Teachers are expected not only to continue to teach accent patterns of new vocabularies but also to have the ability to assess learners' pronunciation, explain problems, and carry out exercises to solve problems. However, it is evident that not all teachers have such an ability, including native Japanese teachers. Byun (2018) conducted a test of the perception of accent patterns among 126 Japanese students studying Japanese language education, and results showed that the percentage of correct answered ranged from 60 to 80%. The same study also showed the effects of a training that improved the percentage up to 90%. Similar difficulties are faced also by native Japanese teachers, as shown in Kanamura (2020)'s survey conducted among 69 teachers working in Japan that has unveiled the psychological block to teaching pronunciation among teachers. Kanamura expresses the importance and need to support Japanese teachers to improve their ability to assess the pitch of one's own voice and understand the difference between model and actual pronunciation.

The fourth point is to utilize digital resources, including teaching materials such as audio files, videos, websites ranging from pages designed to teach Japanese pronunciation (e.g. つたえるはつおん *Tsutaeru hatsuon*) <sup>14</sup> to digital tools to support pronunciation learning online or offline. The most frequently used tool worldwide may be the webbased system OJAD<sup>15</sup> (Online Japanese Accent Dictionary) developed by Minematsu and colleagues. A prosodic reading tutor Suzuki-kun, one of four OJAD features, is utilized not only by learners but also by teachers. Suzuki-kun visualizes intonation curves with pitch accent information for any given text, also generating speech models of a selected voice at three different speech rates with the use of speech synthesis technologies (Minematsu, Hirano, Nakamura 2018). The combination of a visual display of prosodic information and an audio model has proved to be very effective in improving the naturalness of L2 Japanese pronunciation, as shown by experimental evidence (Minematsu et al. 2016). Speech analysis tools (e.g. Praat,<sup>16</sup> WASP),<sup>17</sup> although not developed originally for teaching second language pronunciation, can be utilized by learners to check their pronunciation by comparing with audio models for acoustic patterns. Kinoshita and Nakagawa (2019) propose combining OJAD and Praat. This is currently one of the cutting-edge methods that cover three steps of learners' autonomous learning: i.e. visualize prosodic patterns, generate audio models with OJAD, and check learners' pronunciation by comparing with audio models for acoustic patterns with Praat.

To conclude, this paper has argued for the importance, necessity, and effectiveness of teaching Japanese pronunciation from an early stage of leaning, especially prosodic features, and then it has shown from a typological point of view why it is very difficult to learn Japanese prosody for the majority of learners, regardless of their L1 backgrounds. Last but not least, the new approach to teaching L2 pronunciation with a goal of developing L2 comprehensibility has been introduced, along with key issues concerning how to implement the approach both inside and outside the classroom in the digital era.

<sup>14</sup> http://www.japanese-pronunciation.com/.

<sup>15</sup> http://www.gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/eng/pages/home.

<sup>16</sup> http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/.

<sup>17</sup> https://www.speechandhearing.net/laboratory/wasp/.

# **Bibliography**


# The Role of the Japanese Language in Venice

# **A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Japanese Linguistic Landscape**

#### Laura Pani

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** This paper focuses on the description and analysis of the Japanese linguistic landscape of the historic centre of Venice to understand the heterogeneous relationships among languages, its users and the involved urban context. After a brief theoretical introduction, the phase of fieldwork has been integrated with a more comprehensive qualitative approach, consisting of interviews conducted with both Japanese native speakers and Italian native speakers. This multilayered approach sheds light on the role that the Japanese language plays in creating and modifying the linguistic context of Venice, underlining its functions in relation to users' attitude and linguistic behaviours.

**Keywords** Japanese language. Linguistic landscape. Multilingualism. Context-driven methodology.

**Summary** 1 Introduction. – 2 General Overview on Terminology . – 2.1 Visibility, Saliency and Vitality. – 2.2 Informative and Symbolic Function of the LL. – 2.3People, Language(s) and Interactions. – 3 Methodology . – 3.1 Presentation of the Case Study: Venice. – 3.2 A Context-driven Methodology. – 4 Results . – 4.1 Top-down and Bottomup Signs: Authorship. – 4.2 Monolingual and Multilingual Elements. – 4.3 Geographical Distribution. – 5 Conclusion.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 221** Submitted 2020-02-21 | Accepted 2020-05-18 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/011**

# 1 Introduction

This paper focuses on the description and analysis of the Japanese linguistic landscape of the historic centre of Venice. Although Linguistic Landscape (henceforth "LL") can be categorized as a sub-field of sociolinguistics, this area touches many other neighboring fields: linguistics (proper), demolinguistics, demography, sociology, cultural geography and statistics. All these disciplines have offered different perspectives and point of views which contribute to the understanding of this case study. Three goals have been elaborated for the present research: a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Japanese LL; an understanding of the reasons and necessities which motivate authors to display Japanese language; the understanding of the potential concordance or discordance between the authors' interest and the effective reception of the transmitted message.

# 2 General Overview on Terminology

Ever since the seminal and pioneering article of Landry and Bourhis in 1997, LL has rapidly become a widespread field of investigation. Indeed, the theorization of LL both presented was influential enough to constitute the starting point for most of the following researches:

The language of public road signs, advertising billboard, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration. (Landry, Bourhis 1997, 25)

As emerged from this definition, the term "Linguistic Landscape" refers to all exposed and visible linguistic elements which can be seen in public space such as streets, quarters, urban areas or cities. But, whereas Landry and Bourhis cited only six types of signs, (public road signs, advertising billboard, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs), nowadays communication takes place also through:

electronic flat-panel displays, LED neon lights, foam boards, electronic message centres, interactive touch screens, inflatable signage, and scrolling banners. (Gorter 2013, 191)

For this reason, the study and analysis of LL has always to be contextualized to the conditions of the specific time and space. The study of LL offers not just a multi-layered and multileveled overview on how linguistic interaction take place, but also a different point of view on how multilingualism reflects itself in a specific urban space at a specific point of time. As explained by Seals (2017), LL reflects how places and spaces change in order to be suitable for the people who inhabit there.

After the publication of Landry and Bourhis (1997), a great number of studies on LL have been conducted across the world. As a consequence, we can witness a noteworthy growth of definitions and perspectives on LL. After some publications, focused on the role of English language in different European cities that appeared in the journal "English Today",<sup>1</sup> some researchers started focusing on other features and roles of language(s) in contemporary society. In doing so, they re-adapted definitions and theoretical criteria to expand the study of LL to different disciplinary points of view. Scollon and Scollon (2003) made an important contribution to the study of LL, since they set up their research around the concept of "geosemiotics", showing the intricate relationship between material placement of the linguistic sign and its meaning/role.<sup>2</sup>

Geosemiotics – the study of the social meaning of the material placement of signs and discourses and of our actions in the material world. […] All of the signs and symbols take major part of their meaning from how and where they are placed. (Scollon, Scollon 2003, 2)

Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) adopted a sociological point of view in describing LL as they focussed on the public display of language as a "social action".<sup>3</sup> In other words, they stressed the role of language in being the means of interaction between people and space. In these terms, LL is the sum of all interactions among a myriad of social actors.

As a consequence of these various theoretical perspectives, methodological questions have been raised through the earlier works in LL. As explained by Backhaus (2007), previous researchers have used either qualitative or quantitative approaches, postulating the supremacy of one approach over the other. What Backhaus stressed is that in order to create a solid and cohesive methodology, it is important to implement the quantitative outcomes with qualitative observations. Moreover, as years went by, researchers started including more cross-disciplinary criteria and transcultural perspectives to better understand the multifaced world of LL (Seals 2017, 269).

From this brief excursus on the different prospective on LL that came in succession since its first theorization, the close relationship

<sup>1</sup> "English Today" is an academic journal founded in 1985 by Cambridge University.

<sup>2</sup> Indexicality.

<sup>3</sup> In their work they cited the sociological theories of Bourdieu (1991), Boudon (1990) and Goffman (1963).

between LL and its linguistic, demographic or ethnographic components has become increasingly clear. LL cannot be considered as a fixed phenomenon or as an immutable object which can be studied using the same paradigms or methodological structures everywhere at any point of time. Rather, LL has to be interpreted as a fluid and changing process, subject to the modern mobility that take places in society and public space (Seals 2017, 269).<sup>4</sup>

As emerged from this overview, some keywords are common to the different studies, regardless of their research domain. In fact, the concepts of visibility, frequency, saliency or vitality (although they may have been interpreted in a slightly different way), can be found in almost every study on LL since the publication of Landry and Bourhis (1997).

#### **2.1 Visibility, Saliency and Vitality**

The three concepts of visibility, saliency and vitality are extremely important as they represent the main decisional criteria for the understanding of the LL and its consequent description. While visibility refers to the "physical" feature of the linguistic sign, saliency and vitality are the indicators taken into account for the understanding of the relationship between languages and the community.

The term "visibility" indicates the crucial criteria for the identification and recognition of the linguistic elements composing the LL. According to the definition mentioned above, LL is constituted by all those elements visible in public space. Visibility is also an important indicator to uncover language hierarchies (and consequently speaker community hierarchies). In fact, as Coulmas (2007) clearly states, from a sociological point of view, being "linguistically visible" is an important strategy or means for any group of speakers who want to show (or impose) their own presence in a specific context. In fact, the analysis of visibility can reflect not only the power relationships between the coexisting languages, but also the dynamics that exist between the ethnolinguistic communities in the analysed urban context. The concept of visibility has often been associated to the one of "frequency", because the more a language is frequent in the LL the more it will be visible.

The term "saliency" refers both to the visual aspect (such as the colour, the size or the font used to write a linguistic sign) and the semantical recognition involved in observing the LL. These two possible realizations of the concept "saliency" in the concrete world of

<sup>4</sup> For a more comprehensive discussion see Backhaus (2019), Blackwood, Lanza, Woldemariam (2017), Blommaert (2013), Seals (2017).

LL led us to consider "saliency" as an indicator of the relevance that a certain language has in the analysed context. In fact, in a multilingual context (or LL), the more a language is frequent and visible, the more it could become recognizable, memorizable and, eventually, understandable to its readers.<sup>5</sup> As a result, in the area of LL, the degree of saliency shows how a certain language is relevant (and possibly how this language has become relevant), using both visual and semantic criteria in a qualitative (visibility) and quantitative (frequency) approaches.

The term "vitality" constitutes an important sociolinguistic indicator in being a synthesis of both language in use and its speaker community. In the field of LL, "vitality" indexes not only the presence of a certain language in the linguistic scenario, but also the presence of a speech community that uses (and decides to use)<sup>6</sup> that language (Berruto 2009, 173-98). In fact, "linguistic vitality" refers to the status of a certain language which can be alive, obsolete or dead, taking into account the amount of people who actually use it. As emerged from this brief description, the term vitality is linked to the users of a certain language. For this reason, the sole quantitative analysis of LL, in some cases, could not be enough in the representation of linguistic vitality because LL is concentrated in the public domain. As pointed out by Barni and Extra, in fact:

In this sense, the outcome of linguistic landscape research should be read with care; they do not intend to present a faithful mapping of the linguistic make-up of population in a given place. (Barni, Extra 2008, 3)

These three terms are therefore very important in the analysis and description of LL, in order to create a faithful representation and overview of the urban context in which it has been studied. With urban context, we mean also the demographic sphere that constitutes it.

<sup>5</sup> In the field of LL the question of saliency (together with the frequency and visibility of a language) is often linked to the problem of endangered languages or even dialects. Heinrich (2016) has discussed on the absence of Ryukyuan languages (despite commonly spoken and understood) in the linguistic landscape of Okinawan Prefecture. In this case, authorities' linguistic choices are the consequences of a linguistic ideological process, claiming for the linguistic unity. This example shows how the index "saliency" highlights the process which brings a language to become more relevant than the others.

<sup>6</sup> This is a sociopsycholinguistic acceptation of the term "vitality" because it considers the triadic relationship among people, spoken language and the language choices.

# **2.2 Informative and Symbolic Function of the LL**

The two concepts of informative and symbolic function indicate the strategical meanings LL can assume in the phase of contextual and sociolinguistic analysis. In other words, they shed light on the value a certain linguistic phenomenon has in a multilingual context. They are helpful in the interpretation of the role a certain language plays in a given territory.

The informative function shows how languages (and linguistic groups) behave and interact in a specific territory. In other words, it provides information about the socio-ethnolinguistic composition of the urban context (Landry, Bourhis 1997, 26). Consequently, it highlights in-group and out-group dynamics involved in the creation of a linguistic hierarchy. The symbolic function, on the other hand, refers to the sociolinguistic and demolinguistic implications that the presence of a certain language has in a territory. It thus represents all those processes of identification (or symbolic construction of identity and space) which take place through the use of language in public space (Landry, Bourhis 1997, 28).

# **2.3 People, Language(s) and Interactions**

These previous paragraphs have already pointed out that LL should not be interpreted as a linguistic product or object, but, more appropriately, as a dynamic and mobile process. For this reason, it is important to examine who decides to write and participate to the construction of LL and, at the same time, who is supposed to be the reader of those linguistic sings. As Backhaus (2007) has pointed out, recognizing and tracing the "authors" and the "reader" of an LL can offer a more complete view of the case study in question.

Following Backhaus's approach, it is therefore crucial to investigate on who writes or participates in the construction of LL and, consequently, on the reasons that motivate them to do so. Traditionally, researchers have divided and classified the authors of LL into two distinct groups: official and non-official. Although the nomenclature used to indicate these unit of analysis has changed over the years, the dichotomous principle at its base remained the same. For this case study, the terminology "top-down" and "bottom-up" will be used to distinguish these two type of authorships. With "top- down sign" we indicate:

Government signs refer to public signs used by national, regional, or municipal governments in the following domains: road signs, place names, street names, and inscriptions on government buildings including ministries, hospitals, universities, town halls, schools, metro stations, and public parks. (Landry, Bourhis 1997, 26-7)

Therefore, the so called "top-down" signs are created and displayed by official and institutional authors who, even if animated by different aims, show their power through linguistic presence. On the other hand, the "bottom-up" signs (non-official signs) are those that are written in private initiatives. These include, for example, advertisings or commercial signs. In the study of LL, this kind of categorization is extremely important because it highlights "who" really contributes to the creation, the change and dynamism of LL. The study and analysis on who does intentionally interact with LL by exposing a linguistic signs is important because being aware of the origin and the motives behind an inscription can enhance our understanding of power relationships among ethnic groups.

The other category of people interacting with LL is constituted by the readers of those linguistic inscriptions; in other word this group includes all those social actors to whom signs are addressed. The role of the reader is important because every linguistic inscription is the product of many decisional processes which include questions such as "To whom do I want to address this inscription?", "Why should I use this language for my message?" but also, "Why this addressee is important for my aim?". These questions highlight the importance of a preliminary analysis on possible or even desirable linguistic interactions which are at the base of some linguistic, stylistic or even visual and aesthetic decisions. Another socio-demographical aspect that should be considered is the way through which the readers interact with LL. In fact, the category of "readers" may include residents of a certain city, people who just temporarily live there or tourists who pass through a given space. It is therefore evident how the way through which these people interact with space and LL can fundamentally different: tourists, for example, have a shorter permanence in a certain urban context and, consequently, have different linguistic and informative needs.

This brief introduction on the various linguistic interactions people may have in space, has shown how LL is subject to all the continuous changes which takes place in urban contexts. It has also shed light to the impossibility to use *a priori* a universal terminology. Every context has its own unique sociological features at a given time. Lastly, it has been pointed out how the study of LL cannot leave the demographical analysis out of consideration because of its intricate relationship between people and language(s). Based on these insights, the next part will be dedicated to the description of the case study of this paper: the Japanese Linguistic Landscape of the Historic Centre of Venice. The definitions and categories which have been already introduced here will be readjusted to be fully suitable to the context, and consequently to be flexible enough to do justice to this case.

# 3 Methodology

Methodological issues have always played a crucial role in the study of LL. As pointed out by Backhaus (2007), each approach to LL is strictly linked not only to the research questions, but also to the research domain (linguistic, historical, sociological, economic, demographic, sociolinguistic). Regardless of the academic field in which the analysis may has been set, research can usually be structured at least into three different phases: preliminary theoretical construction of the criteria for the "unit of analysis" and the observed context; fieldwork on the chosen context and the final examinations and considerations based on the collected elements. In addition to these, each research may develop and use different tools that is considered appropriate for the specific research questions, in order to understand the plexus of linguistic and sociolinguistic interconnections. In the following paragraphs the methodological criteria will be discussed together with the geographical and sociolinguistic description of the case study: Venice. At the end, a context-driven methodology will be presented together with the research questions of this case study.

# **3.1 Presentation of the Case Study: Venice**

The Historic Centre of Venice<sup>7</sup> includes the six "Sestieri" (an Italian world referring to the six parts of the city): Cannaregio, Dorsoduro, Castello, San Polo, San Marco and Santa Croce, with a total surface area of 8 km2 (canals and Lagoon surrounding the Historic Centre are not included, just as Burano and Murano Island and the section of Lido-Pellestrina). The distance between Sant'Alvise and the lower edge of Giudecca (the two latitudinal poles considered) is 3 km circa, while, for what concerning the longitudinal pole Piazzale Roma and Sant'Elena, the distance is about 5 km. For this research, the whole surface of the Historic Centre has been taken into account. There are two reasons behind this decision. The first is linked to

<sup>7</sup> The urban context taken into account is the historic centre of Venice, of which a geographic and demographic description will be presented. It is important to specify that the historic centre of Venice is just one of the six boroughs of the whole *comune* of Venice (which is composed by the historic City, Lido-Pellestrina, Favaro Veneto, Mestre, Chirignano-Zelarino, Marghera). For this reason, sometimes it was not possible to obtain specific data referring to this area, since some reports and documents analised the whole city of Venice.

the structuring of the research itself: understanding and describing the presence and the role of Japanese language in this peculiar urban context. Consequently, also the examination of sparsely attended places emerged as a priority. In fact, it would be misleading taking into account only the areas located nearby tourist attractions (for example San Marco Square or Rialto Bridge) or highly frequented and crowded zones (the railway station or waterbus stops). The second reason is determined by the lack of "exclusion criteria", significant enough to make one Sestiere (or a single portion thereof) prevail over others. No real geographic orientation markers have been selected for the fieldwork phase. The whole Historic Centre has thus been segmented into six subsets (one for each Sestiere): the beginning and the end point of each Sestiere (visible everywhere by indications written on walls) constituted the boundaries for the abovementioned survey area.

Furthermore, in order to formulate an accurate overview of the social actors interacting in this context, a demographical description was found to be useful. It allows to investigate the nature of the relationships between people (writer and reader of LL) and the languages. For the demographical analysis two important sources have been used: the official website of the city of Venice and the ISTAT website.<sup>8</sup> These two official sources contain up-to-date data from the census survey of 2017.<sup>9</sup> In 2017, 53,799 residents had been living in Venice, of which 4,164 (7.74%) were foreigners, just 0.3% of them are were Japanese. The overview shows how this percentage is decisively too low to suppose the existence of a Japanese community living in Venice. Then there are all those who currently live in Venice but cannot be considered as officially resident (overseas students, degree seekers, visiting students or International Credit Mobility). The number that had been provided by Ca' Foscari University and IUAV University of Venice is very low: 88 Japanese students have arrived for the Academic Years 2016/2017 and 2017/2018. In addition, 10 Japanese language assistants had then been teaching at Ca' Foscari University. It becomes clear, in any case, that the amount of Japanese people regularly interacting with the Venetian urban context is small.

Another important category that has to be considered are tourists. The Historic Centre of Venice is world-famous as a World Heritage Site. In fact, as explained in the website of the City of Venice,<sup>10</sup> in 2017 the number of the arrivals was about 3,155,548 people, but


the Annual Report of Tourism<sup>11</sup> does not specify the country of origin of the tourists arrived in the Historic Centre of Venice.<sup>12</sup>

# **3.2 A Context-driven Methodology**

The present survey has been structured into three phases: (1) the theoretical determination and circumscription of the survey area, followed by (2) the description of the "unit of analysis" and then (3) the fieldwork of cataloguing and analysis of collected items (through which units of analysis have been photographed and social actors have been interviewed). During this third phase the interviews were analysed in order to understand correlations between LL and the social actors.

The need of a context-driven methodology was a consequence of the demographic features of the case study. In fact, while previous research on LL analysed more ethnolinguistic communities coexisting in the same place, no Japanese community exists in Venice. For this reason, the roles of visibility, vitality and saliency of Japanese language (and of the Japanese language itself) need to be also examined through qualitative lens of interviews. In fact, in this scenario, the value acquired by languages is subject to the role people play in this context. Thus, interviewing both the authors and the readers became an important tool for the interpretation of the LL. Consequently, in order to justify this methodological apparatus, interpretative and descriptive criteria have been adapted to the context.

#### 3.2.1 Theoretical Phase

As for every other data-driven study, the question concerning the theoretical determination of the "unit of analysis" is as important as problematic. In order to create a coherent and linear *modus operandi*, a clear definition of what is a unit of analysis plays a crucial role. In fact, as noticed by Gorter (2006, 71), the definition of the unit of analysis is central both in the creation of the "exclusion criteria" (through which every item which does not satisfy the preliminary description will not be included in the data collection) and in the final classification of them. In other words, defining a unit of analysis means creating the guideline for the fieldwork phase, in that this first step indicates what will be selected and recognized as data.

11 Aligned in 2017.

<sup>12</sup> It only specifies that 129,722 Japanese tourists have arrived in Venice in 2017. We can anyway assume that those tourists have mainly arrived in the Historic Centre even if no data attest it.

For what concerns this study, the term "unit of analysis" refers to all those inscriptions or billboards containing Japanese language (big enough to be read). After these physical and linguistic criteria have been fixed, another feature was explicated: the permanence of a certain unit of analysis in space. In other word, though it was clearly established that LL is subject to constant change caused by social actors' interactions, a distinction between "moving signs" and "static signs" is an important theoretical criterion. For this research, in fact, "moving units of analysis" such as tickets, signs written on t-shirts or on public transport, have all been excluded because they could have compromised the qualitative and quantitative reliability of the LL.

#### 3.2.2 Fieldwork and Interviews

The phase of fieldwork was carried from July to October 2018 and the 52 units of analysis have been photographed using a smartphone. Every documented element was associated with a tagline containing the address and the name of the Sestiere where it has been located. In this phase two limitations were encountered: firstly, some zones of Venice were so overcrowded that it was necessary to trace some areas more than once. Secondly it was hard to sift every part of the Historic Centre, due to the ease with which you can get lost there.

Furthermore, during the fieldwork phase, 55 interviews have been conducted (45 to authors and 10 to readers, namely Japanese tourists). The questions addressed to the "writers" of LL were the following 5. Interviews were conducted in Italian:


For what concerns the questions addressed to Japanese tourists, it is important to specify that the interviews had been conducted *in loco*, that is, nearby the place where the unit of analysis has been found, in order to catch the psychological process of semiotic association between language and context. The interviews were conducted in Japanese:

<sup>13</sup> This last question has been asked only in case of more than one translation of the same content.


# 3.2.3 Analysis and Classification of the Linguistic Elements

In this phase all the collected units of analysis have been organized and classified. In order to examine the LL by both along qualitative and quantitative approaches, the elements were gathered along the following criteria:


In this study a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis has been used. Any items have contributed simultaneously to the understanding of the consistency and composition of the LL. For this reason, two criteria have been created to develop a coherent quantitative examination. Firstly, if the same linguistic element had been found in different places, then it would be counted as one. The main reason for doing so is that the repetition of the same linguistic element (even if important for the analysis of the frequency and saliency) would have compromised the quantitative overview. Secondly, if different unit of analysis<sup>14</sup> had been found in the same place (it is the case of various billboards or signs displayed on the same shop), they would be counted individually as "more elements". In addition to these categorizations, the analysis has also involved the responses in the interviews, in order to create a complete description of the LL in its interconnection with a social actor point of view.

# 4 Results

The context-driven methodology created for this case study, includes both quantitative and qualitative approaches, taking also into account criteria and paradigms from disciplines other than linguistics or sociolinguistics. In this way it was possible to highlight how Japa-

<sup>14</sup> That is unit of analysis conveying different semantic contents or visually different compositions.

nese language interacts with other languages, people and the peculiar urban context of Venice. Moreover, it was possible to shed light on the importance of the decisional processes of LL: by doing so, the presence of Japanese language can be understood not only as a reflection of people's (communicative) interest but also as the symbolic creation of space. The 52 collected items have been categorized and examined in accordance with the classical theoretical distinctions previously delineated.

# **4.1 Top-down and Bottom-up Signs: Authorship**

Of the 52 collected items, only 4 are top-down and the remaining 48 are bottom-up:


**Table 1** Pani 2019, bottom-up and top-down elements

In accordance with the theoretical definition given above, the topdown signs have been installed by the Municipality and, except for one of them (San Marco Square police station), they have all been found several times in the context analysed. For example, the sticker "*Ocio al tacuin*" (written in Venetian dialect) presents 8 different translations of the advice "Attention pickpockets". It can be found in many highly frequented places due to its informative function.

**Figure 1** Example of topdown multilingual element photographed nearby Accademia's Bridge, Venice, 2018

All these top-down elements are multilingual and present translations (parallel multilingualism) in a variable number of languages. It is therefore clear that the interest of top-down authorship is to reach a group of "readers" as large as possible, in order to communicate advices or behavioural norms. Furthermore, considering the communicative value that these elements have, an economic-commercial purpose could not be observed. What emerged from this brief outline is that the number of top-down elements is decisively small, especially if we consider that the number of top-down elements that do notincluding Japanese language is large. Top-down authorship of Japanese signs in Venice is exceptional.

As regards the bottom-up elements, the question is more articulate from a stylistic, aesthetic and linguistic point of view, even if all these 48 units of analysis share one common goal: an economic and commercial one. That becomes clear at first sight (reading and understanding the signs) and, at a later time, it has been confirmed by the interviews of authors of the bottom-up signs. Due to the heterogeneity of these elements, the criteria adopted for their presentation is based on the arrangement of the contained language(s): 7 monolingual and 41 multilingual signs.

For what concerns multilingual bottom-up elements, 20 were translations, 3 were transcriptions, and the other 18 contain phenomena labelled here "various multilingualism". The first group contains, for example, translations of restaurant's menu or of the list of products available inside the shop. Sometimes the Japanese translation provides information about shop's opening hours or other indications. For the second group, a preliminary explanation on disambiguation criteria is necessary, in order to explain two opposite cases. The main question is the role of the Latin script (*rōmaji*) in the inscription. This script is part of Japanese orthography. Thus, this kind of phonetic transcription (which, in that case, would be categorized as "transcription") can also be seen as a display of various Japanese scripts (i.e. being part of Japanese language, that would thus be categorized as "monolingual element"). In order to create a disambiguation criterion, the pragmatic role of those inscriptions have been analysed. Through this observation, the pragmatic role of the *rōmaji* emerged, and it became possible to determine if the phonetic transcription in Latin script has been written as an auxiliary version or as a principal and predominant source of information. As for the case of the sign next to the clothing store "Camilla", in San Marco Square (San Marco Square 112), where the katakana version "カ ミッラ" is next to the Latin script version. This transcription (which has been displayed next to the Latin one) contains no "independent meaning".<sup>15</sup> It has thus been displayed with the aim of creating a mental association between the Japanese reader and the shop: after the initial linguistic recognition and legibility, the presence of a Japanese script makes the shop visible and recognizable. On the oth-

15 The katakana word カミッラ does not mean anything.

er hand, the example of the "Osteria Aiki"<sup>16</sup> shows how the Japanese language (in this case both *rōmaji* and *kanji* script) has been included in the sign as a visual ornament, in order to create an "oriental atmosphere" and to signal to the reader that this restaurant serves Japanese food. Therefore, this use of the Japanese language as an ornament or as an aesthetic resource shows how, in this case, the exposition of Japanese script has followed the *rōmaji* version, legible and understandable by all the Latin script readers. Lastly, the third group of multilingual bottom-up signs (18 units in our analysis) is mainly made up by newspapers and magazines cutting showing what the Japanese press thinks about the particular shop (or, more precisely, about the products that can be purchased inside it). These elements have thus been exposed not only in order to catch Japanese people's attention, but also to convince them about the quality of the products and services offered, showing to this end how the Japanese press appreciates these.

The 7 monolingual items that were collected can be subdivided in two groups: some elements have been created and written by the owner of the shop or restaurant, clearly showing their interest in becoming visible to Japanese tourists. The second case is made up by newspaper or magazines cuttings containing only Japanese language. In this case, too, as for the third group of multilingual bottom-up signs, the aim was to decorate and adorn the shop window.

This overview has shed light on the relationship between the commercial interests of authors (whether they are top-down or bottomup) and the linguistic choices involved in the creation of Japanese signs. It is furthermore evident how different necessities have different linguistic realization in space, as this also becomes visible just by watching the signs. In order to have a more accurate and multidisciplinary vision of the interactions between authors, readers and the LL, a series of interviews were conducted. An analysis of these interviews offers a different perspective on the decisional processes which precede the public exposition of Japanese in the LL. Furthermore, this qualitative approach highlights how readers notice and interpret LL in the situated context. In other words, the interviews can confirm the already hypothesized vision of an LL that is mainly oriented towards commercial and tourism-oriented interests or, on the contrary, can reveal a different interpretation. Since interviews have been oriented both to the "writers" and to the "readers" of the LL, this double vision can underline the relationships not only between the two groups of social actors, but also between people and languages, thus shedding light on the effective role Japanese language plays in this context.

Before presenting an overview of the results gained in this analysis, it is important to point out a methodological premise on the type of authors interviewed. Since it proved impossible to contact the top-down authors, only the 45 bottom-up "writers" have been interviewed. In addition, also 10 Japanese tourists were interviewed. For what concerns the authors' answers, a general homogeneity of the content can be observed. Except for the case of Muji shop in Fondamenta Santa Lucia 23, all the other shops, bars or restaurants have no direct connection with Japan. As regards the reasons involved in the linguistic choice processes, a general inclination toward the need for visibility, attractiveness and confidence emerged. In fact, the prevalent answers by the authors were *"to communicate also for people who speak Japanese language what can be purchased inside this shop"* and *"Usually, there are many Japanese tourists in this area; with a Japanese description it is possible for me to show them what I sell".* Analysing the reasons expressed by the authors who have exposed multilingual or even monolingual newspaper and magazines cuttings, a slightly different motivation emerged. In this case, beyond any semantic-communicative content, the principal "message" authors wanted to transmit was a sense of proximity to the reader. This aim can be reached by showing, for example, a Japanese newspaper cutting in which *"my shop is described and showed".* In so doing, a certain sense of symbolic verification or fidelity is established. In some cases, also a sort of lack of linguistic awareness could be observed. In fact, some people admitted that they have exposed those magazines cutting just for a decorative intention, not knowing that they actually contained in Japanese. For what concerns the position of the Japanese translation, which is always in the lowest part of the unit of analysis for all signs analysed here, all the interviewed people have specified that the visual priority is given to *"globally known languages such as English".* Lastly, just a few people acknowledged that inside their own shop or restaurant sales assistants or waiters are able to speak (some) Japanese.

10 Japanese tourists have been interviewed in proximity to the collected Japanese items of LL in order to gain a contextually informed understanding of the relation between readers and language. All interviewed people admitted that they considered the top-down signs such as the already mentioned sticker "*Ocio al tacuin*" useful. For what concerns the understanding of the bottom-up elements, although all the Japanese informants agreed in considering useful the translation exposed outside shops or restaurants, none of them actually expected to find Japanese products inside. The last question, centred on the perception of Japanese tourists on LL, confirmed what had already been expressed in the theoretical introduction. The frequency can determine a bigger linguistic visibility and, consequently, saliency. In fact, the interviewees affirmed that they have "visually" perceived top-down signs, because of their frequency and presence in highly frequented places. What emerges from this analysis, is that there is a certain concordance between author's necessity, linguistic realization and Japanese tourists' interaction with space. Once we acknowledge the absence of a Japanese community living in Venice, Japanese tourists become the addressees or readers of the LL.

# **4.2 Monolingual and Multilingual Elements**

Of the 52 collected items, 7 are monolingual (13%) and 45 are multilingual (87%). The case of multilingual signs can be divided by using the already presented categories of translations (24 cases), transcriptions (3 cases) and various multilingualism (18 cases).

The largest group is that of translations (46%): considering those signs as unit of analysis containing at least four different languages (parallel multilingualism), it becomes evident that the aim of the authors is to simply reach out not "only" to Japanese hypothetical reader, but "also" to Japanese hypothetical reader. That is confirmed by the small number of monolingual elements (13%). The signs containing translations show therefore the hierarchy of languages referred to the target readership, presuming that readers are imagined to be monolingual or insufficiently multilingual (Reh 2004). From a semantic point of view, the content reveals the reason why the authors have decided to use and also expose the Japanese language, while the kind of multilingual arrangement shows the role Japanese language plays for the authors. All these considerations on the role of the Japanese language on signs, if intersected with the already presented demographical overview, underline the essentially economic and commercial nature of Japanese LL. In fact, what has emerged by the interviews of the authors is also evident by an analysis of the linguistic arrangement on the signs: the use of Japanese (from bottom-up authors) aims at making the shop or restaurant visible to hypothetical readers by using Japanese both in a communicative and decorative way.

# **4.3 Geographical Distribution**

The distribution of Japanese signs in Venice can be seen as an important sociolinguistic indicator of the role that language plays in this context. The irregular distribution across the city of the items show how the needs and interests of the authors may change according to the location. In other word, an area with an elevated concentration of Japanese language in public space may imply a bigger interest from "writers" in becoming noticed by Japanese people. What emerged from this study is that in the San Marco district and the San Polo district the concentration of Japanese signs is high (18 and 15 elements, respectively); at the opposite end of frequency, only one element was found in the Santa Croce district. This could be explained by the fact of a higher concentration of shops and restaurants but also by the fact that these areas comprise the most famous touristic attractions. Predicting a large number of hypothetical readers, authors use Japanese in order to make a message intelligible (behavioural top-down content) or to become visible and attractive (commercial bottom-up content).

# 5 Conclusion

The present case study has started with a preliminary re-conceptualization and a necessary re-adaptation of the existing concepts and terminology. The reasons therefore are all linked to the sociological, demographical, urban, economic and linguistic features of the analysed setting. In fact, as for every study on Linguistic Landscape, the central question is the role that the public space plays in the creation of the linguistic interactions. It makes clear that also the methodology has to be created in a way that it does justice to the context and the purpose of the case. The context-driven methodology departs from the theoretical structures adapted in *ad hoc* fashion for the case study, and it assembles various approaches and valuative paradigms. The disambiguation criteria adopted and created for the understanding of the case study can be considered as flexible tools, complex and cohesive enough to highlight the multilayered structure of the case study.

Each perspective contributes to our understanding of the Japanese linguistic landscape in Venice. In so doing, a coherent picture emerges.

Thus, what has emerged is that the LL is essentially motivated by private initiatives (92% bottom-up and 8% top-down): the owners of restaurants, bar, shops or hotels, in fact, aim to reach passersby and become visible to Japanese. In a competitive context, it is essential to stand out from others. In this respect, LL appears as the compromise between the necessity of bottom-up authorship and the prevision on the hypothetical passersby. The commercial and tourism-oriented nature of the LL can be confirmed by three types of evidences: the absence of a Japanese speech community in Venice, the higher concentration of Japanese signs in famous touristic places, and the remarkably low number of top-down elements in Japanese. This last fact underlines that the interest of official and institutional authors toward Japanese is neglectable.

The semiotic interaction with LL (through a message or inscription containing a specific content) and the creation of proximity to and trustworthiness with the reader (using, for example, newspapers and magazines cuttings) are strategic tools used by authors. The aim is to become more visible. This shows how the visual representation of Japanese language is, in any case, subjected to a constant dynamic and flexible compromise between the authors' needs and the hypothetical readers' necessity. The analysis of this case study shows how different points of view can bring to different descriptive perspectives on LL which, if considered in unison as a composite analysis, can become a tool for understanding contemporary multilingualism. It demonstrates how a given language interacts with other languages, people and spaces.

# **Bibliography**


# A Consideration About Competence in Kanji and Their Teaching

Aldo Tollini Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italia

**Abstract** This essay deals with the definition of 'kanji competence' from the point of view of the three main approaches to language in Japanese: *shiru* (to know), *wakaru* (to understand) and *dekiru* (to be able). After outlining competence, the essay proceeds to investigate how to carry on a comprehensive teaching process which takes into account: 'who' (are the learners), 'what' (they need to learn) and 'how' (to teach). The considerations presented here are based on the Author's personal experience as a former learner, now reconsidered in his role as a teacher.

**Keywords** Kanji competence. Reading ability. Kanji strings. Japanese written language. Teaching strategies.

**Summary** 1 Overview of the Learning Process. – 2 Knowing (知る), Understanding (わかる) and Being Able (できる). – 3 Educational Approaches. – 4 Concluding Remarks.

In the following pages, I will deal with teaching and learning Japanese *kanji*, 1 with an empirical approach based on my own experience as a student of Japanese language when I was young. *Kanji* are one of the greatest obstacles in learning Japanese language, sometimes an insurmountable barrier which discourages students and makes the study of Japanese hard and often monotonous. Considering this, studies on *kanji* learning should receive more

1 I use the word *kanji* instead of sinogram, Chinese characters, or other terms, because *kanji* is less ambiguous and understood by many. I use the word *kanji* both for singular and plural.

**Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | Linguistics and Language Education 1** e-ISSN 2724-2285 | ISSN 2724-1203 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-428-8 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-429-5

**Peer review | Open access 241** Submitted 2020-02-14 | Accepted 2020-05-26 | Published 2020-07-03 **©** 2020 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License **DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/012**

scholarly consideration. The impression is that this field of teaching and learning has seen little progress. In the following, I will focus on *kanji* competence to understand what 'knowing *kanji*' actually means, because this represents a prerequisite to develop efficient teaching strategies.

First, there are a few points that I would like to highlight about *kanji* education and *kanji* ability, as concerns the learning process:


# 1 Overview of the Learning Process

The learning process rests on three pillars: 1. Learners, 2. Goals of learning, 3. Method of learning.


We have thus three items at hand we need to consider: who, what and how. While all three points play an important role in determining the learning process, I restrict the discussion here to the second point only, i.e., the learning goals. These are important, and they should be clearly identified. However, often these goals of learning remain rather vague, and many unnecessary learning activities take place as an effect thereof. Teachers should therefore be careful to focus on these goals. Focused and unfocused *kanji* learning may be compared to differences of (normal) light and laser light. Laser light is concentrated, and its power is therefore stronger. Teachers should decide on their educational approach depending on who the learners are, what their motivation is, and what they envision the study of *kanji* to be good for. On this basis, it is possible to design an effective course. In other words, the learner's language ability (in this case, *kanji* ability) should be determined in advance. What the students will be able to do at the end of the course should be clear from the start.

# 2 Knowing (知る), Understanding (わかる) and Being Able (できる)

In foreign language education, three verbs can be applied in Japanese: 知る (*shiru*, to know), わかる (*wakaru*, to understand) and でき る (*dekiru*, to be able). They all correspond to goals of foreign language education.


If you combine the above three, you have the goals of foreign language learning and teaching:


All the above, applied to the field of language teaching, become:


From the viewpoint of the educational process each of these three Japanese verbs denotes a different process. If the three are well balanced, they can provide a comprehensive language education.

If we apply this to *kanji* education, we come to the following insights:


From the standpoint of learning, this implies:

1. Learning *kanji* by analysing them (their structure, or form, strokes).


All of this concerns what we could call '*kanji* ability' or '*kanji* competence' (*Kanji nōryoku* 漢字能力), but what exactly is *kanji* competence?

The Japanese *kanji* proficiency test (*Nihon kanji nōryoku kentei*, 日本漢字能力検定) measures *kanji* proficiency, not only by examining the amount of knowledge in reading and writing, but also the ability to use them appropriately within sentences. In the Internet site of this particular test, we find the following definition (Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Kyōkai 2020):

```
漢字を「読む」「書く」という知識量のみならず、漢字の意味を理解し、文
章の中で適切に使える能力も測ります。
```
(The test) evaluates the competence not only to "read" and "write", but also of understanding the meaning of *kanji* and the ability to use them appropriately in sentences.

As we can see from this definition, an operational ability of *kanji* is required here. More concretely, it is a comprehensive competence that includes an understanding of contextual meaning, an analysis of the semantic structure of compound *kanji* words, and the understanding of the meaning of a given sentences on the basis of compound *kanji* words. Since this is a comprehensive ability, the three competences of knowing, understanding and being able are covered by this kind of approach.

# 3 Educational Approaches

In *kanji* education, we should apply knowing, understanding and being able to the learning process. In the following, I will examine these three activities in the teaching and learning processes.

Generally speaking, to know a *kanji* means knowing the information about shape, mapped sound and meaning, plus the mechanism how the *kanji* can be combined with other signs. To put it a little more in detail, I would like to examine the competence in shape and meaning, leaving out sound here. *Kanji* are governed by combinatory rules of strokes, something which could be called the grammar of *kanji* form. Perhaps one of the most serious problems for non-*kanji*area learners is that a certain set of *kanji* strokes cannot be associated with already existing knowledge about writing. For such learners, *kanji* may initially look like an accidental combination of strokes. An adequate graphic memory of *kanji* can be obtained by special exercises which develop abilities such as distinguishing *kanji*, deconstructing and combining *kanji* constituent elements, individuating meaningful elements and phonetic elements of the *kanji* and reproducing *kanji* by drawing on constituent elements. In short, this is a practice intended to teach students to 'see' *kanji*. Because the learners of alphabetic area are not familiar with the physical structure of *kanji*, they initially cannot see them in the same way as learners from *kanji* areas do. Before starting *kanji* education, it is therefore necessary to go through preparatory exercises that allow learners to 'see *kanji*' in an informed way. This is thus a practice of educating the eye, so to speak. The result will be that *kanji* are perceived as a set of interrelated elements that have a set position within the overall *kanji* structure. To educate the eye implies developing the ability to recognize differences, however small these may be. Already Ferdinand de Saussure famously argued that in "language there are only differences. [...] A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas"([1916] 1959, 121-2).

*Gi* 義 in Japanese refers to the meaning of a *kanji*. It can be laborious and tedious to memorize the meanings of long lists of *kanji*. Also, *kanji* often accumulate multiple meanings from their application across regions and time. As a result, *kanji* can take on different meanings in different compounds. For example, the word-character <密> has four different basic meanings: 1. 'secret'; 2. 'perfectly adhering'; 3. 'confidential'; 4. 'well closed, letting no entrance'. In order to learn the meanings of this *kanji*, the learner must also memorize a long list of *kanji* with which it may be combined. It is doubtful whether this is a productive learning strategy, though. Besides, the meaning of *kanji* also involves different parts of speech. When teaching the meaning of *kanji*, a more comprehensive approach is desirable. It is preferable to learn *kanji* not by themselves but as constituents of words. This matter will be dealt with in more detail further below.

*Kanji ga wakaru* (漢字がわかる, 'understand kanji') corresponds to a part of the learning process that aims at the comprehension of *kanji* in written sentences. It concerns mainly reading comprehension (*dokkai* 読解), and it is part of learning the Japanese writing system. It is based on the premise that if you know all script characters, then you can read Japanese. However, I do not think that the knowledge of the characters alone can lead to a good reading performance. Since reading is a psycholinguistic process, I think that it is difficult to substantially improve reading comprehension unless this psycholinguistic process is also taken into consideration. The goal of education should thus not be simply that of knowing *kanji* (individual script characters) but rather fostering the ability to read a Japanese text effectively. Put differently, *kanji* education rests not only on knowing what a specific character is but on the ability of reading texts. Of course, knowledge of individual characters helps to develop this ability and therefore must be included in *kanji* education. However, thinking that *kanji* education is paramount to knowing characters would be mistaken. Learning to read texts is important. Recent studies into reading have revealed some interesting facts. While reading the eyes move quickly forth and back to arrive at a general image of the written string. From this image the brain accesses already acquired images. As a matter of fact, this process is an activity where more than one single word is involved in the perception (Hunziker 2006; Wotschack 2009). Only knowing a character and reading texts are clearly different mental activities. The reading process must be performed quickly, and this does not allow to identify one character after the other so to speak. When reading a text, the brain can recognize longer strings in a psycholinguistic process that is similar to parsing by computers. Reading is thus a continuous process which leads to an understanding by means of a parsing-like overview, followed by a mental process of what is seen, and a comparison of this with information stored in the memory of the reader. The ability to read Japanese texts rests not only on whether the *kanji* are stored in the brain; it also involves the ability to access this information quickly and accurately in their specific linguistic context. The task of quickly and accurately accessing information in the brain and to elaborate it in the given linguistic context is a task that takes time for non-*kanji* areas adult learners of Japanese and this needs to be considered in *kanji* education. In order to acquire this ability, we have two principal educational strategies (Borowsky et al. 2007; Rayner, Clifton 2009).

Sub-lexical reading involves teaching to read by associating characters or groups of characters with sounds or by using phonics or synthetic phonics in the learning and teaching methodology.

Lexical reading involves acquiring words or phrases without attention to the characters or groups of characters that compose them or by using whole language learning and teaching methodology.

Normally, phonemic reading is considered the strategy for reading *rōmaji* and *kana*, and whole-word reading is thought to be reading *kanji*. However, in actual reading, it is difficult to distinguish phonemic reading from whole-word reading, and in many cases the second strategy largely applies to both.<sup>2</sup> When *kanji* appear in combination, it is better not to teach each *kanji* as separate or as individual grapheme, but rather to teach the *kanji* compounds that represent words. If *kanji* are taught as individual graphemes, then learners will acquire one *kanji* after the

<sup>2</sup> In this regard, it is interesting to recall Martinet's 'double articulation' theory which refers to the twofold structure of the stream of speech, which can be primarily divided into meaningful signs (like words or morphemes), and then secondarily into distinctive elements (like letters or phonemes).

other, and then they will have to learn a combination of *kanji*. Only as a result the combination of characters, leaners will actually be able to read words and texts. Let us consider an example: <東京>. If we read each *kanji* one by one, we read 東 *tō*, 'east' and 京 *kyō* (or *kei*), 'capital', that is 'eastern capital'. The reading of each single *kanji* causes a very burdensome process of reading comprehension. It is much more efficient to learn directly that the entire combination <東京> represents *Tōkyō*. Learning *kanji* and their combinations as words takes time, but as a result, the reading method becomes smooth from the start.

*Kanji* stings are prominent in Japanese written texts and they are often hard to understand for learners of non-*kanji* areas. By *kanji* strings I refer to sentences composed mostly of *kanji* with very few *kana*. For example, how can you analyse and understand a *kanji* string such as <経済取引局企業結合課>? This is difficult if one is not familiar with the combinatory mechanism of *kanji* and the knowledge of each individual *kanji* that appears in this string is insufficient. In addition to knowledge of the individual *kanji*, knowledge about the relations between *kanji* words (Sino-Japanese lexicon) is essential. Learning the mechanism of *kanji* strings should also be included in the process of *kanji* education. The reason why *kanji* strings are difficult for non-native speakers of Japanese is that native speakers already possess knowledge of the Sino-Japanese lexicon, and they can therefore recognize such information immediately.

Another problem is that words are differentiated by space as it is the case in alphabetic writing. In the case that *kanji* and *kana* script are mixed, then *kana* plays an important role in recognizing word boundaries. In the case of *kanji* strings, this becomes much more difficult. Consider, therefore, a few examples.

If we change the following *kanji* string <市民講座会員専用サイト> in one where *kanji* and *kana* are used together (*kanamajiri*), then we obtain <市民のための講座である会員に専用されるサイト>. The structure of the last one is easier to understand as it involves more grammatical information.

The *kanji* string <新東京国際空港> (*shintōkyōkokusaikūkō*) for a beginner level student who reads combining characters one after the other, may easily become <新東京の国際空港>, that is, the international airport that is located in 'new Tokyo'. In fact, mistakenly, the above *kanji* string might be decoded in the following way:

However, the string is correctly decoded as follows

The New International Airport of Tokyo

When analysing *kanji* strings, two successive steps should thus be taken:


For example, <接触性伝染病> (*sesshokuseidensenbyō*)


接触-性/伝染-病

└ ┘└ ┘

└ ┘

Contagious infectious disease

Taking the above into account, *kanji ga wakaru* teaches not only *kanji* as single characters, but also as words. Learners do not deal with interpretation of *kanji* strings simply as successive combinations of single characters, but rather as a combination of single words and their combinatory rules.

We are now prepared to discuss the next point. What then does *kanji ga dekiru* (漢字ができる, being able with kanji) or *gengo ga dekiru* (言語ができる, being able with language) mean? Above we stated that *dekiru* (being able) refers to the following abilities:


In the case of *kanji* education, *dekiru* implies to write sentences that express, for example, personal opinions and attitudes. Clearly, this is the last and highest stage of *kanji* education. After completing the *kanji ga wakaru* learning process, we can now turn to a behavioural and productive stage of *kanji* usage. At this stage, *kanji* education has the purpose of developing and improving two kinds of abilities: Firstly, the ability to correctly write *kanji* (correct writing sequence) and to achieve an overall character balance, that is, an appropriate pattern of characters. After acquiring such writing ability, the teaching process should secondly move on to develop the ability to write *kanji* as words. That is, the ability to write *kanji* as meaningful language elements. This step connects the three elements of *kanji* (shape, sound and meaning). By means of such exercises, students learn while practically using *kanji* or strengthen their ability to use them. Needless to say, the acquisition of this skill in *kanji* education is time-consuming.

What kind of education is necessary to enable learners to produce sentences containing *kanji*, in particular given consideration to the fact that writing by hand has become rare? The main emphasis should therefore be the development to use *kanji* appropriately. This involves two main abilities. Firstly, the ability to produce sentences composed of *kanji*-only strings and, secondly, the ability to produce sentences which include a mixture of *kanji* and *kana* (*kanjikana-majiri* 漢字かな 交じり). Of course, writing *kanji*-only sentences is rare. This notwithstanding, when reading a text of this kind, problems may arise, and it is therefore advisable to acquire this ability. Since the production of *kanjikana-majiri* sentences are also part of *kanji* education, the relationship between *kanji* and *kana* should be learned.

In most cases learners write using machines (computers, mobile phones, etc.) when writing Japanese sentences. I therefore do not include here discussions of writing *kanji* by hand. Rather, I prefer to examine briefly which points are relevant in *kanji* education when writing with machines. Normally, when writing with machines, mistakes can occur. The most common are the following:


When writing Japanese sentences, it is normal for learners of non*kanji* areas to produce input words with *rōmaji* on the keyboard and to leave the conversion to *kanji* or *kana* to the machine. However, without checking the accuracy of this automatic conversion, mistakes and errors are likely to occur. In order to check the conversion, learners need to recognize characters quickly and accurately. As mentioned above, it is important to educate the eye. Effective checking and correction depend on fast control. For that reason, training in checking character mistakes becomes important. In addition, since prefixes and suffixes are often used, their knowledge (*shiru*), cognitive ability (*wakaru*) and operational capability (*dekiru*) are of great help.

In summary, at the level of *kanji ga dekiru* education, the most important ability is the recognition of *kanji*. I am convinced that the ability to recognize *kanji* and their correctness in context is much more useful than the ability of producing *kanji* writing them by hand, though. This does not imply that *kanji* handwriting should be excluded from *kanji* education.

#### 4 Concluding Remarks

Above, I have discussed the need to teach the three linguistic competences *shiru* (knowing), *wakaru* (understanding) and *dekiru* (being able) in a balanced manner from the viewpoint of *kanji* learning. We came to understand that as concerns *shiru*, it is important to foster an ability to quickly and accurately recognize the difference of *kanji* form. Students need to learn to see *kanji*. As for *wakaru*, it is important to learn *kanji* as (parts of) words and to understand texts. This requires knowledge about the structure of *kanji* strings. Finally, *dekiru* requires the ability to quickly and accurately control the conversion of alphabetic input into machines. The ideal learning process must include these three interrelated abilities. What is important in *kanji* teaching is to clarify their mutual relationships, decide upon their respective roles and to harmonize them. In the field of education, two methods are recognized, the analytic and the synthetic methods. The first consists in analysing the language and learn language mechanisms, the latter consists in comprehensively remember the language and (re-)produce it. Both methods are relevant also in linguistic education and the approach proposed in this essay does justice to both. It is desirable that learners also apply an analytic approach, since it is not enough for them to learn and apply language samples as they appear in authentic language use. What matters is the order in which the two approaches are carried out. The best strategy is to start with a synthetic approach which allows the memorization and comprehension of a text and then turn to the analytic approach that allows for a deeper comprehension of text structures. To put it briefly, I advocate the point of first learning a language and then moving on to better understand it.

# **Bibliography**


In this volume European specialists of Japanese language present new and original research into Japanese over a wide spectrum of topics which include descriptive, sociolinguistic, pragmatic and didactic accounts. The articles share a focus on contemporary issues and adopt new approaches to the study of Japanese that often are specific to European traditions of language study. The articles address an audience that includes both Japanese Studies and Linguistics. They are representative of the wide range of topics that are currently studied in European universities, and they address scholars and students alike.

**AND LINGUISTICS**

**TO JAPANESE LANGUAGE** 

PAPPALARDO, HEINRICH

**EUROPEAN APPROACHES** 

Università Ca'Foscari Venezia **<sup>13</sup>**