Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2022.2033112
T. Mihic
ABSTRACT This article explains how writing-restricted variations in contemporary Japanese literature can be central to the author’s overall literary project, using Kuroda Natsuko’s ab sango (2012) as an example. Kuroda’s novel is written in a highly experimental style that deviates from standard Japanese writing conventions in many ways, including direction of writing, the use of Western punctuation marks, and script choice between hiragana and kanji. While many readers dismissed her style as being difficult for the sake of being difficult, this article will argue that Kuroda’s writing represents an important example of script choice being used as a defamiliarization technique – Kuroda’s unusual script choices make familiar words unfamiliar to the reader. In doing so, Kuroda defamiliarizes the Japanese language itself, revealing the arbitrariness of script choice-related rules. She also brings awareness to the fact that the Japanese writing system contains many possible ways of representing the language, beyond what is most used today. I conclude the article by comparing Kuroda’s literary aims to those of contemporary exophonic authors such as Tawada Yoko and Hideo Levy, whose works also play with the conventions of written Japanese.
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Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2022.2043150
Hitomi Masuji, T. Mihic
ABSTRACT This study examines how pragmatic factors influence Japanese script choice by focusing on the representation of ‘sumimasen’ – a phrase used to express apology and gratitude. In standard Japanese, this term is written in hiragana, but use of katakana for the term has been observed. Through a quantitative survey targeting 200 undergraduate Japanese-L1 students and investigating their impressions of different representations of sumimasen in Japanese emails, this study examines how context influences reader impressions of sumimasen representations. Here, ‘context’ specifically refers to three pragmatic factors of communication: situation, writer-reader relationship, and purpose. Through examining how alterations to the situation and relationship factors influence survey responses, the study reveals that reader impressions of katakana sumimasen differ depending on the respondent’s preferred politeness strategy. In focusing on this understudied question of how L1 readers respond to orthographic variation in context, the study expands on existing accounts of how katakana creates meaning by recognizing that interpersonal factors can influence the intent and reception of script variation. Additionally, the study finds that the social meaning of a given script variant can be dependent on the word it represents, with terms like sumimasen becoming active and accepted vehicles for meaning negotiation.
{"title":"Context-Dependent Script Choice in Emails: The Case of Sumimasen","authors":"Hitomi Masuji, T. Mihic","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2022.2043150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2022.2043150","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study examines how pragmatic factors influence Japanese script choice by focusing on the representation of ‘sumimasen’ – a phrase used to express apology and gratitude. In standard Japanese, this term is written in hiragana, but use of katakana for the term has been observed. Through a quantitative survey targeting 200 undergraduate Japanese-L1 students and investigating their impressions of different representations of sumimasen in Japanese emails, this study examines how context influences reader impressions of sumimasen representations. Here, ‘context’ specifically refers to three pragmatic factors of communication: situation, writer-reader relationship, and purpose. Through examining how alterations to the situation and relationship factors influence survey responses, the study reveals that reader impressions of katakana sumimasen differ depending on the respondent’s preferred politeness strategy. In focusing on this understudied question of how L1 readers respond to orthographic variation in context, the study expands on existing accounts of how katakana creates meaning by recognizing that interpersonal factors can influence the intent and reception of script variation. Additionally, the study finds that the social meaning of a given script variant can be dependent on the word it represents, with terms like sumimasen becoming active and accepted vehicles for meaning negotiation.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"43 - 60"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41431192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2022.2031138
D. K. Andrews
ABSTRACT This article proposes one social explanation for the occurrence of graphic variation in contemporary written Japanese by examining a heretofore unexamined context of writing. Embracing the material culture approach, I explore the ema (votive prayer tablets) dedicated at Shinto shrines by fans of popular culture media productions. Fans pen text on the ema that follows aesthetics of manga as well as online communication, incorporating features that are usually limited to print and online writing. Analyzing upwards of 2,000 ema from three shrines, this article proceeds to dissect a writing style composed of a mix of syllabaries and symbols using ‘thick description’ to evince the emotion behind fans’ calculated efforts to construct text that is not simply to be read, but to be seen. Seeking to answer the question of what fans attempt to achieve by writing on the ema in the way that they do, I will reference folklorist Elliott Oring’s ‘appropriate incongruity’ to put forth an argument that fans, harnessing a sense of play and endeavoring to animate the text on the ema, intimate by means of the visual presentation of writing-restricted variation a questioning of the perceived division between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds.
{"title":"To be Seen, Not Just Read: Script Use on the Votive Prayer Tablets of Anime, Manga, and Game Fans","authors":"D. K. Andrews","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2022.2031138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2022.2031138","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article proposes one social explanation for the occurrence of graphic variation in contemporary written Japanese by examining a heretofore unexamined context of writing. Embracing the material culture approach, I explore the ema (votive prayer tablets) dedicated at Shinto shrines by fans of popular culture media productions. Fans pen text on the ema that follows aesthetics of manga as well as online communication, incorporating features that are usually limited to print and online writing. Analyzing upwards of 2,000 ema from three shrines, this article proceeds to dissect a writing style composed of a mix of syllabaries and symbols using ‘thick description’ to evince the emotion behind fans’ calculated efforts to construct text that is not simply to be read, but to be seen. Seeking to answer the question of what fans attempt to achieve by writing on the ema in the way that they do, I will reference folklorist Elliott Oring’s ‘appropriate incongruity’ to put forth an argument that fans, harnessing a sense of play and endeavoring to animate the text on the ema, intimate by means of the visual presentation of writing-restricted variation a questioning of the perceived division between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"81 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48106013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2022.2058051
Lynne Y. Nakano
ishiki no bunka: ‘Dai 4-kai wakamono no wākusutairu chōsa’ kara [Differentiation of youth employment behavior and awareness in big cities: From the ‘4th youth work style survey’]. Rōdō Seisaku Kenkyū Hōkokusho, No. 199. Retrieved from https://www.jil.go.jp/press/documents/20171020.pdf (February 9, 2022). Tōkyō: JILPT. Masuda, H. (Ed.) (2014). Chihō shōmetsu: Tōkyō ikkyoku shūchū ga maneku jinkō kyūgen [Rural extinction: Population decline caused by overconcentration in Tokyo]. Tōkyō: Chūō Shinsho. Sasaki, H. (2016). ‘Shukanteki kōfukudo apurōchi ni yoru toshi to nōson no hikaku bunseki’ [Comparative analysis of urban and rural areas using a subjective well-being approach]. Aratana kachi purojekuto kenkyū shiryō: Daiichigō nōgyō nōson no aratana kinō kachi no hyōka shuhō kaihatsu [New value project research materials: Development of new evaluation method of functions and values in agriculture and rural areas] (5–43). Tōkyō: Nōrin Suisan Seisaku Kenkyūjo.
ishiki no bunka: ' Dai 4-kai wakamono no wākusutairu chōsa ' kara[大城市青年就业行为和意识的分化:来自“第四次青年工作方式调查”]。Rōdō地震健经Hōkokusho, 199号。检索自https://www.jil.go.jp/press/documents/20171020.pdf(2022年2月9日)。肯塔基州Tōō:JILPT。增田，H.(主编)(2014)。chihhi shōmetsu: Tōkyō ikkyoku shūchū ga maneku jinkku kyūgen[农村灭绝:东京过度集中造成的人口下降]。Tōkyō: Chūō新正。Sasaki, H.(2016)。Shukanteki kōfukudo apurōchi ni yoru toshi to nōson no hikaku bunseki[使用主观幸福感方法对城市和农村地区进行比较分析]。Aratana kachi purrojekuto kenkyki shirysu: daiichigu nōgyō nōson no Aratana kinachi no hyōka shuhhi kaihatsu[新价值项目研究材料:农业与农村功能与价值评价新方法的发展](5-43)。Tōkyō: Nōrin瑞士地震Kenkyūjo。
{"title":"Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan","authors":"Lynne Y. Nakano","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2022.2058051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2022.2058051","url":null,"abstract":"ishiki no bunka: ‘Dai 4-kai wakamono no wākusutairu chōsa’ kara [Differentiation of youth employment behavior and awareness in big cities: From the ‘4th youth work style survey’]. Rōdō Seisaku Kenkyū Hōkokusho, No. 199. Retrieved from https://www.jil.go.jp/press/documents/20171020.pdf (February 9, 2022). Tōkyō: JILPT. Masuda, H. (Ed.) (2014). Chihō shōmetsu: Tōkyō ikkyoku shūchū ga maneku jinkō kyūgen [Rural extinction: Population decline caused by overconcentration in Tokyo]. Tōkyō: Chūō Shinsho. Sasaki, H. (2016). ‘Shukanteki kōfukudo apurōchi ni yoru toshi to nōson no hikaku bunseki’ [Comparative analysis of urban and rural areas using a subjective well-being approach]. Aratana kachi purojekuto kenkyū shiryō: Daiichigō nōgyō nōson no aratana kinō kachi no hyōka shuhō kaihatsu [New value project research materials: Development of new evaluation method of functions and values in agriculture and rural areas] (5–43). Tōkyō: Nōrin Suisan Seisaku Kenkyūjo.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"107 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42928301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2022.2057645
David Chiavacci
{"title":"Urban migrants in rural Japan: between agency and anomie in a post-growth society","authors":"David Chiavacci","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2022.2057645","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2022.2057645","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"105 - 107"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49099124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2022.2027749
Hannah E. Dahlberg-Dodd
ABSTRACT Katakana is commonly used to represent recent loanwords in today’s Japanese, but because of this function, it also maintains a semiotic relationship with a sense of linguistic ‘foreignness’ more generally. As a result, in fictional narratives that are grounded in everyday occurrences, katakana can also function as a means of representing disfluent uses of the Japanese language, particularly by non-native speakers. Using this relationship as a point of departure, this article analyzes data from six recent text-dependent video games to explore how the usage of katakana to represent disfluency manifests in fantastical settings. This article shows that the application of katakana-oriented stylization indexes its user as ‘Other’, positioning that character as cognitively, culturally, or behaviorally marked relative to the narrative context. Engaging directly with the semiotic phenomenon of ‘indexicality’, I demonstrate how katakana can function as a tool by which broader ideologies of linguistic difference are transposed from everyday settings to fantastical ones, shedding light on the larger role of script variation in the characterological construction of the text-based speaker.
{"title":"Katakana and the Mediatized Other: Script Variation in Fantastical Narratives","authors":"Hannah E. Dahlberg-Dodd","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2022.2027749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2022.2027749","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Katakana is commonly used to represent recent loanwords in today’s Japanese, but because of this function, it also maintains a semiotic relationship with a sense of linguistic ‘foreignness’ more generally. As a result, in fictional narratives that are grounded in everyday occurrences, katakana can also function as a means of representing disfluent uses of the Japanese language, particularly by non-native speakers. Using this relationship as a point of departure, this article analyzes data from six recent text-dependent video games to explore how the usage of katakana to represent disfluency manifests in fantastical settings. This article shows that the application of katakana-oriented stylization indexes its user as ‘Other’, positioning that character as cognitively, culturally, or behaviorally marked relative to the narrative context. Engaging directly with the semiotic phenomenon of ‘indexicality’, I demonstrate how katakana can function as a tool by which broader ideologies of linguistic difference are transposed from everyday settings to fantastical ones, shedding light on the larger role of script variation in the characterological construction of the text-based speaker.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":"61 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44578829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-19DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.2005460
Alistair Swale
The contribution of popular fiction writers (gesakusha) to the development of early Meiji literature has become more broadly acknowledged and examined. However, the distinctive contribution of oral performative storytelling traditions such as kōdan to the evolution of public speaking and serialized novels (tsuzukimono) has been largely overlooked. This article builds on existing scholarship to further explore the interaction between kōdan and two pivotal movements of the early Meiji period, the ‘Civilization and Enlightenment Movement’ and the ‘People’s Rights Movement’. In the case of the former, the relation of kōdan to the practice of public speaking (enzetsu) is examined. In the case of the second movement, the influence of kōdan on political speech making (seidan) is also explored, along with its relevance to the ‘political novel’ and the ensuing evolution of serialized novels in illustrated newspapers in the late 1880s.
{"title":"Public Speaking and Serialized Novels: Kōdan and Social Movements in Early Meiji Tokyo","authors":"Alistair Swale","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.2005460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.2005460","url":null,"abstract":"The contribution of popular fiction writers (gesakusha) to the development of early Meiji literature has become more broadly acknowledged and examined. However, the distinctive contribution of oral performative storytelling traditions such as kōdan to the evolution of public speaking and serialized novels (tsuzukimono) has been largely overlooked. This article builds on existing scholarship to further explore the interaction between kōdan and two pivotal movements of the early Meiji period, the ‘Civilization and Enlightenment Movement’ and the ‘People’s Rights Movement’. In the case of the former, the relation of kōdan to the practice of public speaking (enzetsu) is examined. In the case of the second movement, the influence of kōdan on political speech making (seidan) is also explored, along with its relevance to the ‘political novel’ and the ensuing evolution of serialized novels in illustrated newspapers in the late 1880s.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45361254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-19DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1992269
Paul Waley
(2021). A Short History of Tokyo. Japanese Studies: Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 395-396.
(2021)。东京简史。《日本研究》，第41卷第3期，第395-396页。
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Pub Date : 2021-09-15DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1970519
Filippo Cervelli
In his fiction, Takahashi Gen’ichirō often portrays crises of contemporary life where characters do not identify with shared ideologies or communities, instead resorting to repetitive actions to su...
{"title":"Crisis of Time! The Tyranny of the Immediate and Community in Two Literary Works by Takahashi Gen'ichirō","authors":"Filippo Cervelli","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1970519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1970519","url":null,"abstract":"In his fiction, Takahashi Gen’ichirō often portrays crises of contemporary life where characters do not identify with shared ideologies or communities, instead resorting to repetitive actions to su...","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46795994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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