Browsing results for Japanese
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Svetanant, Chavalin (2013). Exploring personhood constructs through language: Contrastive semantic of “heart” in Japanese and Thai. International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication, 7(3), 23-32.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18848/2324-7320/cgp/v07i03/53576
Abstract:
This paper aims to explore personhood constructs of the Thai community and compare them to those of the Japanese community, with special reference to heart-related terms. It carries out a linguistic inquiry into the historical side of the lexicon and compares the conceptualization of ‘heart’ in Thai and Japanese to clarify the cognitive and conceptual similarities and differences in the underlying semantic structures. The framework for semantic analysis employed in this paper is the NSM approach.
A large number of heart/mind-related words in Thai and Japanese show features that are shared across the two communities, as well as subtle cognitive and conceptual differences; for example, ใจ chai (Thai) and 気 ki (Japanese) are relatively more dynamic and sensitive to mental/psychological changes when compared to 心 kokoro (Japanese). Linguistically speaking, they keep moving around, changing shape, size, colour, and temperature. However, while the entities of ใจ chai and 心 kokoro are cognitively more substantial as emotional containers of human beings, 気 ki is treated more like the intangible energy wrapping around 心 kokoro and contains no intellectual element.
The evidence from this study suggests that a semantic explication of personhood lexicalizations is a practical approach to clarify the obscure entities and contribute to the understanding of the conceptuality of personhood constructs across languages and cultures.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chai ใจ, (E) ki 気, (E) kokoro 心
Published on August 2, 2018. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Neale, Miles (2014). No rest for the wicked; no leisure for the poor: A comparison of Japanese and English proverbs using Natural Semantic Metalanguage. BA(Hons) thesis, University of Queensland.
Abstract:
Can two proverbs created by different cultures in different languages have the same meaning? This dissertation presents the results of an investigation comparing the core meanings of ten Japanese and English proverbs that certain proverb dictionaries define as being equivalent in meaning. The thesis compares Japanese proverbs chosen from iroha karuta, a proverb-based card game, with English ‘equivalents’ listed in Japanese proverb dictionaries. The investigation uses data from the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese, the British National Corpus and a corpus of internet blogs to develop semantic explications that demonstrate the core meaning of each proverb. These explications reveal that many of the Japanese proverbs rely on a different metaphor, offer different advice and index a different real-world situation compared to their English ‘equivalents’. The results of this investigation demonstrate how proverbs reproduce folk wisdom, ritual and the differing ideologies of Japanese and English culture.
More information:
The following proverbs are explicated and compared:
Nen niwa nen o ireyo versus Look before you leap
Binbō hima nashi versus No rest for the wicked
Inu mo arukeba bō ni ataru versus Every dog has its day
Ryōyaku wa kuchi ni nigashi versus Good medicine tastes bitter
Ron yori shōko versus The proof of the pudding is in the eating
Nakittsura ni hachi versus To pour salt on the wound
Atama kakushite shiri kakusazu versus The foolish ostrich buries its head in the sand (and thinks it is not seen)
Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru versus Many a little makes a mickle
Hana yori dango versus Pudding before praise
Raku areba ku ari versus There is no pleasure without pain
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2014). Linguistic manifestation of gender reinforcement through the use of the Japanese term kawaii. Gender and Language, 8(3), 341-359.
DOI: 10.1558/genl.v8i3.341
Abstract:
This paper examines the Japanese cultural key word kawaii. Japanese women frequently use kawaii to express positive feelings towards objects or people. Scholars suggest that Japanese women are making kawaii part of their gender identity. From a linguistic perspective, kawaii is not lexicalized in other languages. Although the kawaii phenomenon has been thoroughly examined, there has been no rigorous semantic analysis.
In this study, NSM is used to explicate the meaning of kawaii. The analysis indicates that the core meaning of kawaii is explained as ‘when people see this thing, they can’t not feel something very good, like people often can’t not feel something very good when they see a small child’. The kawaii syndrome reveals a Japanese cultural characteristic that puts emphasis on being ‘gender appropriate’ in society.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kawaii かわいい, (T) Japanese
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2014). Japanese interpretations of “pain” and the use of psychomimes. International Journal of Language and Culture, 1(2), 216-238.
DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.1.2.05asa
Abstract:
This chapter examines six Japanese psychomimes — ズキズキ zuki-zuki, キリキリ kiri-kiri, しくしくshiku-shiku, チクチク chiku-chiku, ヒリヒリ hiri-hiri, and がんがん gan-gan — that express subtle differences in pain-related states or sensations. It is generally recognized that many languages lack words with the same meanings as these Japanese psychomimes and that their meanings are difficult to capture precisely. The definitions in Japanese-English dictionaries, for example, are not sufficient to explain the exact meanings. There is also the problem that each Japanese expression can correspond to several English verbs.
This study uses NSM to explicate the meaning of the six psychomimes. The analysis indicates that each psychomime conveys a vivid metaphorical meaning. The quality of the pain is suggested by reference to an imagined scenario of something moving inside a part of the body or touching part of the body. This imagined something can be understood as something sharp or as something similar to fire or to metal. The use of psychomimes is an effective and efficient way for expressing and understanding pain in Japanese.
More information:
Reissued as:
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2016). Japanese interpretations of “pain” and the use of psychomimes. In Cliff Goddard & Zhengdao Ye (Eds.), “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures (pp. 87-108). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/bct.84.05asa
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chiku-chiku チクチク, (E) gan-gan がんがん, (E) hiri-hiri ヒリヒリ, (E) kiri-kiri キリキリ, (E) shiku-shiku しくしく, (E) zuki-zuki ズキズキ
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Rilliard, Albert; Erickson, Donna; De Moraes, João Antônio; & Shochi, Takaaki (2014). Cross-cultural perception of some Japanese politeness and impoliteness expressions. In Fabienne Baider & Georgeta Cislaru (Eds.), Linguistic approaches to emotions in context (pp. 251-276). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: 10.1075/pbns.241.15ril
Abstract:
Prosodic strategies may express polite or impolite speech acts. Five such strategies in Japanese were studied in a cross-cultural experiment. The attitudes were presented to subjects in different modalities: audio-only, video-only, audio-video; they were also described in NSM scripts written in Japanese, American English, Brazilian Portuguese and French. Native subjects of these languages took a pair comparison test, as a way to measure the perceived proximity of presented stimuli. A multidimensional statistical analysis of the results allows a description of the main expressive dimensions perceived by subjects. The test shows the similarity of the perceptive patterns obtained via NSM scripts and visual and audio modalities. It also shows that subjects of different cultural origins shared about 60% of the global representation of these expressions, that 8% are unique to modalities, while 3% are unique to language background.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (S) arrogance, (S) courtesy, (S) declaration, (S) questions, (S) sincerity, (S) surprise
Published on August 4, 2018. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Purnawati, Ketut Widya (2014). Japanese mental predicate ‘see’ in kanji: 見る miru, 観る miru, 視る miru, 看る miru: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. Lingual: Journal of Language and Culture, 3(2).
DOI: 10.24843/LJLC.2014.v03.i02.p07 / Open access
Abstract:
The semantic prime SEE is lexicalized in Japanese as MIRU, which is written as 見る in Japanese kanji and kana. Within the Japanese version of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, MIRU 見る belongs to the group of Mental Predicates. In Japanese itself, though, the verb miru is not written only in one way as mentioned above, but may also be written in other ways, such as 観る miru, 視る miru, and 看る miru. In general, these kanji denote the semantic prime SEE – or MIRU in Japanese. However, each of them has actually its own specific meaning as well. This paper is aimed at defining the differences between the miru verbs in Japanese.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) amae 甘え, (E) miru 見る, 観る, 視る, 看る
Published on July 18, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Neale, Miles (2015). A comparison of English and Japanese proverbs using Natural Semantic Metalanguage. New Voices in Japanese Studies, 7, 85-101.
DOI: 10.21159/nvjs.07.05 / Open access
Abstract:
This study examines the meaning of semantically similar English and Japanese proverbs. It uses textual data sourced from online corpora to highlight and compare the different cultural and conceptual elements embedded within these proverbs. The findings demonstrate that matching proverbs from different languages is a potentially problematic exercise, both in dictionaries and in the second-language classroom.
The proverbs that are being explicated in NSM are (English) Look before you leap and (Japanese) Nen ni wa nen o ireyo (lit., ‘put care into care’), followed by (English) The proof of the pudding is in the eating and Japanese Ron yori shoko (lit., ‘argument less than proof/demonstration’).
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on November 9, 2019.
Farese, Gian Marco (2016). The cultural semantics of the Japanese emotion terms ‘haji’ and ‘hazukashii’. New Voices in Japanese Studies, 8, 32-54.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21159/nvjs.08.02 / Open access
Abstract:
This paper presents a cultural semantic analysis of the Japanese emotion terms 恥 haji and 恥ずかしい hazukashii. The paper has three aims: (i) to pinpoint the conceptions of 恥 haji and 恥ずかしい hazukashii as emotion terms in Japanese language and culture; (ii) to highlight the differences in meaning with their typical English translations shame and embarrassing, and show that 恥 haji and 恥ずかしい hazukashii reflect two different, culture-specific emotion conceptions; (iii) to emphasize the suitability of NSM for cross-cultural comparisons of emotion terms in different languages and, in turn, for cross-cultural training.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) embarrassment, (E) haji 恥, (E) hazukashii 恥ずかしい, (E) shame, (T) Japanese
Published on August 4, 2018. Last updated on May 5, 2019.
Putri, Darni Enzimar (2016). Struktur semantis idiom yang bermakna emosi dalam Bahasa Jepang [Semantic structure of idioms referring to emotions in Japanese]. 言葉ジャーナル / Jurnal Kotoba (Andalas University, Indonesia), 3.
Open access
Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to describe the literal meaning, using NSM, of a number of Japanese idioms that refer to emotions and include body part terms.
Explications (in Indonesian) are provided for the following phrases: 頭を冷やし atama o hiyasu (‘calm’, lit. ‘cool-headed’), 顔をほころばせた kao o hokorobaseru (‘happy’, lit. ‘with a flinch on one’s face’), 肩の荷 がおり kata no ni ga oriru (‘relieved’, lit. ‘a load off one’s shoulders’), 鼻が高い hana ga takai (‘proud’, lit. ‘long-nosed’), 舌を巻いた shita o maku (‘amazed’, lit. ‘tongue rolled up’), 顔 が 赤くなり kao ga akakunaru (‘ashamed’, lit. ‘red-faced’), 顔をくもらせた kao o kumoraseru (‘sad’, lit. ‘cloud-faced’), 親の顔が見たい oya no kao ga mitai (‘dumbfounded’, lit. ‘I want to see their parents’ face’), 耳が痛い mimi ga itai (‘offended’, lit. ‘my ear hurts’), 目のかたきにし me no kataki ni suru (‘hate’, lit. ‘make an eye-enemy of someone’), 鼻 に ついて hana ni tsuku (‘sick and tired’, lit. ‘hit in the nose’), 唇をかむ kuchibiru o kamu (‘disappointed’, lit. ‘biting one’s lip’), 首をひねった kubi o hineru (‘confused’, lit. ‘head leaning to one side’), 胸が潰れる mune ga tsubureru (‘totally shocked’, lit. ‘heart-no-longer-beating’), 腹が立つ hara ga tatsu (‘angry’, lit. ‘stomach standing up’), 頭にき atama ni kuru (‘get mad’, lit. ‘come to one’s head’), 腰が抜け koshi ga nukeru (‘go weak on the knees’, lit. ‘ have one’s hips fall out from under one’), 目を白黒させ me o shirokurosaseru (‘surprised’, lit. ‘eyes made black and white’), 尻に火が付い shiri ni hi ga tsuku (‘restless’, lit. ‘a fire lit on one’s butt’), 二の足を踏ん ni no ashi o fumu (‘hesitant’, lit. ‘stepping on one’s second foot’), 大きな顔をし ookiina kao o suru (‘arrogant’, lit. ‘making a big face’).
More information:
Written in Indonesian.
The explication provided for 目に沁みた me ni shimita (‘mesmerized’, lit. ‘my eyes smart’) is unreliable. There is no evidence that the phrase has the indicated metaphorical meaning.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) atama ni kuru 頭にき, (E) atama o hiyasu 頭を冷やし, (E) hana ga takai 鼻が高い, (E) hana ni tsuku 鼻 に ついて, (E) hara ga tatsu 腹が立っ, (E) kao ga akakunaru 顔 が 赤くなり, (E) kao o hokorobaseru 顔を綻ばせた, (E) kao o kumoraseru 顔をくもらせた, (E) kata no ni ga oriru 肩の荷 がおり, (E) koshi ga nukeru 腰が抜け, (E) kubi o hineru 首をひねった, (E) kuchibiru o kamu 唇をかむ, (E) me ni shimita 目に沁みた, (E) me no kataki ni suru 目のかたきにし, (E) me o shirokurosaseru 目を白黒させ, (E) mimi ga itai 耳が痛い, (E) mune ga tsubureru 胸が潰れる, (E) ni no ashi o fumu 二の足を踏ん, (E) ookiina kao o suru 大きいな顔をし, (E) oya no kao ga mitai 親の顔が見たい, (E) shiri ni hi ga tsuku 尻に火が付い, (E) shita o maku 舌を巻いた, (T) Indonesian
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2016). Being ‘indecisive’ in Japanese: Analysis of kana, darou ka and (n) janai ka. Studies in Language, 40(1), 63-92.
DOI: 10.1075/sl.40.1.03asa
Abstract:
Japanese speakers are often characterized as ‘indecisive’. The indecision is indicated by epistemic markers being frequently added to express doubt. The sentence-final particle kana shows an indecisive attitude and is usually translated into English as I wonder or maybe. There are other similar Japanese expressions, for example, darou ka and (n) janai ka. Both expressions represent uncertainty and are generally interpreted as I wonder or maybe. Although kana, darou ka and (n) janai ka are often treated as synonyms, they are not necessarily interchangeable.
The aim of this study is to define these Japanese epistemic markers using NSM. New definitions are presented to clarify semantic differences and the invariant concept embedded in each expression. This analysis elucidates Japanese speakers’ epistemic stance when they are in doubt.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) darou ka だろう か, (E) ka か, (E) kana かな, (E) n janai ka ん じゃない か, (T) Japanese
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Haugh, Michael. (2016). The role of English as a scientific metalanguage for research in pragmatics: Reflections on the metapragmatics of “politeness” in Japanese. East Asian Pragmatics, 1(1), 39–71.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.v1i1.27610
Abstract
Much of the theorisation undertaken in pragmatics has afforded English a privileged place, not only as the object of analysis but also as the means through which such theoretical discussions have been accomplished. Yet as a number of researchers have pointed out, the language in which the description, analysis, and theorisation of pragmatic phenomena is undertaken can have an influence on how the research object(s) in question are understood. In this article, the role of English as our scientific metalanguage in research on ‘politeness’ in Japanese is considered. It is argued that in order to start managing such challenges for research in pragmatics we need to go beyond the study of abstract or decontextualised meanings of words and move towards the analysis of emic concepts and emic practices. It is concluded that rather than abandoning notions such as ‘politeness’ in favour of seemingly less culturally imbued terms, what is needed instead is greater awareness of what the use of English as a scientific metalanguage both affords for researchers working in pragmatics, along with the challenges it can create for such work.
Tags: (E) omoiyari 思いやり
Published on June 8, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Wakefield, John; Itakura, Hiroko (2017). English vs. Japanese condolences: What people say and why. In Vahid Parvaresh, & Alessandro Capone (Eds.), The pragmeme of accommodation: The case of interaction around the event of death (pp. 203-231). Berlin: Springer.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-55759-5_12
Abstract:
This paper uses the ethnopragmatics approach to discover the sociopragmatic knowledge that influences what English and Japanese speakers say when condoling bereaved people who have recently lost someone close to them. Linguistic data are drawn from previous studies on English and Japanese condolences, discourse completion tasks, movies and the authors’ native-speaker intuitions. Analyses from the literature on condolences contribute to the discussion. Cultural scripts — one for English and one for Japanese — are presented as hypotheses to account for the observed verbal and non-verbal behaviour of English and Japanese speakers when offering condolences. It is proposed that the social closeness between the deceased and the bereaved affects what all condolers say, but that this effect is different for English and Japanese speakers. Another key difference is that the perceived role of the condoler is different between the two languacultures: Japanese speakers sense a greater responsibility to share in the mourning process.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) close person, (S) condolences
Published on October 15, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2017). Kawaii discourse: The semantics of a Japanese cultural keyword and its social elaboration. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 211-234). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: 10.1075/pbns.277.09asa
Abstract:
Taking its starting point in the Japanese cultural key word kawaii (roughly, ‘cute’), this chapter explores contemporary Japanese social discourse. Using NSM to explicate kawaii, the two kawaii compounds ita-kawaii and otona-kawaii and the related cultural key words itai and otona, it breaks new ground and increases our understanding of the conceptual basis of kawaii and its elaborations in discourse. A view on Japanese socialization and gendered discourse is simultaneously developed, and the value of ‘being kawaii’ is being scrutinized through the stability and innovations of kawaii in discourse.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ita-kawaii いた かわいい, (E) itai 痛い, (E) kawaii かわいい, (E) otona 大人, (E) otona-kawaii 大人ーかわいい
Published on August 4, 2018. Last updated on August 23, 2018.
Putri, Darni Enzimar (2017). Makna idiom Bahasa Jepang: Kajian Metabahasa Semantik Alami [The meaning of Japanese idioms: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage analysis]. PhD thesis, Universitas Udayana, Denpasar.
Written in Indonesian.
The research reported in this thesis focuses on the analysis of the meaning of Japanese idioms. The Japanese idioms investigated are limited to those including body part terms. The purpose of the research is twofold: (1) to describe and to explain by means of semantic primes a set of phrases belonging to the Japanese language, and (2) to describe and to analyse the semantic structure of idioms in the Japanese language. Anna Wierzbicka’s Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is used as the basic method for the analysis of the idioms.
The analysis indicates that the idioms can be divided into 3 prototypes: (1) a mental predicate prototype that includes the primes THINK, KNOW, FEEL, WANT, SEE, and HEAR; (2) a speech prototype that involves the prime SAY; and (3) a prototype involving action, events, movement, and contact that is formed around the primes DO, HAPPEN, and MOVE.
Published on August 14, 2018. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavagh, Yuko & Lee, Duck-Young (2017). NSM Approach による類義語の意味分析: 日韓の伝達表現を中心に [NSM-based approach to meanings of synonyms: Focusing on hearsay markers in Japanese and Korean]. 日本語學硏究 [Japanese Language Association of Korea], 54, 87-106.
DOI: 10.14817/jlak.2017.54.87 / Open access
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to analyse the evidential markers そうだ souda, らしい rashii and って tte in Japanese and 대 tay and 니까 nikka in Korean from an NSM perspective. そうだ souda, らしい rashii and って tte are used in similar situations and are often translated in English as ‘he/she says’, or ‘I heard’. Although these hearsay markers are considered synonyms, they are not necessarily interchangeable. There are subtle differences that cannot be captured by a dictionary or conventional semantic analysis. The current study shows that the NSM approach is more beneficial than previous research in that it can describe the (dis)similarities of synonyms in a simple and accurate fashion. The study then analyses the Korean markers 대 tay and 니까 nikka, and compares the results with those obtained for the Japanese evidentials. It is demonstrated that the NSM approach is capable of dealing with the semantic properties of markers/expressions in different languages, and that definitions facilitate the understanding of each expression and enable the comparison of meanings cross-linguistically.
More information:
Written in Japanese. The first authors’ name is reported here as per the (incorrect) spelling used in the paper.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) nikka 니까, (E) rashii らしい, (E) sooda そうだ, (E) tay 대, (E) tte って, (T) Japanese, (T) Korean
Published on September 26, 2017. Last updated on November 9, 2019.
Farese, Gian Marco (2018). Is KNOW a semantic universal? Shiru, wakaru and Japanese ethno-epistemology. Language Sciences, 66, 135-150.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2017.09.001
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the debated question of the universality of ‘know’ as a concept available to speakers of all languages. The NSM view is that all languages have a lexical exponent for the concept expressed in English by the word know. Epistemologist Masaharu Mizumoto has suggested that Japanese is a counter-example, because in this language two verbs, 知る shiru and わかる wakaru, are used in propositional knowledge attributions and neither is, he claims, exactly equivalent to know. Drawing on linguistic evidence from a corpus of Japanese and from Japanese contemporary literature, this paper shows that 知る shiru corresponds exactly in meaning to the English know and is the only Japanese exponent of the universal semantic prime KNOW. An NSM semantic explication of わかる wakaru phrased in both English and Japanese is presented to show that わかる wakaru is a complex concept that can be explicated via 知る shiru, but not vice-versa.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) I don't understand, (E) know how, (E) wakaru わかる, (T) Japanese
Published on November 13, 2019. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Farese, Gian Marco; Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2018/19). Analysing nostalgia in cross-linguistic perspective. Philology, 4, 213-241.
DOI: https://doi.org/103726/PHIL042019.6
Abstract:
This paper presents a contrastive semantic analysis of the English nostalgia, the Italian nostalgia and the Japanese 懐かしい natsukashii adopting the methodology of the NSM approach. It is argued that: (i) emotion terms of different languages reflect different and culture-specific conceptualizations of human feelings; (ii) the Anglo conceptualization of feelings is not valid for all cultures; and (iii) linguistic analysis is central to the analysis of human feelings. The paper challenges the claim made by some psychologists that the English word nostalgia expresses a feeling that is pancultural and criticizes the use of English emotion terms as the basis for discussions on human feelings.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) natsukashii 懐かしい, (E) nostalgia
Published on February 20, 2019. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2019). Inochi and tamashii: Incursions into Japanese ethnopsychology. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Heart- and soul-like constructs across languages, cultures, and epochs (pp. 30-57). New York: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315180670-2
Abstract:
Japanese has several personhood terms that lack equivalents in other languages. Two such terms are inochi and tamashii, neither of which has been investigated. In English, inochi is usually translated as life. However, this poses significant issues since the modern English word life is polysemous. Many of its meanings cannot be translated into Japanese by means of the word inochi, which has its own and contextually different meanings. Similarly, tamashii is often translated as soul but this term also has multiple interpretations in the source language.
This chapter explores the meaning of inochi and tamashii using NSM. The results of the analysis indicate a core component of inochi is ‘this something can be a part of someone one time, not many times’. The results also show that a fundamental meaning of tamashii is ‘this something can be a part of someone many times’ and ‘this something cannot die’.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) inochi 命, (E) kokoro 心, (E) tamashii 魂
Published on November 9, 2020. Last updated on November 22, 2020.
Farese, Gian Marco (2020). ‘Changing’ and ‘becoming’: new perspectives from cross-linguistic cognitive semantics. Cognitive Semantics, 6, 214-242.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/23526416-bja10009
Abstract:
This paper examines the conceptual and semantic relation between ‘changing’ and ‘becoming’ in cross-linguistic perspective to demonstrate that: (i) the assumption that ‘becoming’ is conceptually and semantically related to ‘changing’ is invalidated in at least two cases in which the meaning of ‘becoming’ does not encompass ‘changing’; (ii) the main verbs of ‘becoming’ in different languages are highly polysemous and therefore not cross-translatable in all contexts of use; (iii) differences in meaning reflect different conceptualizations of ‘becoming’ across languages. These results emerge from a contrastive semantic analysis between the main verbs of ‘changing’ and ‘becoming’ in English (change, become), Italian (cambiare, diventare) and Japanese (なるnaru) adopting NSM methodology. This paper also makes a strong case for the epistemic nature of the predicative complements licensed by verbs of ‘becoming’ by showing that a semantic component ‘it is like this, I know it’ emerges consistently from cross-linguistic comparison.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) become, (E) cambiare, (E) change, (E) diventare, (E) なるnaru
Published on February 9, 2020. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko; Farese, Gian Marco (2020). In staunch pursuit: The semantics of the Japanese terms shūkatsu ‘job hunting’ and konkatsu ‘marriage partner hunting’. In Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 2. Meaning and culture (pp. 17-33). Singapore: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9975-7_2
Abstract:
This chapter presents an analysis of two Japanese compound words that share a common suffix. The words are 就活 shūkatsu ‘job hunting’ and 婚活 konkatsu ‘marriage partner hunting’. It is perhaps not entirely unexpected that the English glosses fall short of conveying the significant cultural context behind them. The shared suffix, 活 katsu, comes from the Japanese word 活動 katsudō, which means ‘activity’. 活 katsu implies a high level of engagement and dedication as well as a degree of obligation or a sense of duty associated with the task. For instance, 就活 shūkatsu implies single-mindedness regarding the activity of job-seeking, requiring deliberate effort from the participant. Similarly, 婚活 konkatsu implies that total devotion to the act of finding a marriage partner.
婚活 konkatsu, unlike 就活 shūkatsu, has drawn some attention from scholars, but no accurate semantic analysis of either has been carried out thus far. This study uses the framework of the NSM approach to clarify the meaning of these two Japanese compound words. The analysis reveals that the people engaged in the activities they refer to are fearful of not attaining their goal and that the use of the suffix 活katsu in the Japanese word formation process is therefore semantically rooted. The analysis also assists in identifying and elaborating on some of the contradictions and complexities of modern Japanese society.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) konkatsu 婚活, (E) shūkatsu 就活
