著者
石川 なつ美
出版者
東京女子大学言語文化研究会
雑誌
言語文化研究 = Studies in language and culture (ISSN:09187766)
巻号頁・発行日
no.24, pp.21-35, 2016-03

It is thought that the Japanese adjective kawaii is a very popular word among young women in Japan. However, its clear definition remains to be seen. The purpose of this study is a discussion about what kawaii represents these days. Kawaii is related to the user's values, and analyzing this adjective can reveal evidence that helps us to know changes in people's values, surroundings, and culture.In the second section of this review, I set three points of view based on previous studies: about the exterior and the interior of an object, about the function to reduce the friction in conversations, and about an expression of Japanese culture. In the third section, I explain my research which used the following approach. I analyzed contextual search results in which kawaii is used in the Shonagon corpus. These contents included: a sample of young women's conversations, search results of pictures about kawaii for people in other countries, and contents of Japan Expo―a Japanese culture expo in France. In the fourth section, I collated data of the research, and in the fifth section, examined the results.The results of my analysis clearly shows that kawaii has more uses than before. In addition to the function of conveying the sense of lovely, kawaii is used: 1) to express adoration of what the user is pleased with, 2) to provide topics and give responses in conversation, and 3) to describe Japanese culture, especially, colorful and ostentacious fashion and goods. The word kawaii was used in ancient times by those who were in the higher social position rather than those of lower social standing. However, today, it has come to be a word which everyone uses easily regardless of age or gender, and in foreign countries, it is recognized as a word which expresses a characteristic part of Japanese popular culture. The result of this study hopefully will give an insight into the change in meaning and usage of kawaii in the future.
著者
関口 秋香
出版者
東京女子大学言語文化研究会
雑誌
言語文化研究 = Studies in language and culture (ISSN:09187766)
巻号頁・発行日
no.25, pp.32-46, 2016-11

The aim of this paper is to contrast stereotypical utterances ("yakuwari-go") of characters in Japanese and American animated films. It focuses on so-called women's language and its frequency in Disney movies which feature princesses and Ghibli movies whose main characters are girls. It attempts to answer three questions. (1) What are the differences between the stereotypical utterances in Disney and Studio Ghibli movies? (2) What historical changes are there in the frequency of use of women's language? (3) What can be said about these changes, considering the fact that stereotypical utterances reflect social stereotypes? To answer the first question, linguistic features of the words used by the characters in the Disney movies and Ghibli movies were examined. To answer the second question, the frequencies of occurrence of women's language in heroines' utterances were found, and to answer the third question, the\r historical changes in the use of women's language in the movies are examined against the social background of the U. S. A. and Japan. The results show that Disney movies make use of differences between General American and British pronunciation, as well as very colloquial or non-standard forms (such as -in' for -ing) and slang to distinguish characters. On the other hand, Japanese stereotypical utterances mainly employ different personal pronouns, and characteristic sentence endings. The frequency of women's language used by the heroines dropped sharply after 1989 in Disney movies and after 1997 in Ghibli movies. The use of women's language in the movies suggests that changes in the stereotypical image of women started earlier in Disney\r movies than in Ghibli movies.
著者
大城 玲奈
出版者
東京女子大学言語文化研究会
雑誌
言語文化研究 = Studies in language and culture (ISSN:09187766)
巻号頁・発行日
no.23, pp.36-51, 2015-03

The second part of this article reports on a survey of the use of iku in the Hichiku dialect.Nine native speakers of the dialect were interviewed to find the criteria they have on the‶closeness"that allows the use of kuru when the speaker is approaching the hearer. There are three important findings. (1) These speakers share the tendency to regard family members and close friends as well as events in future up to the following week as"close."(2) They classify goals in terms of psychological rather than physical distance from the speaker. (3) There are individual differences among native speakers.