What do you think?
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series #202
Soliloquy in Japanese and English
Language is recognized as an instrument of communication and thought. Under the shadow of prevailing investigation of language as a communicative means, its function as a tool for thinking has long been neglected in empirical research, vis-à-vis philosophical discussions. Language manifests itself differently when there is no interlocutor to communicate and interact. How is it similar and how does it differ in these two situations―communication and thought? Soliloquy in Japanese and English analyzes experimentally-obtained soliloquy data in Japanese and in English and explores the potential utility of such data for delving into this uncharted territory. It deals with five topics in which elimination from discourse of an addressee is particularly relevant and significant. Four are derived from the sentence-final particles ne and yo , deixis and anaphora, gendered speech, linguistic politeness; the fifth topic is the use of the second person pronoun you in soliloquy in English.
244 pages, Hardcover
First published November 11, 2010
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September 16, 2016
Very informative and in-depth regarding the topic(s) on which it is written; also presented in a way that someone who has little to no experience with Japanese can follow what is being said and what conclusions are being made. However, I expected half the book to be about Japanese, and half to be about English... Five chapters were dedicated to Japanese soliloquy, while only one chapter was dedicated to investigating a topic of linguistic interest (viz., the indefinite "you" in English soliloquy). I was hoping for a sort of side-by-side comparison of both languages on each topic addressed.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review