Expressive Japanese: A Reference Guide for Sharing Emotion and Empathy

by Senko K. Maynard

Feelings play an enormous part in our lives, but their expression is often neglected in foreign language education. How do I communicate happiness, surprise, or anger? How do others communicate these emotions to me? Such questions become increasingly relevant as we become more competent in the language we are learning. Expressive Japanese is the first detailed guide to emotion words and expressive strategies for students of the language. Words connoting feelings, such as kanashii (sad), are important in everyday Japanese conversation, but communicating emotions effectively also requires the use of expressive strategies, such as Nani? (What the heck?), Yattaa! (I did it!), or Hottoite! (Leave me alone!). Introductory chapters examine the characteristics, constraints, and history of expressive Japanese and discuss linguistic variations and styles and how these play a part in conveying emotion and empathy. There follow more than seventy entries that draw on hundreds of authentic examples taken from a variety of sources, including television dramas, comics, interviews, novels, essays, newspaper articles, and web sites. In these examples, students will find playful and creative

Genres: Japanese Literature, Language, Japan, Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

Senko K. Maynard is professor of Japanese language and linguistics at Rutgers University. She received her bachelor's degree from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and her doctorate in linguistics from Northwestern University. She has published extensively in the field of Japanese linguistics, especially in the area of discourse analysis and conversation analysis. Among her books are Japanese Conversation: Self-contextualization through Structure and International Management (1989), An Introduction to Japanese Grammar and Communication Strategies (1990), and Discourse Modality: Subjectivity, Emotion and Voice in the Japanese Language (1993). Author of numerous articles in Japanese, U.S., and international scholarly journals, Professor Maynard is the founding and current editor of Japanese Discourse: An International Journal for the Study of Japanese Text and Talk.