Expressing Silence: Where Language and Culture Meet in Japanese

by Natsuko Tsujimura

In Expressing Where Language and Culture Meet in Japanese, Natsuko Tsujimura discusses how silence is conceptualized and linguistically represented in Japanese. Languages differ widely in the specific linguistic and rhetorical modes through which vivid depictions of silence are achieved. In Japanese, sounds in nature evoke silence, and onomatopoeia plays an important role in simulating silent scenes. These linguistic mechanisms mediate the perception of the symbiotic relationship between sound and silence, a perception deeply embedded in the Japanese cultural experience. Expressing Silence brings the tools of both linguistic and cultural analysis in examining the remarkably rich array of representations of silence in Japanese language and culture, finding that depictions of silence through language cannot be understood without exploring what sound or silence mean to the speakers.

167 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 3, 2022

Reviews

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very very interesting although I stopped at superficial explanations because my very little knowledge of Japanese did not allow me to go in depth.

Molto molto interessante anche se io mi sono fermata alle spiegazioni superficiali perché la mia scarsissima conoscenza del giapponese non mi ha permesso di andare in profonditá.