Abstract
Keywords: language criticism, pragmatics, metalanguage, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics
Much as cultural change has always been an anthropological constant, language change has always reflected transformations of socio-cultural realities. However, in modern Japan, change in "the Japanese language" in its conception as a monolithic vehicle of Japaneseness, has been frequently perceived as a deterioration of linguistic substance, and by extension, as an erosion of order and culture.
In this paper, software-based corpus linguistics methodology is applied to a corpus of about 1200 Japanese newspaper articles from 1985 to 2019 within the framework of discourse analysis, with the aim of describing discourse actors and extracting pragmatic idiosyncrasies of the newspaper-mediated public metalinguistic discourse centered on “language decline” (kotoba no midare). Statistically salient n-grams were investigated, expressed through codes, and applied to the corpus using a set of tools based on the computation of cooccurrences.
My findings suggest that several pragmemes can be corelated with one or more of the main groups of discourse actors (journalists, readers, and experts). These include the use of symbolic language, implications, objectifying language, and the construction of change as something happening (only) in the present. Software-aided linguistics was found to be a viable and indeed valuable methodological toolbox useful for corpus-based discourse analysis and meta-pragmatic research.
Much as cultural change has always been an anthropological constant, language change has always reflected transformations of socio-cultural realities. However, in modern Japan, change in "the Japanese language" in its conception as a monolithic vehicle of Japaneseness, has been frequently perceived as a deterioration of linguistic substance, and by extension, as an erosion of order and culture.
In this paper, software-based corpus linguistics methodology is applied to a corpus of about 1200 Japanese newspaper articles from 1985 to 2019 within the framework of discourse analysis, with the aim of describing discourse actors and extracting pragmatic idiosyncrasies of the newspaper-mediated public metalinguistic discourse centered on “language decline” (kotoba no midare). Statistically salient n-grams were investigated, expressed through codes, and applied to the corpus using a set of tools based on the computation of cooccurrences.
My findings suggest that several pragmemes can be corelated with one or more of the main groups of discourse actors (journalists, readers, and experts). These include the use of symbolic language, implications, objectifying language, and the construction of change as something happening (only) in the present. Software-aided linguistics was found to be a viable and indeed valuable methodological toolbox useful for corpus-based discourse analysis and meta-pragmatic research.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics |
| Editors | Patrick Heinrich, Guiseppe Pappalardo |
| Place of Publication | Venice |
| Pages | 141 |
| Number of pages | 164 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Edition | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-88-6969-428-8 |
| Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 602048 Sociolinguistics
- 602020 Japanese studies