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Nagiko Iwata Lee
Ritsumeikan University
A SUGGESTION FROM RESEARCH ON CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC
English-Japanese contrastive rhetoric studies
Hinds (1983)
Japanese written texts are characterized by an
abrupt topic shift;
ki-sho-ten-ketsu introduce-develop-turn to a subtheme-conclude
Hinds (1987) Reader vs. Writer Responsibility
InductivenessKobayashi (1984), Oi (1984), Kubota (1992) Japanese student writers tend to organize essays
inductively (specific-to-general, placing main ideas at the end)
Hinds (1990) Japanese texts are characterized as quasi-inductive
(delayed introduction of purpose)
Maynard (1996) Japanese newspaper opinion columns tend to place the
opinion toward the end of the text
Expressions of modalityLee (2006)
‘Boosters’ are hardly used in Japanese academic
writing.
Lee (2009) • ‘Boosters’ are hardly used in Japanese newspaper
editorials.• American editorials use a wider variety of stance and
engagement expressions
Lee (2009) Data and Method• Editorials from major Japanese and American
newspapers:
30 editorials from Asahi Newspaper ( Average length of one editorial: 31.1T-
units) 30 editorials from New York Times ( Average length of one editorial: 30.9 T-
units)
• Selected and coded expressions of stance and engagement using Hyland’s model.
• Stance: The ways writers present themselves and convey their judgments, opinions, and commitments.
• Engagement:
The ways writers relate to their readers with respect to the positions advanced in the text.
( Hyland, 2005)
Key resources of Stance (Hyland 2005)
Stance
Hedges BoostersAttitude Markers
Self-mention
Examples of Stance expressions• Hedges:
Such experiments may not represent ……• Boosters:
…we obviously do not see a static image as…• Attitude markers:
… are rather important and, for this reason …• Self-mentions:
I argue that their treatment is superficial …
Key resources of Engagement (Hyland 2005)
Engage-ment
Readerpronouns
Directives QuestionsShared
knowledgePersonal
asides
Examples of Engagement expressions
• Reader pronouns: Although we lack knowledge about …• Directives: Consider a sequence of batches in …• Questions: Is it , in fact, necessary to choose …?• Appeals to Shared knowledge: Chesterton was of course wrong to suppose …• Personal asides: And – as I believe many …. – critical thinking…
American
editorials
Japanese
editorials
Hedges 32 43
Boosters 31 2
Attitude markers 207 158
Self-mention 0 0
Total 270 203
Frequency of Stance expressions
Frequency of Engagement expressions
American
editorials
Japanese
editorials
Reader pronouns 30 1
Directives 7+1 0+6
Questions 14 27
Shared knowledge 1 1
Personal asides 20 0
Total 72 29
Reader pronouns A covert pronoun is a norm in Japanese. (Lee, 1987, Kameyama 1988)
Some of the English reader pronouns
→ Desiderative “V-tai” in Japanese
e.g.) We support the decision by …
→ ? Wareware wa sono ketsudan o shiji suru.
→ [ 0 ] sono ketsudan o shiji shi-tai.
* Desiderative form “V-tai” requires the 1st person subject.
Prominence of the desiderative form
in Japanese editorials 36 occurrences of the desiderative were found in 20 out of
30 Asahi Shimbun editorials used as data in Lee (2009),
whilst only 4 occurrences were identified in New York times
editorials.
The desiderative can be a stance marker, expressing the
wish of the writer, and can be an engagement marker
at the same time, implying the wish is to be shared with
the readers.
Discourse modality indicators (Maynard 1993, 2002 ) Cleft sentence (the word-order which reflects different information structure)
[ A ] no wa [ B ] da. ‘What A is B’, ‘It is B that A’
ooku no hito o sukuidashita no mo karera datta.
‘It was they who also saved many people.’
Sentential nominal
Shinsai kara 10 ka.
‘10 days since the day of earthquake.’
Frequency of Desiderative, Cleft sentence, and Sentential nominal in the data of Lee (2009)
New York Times (30 editorials)
Asahi Shimbun (30 editorials)
Desiderative 4 36
Cleft sentence 3 6
Sentential nominal 3 5
Examples from editorials on the recent earthquake disaster in Japan
Desiderative
Ochitsuite koodoo shi-tai.
‘We want to act calmly.’Cleft sentence
ooku no hito o sukuidashita no mo karera datta.
‘It was they who also saved many people.’Sentential nominal
Shinsai kara 10 ka.
‘10 days since the day of earthquake.’
Frequency of Desiderative, Cleft sentence, & Sentential nominal in
editorials on the recent earthquake disaster in Japan
Asahi Shimbun (10 editorials)
New York Times (2 editorials)
The Guardian(4 editorials)
The Age
(3 editorials)
Desiderative
20 (Aver. 2.0)
0 0 0
Cleft sentence
12 (Aver. 1.2)
0 2 (Aver. 0.5)
0
Sentential nominal
8(From 2 editorials)
3 (From 1 editorial)
4 (From 1 editorial)
0
• While obviously expressing modality is universal among languages, the ready availability>available forms of and acceptance (or even encouragement) toward high degree of personalization differ from one genre to another and from one language to another.
(Maynard 1993:266, edited in red by Lee 2011)
A suggestion from contrastive rhetoric
• We need to look at data from the perspective of languages other than English as well.
By looking at Japanese, typologically different from English, we have found the following:
1) There is an indicator which can be considered both as a stance marker and an engagement marker. <Japanese desiderative>
2) There are other markers which need to be examined for expressions of stance and engagement. <Cleft sentence, Sentential nominal>
References• Hinds, J. (1983) Contrastive rhetoric: Japanese and English. Text, 3(2), pp. 183-195.• (1987) Reader versus writer responsibility: A new typology. In U.
Connor & R.B. Kaplan (Eds.), Writing across languages: Analysis of L2 text (pp. 142-152). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• (1990) Inductive, Deductive, Quasi-inductive: Expository Writing in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Thai. In U. Connor & A.M. johns (Eds.), Coherence in Writing: Research and pedagogical perspectives, pp. 87- 109. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.• Hyland, K. (2005) “Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse” , Discourse Studies, 7 (2), pp. 173-92.• Kobayashi (1984). Rhetorical patterns in English and Japanese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University Teachers College, New York.• Kubota (1992). Contrastive rhetoric of Japanese and English: A critical approach. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Education, University of Toronto.
• Lee, N.I. (1987) “Subject ellipsis in Japanese”, Working Papers in Linguistics, 18 (2) pp. 1-30. Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii.• (2006) “Contrastive academic writing in Japanese and English” in C.M. Figueroa & T.I.M. Garate (Eds.), Studies in Contrastive Linguistics. pp.509-515. Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.• (2009) “Stance and Engagement in writing: Japanese and American Editorials” in V. K. Bhatia et. al (Eds.) Language for Professional Communication: Research, Practice,& Training, pp. 61-70• Maynard, S.K. (1993) Discourse Modality: Subjectivity, emotion and voice in the Japanese language, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.• (1996). Presentation of one’s view in Japanese newspaper columns: Commentary strategies and sequencing. Text, 16(2), pp. 391-421.• (2002) Linguistic Emotivity: Centrality of place, the topic- comment dynamic, and an ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.• Oi (1984). M.K. (1984). Cross-cultural differences in rhetorical patterning: A study of Japanese and English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook.