Japanese dialects

This paper focuses on the Japanese dialectal varieties from the island of Tsushima located in the Korean Strait. It is meant as a continuation of a preceding article titled ‘The current state of the Tsushima dialect’ . It aims further elucidate the situation of the Tsushima dialectal varieties primarily using material gathered during the second fieldwork trip to Tsushima undertaken in 2019. Several different sites located in various parts of Tsushima were visited in the course of the fieldwork. The paper describes not only the current linguistic situation of the Tsushima island, but also key morphosyntactic features of the local varieties, and specific vocabulary gathered from the individual sites.

This is a final version of the manuscript submitted for publication (Shimoji, Michinori, ed., An Introduction to the Japonic Languages: Grammatical Sketches of Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan Languages. Brill). This chapter is one of the nine grammatical sketches included in the volume (Aomori, Izumo, Yanagawa, Tokunoshima Amami, Iheya Okinawan, Kin Okinawan, Aragusuku Miyako and Shiraho Yaeyama).

本研究は在日日本語L2話者を参加者とし、インタビュー、現地観察、インターネット調査のデータを利用し、参加者の日本語経験、日本語教育に対する意見を調べた。その結果、日本語のスピーチスタイル(敬語、方言等) の使用方法、そして周りの日本人の考えにズレを感じるという悩みが参加者の多くに見られた。これはネイティブスピーカーバイアスの現れで、L2話者のスピーカーレジティマシーの妨げになっていると思われる。スピーカーレジティマシー (Bourdieu 1991) は、話す権利、発言を聞いてもらう権利を意味する。L2話者にとってスピーカーレジティマシーの欠如は日本語での生活の支障になっていると予想される。本稿では、ネイティブスピーカーバイアスをなくす必要があり、日本語教育もその一端を担っていると提唱する。そしてL2話者のための日本語教育は教育を受ける彼らの意見を考慮しなければならない。本稿ではこの調査の結果を報告し、米国における日本語教育への示唆を述べる。

Bachelor’s paper „Kansai Dialect in Japanese Popular Culture - Anime and Manga” is devoted to the analysis of the role which the Kansai dialect plays in anime and manga. This paper reflects stereotypes that are held by the modern Japanese society about the Kansai dialect and its typical speaker. Characters in manga and anime are regarded as the manifestations of these stereotypes.
Just as any other work in literature or art, anime and manga reflect the society and the culture in which they are created. In recent years research on Japanese popular culture is on the rise, including new studies on manga and anime. However, research addressing dialects in manga and especially anime is still lacking.
This thesis is divided into four parts. First part provides the necessary theoretical basis for understanding the historical and social prerequisites for the origins of stereotypes. Second part presents the Kansai dialect in comparison with the standard Japanese language. Third and fourth part discusses how dialect is used in anime and manga.
Extracts from anime and manga form an important part of this paper describing the language use. A variety of characters that speak in the Kansai dialect are compared by looking at the stereotypical properties they possess.
Keywords: Kansai dialect, anime, manga, stereotypes.

This paper is based on a short fieldwork undertaken in the island of Tsushima in August 2018. During this fieldwork, two sites in northern Tsushima were chosen to ascertain what the state of the dialect is at present and what its most salient features in its grammar and vocabulary are. The two sites which were chosen showed a great difference in the current status of the dialect. the first site named Ōura has proven to be mostly devoid of speakers of the traditional dialect. However, there are clear signs of a new interdialect being created that contains a mixture of the standard Japanese and the local dialect mostly containing broadly western Japanese features. The village of Sago has proven to be a more promising site where the traditional dialect is still in use. Some of its basic features in both morphosyntax and vocabulary are discussed in this paper. Material in this paper has been mostly taken from the recordings of natural speech of the inhabitants and in some cases from questioning and elicitation.

本発表の目的は，北琉球沖縄語今帰仁謝名方言における「私たち」の2 形式（wattaa とagamii）の使い分けを記述することである。今帰仁村を含む沖縄本島北部の諸方言には，「私たち」にワッター系とアガ系の2 系列あることが知られており，ワッター系は除外，アガ系は包括という除括性
（clusivity）の区別として分析されてきた(内間1979, 1994)。しかし，謝名方言におけるwattaa（ワッター系）とagamii（アガ系）の対立はこの定説では説明できないことが明らかとなった。本発表では，wattaa とagamii の対立が，除括性と異なる観点である人称対立性，すなわち「聞き手側（あなたたち）ないし他者側（彼ら）と対立しているか否か」により適切に記述できることを示す。wattaa は人称対立性があり，（あなたに対する）「私たち」（＝除外に対応）と（彼らに対する）「私たち」（=包括に対応）の意味で使われる。一方，agamii は人称対立性のない「私たち」であり，会話参与者（私とあなた（たち））のみを単に指すことから結果的に包括に対応する。

This research has examined the conceptual structure represented by “-rasar-“ construction, the particular to the Hokkaido dialect. In general, this construction is recognized as “spontaneous construction” by Sasaki (2007). The phenomenon of intransitivization has been reported in the literature on the Hokkaido dialect. The syntactic mechanism has well been described, however, there is no clear explanation of its meanings, especially the outstanding feature of avoiding responsibilities for action. In this research, I have proposed that from the viewpoint of cognitive grammar and ecological psychology started by Gibson, the basis of its use (meaning) is clearly explained. By using the classification of syntactic characteristics, “-rasar-“ construction is compared with the relative constructions of standard Japanese in order to clarify the semantic use of the construction, and then the similarity of “-rasar-“ construction is shown through comparing with the middle construction of English. The semantic similarity between the middle construction and “-rasar-“ construction has been pointed out by Takahashi (2012), however, they are not identical in syntax. This implies that the cognitive approach facilitates the explanation of similar characteristics over different syntactic systems. The analysis of middle construction by Taniguchi (2005) is applicable for analyzing “-rasar-“ construction. The “-rasar-“ construction is construed as the event represented by the verb is caused not by the Agent or due to the attribution of the Agent, however, the attribution of the Patient or the other environmental properties can become the factor to occur or prevent the event. The basic meaning of the “-rasar-“ construction can be explained by following the analysis from the viewpoint of biological psychology. According to the analysis made by Honda (2005), some linguistic expression, like the middle of English, corresponds to the perception of affordance. In this research, I made a classification following the features of affordance and observed that each feature corresponds to the features of the uses of “-rasar-“ construction. I concluded that the basis of use (or meaning) of the “-rasar-“ construction is to express the perception of affordance. This research suggests that the other particular dialects can be explained by cognitive approach and other related constructions related to “-rasar-“ construction possibly be motivated and analyzed from the viewpoint of ecological psychology.

Anticausativization is a morphological process where a certain morphological marking incurs the suppression of the causing event and of the external argument. Koontz-Garboden (2009) advocated an analysis where the semantic operation responsible for anticausativization is reflexivization,i.e.,co-indexing of external and internal arguments. He argues that this analysis is applicable to anticausativization“in general,”i.e.,not only to anticausativization with reflexive morphemes but also to anticausativizaiton employing other types of morpheme as a marker of anticausativization. This paper examines the viability of this universal characterization,using the data from the Hokkaido dialect of Japanese.

This paper is based on a short period of fieldwork undertaken on the island of Tsushima in August 2018. During this fieldwork, two sites in northern Tsushima were chosen to ascertain about the present state of the dialect and the most salient features of its grammar and vocabulary. The two sites which were chosen for the research, Ōura and Sago, showed a great difference in their current status of the dialect. Although Ōura has proven to be mostly devoid of speakers of the traditional dialect, there are also clear signs of a new mixed dialect being created that contains a mixture of Standard Japanese and the local dialect with its predominant general western Japanese features. The village of Sago has proven to be a more promising site where the traditional dialect is still in use. The paper discusses some of the dialect's basic features in both morphosyntax and vocabulary. Material in this paper has been mostly taken from the recordings of the inhabitants' natural speech, and in some cases from questioning and elicitation.

The present paper is a cross-dialectal survey of the relationship between various kinds of foci (e.g. argument focus vs. predicate focus, contrastive focus vs. WH focus, etc.) and their formal encodings in Ryukyuan languages. On the one hand, the present study is descriptive, dealing with a hitherto untouched issue of dialectal variation among Ryukyuan languages with regard to the usage of morphological focus-marking such as du and ga. By examining fifteen Ryukyuan languages which represent major dialectal areas (seven from Northern Ryukyuan and eight from Southern Ryukyuan), it will be shown that there is a considerable dialectal variation with regard to focus-marking and that the relevant factors are focus function (information vs. contrastive function of focus, etc.) and focus domain (argument vs. predicate, etc.). On the other hand, the present study is typological, giving a consistent model that explains the observed variation and makes predictions about the possible language patterns and impossible ones in the form of a pair of hierarchies, Focus Type Hierarchy (Contras-tive Focus > WHA Focus (the focus of the answer to a WHQ) > WHQ Focus) and Focus Domain Hierarchy (Argument > Predicate).

⽇琉諸語の複数表⽰については，これまで主に個別⽅⾔の記述研究において議論されてきた（Shimoji 2008, Pellard 2010, Niinaga 2014, 原⽥2015, 重野・⽩⽥2016，⽊部2016，徳永2017, 占部2018，セリック2018，三樹2018 など多数）。⼀⽅，複数表⽰に関して通⽅⾔的な⼀般化を試みる類型論的研究は管⾒の限り存在しない。本発表の⽬的は，この後者のタイプの研究，すなわち複数表⽰に関する類型論的研究の試論を⽰すことである。なお，本発表では主に琉球諸語を検討し，⼀定の結論を⽰す。その上で，琉球諸語の⼀般特徴をいくつかの本⼟諸⽅⾔のデータと⽐較することで，⽇琉諸語全般の複数表⽰に関する類型化に向けた議論のきっかけとしたい。

This is the final version of the manuscript submitted for publication.

Matsuoka, Aoi (2022) Yanagawa. In Shimoji, Michinori (ed.) An Introduction to the Japonic Languages: Grammatical Sketches of Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan Languages. Leiden: Brill.

The published version can be downloaded from the link below.
https://brill.com/view/title/62978?language=en

Handout from OCP,  January 2014. Please contact me if you have any questions or comments. References for the poster are included in this handout. This work has been updated and a final version of the analysis and discussion are included in my forthcoming thesis.

10/12/14 Updated with references accidentally leftout of previous uploaded versions.

The aim of this study is to give the definition of the word class adjective in Irabu Ryukyuan (henceforth Irabu), a northwest variety of Miynko Ryukyuan. It is well known among Ryukyuan linguists that Miyako Ryukyuan has a wide range of word fbrrns that encode anàdjectival' meaning, i.e. the compound form with the formal noun munu, the reduplicated form, and the inflected form, all of which have been referred to asàdjectives' based on their semantic characteristics. Based on both language-internal criteria (morphosyn-tactic criteria) and typologica) criteria (functional criteria, i.e. cross-linguistically recurrent function of adjective), I will show that the reduplicated tbrm is the only candidate for the adjective class jn Irabu, contrary to the traditional view onàdjectives onàdjectives' in the literature wheTe the reduplicated fbrm has always been treated as a secondary or special kind of adjective.