Nagiko Iwata Lee

Ritsumeikan University

nagiko@ba.ritsumei.ac.jp

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.