Perspectives
of
language: cultural differences and universality in Japanese
Mizue Sasaki
Introduction
|
|
I will address the
subject of the individuality and universality of language using the
Japanese language by way of example.
|
|
|
Japanese makes frequent use of the expression
okagesama de:
Goshujin wa ogenki desu ka('Is your husband well?')Okagesama
de,
genki desu. ('He's fine, thank you.') -Musukosan, gokekkon da
soo desu
ne. ('I hear your son is going to be married.')Okagesama de,
yoi kata
to kekkon dekisoo desu. ('Yes, thank you for mentioning it, he
seems to
have found a fine partner.')
|
|
It is difficult to find
appropriate substitutions for these greetings in other languages.Okagesama
de conveys the meaning of thanks when someone
has offered
assistance or kindness. Kage fromokagesama de refers to a
sense of
protection or shelter that we receive from great Shintoist and Buddhist
deities.
When people use this expression to talk about marriage or how they are,
it is an expression of thanks to God - in this case, to the many
different gods and deities found in animism.
In reference to the rediscovery of animism deep within
various civilizations of the world, Eiji Hattori maintains that fertile
delta regions of the western Pacific Ocean share the 'ethos of the
rice-producing civilizations'. The expressionokagesama de has
its very
foundation in animism. The sense of gratitude it incorporates, despite
being difficult to translate into English, is a universal expression of
greeting we find throughout the world. The basis of the expression
includes a feeling of gratitude for all things in nature and of
co-existence with nature. Hideki Yukawa proposed the explanation
'nature creates curved lines, humans create straight lines'.Okagesama
de is an expression of Japanese origin that has come down to us
from
ancient times and suggests the feeling of a 'curved line'.
In Japanese, words of Japanese (wago), Chinese (kango)
and
foreign origins (gairaigo) co-exist.Kango words are
associated with
men's language,
whilewago are typically recognized as women's language. In the
termokagesama de, a phrase of Japanese origin, notably
feminine, expressing
thanks to the gods of nature, we cannot help but feel the strong sense
of 'women's principles' that are deep-rooted in the Japanese language
today, more surprising when you consider that it is 'men's principles'
that have supposedly advanced civilization.
|
Languages -
civilized and uncivilized
|
|
Almost 3,000 different
languages are used on earth today, and an equal number of peoples or
ethnic groups speak these languages. However, official languages of
United Nations Member States number only about two hundred. With the
number of newly independent states increasing, so too is the number of
official state languages. At this symposium, French, English and
Japanese fulfil the function of common languages. However, I feel we
should bear in mind that, in the name of the 'unity of civilization',
the people of countries that use the 'major languages' are in a
favoured position, while those that use so-called 'minority languages'
have to continually adapt.
The mistaken ideology of the development model for
language, whereby major languages are 'civilized languages' and
minority languages are 'uncivilized' ones, was passed on to Marxism
after the French Revolution. The Japanese language has experienced a
similar history. There have been proposals to replace Japanese script
with the Roman alphabet or to replace the language itself with French
or English. This might be perceived as a desire to replace an
'uncivilized language' with a 'civilized' one; a 'mother-tongue
pessimism' reflecting the climate of the time.
|
Japan's national
language in a period of turmoil
|
|
From the final days of
the Tokugawa Shoguriate into the Meiji Era, Japan entered a period of
civilization and enlightenment, along with enhanced national prosperity
and defence. It was proposed that the use of Chinese characters in
written Japanese should be totally abolished, to improve the efficiency
of education. The first person to officially address this question (in
1866), was Hisoka Maejima, who established Japan's postal service.
In 1872, Yoshikazu Nambu submitted a written petition
arguing that 'since it is possible in Western scholarship to read with
only twenty-six letters, the national language should be developed
using an alphabet that is easy to learn.' The thinker Amane Nishi also
supported the proposal to use the Roman alphabet. There were also
those, including the diplomat and educator, Mori Arinori, who believed
that the Japanese language should be completely replaced
by English. Mori had studied in the United States and Britain, and from
1886 to 1 889 was Minister of Education in the first Ito Cabinet ofthe
Meiji Era. If Mori had not been assassinated in 1889, one wonders
whether Japan would have had English as its national language, just as
several other Asian countries do.
In 1946, prominent writer Shiga Naoya, announced in an
article entitledKokugo Mondai (The National Language
Question') in the
magazine Kaizoo ('Transformation') that the Japanese language
should be
replaced by French:
|
|
|
I feel that Japan should boldly
take the best
language - the most beautiful language in the world - and adopt it, as
it is, as the national language. The reason that I am considering
French is that France is a country with an advanced culture; when you
read French novels, you have the feeling that there is something that
can be understood by Japanese people and when you look at French
poetry, it is said that it has a style which is common to Japanese
poetry, such aswaka and haiku and in this sense, I think that
the
French language would be most appropriate.
|
|
That the so-called
'patron saint of Japanese novelists' could propose replacing the
national language of Japan with French suggests that Shiga, at that
time, felt no pride in the 'beauty ofthe Japanese language'. From a
present-day Japanese outlook, this desire to change the language that
constitutes the very nucleus of its civilization suggests an almost
inconceivable sense of loss of self-
confidence; an inferiority complex concerned about lagging behind
civilized nations, or merely a desire to catch up with 'civilized'
countries.
|
Characteristics of
the Japanese language
The sound of Japanese
|
|
There are certain
characteristics of Japanese that are peculiar to it. When Japanese
people hear the ring of a telephone, they would most probably translate
it asrin-rin, where English speakers would say 'ring, ring'
and French
speakers 'dring, dring'. This is an example of onomatopoeia that
differs from language to language. It is not that Japanese ears are
anatomically different, it is that there are differences in the ways
various languages verbalize distinctive sounds. Japanese is rich in
onomatopoeia and mimesis, with established aural rules.
|
Characters,Hiragana,
Katakana and Romanized letters
|
|
Japanese is unique in
its use of both vertical and horizontal writing formats and in the fact
that it is a language in which ideographic characters (kanji or
Chinese
characters) and phonetic symbols (thehiragana andkatakana
syllabaries) co-exist. Foreign borrowings are written inkatakana
script and in many cases fill a linguistic gap when a word is lacking
in Japanese. This feature of the language is easily recognized on the
covers of Japanese magazines, where often, for example.
|
|
|
・ vertical and horizontal styles of writing
intermingle
・ four different kinds of script are used -kanji (Chinese
characters),hiragana,katakana and the Roman alphabet.
・ words of Japanese, Chinese and foreign origin are used for different
purposes
|
|
In European
cultures, the reader's line of sight moves from left to right. With
Japanese, the reader assesses the magazine cover as if quickly glancing
at an illustration, moving from top to bottom, left to right. The
Western approach to reading is linear, while the Japanese approach
could be described as trying to comprehend the whole surface at once -
a spatial style of reading, if you wish. One might say that the covers
of Japanese magazines have the ability to impart understanding at a
glance through the association of various kinds of information.
Kress (2003) states that modern pluralistic societies use
visual literacy to derive meaning from language as a form of
'linguistic design'. But while English and French, for example, can be
written with a flair for the visual impact, and so can be read from the
perspective of 'visual literacy', I would go further to suggest that,
in Japanese society, without the 'visual literacy' perspective it would
not be possible to read signs, magazine covers or newspapers. One could
say that when Japanese read text, they unconsciously adopt a 'visual
literacy' standpoint. Kress explains this difference by asserting that
in Western culture, when you divide a plane into four, there is a
consensus that in the top left quadrant you have the given/ideal; in
the top right, the new/ideal, in the bottom left, the given/real and in
the bottom right quadrant, the new/real. In the case of Japanese,
however, there is a consensus regarding height when the writing is
arranged vertically (high or low); regarding the use ofkanji
(Chinese
characters),hiragana,katakana and Roman script for
different
purposes; and regarding the use of words of Japanese, Chinese and
foreign origins.
One important thing to note is that 'spatial meaning',
engendering mutual understanding, is created in the cultures of various
societies. Magazine covers and the like could be said to represent a
new style of grammar, restructured through the interaction of the
writers (creators) and the readers. Just as in Hong Kong, where both
Chinese and English are common languages, in Japanese you have the
co-existence of vertical writing and horizontal writing. Kress (2003)
introduces photographs of road signs taken before and after Britain
returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, on which the positions of the
English and Chinese writing had been reversed. While this illustrates
the transfer of authority, we can especially appreciate the importance
of the viewpoint of 'visual literacy'. Although Kress merely touches on
the difference in ranking order, it is my feeling that it is possible
to feel the sense of authority and the consciousness of the people from
the (positions of the Chinese being written vertically and the English
horizontally.
|
Japanese Vocabulary
|
|
The Challenge of Translation
The Japanese language presents a challenge to those wishing to
translate it into English, French or other languages. One can only
imagine the trouble Seidensticker had in translating Yasunari
Kawabata's 1948 novel,Yukiguni (in English,Snow Country),
from
Japanese - a language that does not express the subject. Here is a
quote from the novel - the well-known opening sentence:
|
|
|
Kokkyoo no nagai tpnneru o nukeru to,
yukiguni
de atta. ('The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow
country.')
|
|
The subject is absent in
the Japanese. The reader understands that the subject is 'the train',
without it having to be stated: leaving things unsaid is one of the
characteristics of Japanese writing. However, when it comes to
translating it into English, without the subject 'the train', the
structure of the sentence breaks down. This is only the opening
sentence of the novel, yet when you carefully examineSnow Country,
you
come across any number of instances where Seidensticker has provided
subject words. It is often suggested that Japanese do not mention the
subjects because they do not like to bring themselves to the forefront.
However, I feel it is more to the point that Japanese is a guessing
culture, one in which things are left unsaid, allowing the person
addressed to fill in the gaps him- or herself.
When you wish to decline a person's invitation in
Japan, you only need to sayKyoo wa yakusoku ga atte... ('Well,
actually, I have a previous appointment today...'). You do not actually
say 'I can't make it'; the person being spoken to presumes that part. I
have given this kind of usage, where the person addressed to has to
guess some details, the namesasshi yoohoo ('the usage of
conjecture or
guessing'). When tackling a translation, it can be necessary to fill in
details that in Japanese demand this 'usage of conjecture'.
|
|
|
Osewasama desu wa (Thank you for all of
your
help! ')
|
|
The
heroine ofSnow Country, Komako, uses this expression in the
novel. The
wa at the end ofthe sentence is a sentence-final particle used by
women, and inSnow Country, these sentence-final particles
appear
frequently. While the different usages of Japanese, depending upon the
gender of the speaker, is an interesting aspect of the language,
recently there has been a convergence of male and female speech, with a
decreasing frequency of sentence-final particles used by men such as zo
and ze and those used by women, such aswa. Nevertheless,
sentence-final particles characteristic of women's speech are still
used in Japanese subtitles. When subtitles translate a modern American
female astronaut, for example, as using the sentence-final particles
you would associate with the speech of a much older woman, it never
fails to draw a wry smile.
Translated Japanese, from the point of view of
language and gender, makes for an interesting research topic. One
reason for this is that you do not have sentence-final particles in
English, French or Korean. Unable to translate the sentence-final
particlewa, Seidensticker adds 'she said' after Komako speaks.
Even
when a conversation between two people continues for some time,
Japanese people are able to ascertain whether something was being said
by the man or the woman, however, when translated into English, if it
is not specified who is speaking at a particular time, the reader is
unable to differentiate one speaker from the other.
Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
for Snow Country, however, if it were up to me, I would have
awarded
Seidensticker a Nobel Prize for the English translation. Such is the
significance of this translation.
Japanese as a lingua franca - the example of mottainai
Many words in Japanese cannot be translated into other languages and so
are used as they are. Besides the typical examples ofsukiyaki
andsushi, I would like to introduce to you today the
expressionmottainai
('What a waste! '). This was introduced as a slogan for environmental
protection by Wangari Maathai, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and
the Kenyan Vice-Minister of the Environment, at a session of the United
Nations.
Dr Maathai, born in 1940, is a Kenyan environmental
activist. She was the first woman from East Africa to be awarded a
doctorate and the first woman to become a professor at the University
of Nairobi. On a visit to Japan, Dr Maathai was deeply impressed by the
expressionmottainai, and became determined to publicize it to
the
world. At the United Nation session, Dr Maathai, brandishing a t-shirt
emblazoned with the term MOTTAINAI, explained that the meaning of the
termmottainai encompasses the four Rs of reduce, reuse,
recycle and
repair. She appealed to those in attendance - representatives of
government and non-governmental organizations - to shout it out in
chorus: 'Come on everybody, repeat after me - MOTTAINAI! ' Doctor
Maathai made the case that we should all use limited resources
effectively and share them fairly if we are to avert wars arising from
disputes over natural resources.
Japanese society has been inundated with throwaway goods
since the 1960s. Things that can still be of use - personal computers,
washing machines and air conditioners - models that may have become
slightly outmoded, are discarded almost every day in garbage collection
areas outside apartment buildings. Dr Maathai's focusing on the
expressionmotttainaiwas truly a wonderful discovery on her
part. The
term expresses the sense of regret felt when a valuable person or thing
is not handled with due respect, or when something has not been
effectively made us of. This meaning covers 'sacred' or 'important'
things and the context for this is the Japanese polytheistic way of
thinking.
Japan was a polytheistic nation before Buddhism
appeared on the scene.Kami or deities are to be found
everywhere - in
the mountains, the rivers, the trees and the rocks. The Japanese
expressionmottainai, I feel, includes a sense of respect for
the
favour of the many deities. There is a belief in Japan that within all
things in nature, there dwells a deity, as well as in all manner of
everyday things - from the cooking stove in the kitchen to the clothes
on one's back. A great number of expressions of greeting in Japanese
remind us of these deities. The expression of gratitude arigatoo
('thank you') originally implied a sense of 'rarity' - something
'curious' and 'precious'. In the Middle Ages, the expression took on
the meaning of a sense of religious gratitude for the mercy of Buddha -
something one has received which is precious and not easily obtained.
In early-modern times, the termarigatoo assumed the more
general
meaning of 'gratitude' or 'thanks'. We can gain a clearer perception of
the mentality of Japanese people from the etymology of Japanese
greetings.
|
Towards a
multi-cultural
society
|
|
The Japanese
language, with its characteristic phonological and writing systems and
spoken language has survived into the twenty-first century and has even
produced expressions that are shared throughout the world. Nowadays,
large numbers of foreigners live in Japan. In 2005, the number of
officially registered
foreign residents stood at 1 ,780,000. In large train stations in
Tokyo, directions are posted in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean,
and it is not unusual to come across information in municipal offices
written in various foreign languages.
Florian Coulmas has described Japan as journeying towards
becoming a multi-cultural society. With the numbers of foreigners
living in Japan on the rise, Japan will have to tackle the problem of
the nation's future language policy, while simultaneously addressing
the question of minority groups.
I would like to consider, once again, the statement 'the
nucleus of civilization is the ethos and at its centre we have
language'. What will become of Japan's 'language regime' in the future?
As Japan comes to accept its multilingual society, with the society
becoming steadily more multilingual, I feel that there will be
improvement in the teaching of Japanese to foreigners, while the
Japanese language-focused linguistic regime continues to develop.
|
References
|
|
Kawabata,
Yasunari. 1957.Snow Country. Edward G. Seidensticker (trans.).
Tokyo, Charles E. Turtle Company. (Original in Japanese:Yukiguni,
1948,
Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten.)
Kress, G. 2003.Literacy in the New Media Age. London,
Routledge.
Pei, Mario. 1949.The Story of Language. J.B. Lippincott,
Philadelphia.
|
Biography
|
|
Mizue
Sasaki
teaches courses in Japanese language and the theory of cross-cultural
communication at Musashino University. She is an expert in the teaching
of Japanese, and specializes in sociolinguistics.
Professor Sasaki is the 44th holder of the Cultural Award from Sankei
Children's Publications, and is currently President ofthe Society for
Gender Studies in Japanese. She has published many works on Japanese
language and culture, includingGaikokugo To Shite no Nihongo
[Japanese
as a Foreign Language], Tokyo, Koodansha 1 994, now in its eighteenth
edition, andThe Complete Japanese Expression Guide, Tokyo,
Turtle
Press, 1993.
|