Usage-based Approaches to Japanese Grammar

Towards the understanding of human language

Editors

Kaori Kabata | University of Alberta

Tsuyoshi Ono | University of Alberta

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027259219 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027270313 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

This volume brings together papers that take usage-based approaches to study the nature of human language, with a focus on the grammar of Japanese. The 12 chapters provide a rich array of data and methodologies, with topics ranging from phonology, modality, and grammatical morphemes, to sentential construction and discourse-level phenomena such as turn-taking, speech register, and language change. As a whole, they demonstrate that usage-based linguistics illuminates various phenomena in the language that could not have been well accounted for by resorting solely to a formal theory such as the Universal-Grammar-based approach. Reflecting theoretical, methodological, and technological advancements made in and outside the field of cognitive-functional linguistics in recent years, the papers contained in this volume, both individually and collectively, have significant implications towards linguistics in general and Japanese linguistics in particular, as we as Japanese language teaching.

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 156] 2014. ix, 308 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.156

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement | pp. vii–viii

List of contributors | pp. ix–x

Introduction: Situating usage-based (Japanese) linguistics

Tsuyoshi Ono and Ryoko Suzuki | pp. 1–10

Part 1. Cognition and language use

Subordination and information status: A case of To and Koto complement clauses  in Japanese

Naomi H. McGloin | pp. 13–36

On state of mind and grammatical forms  from functional perspectives: The case for Garu and Te-iru

Yuki Johnson | pp. 37–54

Grammar of the internal expressive sentences in Japanese: Observations and explorations

Shoichi Iwasaki | pp. 55–84

Subjectivity, intersubjectivity and Japanese grammar: A functional approach

Rumiko Shinzato | pp. 85–108

What typology reveals about modality  in Japanese: A cross-linguistic perspective*

Kaoru Horie and Heiko Narrog | pp. 109–134

Part 2. Frequency, interaction and language use

If rendaku isn’t a rule, what in the world is it?

Timothy J. Vance | pp. 137–152

The semantic basis of grammatical development: Its implications for modularity, innateness, and the theory of grammar

Yasuhiro Shirai | pp. 153–170

Interchangeability of so-called interchangeable particles: Corpus analysis of spatial markers, Ni and E

Kaori Kabata | pp. 171–192

The re-examination of so-called ‘clefts’: A study of multiunit turns in Japanese  talk-in-interaction

Junko Mori | pp. 193–222

Activity, participation, and joint turn construction: A conversation analytic exploration of ‘grammar-in-action’

Makoto Hayashi | pp. 223–258

Part 3. Language change and variation

Context in constructions: Variation in Japanese non-subject honorifics

Yoshiko Matsumoto | pp. 261–278

The use and interpretation of “regional” and “standard” variants in Japanese conversation

Shigeko Okamoto | pp. 279–304

Index | pp. 305–308

“"Why is it that you are interested in my talk on Japanese?" "Well, I'm a specialist on extraterrestrial communication!" --- This was actually a piece of conversation between me and a member of the audience after the presentation of my paper on Japanese at the Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies in Dresden, 1999. I am not sure if my conversational partner found his curiosity fully satisfied with my talk, but I can assure you (especially if you are interested in typological considerations) that Japanese is a really fascinating language in order to have a balanced view of what a human language can be like. You don't have to go for little known "alien" and "exotic" languages (where you often find the descriptions available not up to your expectations --- understandably because of the extreme difficulty on the part of the researcher to fully and sufficiently familiarize him-/herself with what is going on in the minds of the native speakers). In the present volume, you find a group of professionally well-trained linguists (mostly, native speakers of Japanese) being engaged with a number of crucial (and perhaps some even apparently peculiar) features of the Japanese language. Their discussions and presentations are mildly in the framework of cognitive linguistics and thus fully accessible and serviceable for anyone interested in seeing how human languages can look like.”

Yoshihiko Ikegami, University of Tokyo

“This volume makes an ideal supplementary reading for courses on the structure of Japanese and is of interest to those broadly concerned with Japanese culture and society, as well as those specialized in cross-cultural communication.”

Masayoshi Shibatani, Deedee McMurtry Professor of Humanities and Professor of Linguistics, Rice University

“I found the book to be insightful and thought-provoking, and brings the study of language away from the abstract discussion of grammar and back to an understanding of its role in terms of human communication. For this reason, I would recommend the book to both prospective and current teachers of Japanese language as well as teacher-researchers from a variety of related domains.
”

Misumi Sadler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in Journal of Japanese Linguistics 31: 109-112, 2015

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Mori, Junko, Mutsuko Endo Hudson & Yoshiko Matsumoto

2018. Introduction. In Pragmatics of Japanese [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 285], ► pp. 1 ff.

Mori, Yoshiko, Atsushi Hasegawa & Junko Mori

2021. The trends and developments of L2 Japanese research in the 2010s. Language Teaching 54:1 ► pp. 90 ff.

Shibasaki, Reijirou

2023. Formulaicity and formulaic expressions in Japanese: an introduction. Journal of Japanese Linguistics 39:1 ► pp. 5 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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