Language Contact in Japan A Socio-Linguistic History

by Loveday, Leo J.

• ISBN13: 9780198235590
• ISBN10: 0198235593
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-08-01
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

The Japanese are often characterized as exclusive and ethnocentric, yet a close examination of their linguistic and cultural history reveals a very different picture: although theirs is essentially a monolingual speech community they emerge as a people who have been significantly influenced byother languages and cultures for at least 2000 years. In this primarily sociolinguistic study Professor Loveday takes an eclectic approach, drawing on insights from other subfields of linguistics such as comparative and historical linguistics and stylistics, and from a number of other disciplines -cultural anthropology, social psychology and semiotics. Focusing in particular on the influence of Chinese and English on Japanese, and on how elements from these languages are modified when they are incorporated into Japanese, Professor Loveday offers a general model for understanding languagecontact behaviour across time and space. The study will be of value to those in search of cross-cultural universals in language contact behaviour, as well as to those with a particular interest in the Japanese case.

Author Biography

Leo J. Loveday is Professor of Linguistics in the Faculty of Letters at Doshisha University.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures
Introduction	p. 1
Introducing Language Contact	p. 12
Japanese Contact with Asian Languages	p. 26
The Social Evolution of Japanese Contact with European Languages	p. 47
The Contexts of Contemporary Contact	p. 77
Japanizing and Westernizing Patterns	p. 114
The Social Reception of Contact with English Now	p. 157
The Functions of Language Contact in Japan Today	p. 189
Conclusions	p. 212
Appendix 1. Negative Community Attitudes towards Foreignisms in Print	p. 215
Appendix 2. The Questionnaire (English translation)	p. 218
Appendix 3. The Historical Division between Japanese and Chinese-based Literary Genres	p. 224
Appendix 4. Lexical Resources in Contemporary Japanese Restaurant-Names	p. 225
References	p. 227
Index	p. 237
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