1999 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Structure and function of "dan" in Japanese spoken and written discourse
| Project/Area Number |
09834006
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
談話(ディスコース)
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| Research Institution | Waseda University (1999)
Japan Women's University (1997-1998) |
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Principal Investigator |
SAKUMA Mayumi Waseda University, Center for Japanese Language, Professor, 日本語研究教育センター, 教授 (30153943)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1997 – 1999
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| Keywords | written discourse types / spoken discourse types / semantic paragraph "dan" / paragraph divisions / summary / coherence of discourse topic / unifying function of topic sentence (s) / utterance functions |
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| Research Abstract |
The present research on the function and structure of the semantic paragraph "dan" in Japanese written and spoken discourse, is based on a theoretical investigation of previous research and results of a survey on summaries of an essay which was heard or read.
(1) The immediate constituents of written discourse and spoken discourse, i.e., the largest linguistic units in Japanese, are "dan" units which have a topic unifying function.
(2) "Dan" in principle are composed of 1) "tyuusinbun" (topic sentence (s) ), which express the topic of topic expressions and predicate expressions, and 2) the supporting sentences which are unified by these topic sentence (s) .
(3) Tere are 6 types of Japanese discourse. These discourse types are classified according to the firequency and position of the thesis sentence (s) .
(4) In Japanese discourse, bikatugata 'main point final' type (where the topic sentence occurs at the end) is the most common.
(5) We conducted a survey of two groups in which the surveyees wrote summaries based on their hearing or reading of a main point final type argumentative essay. Results showed that there was a tendency for the summaries of both groups to reflect the main point final structure of the original text. The summaries provided evidence for the structure and function of the dan in the original text, and there was a tendency for elements of the thesis sentence and topic sentences to be used in the summaries.
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