A Contrastive Study of Japanese and English on the Relation between Grammar and Pragmatics

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24320088
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: HIROSE Yukio 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 教授 (00181214)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KAGA Nobuhiro 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 教授 (20185705) ; SHIMADA Masaharu 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (30254890) ; WADA Naoaki 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (40282264) ; KANETANI Masaru 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 助教 (50547908)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 文法 / 語用論 / 対照言語学 / 言語形式 / 言語機能 / 状況把握 / 状況報告 / 対人関係

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigated grammatico-pragmatic phenomena in Japanese and English from the theoretical perspective of the “three-tier model of language use,” which states that language use consists of three tiers called “situation construal,” “situation report,” and “interpersonal relationship,” and that languages differ as to how the three tiers are combined, according to whether their basic egocentricity lies in the “public self” (i.e. the speaker as the subject of communicating), as in English, or the “private self” (i.e. the speaker as the subject of thinking or consciousness), as in Japanese. It was shown that grammatico-pragmatic differences between Japanese and English stem primarily from the difference in the way the three tiers are linked in each language.

Free Research Field

人文学・言語学・英語学