Research On Self-addressing Terms In Modern Japanese And Its Chinese Translation

When we observe the dialogue between Japanese, we notice that they not only use conventional the first personal pronoun such as "watashi""boku"" ore", but also use kinship terms, identity terms and names. Therefore, the Japanese linguist Takao Suzuki first proposed the concept of "self-addressing terms" and pointed out that this concept also includes the kinship terms, names, status terms, occupation terms and other words that can be used as self-reference forms. On the basis of precedent researches, this paper consulted the classification standard that proposed by Takao Suzuki, and tried to conduct system analysis of modern Japanese self-addressing terms. Meanwhile, according to the comparative study of the literature data, observed the differences and the reasons of self-addressing terms between Japanese and Chinese. Finally, summarized the methods of Chinese translation by analyzing the literature data.The exordium introduced the backgrounds, aims, and the precedent researches and the research methods, the structure of the thesis, and the description of the corpus. The body part consists of three chapters.In the first chapter, I consulted Takao Suzuki’s viewpoints, divided self-addressing terms into absolute self-imposed (first-person perspective) and relative self-imposed (second-person perspective, third-person perspective) by using viewpoint classification method. Then I introduced self-addressing terms one by one by analyzing cases of the literature data. From the point of view of psychological distance of the speaker and hearer (or third party), I found that by the order of the third-person point of view> the first-person point of view> the second person point of view, the psychological distance is gradually decreased, but intimacy is gradually increased.In the second chapter, on the basis of Chinese-Japanese comparison, significant differences of self-addressing terms are found both in types and frequency of use between Japanese and Chinese. Differences in types of self-addressing terms mainly come from the emphasis of gender difference, closeness of relationship. And words that express the positional relationship can be used as personal indication in Japanese. Differences in frequency of use mainly lie in the following three aspects:First, from the cultural point of view, the Japanese often put perspective in the other side to weaken the existence of oneself; Second, in terms of language structure, the Japanese is predicate-center sentence. It can express the recessive self-addressing terms by using honorific, significant directional expression, voice, subjective expression, will and hope expression, and so on. Third, in terms of Unique usage of Chinese, greetings, salutation, extensive reference of "wo" can also contribute to the high frequency of use of self-addressing terms in Chinese.In the third chapter, on the basis of analysis of self-addressing terms between Chinese and Japanese, I researched the Chinese translation of Japanese with concrete examples. In addition to literal translation, self-addressing terms supplement, perspective conversion, and the other self-addressing terms conversion can also be used. In these four methods, the most commonly used is self-addressing terms supplement, followed by the literal translation. In addition, we should focus to grasp the difference of language and customs between Chinese and Japanese when use perspective conversion and the other self-addressing terms conversion methods.Finally, I summed up the main contents of this paper, stated significance, deficiency of the paper, and put forward the subjects which are worth researching later on.Self-addressing terms of Japanese appears to be simple, but use of those different types of self-addressing terms is very difficult and complex. According to the occasion, the hearer, the focus of expression, different self-addressing terms are used. For Japanese learners, self-addressing terms (especially words that beyond the first personal pronoun) still have some difficulties. Therefore, the analysis of self-addressing terms in modern Japanese and its Chinese translation is very important not only to the Japanese acquisition, but also to the intercultural communication.