Word order and discourse grammar: A contrastive analysis of Japanese and English relative clauses in written narratives

Despite the fact that they are commonly and widely used in Japanese, relative clauses such as the ones below not only bewilder students of Japanese but also pose serious problems in linguistic theories: (DIAGRAM, TABLE OR GRAPHIC OMITTED...PLEASE SEE DAI)( ... I, (who consider that we cannot express ourselves freely with the 1850 Chinese characters designated for daily use), always had to be ostracized.); (DIAGRAM, TABLE OR GRAPHIC OMITTED...PLEASE SEE DAI) (Is it a book (which who wrote) ? (lit) = Who wrote it?) sk100(Modern Japanese: A Basic Reader); When contrastively analyzed in discourse, relative clauses in Japanese and English also exhibit other interesting characteristics. For example, relatively clauses are generally used in written narratives about 1.5 times more frequently in Japanese than in English. Furthermore, the use of relative clauses in the two languages often do not coincide. These findings suggest that relative-clause constructions differ significantly in their functions and use between the two languages. In order to explore explanations for the differences, we examine functions and mechanisms of relative clauses in discourse. In so doing, we hypothesize that the different word orders and the principles that govern them between the two languages are responsible for the language-specific functions and peculiar uses of relative clauses such as the ones pointed out above.; An additional, but more basic, property of a language pointed out in this study is the principle of Communicative Importance, which strongly governs the grammar of Japanese. Our discussions on the formation and use of relative clauses present an example for this hypothesis. As an application of the present study we discuss how current linguistic approach and theories have influenced language-teaching pedagogy and offer some suggestions based on the characteristics of relative clauses found in this study.