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Searching for the Semantic Boundaries of the Japanese Colour

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Searching for the Semantic Boundaries of the Japanese Colour SEARCHING FOR THE SEMANTIC BOUNDARIES OF THE JAPANESE COLOUR TERM ‘AO’ Francis Conlan BA (Curtin), BA (TUFS), MEd (Tokyo Gakugei) A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Applied Linguistics Faculty of Community Services, Education, and Social Sciences Edith Cowan University, Western Australia 2005 1 Abstract The Japanese language has a colour term, ‘ao’ (or ‘aoi’), which is usually referred to in bilingual dictionaries as being the equivalent of English ‘blue’. Very often, however, it is used to describe things which English speakers would describe as being green. Granny Smith apples are ‘ao’, so are all Westerners’ eyes, regardless of whether they would be described as being ‘blue’ or ‘green’ in English. The sky and the sea are prototypically ‘ao’, but this term is also used to describe lawns, forests, traffic lights and unripe tomatoes. What, then, do Japanese native speakers (henceforth JNS) understand by this term? How do its semantic boundaries relate to those of the term ‘midori’ (‘green’)? What is the JNS understanding of the foreign loan words ‘guriin’ (green) and ‘buruu’ (blue)? This study pursues these questions seeking to delineate the semantic boundaries of the colour term ‘ao’. Australian teachers of Japanese may teach that ‘ao’ = ‘blue’ for one of two reasons: ignorance of the broader semantic sweep of this term or, alternatively, as a matter of pedagogical convenience. While one can readily appreciate the convenience aspect of the teaching of a one-to-one lexical equivalence in the case of ‘blue’ and ‘ao’, one should also appreciate that such cross-linguistic simplification denies the learners of a foreign language the insight into the complexity of comparative linguistics which renders such study rewarding by imparting an understanding of the diversity involved (and imposed by language constraints) in conceptualizing and categorizing reality. Viewing the world through the prism of a foreign linguistic system opens the mind to new possibilities in terms of the categorization of phenomena and experience. Surely this should be one of the aims of foreign language study? This research, in seeking to identify the semantic boundaries of ‘ao’, looks into the history of colour terminology in Japanese. Evidence is provided which supports the arguments posited by researchers such as Lucy (1992) which question the appropriateness of adopting, for languages such as Japanese, the definition of ‘basic colour term’ used by Berlin and Kay (1969) in relation to the English language, Furthermore, the contemporary colour term 'ao' is identified in the research as being the descendant of the original Japanese ‘grue’ (a non-green/blue differentiating colour term) category and, as such, responsible, in part, for the 1975 revision by Kay of the universal sequence of colour encoding proposed by Berlin and Kay in 1969. The research seeks to a) establish the mental associations Japanese native speakers make with the term ‘ao’, b) identify how they use this term empirically (in 2 both contextualized and decontextualized environments) and c) delineate their judgments in terms of the appropriateness of 'ao' as a descriptor for a range of referents and their reasons for making these judgments. By this means the research aims to define the nature of the 'ao' schema (including investigating the extent to which it represents the original Japanese 'grue' category) and to clarify an area of ethnosemantics, [defined by Palmer (1996, p.19) as 'the study of the ways in which different cultures organize and categorize domains of knowledge], in relation to this aspect of the system of colour nomenclature employed by the Japanese language. 3 Declaration I certify that this thesis does not, to the best of my knowledge and belief: • incorporate without acknowledgment any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any institution of higher education; • contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text; or • contain any defamatory material. Signature _____________________ Date _________________ 4 Acknowledgments From the very beginning I have been indebted to my principal supervisor, Ian Malcolm, initially Professor of Applied Linguistics at Edith Cowan University and now Emeritus Professor, and Dr Farzad Sharifian. The guidance offered by these academics has been of great assistance to me in producing this thesis. Never has either indicated any element of unwillingness to offer advice or to read drafts of chapters or chapter parts. On the contrary, I have been fortunate to have been able to formulate my thesis proposal, determine the optimum methodology, conduct my research, analyze the data obtained and draw my conclusions in the knowledge that Professor Malcolm was closely following my progress and scrutinizing my writing. For this I offer my sincerest gratitude. I also wish to express my gratitude to Professor Gary Palmer who kindly responded to a request for guidance on methodology. The commencement of the data collection would have been impossible without the support and very practical assistance of Dr Debra Occhi of Miyazaki International College in southern Japan. Her guidance in the initial stages of ethnographic fieldwork (in particular data collection) in Miyazaki proved to be an assistance of the highest order. In this regard I also wish to acknowledge the co-operation received from Maureen Heffernan in Christchurch, New Zealand, who provided unwavering support of both a moral and practical nature throughout this project and also that of Sr Kawakami, College Principal of the Junshin College in Kagoshima, who facilitated access to staff and students at Junshin. In addition, the generous giving of time by members of the Japanese speaking community in Perth, Western Australia (both transient and long-term), must also be mentioned. All the people referred to contributed directly to this thesis by dint of the guidance, feedback, co-operation and encouragement they offered me. I wish to offer my thanks to the cohort of 65 Japanese native speakers who acted as informants for the first part of the research (the word association exercise) conducted in Perth (Australia) and Christchurch (New Zealand), the cohort of 45 from across Japan and in Western Australia who allowed their oral interviews (by which empirical usage of colour terms could be observed) to be recorded and similarly the cohort of 66 who agreed to act as respondents for the ‘suitability of “ao” ’ questionnaire (which also provided information concerning the bases for their judgments). Without the generous co-operation of these, my 176 anonymous Japanese native speaker informants, the data collection phases of this research project would not have been possible. 5 I readily acknowledge the generous technical support received by Janice Bryant and Rivka Niesten from Edith Cowan University which proved invaluable in the preparation of this manuscript. In addition it would be remiss of me to fail to mention the financial assistance I received which allowed this project to go ahead. It was thanks to the receipt of both the Australian Postgraduate Award (provided through the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs) and the Edith Cowan University Excellence Award that I was able, for the duration of the scholarships, to focus on this project, meeting my normal financial responsibilities by working only 25% of a full-time teaching and administration position. I am also indebted to the Applied Linguists Association of Australia for publishing some of the results of my research in the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. The number of people who have contributed, either directly or indirectly, either wittingly or unwittingly, to this research project is simply too great to allow mention of all names. I am indebted to all such supporters. In closing, I wish to thank my family who have shown nothing but support for this research, offering encouragement throughout the entire project. 6 Thesis Preface As a lecturer at tertiary level with more than 20 years experience teaching the Japanese language and with a long-term interest in anthropological and sociolinguistics I felt that a significant contribution could be made to our knowledge of the Japanese language if the semantic parameters of the colour term ‘ao’ could be delineated. Over a period of 3 decades of contact with the Japanese language I had been struck on numerous occasions by seemingly inexplicable usages of this term and intrigued by native speaker reticence and apparent awkwardness in terms of offering explanations for certain usages. I was always aware that when I asked about specific usages it was possible that the response received (and this included re-wording) would be influenced by the fact that I was a ‘gaijin’ (literally ‘outsider’ but in practice used to mean ‘white English speaker [often presumed to be American]’). It struck me that there was a sense of the semantic boundaries of the term ‘ao’ being implicitly understood and agreed upon by native speakers, and of this knowledge being not easily or willingly shared with outsiders. In the same way there was a perceptible awkwardness when native speakers were asked about their evident hesitancy to use native speaker colour terms such as ‘momo-iro’ and ‘daidai-iro’ preferring instead the imported terms ‘pinku’ and ‘orenji’ for the colours pink and orange. Early on in my experience I hypothesized that the foreign loan terms ‘buruu’ (blue) and ‘guriin’ (green) might be being used for my benefit when attempts to explain the use of the term ‘ao’ were being made. It was also the case, however, that there was evidence of these foreign loanwords being used in other contexts, so it was evident that these terms had carved niches for themselves in the Japanese language which were quite independent of the context described above. It occurred to me that there seemed to be a level of latitude accorded to the use of colour labels which defied any explanation made in terms of equating ‘ao’ with ‘buruu’ and with ‘blue’.
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