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THE GOVERNORS and the GOVERNMENT a Lexical Analysis of National and Local Manifestos in Japan

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THE GOVERNORS and the GOVERNMENT a Lexical Analysis of National and Local Manifestos in Japan INSTITUTIONEN FÖR SPRÅK OCH LITTERATURER THE GOVERNORS AND THE GOVERNMENT A lexical analysis of national and local manifestos in Japan Julia Olsson Uppsats/Examensarbete: 15 hp Program och/eller kurs: JP1520 Nivå: Grundnivå Termin/år: Ht/2017 Handledare: Yasuko Nagano-Madsen Examinator: Martin Nordeborg Rapport nr: xx (ifylles ej av studenten/studenterna) Abstract Uppsats/Examensarbete: 15 hp Program och/eller kurs: JP1520 Nivå: Grundnivå Termin/år: Ht/2017 Handledare: Yasuko Nagano-Madsen Examinator: Martin Nordeborg Rapport nr: xx Japanese politics, Japanese Governors, Japanese political language, Japanese Nyckelord: manifestos, Japanese local politics Aim: The aim of this study was to examine whether the linguistic characteristics in the local policy statements （知事の所信表明 chijinoshoshinhyoumei）reflect those of national manifesto（綱 領 kouryou）characteristics. Theory: The basic theory behind the present thesis is lexical analysis and text mining such as proposed by Hanks (2013), and vocabulary and script analysis in reference to Yamaguchi (2007). Method: The corpus consisted of three national parties’ manifestos and three governors’ policy statements. Analysis was made using the internet-based software User local and Reading Tutor (Chuuta). Results: The results showed a clear linguistic model for political language in Japanese. Though the content of the manifestos was indeed more concrete in the local ones, there were many similarities between the national and local manifestos, especially between the local manifestos and LDP. Okinawa who was supported by JCP in the election, also showed undeniable similarities in format. Foreword I must express my eternal gratitude to my adviser Yasuko Nagano-Madsen, without whom this thesis would not exist. From the beginning of the long process of choosing the subject to finishing the thesis she has been an immense support. I would also like to thank my teachers Miyoko Onaka and Kanako Korenaga. Their help in finding source material (that I unfortunately didn’t use in the end), was much appreciated, and it gave me the courage to focus on the chosen subject, even though the complexity of the subject was daunting at first. Table of contents Introduction...............................................................................................................................................................1 Background...........................................................................................................................................................1 Problem, aim and research question..................................................................................................................... 1 Japanese political parties and previous studies......................................................................................................... 2 Political actors...................................................................................................................................................... 2 National parties................................................................................................................................................ 2 The governors...................................................................................................................................................3 Previous studies.................................................................................................................................................... 4 Analysis of prime ministers' speeches..............................................................................................................4 Easy Japanese...................................................................................................................................................5 Theories.....................................................................................................................................................................6 Vocabulary and script analysis............................................................................................................................. 6 Lexical analysis.................................................................................................................................................... 7 Method and material................................................................................................................................................. 7 Corpus...................................................................................................................................................................7 Reading Tutor....................................................................................................................................................... 7 User local..............................................................................................................................................................8 Limitations............................................................................................................................................................8 Analysis.....................................................................................................................................................................8 Analysis parameter 1 - script type........................................................................................................................ 8 National............................................................................................................................................................ 8 Local.................................................................................................................................................................9 Analysis parameter 2 - word level........................................................................................................................9 National............................................................................................................................................................ 9 Local...............................................................................................................................................................10 Analysis parameter 3 - kyuugai words............................................................................................................... 11 National.......................................................................................................................................................... 11 Local...............................................................................................................................................................11 Analysis parameter 4 - word frequency..............................................................................................................12 National.......................................................................................................................................................... 12 Local...............................................................................................................................................................13 Analysis parameter 5 - key phrases.................................................................................................................... 14 National.......................................................................................................................................................... 14 Local...............................................................................................................................................................16 Discussion............................................................................................................................................................... 17 Linguistic parameters..........................................................................................................................................17 Governors - types................................................................................................................................................18 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................................. 19 References...............................................................................................................................................................21 1. Introduction 1.1 Background The language use in politics has been studied both in Japan and abroad. Perhaps most typical studies are those that analyzed speeches by the presidents of USA (Wang 2010) and speeches by Japanese prime ministers (Moberg 2002, Nakamura 2004). However, there has also been a great deal of research done on written political texts such as manifestos (Jakobi 2011, Evans & Jeffries 2015). More recently, another dimension of language use, namely ‘easy Japanese’, has been receiving attention in accordance with the increasing number of foreigners in Japan (Kondo 2015, An 2015, Fukushi 2016, Takaki 2017). It has become important to spread information in easy Japanese both in the newspaper and even in the information spreading at communal level. This is a policy beneficial for native speakers as well, as important information becomes more approachable and easier to understand. Many studies have been conducted on how to write information for
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