• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Japanese Loanwords Found in the Oxford English Dictionary and Kæmpfer’s the History of Japan by Schun DOI DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy GRADUATE SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT NAGOYA UNIVERSITY Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Naohiro TAKIZAWA (Chair) _______________________________ Itsuko FUJIMURA _______________________________ Takeshi OMURO _______________________________ Approved by the GSID Committee: February 14, 2013 Table of Contents List of Tables, Lists, and Figures vi Acknowledgements vii 1. Introduction 1 1.1. The Background 1 1.2. ‘Loanwords’ Defined 2 1.3. Previous Works on Loanword Study 5 1.4. Framework of This Dissertation 12 2. Japanese Loanwords in the Oxford English Dictionary 14 2.1. About the Oxford English Dictionary 14 2.1.1. Basic Facts 14 2.1.2. The Edition and the Version Used 17 2.1.3. Problems That Arise When Using the CD-ROM Version 18 2.2. An Attempt to Extract All Japanese Loanwords from the OED 20 2.2.1. Headwords 22 2.2.2. Japanese Loanwords That Do Not Appear as Headwords 26 2.3. Chronological Study of the Headwords 31 2.4. Semantic Study of the Headwords 33 2.5. The Romanisation System Used and the Pronunciation of the Loanwords 38 3. Japanese Loanwords Found in the History of Japan 47 3.1. About Engelbert Kæmpfer, the Author 47 3.2. Outline of the History of Japan 48 3.3. The Digitalisation of the History of Japan 50 3.4. The Japanese Loanwords Found in the History of Japan 55 3.5. The Characteristics of the Romanisation System Used 56 iii 4. Japanese Loanwords Found in Both the Oxford English Dictionary and the History of Japan 58 4.1. The Influence of the History of Japan on the Oxford English Dictionary 58 4.2. Problems of the Oxford English Dictionary Regarding the 74 Loanwords 60 4.2.1. Problems Regarding the First Citation Years 60 4.2.2. Problems Regarding the Definitions 61 1. Awabi 61 2. Daimio 61 3. Hiragana 61 4. Itzebu, itzeboo 62 5. Kami 62 6. Katsuo 63 7. Katakana 63 8. Seni 63 9. Shaku 63 10. Yeddo 64 4.2.3. Problems Regarding the Illustrative Sentences 64 1. Kago 64 2. Koi-cha 65 3. Koku 65 4. Samurai 65 5. Satori 66 6. Sugi 66 7. Sun 66 8. Urushi 67 9. Zazen 67 10. Zen 67 5. The Naturalising Process of the Japanese Loanwords 69 5.1. Previous Studies Reviewed and Outline of the Proposed Process 69 5.2. Italicising, Use of Quotation Marks, Spelling, and Pronunciation 74 5.3. Stage 1: Paraphrasing 77 5.4. Stage 2: Attributive Usage and Compounds 79 5.5. Stage 3: Acquisition of Productivity 81 5.5.1. Derivation 81 iv 5.5.2. Figurative Usage 82 5.5.3. Changes of Meaning 85 5.6. The Naturalising Process Illustrated 88 5.6.1. The Typical Process 89 5.6.2. Some Non-Typical Examples 91 1. Words from Technical Works 91 2. Proper Nouns 93 3. Slang Words 95 4. Other Non-Typical Cases 97 5.7. The Naturalising Process and the History of Japan 99 5.8. Summary of the Naturalising Process 102 6. Conclusion 105 6.1. General Conclusion 105 6.2. Suggestions for Further Study 114 References 117 Appendices A. Complete List of Japanese Loanwords in the Oxford English Dictionary 135 B. List of Japanese Loanwords in the History of Japan 156 C. The Naturalisation Stages of the Japanese Loanwords 186 D. The List of 74 Japanese Loanwords Found in Both Sources (with Explanations) 197 E. The Digitalised the History of Japan (on separate CD-R) v List of Tables, Lists, and Figures Tables Table 1 The query lines searched and the number of their hits 22 Table 2 The distribution of the first citation years of Japanese loanwords in the Oxford English Dictionary 32 Lists List 1 14 Japanese loanwords that do not appear in Tokyo Seitoku English Study Society (2003) 23 List 2 Japanese loanwords found as headwords in the Oxford English Dictionary 24 List 3 Japanese loanwords found as sub-headwords in the Oxford English Dictionary 27 List 4 Japanese loanwords found as alternative spellings in the Oxford English Dictionary 28 List 5 Japanese loanwords found in the definitions and illustrative sentences of the Oxford English Dictionary 29 List 6 The semantic distribution of the Japanese loanwords in the Oxford English Dictionary 35 List 7 Japanese words found in both the History of Japan and in the Oxford English Dictionary 58 Figures Figure 1 A photograph of the title page of the History of Japan 51 Figure 2 A photograph of the title page of the Second Appendix of the History of Japan 52 Figure 3 A photograph of a sample page from the History of Japan 53 Figure 4 The naturalisation process generalised 103 vi Acknowledgements During my academic life, I have become extremely interested in language and culture, especially with respect to English and Japanese. I am somewhat dubious, however, as to whether I have made the most of what I have learnt during these years. Yet, in this dissertation, I am honoured to put into shape what I have been studying, and I am pleased to acknowledge those who have made it all possible. My sincere and grateful thanks must go to Professor Naohiro Takizawa, who was always my best supervisor at Nagoya University, for giving me insightful comments throughout the process of writing and reinforcing my joy of studying languages. Heartfelt thanks are given, also, to Professor Itsuko Fujimura and Professor Takeshi Omuro (Graduate School of Letters), who were my vice-supervisors, for their valuable comments and encouragements. Wholehearted thanks goes as well to Professor Edward T. W. Haig (Graduate School of Languages and Cultures) for checking my English in the course of writing the previous and the final versions of this dissertation, and for his encouragements and perceptive comments. I give thanks to Professor Yasuyo Moriya (International Christian University) and Professor Masayoshi Hirose (Nagoya University of Foreign Studies), who, while I was in college, taught me the joy of linguistics. They supported my studies while attending International Christian University, and continuously encouraged me at every point in my studies, even after graduating. I am grateful to my parents, Hideki and Atsuko Uda, and my grandparents, Toshio and Junko Doi. Toshio passed away during the course of my study; I would like to dedicate this dissertation in remembrance of him. Even though he suffered from Alzheimer’s dementia in his later years, he always gave me his uttermost support, during which time he must have recalled his younger days as a prominent scholar in the field of Celtic studies. Although I did not have to do my studies away from home, it was quite a demanding seven years of doctoral study. Without the love from my family and continuous support from them, including from my younger siblings, Nagisa and Yuto, I could not have completed my academic study at the Department of International Communication with this dissertation. Lastly, I will also give thanks to my many friends with whom I had contact with during all this time. Particularly, Gakushi M. S. Tomita and Shohei Morito were always vii the best friends with whom to have occasional chats and animated discussions on linguistic studies. Hiroko Yagasaki was one of such friends outside the linguistics circle. Thanks are due to all my friends and colleagues for always giving me their uppermost encouragements, without which I could not have written this dissertation. Schun Doi January 2013 viii Japanese Loanwords Found in the Oxford English Dictionary and Kæmpfer’s the History of Japan 1. Introduction 1.1. The Background All languages we can think of have more or less borrowed words, or loanwords, in their vocabulary. “No language is entirely free from borrowed words, because no nation has ever been completely isolated” (Jespersen 1922: 208).1 English is not an exception. The phenomenon of linguistic borrowing “predates the language itself”; that is, English has borrowed many words from its very beginning (O’Connor 1990: 135). As it has become an international language, English has not only had a great influence on many other languages, but has also absorbed new words from such languages. English has borrowed words from various European languages, especially French and Latin (either directly or indirectly), and in recent years it has taken words from Asian languages. There could be found in the ‘Cannon corpus’ 1,029 words that originated in languages other than English, whose origins were from 84 different languages (Cannon, McArthur & Gachelin 1992: 141).2 They pointed out that amongst these 84 languages, the leading loaner was French (which accounts for 25% of the borrowed words), and the second largest 1 Smith (1996: 48) points out the same in a broader context of linguistic change by pointing out that “no language or variety of language exists in a vacuum” and that “speech-communities come into contact with other speech-communities in all sorts of situations, and the subsequent interaction between these communities causes linguistic change.” 2 This ‘Cannon corpus’ is a corpus containing data from the years 1987–1989 (Cannon, McArthur & Gachelin 1992: 141). 1 were Japanese and Spanish (both of which account for 8%). It can be said that Japan, because of her own distinctive social and administrative systems and cultures, has contributed many loanwords to the English language.3 Although Japan did not experience colonisation and her geographical situation helped to isolate her from the world (Loveday 1996: 81), Japanese has imported and exported a large number of foreign words.

Load more

  240

Copy Link