| dc.description.abstract | This thesis is about the song image and linguistic components of the popular female Japanese idol
group AKB48. As a first step, six typical AKB48 songs that can be classed either as SOFT and
HARD images according to the text were chosen. Thereafter a linguistic analysis was carried out
using three parameters (1) yakuwarigo i.e. first and second person pronouns as well as sentence
final elements as postulated by Kinsui (2003), (2) sentence type such as imperative, request, and
confirmation form, and finally (3) the lexicon type such as, wago, kango, gairaigo, onomatopoeia,
and English. The results showed a clearly separate use of yakuwarigo and sentence types but not
lexicon types in accordance to the song image. SOFT image songs had 1st and 2nd person pronouns
as watashi,anata/boku, kimi/-wa, -yo while HARD image songs had yakuwarigo as ore, omae/-ze,
nee. SOFT image songs had sentence types of gentle request while HARD image songs had many
direct imperatives like ike ‘go!’. Lexicons classification as NJ, SJ, FL was found to be inadequate to
relate to the song image. Instead, it was the semantic (meaning) classification that seemed relevant.
Thus, HARD songs had vocabularies such as baka ‘fool’, kenka ‘fight’, naguru ‘beat’ while SOFT
songs have hatsukoi ‘first love’, hohoemu ‘smile’ omou ‘think of (you)’. In other words, the three
linguistic parameters are clearly differentiated in a mutually exclusive way to create a SOFT vs.
HARD image of a given song. | sv |
