Identifying Characters

Abstract

This thesis will serve to compare and analyse distinctions in character depiction and human relations in Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None, observing conversations held between the main characters in both the original version of the novel and the Japanese translated version to see the personal characteristic in the characters speech. During the analysis, two certain aspects were taken into consideration, with correlating frameworks. The first is role language, including the coined yakuwarigo by Kinsui, used to identify individuals’ characteristics. The second aspect is the Japanese honorific system which specifies the individual’s seniority and inter-human relation. Studies on role language and Japanese honorifics have been conducted to a great extent, though the use of these concepts to examine and compare to original English texts seems to be lacking. The diversity in the use of personal pronouns, both first and second, sentence final particles and style of speech to express politeness in the translated text is closely connected with an inherit cultural idea on how certain personalities should behave according to how they are described rather than what can be obviously found in the conversations that can be read in the original novel.