L2 Japanese: Swedish students’ usage of first-person pronouns

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to look at L2 (learning as a second language) students’ usage of first-person singular pronouns, and to discern in what situations (if any) they are changed. The Japanese language has a great variety of first-person pronouns, one of the few languages to possess this feature. Due partly to this, learning Japanese as a second language can be difficult and mistakes are easily made. In order to give an overview of politeness in language, both in general and in Japanese specifically, the works of Brown & Levinson (1987) and Tsujimura (2014) have been used. I have also given a brief diachronic overview of some of the most commonly used first-person pronouns, as well as looking at research previously conducted on the subject of pronoun usage in L2 Japanese. In order to achieve the result, a questionnaire was conducted with the participants all being of an upper- intermediate level of Japanese, studying their fifth term at a university in western Sweden. The subjects were tasked with translating simple sentences from English to Japanese, the resulting sentences then studied to see pronoun usage. The questionnaire showed that watashi was the most used first-person pronoun, followed by boku, being the most chosen among women and men respectively. There was a clear distinction in which situations the participants switched pronouns, namely if they were close to their speaking partner or not. The subjects used the more formal watashi when speaking to strangers and teachers and the more informal boku or ore when speaking to close friends. Followed by these pronouns, there were many cases where a first-person pronoun was not used at all, as is common with native speakers of Japanese. This occurs because of lexicalisation, further explained in this thesis. As the questionnaire was presented as a translation exercise and not revealing its true purpose, I could not collect any data regarding to why the participants chose their preferred pronouns. Various factors can affect the choice, such as level of Japanese education, age and relationship with one’s speaking partner and whether the speaker has any close Japanese acquaintances.