A Study on the Verbalization of Loanword Nouns in Japanese
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Lu, Wei-Chen
Abstract
In the Japanese language, most foreign words are borrowed in the form of nouns, and have then developed unique usage in verbal forms. However, the actual usage of Japanese Loanwords developed rapidly, and has then differed significantly with their descriptions from dictionaries and documents. This research investigated the practice use of Japanese Loanwords being ''verbalized'', Based on the foreign words with verbalization occurrence from the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ). The subject is researched through three directions: “The relative link with its original context and word”, “Sematic Categories”, and “Use Situation”. According to the investigation results, we have the following conclusion: 1. Approximately 40 percent of foreign words occurred verbalization, yet had different meaning compared to their respective description from the dictionary. This indicated that the verbalization of Japanese Loanwords is extremely frequent. 2. The cause of the verbalization did not necessary have direct connection with its original context; its semantic should be taken into consideration as a whole. 3. Amongst the verbalized foreign words, only 30 percent displayed semantic-like expressions. Whereas the remaining 70 percent display no semantic-like expressions in the Japanese language and represented new meanings and concepts 4. Semantic categories that belonged in the ‘spiritual and behavioral'' section appeared to be verbalized more frequent. 5. In regards of usage situations, around 40 percent of verbalized foreign words can be used in multiple situations. 6. “IT related words” and “politics and economics” had more verbalization occurrences. However the reasons of verbalization occurrences differed in each word.
Subjects
Japanese Loanwords
Verbalization
Verbal Noun
Sahen Verb
Conversion
Semantic Categories
Use Situation
Type
thesis