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Text & Talk

An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies

Ed. by Sarangi, Srikant

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Volume 35, Issue 2

Issues

Stance taking in Japanese Newspaper discourse: the use and non-use of Copulas da and dearu

Michiko Kaneyasu
Published Online: 2015-02-27 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2014-0035

Abstract

The present study aims to demonstrate how writers display their stances in information-oriented written discourse. In particular, the paper analyzes nominal sentences in three newspaper subgenres, and explicates how the Japanese copulas da and dearu, which are normally considered stylistic variants in written language, are used by journalists as important grammatical resources for expressing their epistemic and evaluative stances toward certain types of information conveyed in nominal sentences. Da in newspaper discourse is used as a marker of the writer’s commitment to the relevance of the information in the given discourse context. Dearu, on the other hand, marks the writer’s own interpretive and evaluative stance. In addition, the non-use of a copula (i.e., a bare nominal) also conveys a certain stance of the writer, namely that the information presented is taken to be factual. The specific kind of stance expressed through the use and non-use of these copula types is closely linked to the functional objectives and concerns of the particular genres.

Keywords: Japanese copulas; genre; style; newspaper discourse; information; stance marking

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About the article

Michiko Kaneyasu

Michiko Kaneyasu received her PhD in Japanese linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is currently a full-time instructor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her publications include “Grammar and interactional discourse: Marking non-topical subject in Japanese conversation” (2013) and “Mikan yo mikan: Formulaic constructions and their implicature in conversation” (2014).


Published Online: 2015-02-27

Published in Print: 2015-03-01


Citation Information: Text & Talk, Volume 35, Issue 2, Pages 207–236, ISSN (Online) 1860-7349, ISSN (Print) 1860-7330, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2014-0035.

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