Language Stereotypes in Japanese Culture. A Qualitative Analysis of “Elderly Man” Role Language in Translation

Abstract

In Japanese popular media, various associations are made between character types and speech styles, a concept known in Japanese linguistics as “role language”. This study consists of a qualitative analysis of five Japanese translations of Italian works of fiction, carried out by examining the speech style of each character. The aim of this paper is to investigate how language markers associated with the “elderly man” role language category are employed in Japanese translations of foreign works, and how their distribution compares with their use in native Japanese media.

Keywords

• Japanese Linguistics
• Literary Analysis
• Role Language
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation Analysis