New Voices in Japanese Studies (Jul 2018)
“Watashi-tachi wa ningen da!”: A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of a Non-Human Character in the Anime Series ‘From the New World’
Abstract
This paper focuses on how social meanings indexed by language use in the real world can be recontextualised in telecinematic texts such as anime to construct and convey different aspects of a character’s identity. In a case study of the science-fiction anime series, From the New World (Shinsekai Yori; 2012–13), the paper analyses three corpora comprised of dialogue from the series in order to shed light on the discursive construction of the non-human character Squealer. A non-human character was selected to minimise the influence of preconceptions about identity. Drawing on Androutsopoulos’s (2012) three-level film analysis framework and Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) identity framework, the approach incorporates both computerised and manual discourse analysis. The computer-facilitated keyword analysis provides initial insights into the character’s demographic information and speech style, showing the key linguistic features used by the character’s species, and by extension, the focal character. This is complemented by a detailed analysis of dialogue from selected scenes which shows how various aspects of the character’s identity are expressed using different linguistic devices in different contexts. The analysis demonstrates that shifts between the use and non-use of certain linguistic features serve to foreground different aspects of a character’s identity—namely, stances and presentational personae. By integrating corpus linguistic analysis with scene-based analysis drawing on sociolinguistic concepts, the study shows how we can gain insights into telecinematic characters’ identities through language. The paper also highlights issues encountered in applying corpus linguistic methodologies to analysis of Japanese language, which may be of use to future researchers and software developers in this area.
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