Expressing Silence: Where Language and Culture Meet in Japanese

Tsujimura, Natsuko

ISBN 10: 1498569269 / ISBN 13: 9781498569262

Published by Lexington Books, 2023

About this Item

172 pages. 9.00x6.00x0.47 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # x-1498569269

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Expressing Silence: Where Language and Culture Meet in Japanese
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1498569269
• ISBN 13: 9781498569262
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.24 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

In Expressing Silence: Where Language and Culture Meet in Japanese, Natsuko Tsujimura discusses how silence is conceptualized and linguistically represented in Japanese. Languages differ widely in the specific linguistic and rhetorical modes through which vivid depictions of silence are achieved. In Japanese, sounds in nature evoke silence, and onomatopoeia plays an important role in simulating silent scenes. These linguistic mechanisms mediate the perception of the symbiotic relationship between sound and silence, a perception deeply embedded in the Japanese cultural experience. Expressing Silence brings the tools of both linguistic and cultural analysis in examining the remarkably rich array of representations of silence in Japanese language and culture, finding that depictions of silence through language cannot be understood without exploring what sound or silence mean to the speakers.

About the Author

Natsuko Tsujimura is professor emerita of East Asian languages and cultures and adjunct professor emerita of linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington.