Role Language in Other Languages

In this section, we introduce studies on role language in Korean, English, Spanish, German, and Thai.

For role language of Korean, Jung (2005) conducted a study of role language in Japanese and Korean based on comparing the original version and translated version of manga ‘comics’. She investigated the translations of manga both from Japanese to Korean and from Korean to Japanese. She found that in Japanese, there are more role language expressions than in the Korean version. Also, in Japanese role language, it contains more features of gender difference while it contains more features of age difference in role language of Korean. Jung (2007; 2008) proposed a study concerning the attitude of Korean learners of Japanese towards role language in Japanese. The results are as follows. Firstly, compared with Japanese native speakers, although Korean learners of Japanese have already reached a high level of Japanese proficiency, their knowledge of Japanese role language is still far removed from the level of Japanese native speakers. Secondly, Korean learners have a relatively lower level of knowledge towards Japanese dialects, compared to Japanese native speakers; thirdly, for Korean learners, the image of Japanese dialects will be influenced by the image of Korean dialects due to the similarity of geographic environment. According to these studies, we conclude that the role languages of Korean fall in the subgroup of age and dialect of role language.

For role language of English, Yamacuji (2006; 2007) investigated how role language

then indicated four ways of creating English role language. Firstly, using dialects is a common way to create it such as those boldfaced words in example (9).

(9)

‘Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby,’ said the giant. ‘Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mum’s eyes.’

(J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)

Secondly, using pidgin is another way. For example, deleting articles and be verbs can create a sense of a foreign-like accent. Thirdly, another way is replacing first and second personal pronouns with the names of the speaker and hearer, as shown in example (10) where Dobby is talking to Harry Potter, and using his name Dobby to replace first personal pronoun ‘I’ and using Harry Potter to replace second personal pronoun.

(10)

‘Dobby has known it for months, sir. Harry Potter must not put himself in peril.’

(J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

Lastly, manipulating phonological sounds is efficient such as baby talk in example (11).

Originally, it must be ‘I thought I saw a pussycat. I did. I did see a pussycat.’

(11)

I tought I taw a puttytat. I did. I did taw (or tee) a puttytat.

(山口, 2007:20 (10))

For role language of Spanish, Fukushima (2012) conducted a contrastive study of role language in Japanese and Spanish. He investigated whether there are role languages in Spanish, and also observed how role languages in Japanese will be translated into Spanish.

In his study, he found that in Spanish, there are no official role languages such as those indicating elderly male language, young-lady-from-a-good-family language, male language, and female language. However, it still performs some kinds of role languages, for example, making use of dialects, using pre-modern languages such as languages of medieval times and ancient times, adding English vocabulary when the speaker is the native speaker of English or replacing consonants r/l of the Orientals to show the speech of foreigners, and replacing or deleting the consonants to perform the speech of the speakers that have difficulty with phonation. Finally, he concluded that in Spanish, the types of role languages are less, and the degree of the use of role languages is lower than that in Japanese.

For role language of German, in Tanaka’s (2012) research, he investigated whether German spoken by immigrants from Turkey can also be role language. He pointed out that when the comedians are acting as young immigrants from Turkey, they will speak the dialects of southern Germany and perform as an indelicate, uncouth countryman. Also, when the audience hears this kind of dialect, they will have the image of the immigrants from Turkey, and also link the image of indelicate, uncouth countryman to the immigrants from Turkey.

So, the image of immigrants from Turkey is shared by both the actors and the audience. Since

Kinsui (2003) indicated that if a linguistic expression is taken as a kind of role language, this expression must contain some speech features that are related to the speakers’ images, and the knowledge of the speech features need to be shared by the community widely, Tanaka (2012) proposed that the German spoken by immigrants from Turkey can also be counted as a kind of role language which belongs to the subgroup of dialect of role language.

For role language of Thai, Ito (2016) conducted a study on role language in Thai in terms of investigating first personal pronoun pŏm. He concluded that in standard Thai, there is a gender difference in personal pronouns, for example, phǒm for the first personal pronoun of male and dichǎn for the first personal pronoun of adult female. The first personal pronoun pŏm emerged recently. It cannot be found in dictionaries and grammar books; however, it can be found on the Internet, such as examples (12) and (13).

(12)

pǒm... fít râaŋkaay maa phrɔ́ɔm POM fit body come finish

‘My body has become fit.’

(4ช่องเฮฮา#169:ป๋ม..พร ้อม:http://monhun.org/4koma/chapter169:最終アクセス2015年7 月25日; Ito, 2016:112 (1))

(13)

wan dèk pǒm wâaŋ day child POM free

‘I am free on the day of child.’

(GlitterGraphic:http://glitter.kapook.com/content.php?lang=th&id=22601&category _id=23:最終アクセス2015年7月25日; Ito, 2016:113 (2))

In order to obtain more information about pŏm, the author interviewed the native speakers of Thai, and then three points were further concluded. Firstly, pŏm exists in modern Thai. Secondly, for Thai native speakers, the emergence of pŏm may be due to the mispronunciation of phǒm or loose pronounciation. Thirdly, pŏm can cause people to evoke the image of boys. From these three reasons, pŏm can be taken as a kind of role language, which falls in the subgroup of gender of role language, indicating baby talk of boys.

Also, he indicated that the emergence of pŏm may be because of the imbalance of the system of personal pronouns, as shown in Table 1. For the first personal pronouns of female, there are the first personal pronoun nǔu of children, and the first personal pronoun dichǎn of adults; however, for personal pronoun of male, the personal pronoun phǒm stands for both adults and children. In this case, pŏm emerged as the first personal pronoun of male children to make the system of personal pronouns become balance.

Table 1. 〈男ことば・女ことば〉と〈幼児語・大人語〉[Male Language & Female

Language and Child Language & Adult Language] (Ito, 2016:114, 表1)

〈男ことば〉 〈女ことば〉

〈幼児語〉

phǒm

nǔu

〈大人語〉 dichǎn