{"id":851,"date":"2010-09-08T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=851"},"modified":"2010-07-07T09:21:47","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T07:21:47","slug":"ga-japanese-conjunction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=851","title":{"rendered":"Ga: Japanese conjunction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;\"><strong>Ga:<\/strong> Japanese conjunction\u2014Its functions and sociolinguistic implications. By <strong>Tatsuya Fukushima<\/strong>. (LINCOM studies in Asian linguistics 63.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2006. Pp. v, 178. ISBN <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/ga-japanese-conjunction-its-functions-and-sociolinguistic-implications\/oclc\/74270612&amp;referer=brief_results\">9783895863219<\/a>. $83.86.<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Reviewed by <a href=\"http:\/\/linguistlist.org\/people\/personal\/get-personal-page2.cfm?PersonID=103441\"><strong>Picus S. Ding<\/strong><\/a>, <em>University of Potsdam<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Focusing on the use of <em>ga<\/em> as a conjunction, Tatsuya Fukushima uses a multidimensional approach to \u2018identif[y] all five functions of <em>ga<\/em> unilaterally\u2019 (153). This monograph contains five chapters, which are preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion as well as detailed references for the data sources and a general index.<\/p>\n<p>In Ch. 1 (6\u201323), F briefly presents the historical development of <em>ga<\/em> from exclusively functioning as a case marker in Old Japanese, to its emergence as a conjunction in the Insei-ki Era (i.e. 1086\u20131192). Additionally, F examines the six functions of the conjunction<em> ga<\/em> in Medieval Japanese. Ch. 2 (24\u201347) reviews work on the conjunction <em>ga<\/em> in Modern Japanese, incorporating prescriptive, descriptive, and pedagogical accounts. Previous studies suggest five functions of the conjunction <em>ga <\/em>in Modern Japanese: conflictive\/contrastive, referential, insertive, implicative, and continuative. Ch. 3 (48\u201357) offers a pragmatic analysis of the conjunction <em>ga<\/em> used in a multi-interlocutor setting from Japanese live televised talk shows. The data from spontaneous spoken Japanese contain all five functions of <em>ga<\/em>. While the conflictive\/contrastive function occurs with the highest frequency, the continuative function is the most infrequent.<\/p>\n<p>Ch. 4 (58\u2013122) widens the analysis to include data from <em>Asahi Shinbun<\/em> editorials, on-line <em>Asahi Shinbun<\/em> breaking news stories, press conferences with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, television interviews with Japan Communist Party chairman Tetsuzo Fuwa, and <em>Yahoo! Japan<\/em> message boards. Only the texts from the <em>Yahoo! Japan<\/em> message boards show all five functions of <em>ga<\/em>; the implicative function is absent from the other genres. Moreover, only the conflictive\/contrastive function is observed in the <em>Asahi Shinbun<\/em> editorials. Ch. 5 (123\u201349) presents a comparison of the speech of Japanese prime ministers Ryutaro Hashimoto, Keizo Obuchi, and Jun\u2019ichiro Koizumi at domestic and international press conferences. F also discusses the general personality profiles of these prime ministers in relation to their use of <em>ga<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>F\u2019s methodology is exemplary for discourse analysis. His findings have undoubtedly increased our understanding of the functions of <em>ga<\/em> outside noun phrases in spoken Japanese and in computer-mediated communication. However, one variable that F did not explore is the difference in style between genders. Since Japanese is well known for gender-based differences in speech, female speakers may show interesting patterns of the conjunction <em>ga<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ga: Japanese conjunction\u2014Its functions and sociolinguistic implications. By Tatsuya Fukushima. (LINCOM studies in Asian linguistics 63.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2006. Pp. v, 178. ISBN 9783895863219. $83.86. Reviewed by Picus S. Ding, University of Potsdam Focusing on the use of ga as a conjunction, Tatsuya Fukushima uses a multidimensional approach to \u2018identif[y] all five functions of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}