A Study on the Japanese Adverbs “Zenzen” and “Mattaku” in Terms of Pragmatics

Anggia Septiani Putri, Nuria Haristiani

2017

Abstract

Japanese is known as one of the complex languages which has many ruigigo (synonyms). “Zenzen” and “mattaku” are adverbs that are also synonyms, and they have the same meanings which are complete negations. In English, those have the same meanings as “not at all”. However, lately, many younger people use it to express positive responses indicating that the meaning and function of these adverbs had already changed pragmatically. This pragmatical change becomes a challenge for Japanese learner and it is important to be studied further to prevent misuse which can lead to misunderstanding on the usage of these adverbs. This study aimed to examine pragmatic function changes on adverbs “zenzen” and “mattaku”. The data of this study were collected from Corpus Spontaneous Japanese. The data of these adverbs were then sorted into three types: negation, negative conotations, and new function. Then, the data were analyzed using descriptive analysis method. The result of this study showed that it could be understood that the negative connotations had huge frequency on the “zenzen” and “mattaku” functions. “Zenzen” was mostly used for something that is relative and could be changed if seen from different point of view, while “mattaku” is absolute no matter what, and also “mattaku” has a tendency to underestimate something

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Putri A. and Haristiani N. (2017). A Study on the Japanese Adverbs “Zenzen” and “Mattaku” in Terms of Pragmatics.In The Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and The Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with The First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education - Volume 1: CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE, ISBN 978-989-758-332-2, pages 24-29. DOI: 10.5220/0007161400240029

in Bibtex Style

@conference{conaplin and icollite17,
author={Anggia Septiani Putri and Nuria Haristiani},
title={A Study on the Japanese Adverbs “Zenzen” and “Mattaku” in Terms of Pragmatics},
booktitle={The Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and The Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with The First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education - Volume 1: CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE,},
year={2017},
pages={24-29},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0007161400240029},
isbn={978-989-758-332-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - The Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and The Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with The First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education - Volume 1: CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE,
TI - A Study on the Japanese Adverbs “Zenzen” and “Mattaku” in Terms of Pragmatics
SN - 978-989-758-332-2
AU - Putri A.
AU - Haristiani N.
PY - 2017
SP - 24
EP - 29
DO - 10.5220/0007161400240029