Causality connectives in Japanese: A translation-based study

Abstract

This paper uses an ad hoc corpus of an acknowledged translation of a play by Anton Chekhov to study means of expressing causality in Russian and Japanese discourse. Lexemic distribution of corresponding connectives in the bilingual text appears to be much wider and less ordered than that of the dictionary, reflecting trends in cognitive, illocutionary and meta-use of connectives, that have been broadly acknowledged in linguistic literature. This study confirms a consistent feature of connectives as being pragmatically, rather than semantically determined, resulting in a broad and various distribution. On the other hand, pragmatically oriented connectives become a powerful help for the translator who generally seeks additional means to cover up inevitable lacunae between two linguistically rooted mental realities.
The most striking discovery, however, lies in the obvious disproportion of referring to causality in spoken speech between Russian and Japanese speakers. The Japanese appear to make extensive use of explicit causality relations in order to strengthen their stance vis-à-vis their counterpart in conversation. This is performed either through appealing to universal logic or eliciting compassion to one’s personal circumstances, thus exploiting a mindset strongly favoring rationality while playing for empathy under the cooperation maxim. Contrarily, Russians, generally less accommodating and in a high-context language game of a different sort, seem set on downplaying references to causal relations, relegating them to vaguer types of connectives (AND type) or omitting them completely, with one notable exception in mention negative results of an undesired action. This tentative conclusion, of course, awaits confirmation on a wider range of newer data, calling for further study in the field of contrastive rhetoric and creation of more bilingual corpora.