An Introduction to The National Language Research Institute:
A Sketch of its Achievements
Third Edition(1988)/
HTML Version(1997)
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II.2.11 Research on the Consciousness of OKURIGANA
(Report 40, 1971. 183 pages)
The purpose of this research is as follows.
1. Determination of individual variations in
the use of okurigana.
2. Determination of the actual uses of okurigana.
The present investigation was carried out in 1966 with
approximately 3,000 subjects. However, the investigation was
not one of the actual behaviour (usage) in regard to
okurigana, but rather one of individual preferences and habits
in the use of okurigana.
The subjects of this investigation were 2,955 students and
adults. Their ages ranged from the teens to the 60's, but,
since the majority were students, the average age was 22.6
years.
The greatest differences occurred in regard to the
use of okurigana in cases involving such verbs as owaru,
awaseru, atumaru and their nominalizations, and
compound verbs and their nominalizations such as
wari-ateru, harai-sage. Ordinary public officials show a
strong tendency not to use okurigana in such cases, with
advertizing agents, company advertizing personnel, and college
students following close behind them.
In general, usage differs according to age, with
the tendency to use okurigana decreasing as age increases.
The amount of education is related to the use of okurigana
in that as it increases there is a clearly stronger tendency to
use okurigana regularly with certain words on the one hand and
never or rarely to use it with certain other words.
There is a correlation between the amount of time spent in
newspaper reading and the use of okurigana. The same is true in
the case of magazine reading, but the number of letters mailed
has no relationship to okurigana use.
Individual variation in okurigana use varies greatly
depending on the situation, being especially influenced by the
order of words and choices in investigation questionnaries.
Even when there is little possibility for misreading a
character in a compound word, mistakes are made due to the
influence of neighboring characters, and okurigana is used in
such cases more commonly than in the case of simple words
involving the same character. This tendency is especially
strong with younger people.
In the case of compound words, older people tend to vary the
use of okurigana according to relative semantic importance.
There is a tendency for okurigana to be used less
frequently with nouns than with verbs.
In regard to verbs and nouns, there is a tendency for
the use of okurigana with nouns (but not verbs) to
decrease as age increases.
SAIGA Hideo and TUTIYA Sin'iti were in charge of this
study.
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