An Introduction to The National Language Research Institute:
A Sketch of its Achievements
Third Edition(1988)/
HTML Version(1997)
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II.1.14 Sociolinguistic Survey in Tokyo and Osaka- Analysis
(Report 70-1, 1981. 360 pages)
II.1.15 Sociolinguistic Survey in Tokyo and Osaka- Data
(Report 70-2, 1981. 256 pages)
This report gives the results of a survey carried out in
Tokyo (the 23 special wards) and Osaka during the 1974 fiscal
year. This research continues along the line of
sociolinguistic research which has been conducted over the years
at the Institute and is the first study of the actual linguistic
life (GENGO SEIKATU) of a large number of informants in urban
society.
This survey described the actual situation of the linguistic
life of citizens in two large cities which have a strong
influence on the population, economics, culture, etc. of the
country. Its main objective was to predict the ways in which
the Japanese language will change in the future. In
addition, this research combined a variety of goals: to
compare the linguistic situation in Japan's western and eastern
urban centers, Tokyo and Osaka and to clarify the
differences between them, and to establish a methodology for
research on the actual situation of language use in large cities.
The framework and major contents of the Analysis volume are
as follows.
Chapter 1 Outline of the Survey: We outlined the survey
objectives, methodology, survey conditions, and the
analysis of the sociolinguistic background of the
informants. We surveyed 1,000 informants in Tokyo and 500 in
Osaka, receiving responses from 64% of the former and 72% of the
latter.
Chapter 2 Social Structure and Linguistic Life: We
described the character of the large cities studied and the
informants' consciousness of belonging to Tokyo or Osaka.
Chapter 3 Linguistic Usage and Consciousness: We analyzed
informants' attitudes towards the standard language and
dialects, consciousness of relations with neighbors,
attitudes towards the differences in male and female speech,
images associated with the varieties of language spoken in
Yamanote, Sitamati, etc., and the extent of their
participation in the linguistic activities of reading,
writing, speaking and listening.
Chapter 4 Accent: We investigated the degree of conformity of
the informants to Tokyo and Kyoto accent and analyzed the
correlation between these results and the sociolinguistic
background of informants. In addition, we clarified the
actual situation regarding the words which were known to have
several accent variants in Tokyo and Osaka.
Chapter 5 Actual Usage of Vocabulary, Grammar: We analyzed
the expressions for ASATTE NO YOKUZITU, 'the day after the
day after tomorrow,' SONO YOKUZITU, 'the day after
that,' the conditions for the usage of various dialectal
vocabulary, potential expressions, the conjugation of the
irregular verb SURU, usage of adverbs, etc.
Chapter 6 Honorific Expressions: We described the actual
usage of first person and second person pronouns, patterns in
the usage of honorific expressions, and greeting
behaviour in a variety of contexts.
Chapter 7 Correlational Analysis: We reanalyzed several of the
topics discussed in Chapters 3 and 4 using HAYASI's Theory of
Quantification.
Chapter 8 Outline of the Results of the Survey
The Data volume is composed of five parts. Through the
publication of the details of the quantitative results
which, to avoid confusion, were not included in the Analysis
volume, we have made available data which is relevant for
comparison with results obtained in a variety of areas of
linguistic and social science research.
This survey was planned and designed by research staff at
the Institute as well as researchers in linguistics at Iwate
University, the University of Tsukuba, University of Tokyo,
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies; researchers in sociology
at Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies, University
of Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan University, and Osaka City
University; and researchers in statistics at the Institute
of Statistical Mathematics. In addition, in the actual
carrying out of the survey we received the cooperation of
researchers and students from a number of universities.
Thus, this research was carried out cooperatively with
the participation of a large number of researchers. The
following 12 people represented the others during the writing of
the report in the Analysis volume: NOMOTO Kikuo, EGAWA
Kiyosi, YONEDA Masato, WATANABE Tomosuke, HAYASI Siro~,
MINAMI Huzio, SUGITO Miyoko, SATO Ryo~iti, SAWAKI Motoei,
SANADA Sin'zi, HIDA Yosihumi, and IITOYO Kiiti.
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