Ebook: Linguistic Emotivity: Centrality of Place, the Topic-Comment Dynamic, and an Ideology of Pathos in Japanese Discourse

In this text on emotives in the Japanese language, Senko examines linguistic signs and strategies on varied levels, for example lexicon, syntax and text, including those signs that have not been traditionally identified as emotives. He takes the position that although some linguistic signs and strategies may seem to carry the propositonal meaning alone, they always express, in varying degrees, emotive meanings as well. By concentrating on seemingly emotionless signs, a stronger case is made that emotivity is pervasive in all aspects of language. Senko identifies and analyses a number of emotives in contemporary Japanese discourse to illustrate how rich and critical linguistic emotivity is in language and its use.