Japanese Usages of Terms of Relationship
| Autor: | Harumi Befu, Edward Norbeck |
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| Rok vydání: | 1958 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 14:66-86 |
| ISSN: | 0038-4801 1936-1947 |
| DOI: | 10.1086/soutjanth.14.1.3628844 |
| Popis: | THIS PAPER presents a discussion of Japanese uses of kinship terms of reference and address. An attempt is made to outline modes of use and to relate them to patterns of interpersonal relationships of Japanese kinship and to the larger context of Japanese social organization. Data presented here are based in part upon personal observations in Japan on the part of the authors, one of whom (Befu) formerly resided in Japan as a member of Japanese society for eleven years (1936-1947). Additional data were drawn from a program of interviews conducted in 1957 with Japanese nationals registered as students at the University of California at Berkeley. These informants, ten males and ten females, came principally from the largest cities of Japan and were generally members of economically and socially privileged families. Our data thus tend to reflect practices among urban residents of high social class. (Social stratification in Japanese society is yet so poorly described and analyzed that no usable classification is available. Our use of the expression "social class" is very loose.) Because of the youth of our respondents, nearly all of whom were less than thirty years of age and unmarried, information representing their own practices could not be obtained for all categories of relationship. In these cases reliance was placed upon informants' observations of practices among their elders and upon observations of the authors while in Japan. Despite the small size of our sample and other deficiencies which we have noted, it is thought that our data are adequate to permit fairly accurate exposition of major trends of usage within the social classes in question. Much regional variation exists in Japan in the practices we are describing. Local forms of terms of relationship, sometimes dialectical variants of the forms of Standard Japanese and sometimes distinct terms, are particularly abundant. A partial listing of local forms in a Japanese dictionary of kin terms totals 325.1 Our discussion is limited to the common terms of Standard Japanese as used in and about Tokyo, especially as they are employed by persons of middle and upper social class. It is useful to note, however, that such information on regional and class differences as is available from informants, personal observation, and pub |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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