LINGUIST List 11.2601

Fri Dec 1 2000

Qs: Negative Questions, Pragmatics/Film Dubbing

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. YANAGI Tomohiro, Answer to negative question
2. Xu Xiaofei, Pragmatics/film dubbing

Dear editors and LINGUIST listers,
	
I'm interested in how to answer negative questions like (1) in many languages:
	
(1) Aren't you Japanese?
	
For example, in English, an answer to (1) would be 'No, I'm not Japanese' or
 'Yes, I'm Japanese.' 'No' is always used with negative sentences and 'yes'
 with positive sentences.
	
By contrast, Japanese exhibits a different behavior. If a person who is ask
ed is Japanese, the person says 'Iie, nihonjin desu. ((lit.) No, I'm Japanes
e.' If not Japanese, the answer is 'Hai, nihonjin dewa arimasen. ((lit.) Ye
s, I'm not Japanese.' 'Hai (yes)' and 'iie (no)' can be used with positive 
and negative sentences in Japanese.

I want to examine crosslinguistically whether there is a correlation between
 this difference and syntactic difference . If anyone of you helps me with 
this survey, please e-mail me directly:

yanagi_tmbox.media.nagoya-u.ac.jp

In addition, please inform me of a paper or book concerning this subject.

Thank you in advance.

Dear linguists:

I have been studying issues on the pragmatic adaptation theory's influences
on translation for film dubbing (of dialogs). I need to know how this
subject has been developing -- could anyone tell me something about the
relevant existing literature? I am in want of some bibliographical
information badly. Thank you very much! Any help will be highly appreciated.

Tammy Xu
Faculty of English Language and Culture
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Guangzhou, 510420
P. R. CHINA
tammyxu263.net