This study presents a functional analysis of negative utterances in oral narratives elicited from native speakers of Japanese. My goal is to identify the functions of negative utterances in these Japanese narratives. I take and support the asymmetricalist view of negation, which regards negation as the marked member of the affirmative-negative oppposition in discourse. I also adopt a multiple functional approach to the study of negation, examining negation from various perspectives, such as an exploitation of background knowledge (schema, script), a figure-ground reversal, the cooperative principle, and the notion of negative uninformativeness.
My analysis finds that negative utterances in my Japanese narratives are used to deny both textual and contextual expectations. I also examine a contrastive function of negative utterances: metalinguistic negation is analyzed as exhibiting an enhanced sense of contrast. I regard this contrastive function as the basic function of negation. In accordance with the Labovian model of narrative, I investigate an evaluative function of negative utterances in my Japanese narratives. Evaluation types, such as global/local and reflective/on-the-spot evaluation, prove valuable in characterizing uses of negative utterances, for example, an identification of storyline negations.
In terms of the internal structure of narrative (consisting of five narrative components, i.e., abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, and coda) and the storyline of a narrative (problems, turning points, peaks), negative utterances provide a wide range of information in my Japanese narratives, from descriptive background information to crucial storyline infomation.
In this study, I emphasize the interactional aspects of negative utterances by using such notions as recipient design, involvement, moral evaluation, and a presentation of the self. As a systhesis of my findings, I propose a pragmatic principle of negation in Japanese narratives as follows: Negative utterances in Japanese narratives are used in a context where their affiramtive counterparts are somehow expected due to prior text or shared background.' This principle highlights the discourse markedness of negation. This study of negation has implications for the interplay of text and context and for an interaction of the semantic and pragmatic views of negation.
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