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In Expressing Silence: Where Language and Culture Meet in Japanese, Natsuko Tsujimura discusses how silence is conceptualized and linguistically represented in Japanese. Languages differ widely in the specific linguistic and rhetorical modes through which vivid depictions of silence are achieved. In Japanese, sounds in nature evoke silence, and onomatopoeia plays an important role in simulating silent scenes. These linguistic mechanisms mediate the perception of the symbiotic relationship between sound and silence, a perception deeply embedded in the Japanese cultural experience. Expressing Silence brings the tools of both linguistic and cultural analysis in examining the remarkably rich array of representations of silence in Japanese language and culture, finding that depictions of silence through language cannot be understood without exploring what sound or silence mean to the speakers.
List of contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Expressing Voids
Chapter 2: The Sound of Silence
Chapter 3: Mimetics and Silence
Chapter 4: Epilogue
References
Index
About the Author
About the author
By Natsuko Tsujimura
Summary
This book demonstrates how silence is conceptualized and represented in Japanese language and culture. A cluster of sounds in nature and onomatopoeic vocabulary enable verbal portrayals of silence consistent with a cultural pattern of practices that value sensate and affective reactions.
