The Discourse Rhetoric Of “The Battleship YAMATO” And The Construction Of National Memory In Japan

The Battleship Yamato is a giant warship secretly built by the Japanese navy during WWII.The battleship was commissioned into service in 1941 and sunk by the American warplanes in 1945.The Battleship Yamato was mentioned by historical texts,literature works and several art media,giving birth to a series of discourse about the Battleship Yamato over the past seven decades.This paper examines the evolution of the speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato after WWII.By going through time-travel novels,comics,animations and films themed on the Battleship Yamato,the paper reproduces the Battleship Yamato in the historical narration and reviews the discourse modes about the Battleship Yamato during different periods.This seemingly overlapping intertextual rhetoric reveals the discourse paradigms that sway the emotional tendencies and memories of the Japanese and discloses the perception about the war history of the Japanese hidden behind these discourses.This paper is composed of five parts.Part I reproduces the historical facts about the Battleship Yamato by reviewing the navy building efforts of the contemporary Japan and the role of Battleship Yamato in WWII.Part II explores the representation of the speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato(1945-1973)during the occupation period,during the booming period of war biography and in the children's world.Similarities of and differences in the images of the Battle Yamato depicted by novels and films from 1945 to 1973 are studied.The re-construction of the Battleship Yamato event by the survivors and designers give rise to two representation patterns,namely the tragic and heroic Battleship Yamato and the Battleship Yamato as the representative of leading technologies.Films themed on Battleship Yamato boost its impact.As more Japanese learn about the tragic destiny of the powerful Battleship Yamato from films,the national sentiment is thus inspired.Part III reviews the derivatives of the speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato(1974-2000)in the sci-fi animations,the imaginary war biography and the discussions about the Doom of the Battleship Yamato.The Battleship Yamato during this period was either referred to as the space battleship or retold the wars regardless historical facts.The Doom of the Battleship Yamato published in 1980 is the first novel themed on the Battleship Yamato.Controversies about the revisions to this novel and the causes to such revisions are a key study direction during this period.Part IV unfolds the twisting speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato(2001-2019)in the museum narratives,the film Otoko-tachi no Yamato,the animated film In This Corner of the World,and the sub-cultures.The Battleship Yamato was rewritten in novels,films,TV series,animations,cartoons and games along the overwhelming rise of the newspaper,journals and magazines,broadcasting,films and TV series,network and games.The derivatives of the speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato was increasingly diverse and complicated.Part V discusses the relationship between the speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato and the construction of historical recognition from three aspects,namely the rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato as the collect text,the narrative strategies of the rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato,as well as the memory function of the Battleship Yamato and the construction of history recognition.The Battleship Yamato is of symbolic significance culturally and transforms into the potential literary imagination after being coded by the culture.It interacts with literary creation.In addition,the overwhelming rise of multimedia facilitates the evolution of its images.The changes in the speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato reveal the evolution of the Japanese war literature and war memories.Thanks to the active engagement of writers,readers and critics over the past seven decades,the Battleship Yamato is taking on increasingly diverse connotations,including the Kamikaze Yamato,the Tale of the Heike in the Showa era,the Technology Yamato,the literature of defeat after WWII,and the Yamato with universally values.It is naturally accepted by the Japanese as part of the cultural memory of Japan.Memories today help reproduce the past and embrace the future.It is the resolution to embrace the future that drives people to forget or remember the past.The existing pattern of the national memory is crucial for the political choice of a nation.The evolution of the speech rhetoric about the Battleship Yamato shows the long internalization process of the Battleship Yamato into the national memory of Japan.However,the subtle power of the imperial nationalism hidden behind the national memory is enormous and horrific.It often fuels the twisted ideas about the war and the wrong history recognition after the war.