The Ambiguity Of "Tyotto" And Its Reasons

“Tyotto” has various meanings in Japanese dictionaries and playsdifferent functions in conversations. It is difficult for the non-native Japaneselearners to identify the ambiguity of “Tyotto” and even Japanese teachers cannot clearly explain it in teaching process. According to Japanese dictionaries andprevious researches on “Tyotto,“Tyotto” can be used an adverb to expressboth low and high degree. However,“Tyotto” is more frequently used forother meanings apart from the low and high degree, for example it can be usedtogether with negative expressions; it can express the mood of requesting, order,evaluating, judging and negating and sometimes be used as interjection.“Tyotto” is frequently used in Japanese daily life, which confuses the non-native Japanese learners. The author of this thesis believes that the fundamentalreason is the ambiguity of “Tyotto”.As many experts and scholars have pointed out that current Japaneseteaching materials usually explain the basic usages of “Tyotto” and neglectothers, which lead the Japanese learners to focus on the basic meanings of“Tyotto”(similar to “Sukoshi”or “Daitai”) and neglect others.Meanwhile, it is well known that “Tyotto” is closely related to context andcolloquialism. However, many previous researches on “Tyotto” have beenconducted through single sentences instead of natural conversations. Therefore,the other functions of “Tyotto” can not be clearly observed and the reasonsof ambiguity can not be analyzed.This thesis is composed of four parts.The first part is introduction. In this part, related literature from home andabroad, research purpose, research significances and research methodologies areincluded. The results, originality and shortcomings of current studies onambiguity of “Tyotto” conducted by domestic and foreign scholars arecollected and analyzed.The second part is the meanings and discourse functions of “Tyotto”.According to dictionaries,“Tyotto” can be used as adverb as well as interjection. The meanings and usages of “Tyotto” are more complicated: itcan express the meaning of “a little” as well as “very”; it can mean “easily” aswell as “hardly”. Based on the previous researches and personal understanding,the author classifies the linguistic functions of “Tyotto” into7categories:reminding, order, relying, persuading, refusing, willing and negating. Meanwhile,the author divides these functions into explicit and implicit according tolinguistic environment and speaking mode of speakers. Despite the explicitnessand implicitness, these functions are ambiguous and fundamentally influenced bythe basic usage of “Tyotto” as an adverb.The third part is the pragmatic reasons of ambiguity of “Tyotto”. Basedon pragmatics theories, the author tries to explore the reasons of ambiguity frommeanings, cooperative principle, politeness principle and hedges. A great deal ofinformation is expressed in an implicit, indirect and vague way in dailyconversations, which is caused by the cooperative and politeness principles inconversations. The cooperative principle requires the both communicationalparties to cooperate to understand each other. The politeness principle covers theshortcomings of cooperative principle, enhances favorable impressions andpromotes communication.The fourth part is the most important part of this thesis, which explores thecultural reasons of ambiguity of “Tyotto”. Language is the product of socialculture and language researches can’t leave culture. Based on cultural linguisticstheory, the author explores the cultural reasons of ambiguity of “Tyotto”through group consciousness, experience culture and unique aestheticappreciation. According to some researches, the frequent application ofambiguous expressions is closely related to the group consciousness of Japanese:unique geographical environment, history of one nationality and influence offoreign culture have assisted the communication of Japanese. Even the vaguestand most ambiguous expressions can be understood. Experience culture isanother important factor of ambiguous expressions in Japanese. Japanese societyis highly homogenized due to geographical and historical reasons. In such ahighly homogenized society, people fully understand the behavioral habits andadmire the notion “silence is golden”. Japanese can communicate from heart toheart. Behind the heart to heart communication is the unique aesthetic appreciation of Japanese. The application of ambiguous and vague expression iscaused by Japanese pursuit of “connotation” and “harmony”: On one hand, vagueexpressions maintain the linguistic beauty; on the other hand, vague expressionscare about other’s feelings and maintain harmonious interpersonal relations. Inthis part, the psychological conditions of Japanese’s preference of “Tyotto” areanalyzed, which would provide some practical significance in understandingJapanese thinking patterns, promoting intercultural communication and reducingcommunicational friction.The last part is the conclusion. It concludes the main content of this thesis,shortcomings and future research directions.