Chinjutsu and the specificity of the Japanese grammar terminology: challenges to its interpretation and translation

• Grant number: 18/01767-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2018
• End date: April 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Modern Foreign Languages
• Principal Investigator: Eliza Atsuko Tashiro
• Grantee: Rafael Sposito
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Since it was first elaborated in 1908 by the grammarian Yoshio Yamada, the concept of chinjutsu has been the cause large discussions among the Japanese grammar researchers, occasioning the coming up of different opinions and theories. Within the researches on Japanese grammar done in Brazil, however, it has not been yet concretely explained. Occasionally translated by Brazilian grammarians as "modality" or "assertion", among other terms, chinjutsu, although it is an abstract phenomenon, it has the particularity of being performed or emphasized through specific grammatical elements, such as the jodôshi (auxiliary verbs), the shûjoshi (sentence-ending morphemes) and the kakarijoshi (modal effect morphemes). Being the concept of chinjutsu of great relevance for the understanding of the linguistic performance of the Japanese language, but not having been extensively explored by the grammar manuals developed in Brazil, we propose, through this project, to search and translate the definitions assigned to chinjutsu in Japanese linguistic manuals, to, then, present an objective explanation about this concept, that could, not only contribute to the understanding about the working of Japanese grammar by its students, but, also, to serve as basis for future linguistic researches about this aspect of the idiom. (AU)