JapaneseAs a necessary introduction: I read Japanese cosmetics/beauty blogs on a daily basis. One, because Japanese products tend to work better on my skin, surprise. Two, because I want to consistently keep up with Japanese writing exposure.
Anyway, one of the blogs that I used to follow is this one: イイ女リッチ (iionna ricchi -- "sexy and rich woman," lawl).
The author Rina is a self-proclaimed hotty, the patron of some company associated with beauty. She has much appreciation for beauty, both inner and outer. She introduces readers to cosmetics that she personally uses and adores. Her voice contains a lot of pride and confidence. A lot.
Her blog used to be titled: いい女リナの極上セレブ生活 ("Sexy woman Rina's fabulous celeb life") o.O; Damn.
I used to like this blog because her writing had a lot of style to it. She's a confident woman, and her language sure was confident, too.
Though blogs are typically informal in tone, this woman, Rina, uses honorifics a lot in her writing. Which makes it sound formal, and...prideful, in a way.
"An honorific is a word or expression that conveys esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person." (Wikipedia)
She frequently uses the highest of the honorifics... I think they're called 丁寧語 and 丁重語 (teinei-go, teichou-go, respectively). These types of honorifics show that the listener is above the speaker in status.
As an example, from her introduction:
[ワタクシ,] 女王リナと申します。 ([watakushi,] jyouou rina to moushimasu.)
"[Me,] my name is Queen Rina" is the translation.
Level 1 (non-honorifics): 女王リナと言う。 jyouou rina to iu.
Level 2 (teinei-go): 女王リナと言います。 jyouou rina to iimasu.
Level 3 (teichou-go): 女王リナと申します。 jyouou rina to moushimasu. <--this is what she says
*These ALL mean, "My name is Queen Rina." Honorifics just changes expression, not direct meaning.
Even the pronoun acting as a clarifier (shown in brackets) is an honorified (I just made that word up) version of watashi, "me"--watakushi.
So basically just that sentence, "My name is Queen Rina," screams "Yes I am sooo professional even in a blog!"
Yeah yeah, cocky, but good for her, that's fine. It's her style. I thought it interesting, so I kept up with the blog for a while.
But lately, she's losing the formality in her language, making her look inconsistent... seriously, she sounds like a teenager now. Adding the particle -yo and stuff to her sentences. Particles are small "word parts," if you will, that you add in Japanese to dictate the mood, tense, honorifics, preposition etc of the sentence.
I think she's concerned about the decline in her blog ranking lately, i.e. her blog is losing popularity. Meaning she's getting paid less for her blog. She's probably trying to make herself seem more approachable to the audience, or something, so she can regain popularity.
CONFORMITY!! Boooo.
So that was kind of a turn-off for me. I don't read it regularly anymore.
Oh, a side note about particles. There are particles in Japanese that characterize gender of the speaker. At least I'm pretty sure that's the function of them? -wa, -no, for example, both sound very feminine to me.
For example:
愛です。(Ai desu, "I am Ai.")
Ai desu (neutral) --> Ai desu-wa, Ai desu-no (feminine).
So both mean "I am Ai," but the latter two "sound" more feminine. Crazy huh? There are contrasting "masculine" particles, too.
Lots of "so-to-say" quotation marks and unsure? question marks in this entry. It's because I don't even know for myself if I'm making correct explanations about the Japanese language. This is purely from what I observe, with a sprinkle of Wikipedia wisdom. I might be completely wrong.
Do not quote me in your research paper. Yet.
Damn, I want to study Japanese Linguistics. I'll get a good book on it.
I'll get back to you when I know more. Like I've said before, this blog is about progress, right?
One day I will be a "scholarly source" approved by MLA.
Then, you can quote me all you want.
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