scholarly journals Promising without Speaking: Military Realignment and Political Promising in Japan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Nilep
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Marine Corps ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Future Action ◽  
Japanese Prime Minister ◽  
Oxford University Press

Preprint of chapter from Hodges, Adam (ed) Discourses of War and Peace. 2013 Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-993727-1This chapter discusses a plan to relocate US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, and focuses particularly on charges that former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama failed to deliver on a promise to remove the base from Okinawa in 2010. The promise of action came not from any particular speech by Mr. Hatoyama, but was an interdiscursive achievement involving many individuals. A metaphorical promise is defined as an expectation of future action created not through any specific speech act but through complexes of social interaction.

Has he apologized or not?

Pragmatics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumiko Murata
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Discourse Communities ◽  
British Prime Minister ◽  
Japanese Prime Minister ◽  
Special Occasion ◽  
Utterance Interpretation ◽  
Second World

This paper will examine the misunderstanding between the British and Japanese governments in the interpretation of the letter of apology (according to the British government)/ congratulation (according to the Japanese government) sent by the then Japanese Prime Minister to the then British Prime Minister just before the 50th anniversary of VJ Day in Britain. It will first investigate what the speech act 'apology' entails in these two different discourse communities and then explore how this speech act was differently interpreted on the special occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War by the two former enemy governments according to their respective interests and differing social and political pressures from war veterans and bereaved families. Using a selection of newspaper articles from this period, the paper will illustrate how deeply wider social, political and historical backgrounds can affect the interpretation of linguistic meaning and how the interpretation of an utterance can vary depending on the context. It will also demonstrate how the use of vague expressions and culturally loaded styles could lead to misinterpretation or misunderstanding, referring to the letter written by the then Japanese Prime Minister. The letter was said to have originally been meant to be one of congratulation by the sender but was not interpreted in this way by the receiver. Finally, I will reemphasize the importance of taking the context into consideration in utterance interpretation.

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