Leaders' Changing Language Points to Shift in Japanese Politics

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A University of Arkansas professor has studied the language used by Japanese prime ministers and believes linguistic changes point to a shift in the political landscape that is evidenced by the most recent elections in Japan.

Tatsuya Fukushima, assistant professor of Japanese, will publish his findings in an upcoming issue of The Journal of Language and Politics. In his paper, he examines the linguistic patterns in the domestic and international press conferences of three different Japanese prime ministers.

Fukushima has been studying the use of the Japanese conjunction "ga" and its different meanings in spoken language. The dictionary gives the meaning of "ga" to be "but." However, the word seems to serve five different functions in Japanese speech.

"The meanings are very subtle," Fukushima said.

In Japanese culture, "ga" can be used to reflect sensitivity to the needs of others, to create a sense of harmony and consensus within a group, Fukushima said. But the ambiguous use of "ga" also can be used to obscure the speaker’s own agenda, leaving it up to the listener to interpret the speaker’s meaning. Frequent users of "ga" who use the word to mean many different things have this orientation.

People who use "ga" infrequently with little variance in meaning tend to be stronger and more self-assertive, Fukushima contends. They tend to use more "straight talk" in their speeches.

"Within the political context, the frequent users of 'ga’ tend to be popular in rural areas," he said. Historically, political candidates in Japan who infrequently use "ga" have generally been less popular nationally.

There are important situational differences between domestic and international press conferences in Japan. Domestic press conferences receive considerable scrutiny from fellow party members who may publicly disagree with the prime minister. At foreign press conferences, the Japanese leaders have more freedom to speak their minds.

Ryutaro Hashimoto has the lowest "ga" frequency of the three prime ministers. Hashimoto was selected by the ruling party because of his popularity, but the party was not happy with his selection, Fukushima said. His successor, Keizo Obuchi, was a consensus builder who used "ga" frequently both domestically and internationally.

When Fukushima examined the use of "ga" by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in the first six to eight months of his administration, he found that the prime minister used "ga" during his domestic press conferences, but his international press conferences revealed a different story.

"In international press conferences, his 'true colors’ emerged — there was a total absence of 'ga,’" Fukushima said.

The recent re-election of Koizumi as prime minister indicates that traditional values based on harmony and consensus may be changing.

In this month’s elections, many Liberal Democratic Party candidates in urban districts, where they normally struggle, picked up parliamentary seats by articulating their support of Koizumi’s postal banking reform plan, whereas many powerful rural incumbent candidates who opposed it without presenting an alternate plan in clear terms lost theirs. These results show that urban-style straight talk is beginning to dominate in Japanese politics today, and absence of "ga" in international press conferences with Koizumi is one indication of this trend.

Looking back to his election in 2001, "his selection was the threshold of a new and potentially long-term trend in Japanese politics," Fukushima said.