The first series this chapter will examine is Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo [Japanese that Japanese People Don’t Know], or NSN, which is a set text in a Japanese language school for foreign students living in Japan. The main character, Ms. Nagiko, is Japanese, but it is her interactions with NNSs that make up the story. Many of these characters play recurring roles throughout both published volumes.
In this manga, the most obvious use of non-standard orthography can be seen in the selection of katakana to mark non-fluent speech or a foreign accent, a selection that very much agrees with Loveday’s (1986) aforementioned comments. A clear example of this can be found in a panel where a beginner and an advanced-level student exchange greetings. While both students say konnichiwa, the skilled student’s utterance is in hiragana, the standard script for this term3, while the beginner’s response is portrayed in katakana (コン ニチワ), creating a stark visual marker of their different abilities. This gap is further emphasised by the final hiragana は [ha] being changed to the katakana ワ [wa]; in the greeting konnichiwa, the final sound is normally written with the mora for ha, but the character’s attempt at using the term sees the actual mora for the sound wa employed, which supplements the use of katakana in marking her beginner’s Japanese. The use of non-standard katakana for this purpose can sometimes be even more pointed, such as when a character asks
‘nande? dōshite?’ [why? why?] in non-standard katakana, while an arrow labeled
‘beginner’ points at his head. In this way, visual asides unavailable to novelists or many other writers are used along with script by the author to emphasise the learner’s low level of language.
3 Alc.co.jp gives 210 examples in hiragana and one in katakana. Appropriately enough, the example sentence using katakana is a translation of a non-native speaker’s comments.
However, this is not the only use of katakana in the manga. It is also used to show imitation, a function perhaps arising as an extension of the scripts’
traditional association with onomatopoeia. The most striking example comes from a scene in which a low-level learner is reciting what he believes is the intro to his favourite television show, not realising that he is actually repeating an advertising blurb. In portraying this utterance, basic function words, possessives, particles and verb stems – all normally the exclusive realm of hiragana (Kess & Miyamoto, 1999) – are converted into katakana. Although this instance differs from those above in that it is literally imitative, it could be argued that the previous examples of katakana use are also influenced by this mimetic function of the script, with non-fluent Japanese marked as an imitation, not a production, of the language.
The use of kanji in NSN is more intricate than that of katakana, and understanding its link to non-native speech often requires looking at the kanji these speakers do not use instead of those they do. In one panel, the teacher Ms. Nagiko employs the kanji for the verb morau (貰う) [to receive], which is interesting not only in that it is non-standard (3,358 examples in hiragana vs.
14 in kanji), but also in that no other character in the comic can be found using this kanji. Her ability to use this character thereby subtly expresses her clout and knowledge; an authoritative tone is conveyed via her use of a character the learners do not (or cannot) use themselves. A second teacher-restricted kanji can be found in the verb machigatteiru (間違っている/まちがっている) [to be wrong]. This word leans towards presentation in kanji (1,218 examples in kanji vs. 166 in hiragana), yet the only character in the book that follows this convention is Ms. Nagiko, and she only does so when handing back an assignment, i.e., this use occurs when she is explicitly acting out her role as an instructor and judge. That said, two examples of students using difficult kanji do exist, with a character named Jack using the polite form of morau (itadaku) in kanji, which also leans towards non-standard (1,491 examples in hiragana vs.
266 in kanji), and a Chinese student using kanji for the word snake.4 However, Jack is noted as being so skilled he does not actually need to attend the school, and the difficult character used by the Chinese student is one that is identical to
4 Neither is standard. Both katakana and hiragana have nearly 400 examples, although the teacher’s speech contains the term in katakana.
that used in his native Chinese. These exceptions therefore confirm the analysis rather than contradict it.
The connection of kanji to authority also allows its use to convey confidence in second-language learners, a possibility especially visible in a series of stories involving the word maru [circle]. The first time this term appears, students are complaining about the teacher’s use of circles to mark answers as correct, stating that it signifies a mistake in their countries. Unfamiliar with the term’s usage in this context, and perhaps with the word itself, their use of the term is rendered by the author in katakana (マル). However, a few pages later, one of these students again uses the word maru to answer a question, this time with confidence, and the author chooses to render it in kanji (丸). Even though the student’s guess is ultimately incorrect, this switch in orthography tacitly shows the reader that this learner has changed from someone who does not understand a term into someone who has acquired it, accepted it, and can use it appropriately. Kanji’s association with confidence can also be seen when a student uses the word ‘body’ [nikutai] instead of ‘necktie’ [nekutai] to answer a question. Her initial response is written in kanji (肉体) once she recognises her mistake and states, ‘ah, not nikutai but nekutai’, it becomes katakana (ニク タイ). This example functions in the opposite way to the previous one, as the script changes to show the loss of confident and fluent tones via the student’s speech adopting the semiotic images of a beginner. Still, both examples function as instances wherein characters speaking with the assumption they will be understood do not have their errors marked until the speaker notices them.
The use of non-standard hiragana is much less distinct, but what can be found seems to agree with Nishimura’s description (2006) of the script as unmarked. Change in script to hiragana in NSN often simply represents sounds that do not link to an actual word, like when a student mispronounces 七夕 (tanabata) [a Japanese festival] as たなぼた (tanabota) [meaningless]
in hiragana. This mistake is due to a simple mishearing, with the speaker’s learning-level not low enough for the words to be portrayed in katakana.
That said, perhaps the most interesting use of non-standard hiragana is found when it appears in contrast to other scripts, as can be seen in the following examples:
Nagiko: ‘気に入らない’ を ‘はいらない’ って読む人が多
はい
いな。多いって言うか全員！？もしかして気に入ら ないと読むのが正しいの…?
‘ki ni iranai’ o ‘hairanai’ tte yomu hito ga ōi na. ōi tte iuka zenin!? Moshikashite ki ni hairanai to yomu no ga tadashi no?
[Lots of people read ‘ki ni iranai’ as ‘ki ni hairanai’. Not lots, but all!? Maybe ‘ki ni hairanai’ is actually correct …]
Nagiko: 鼻は「わたし」じゃなくて「はな」
hana wa ‘watashi’ janakute ‘hana’
[‘Nose’ is not ‘watashi’, but ‘hana’.]
Student: ハナ hana [Nose.]
In both samples, hiragana can be seen to represent pronunciation that is native-like in sound but does not reference an extant term. In the first excerpt, the teacher corrects students’ misreading of ki ni iranai (in kanji) as ki ni hairanai (in hiragana), reading the mistake out loud but not attaching meaning to the phrase. However, once she realises that every student made the same mistake, she questions her own knowledge, and the phrase ki ni hairanai receives kanji as she wonders to herself if the students may in fact be correct. In the second excerpt, the word nose [hana] is seen written in three scripts (鼻, はな, and ハ ナ) allowing for all aforementioned uses of script to be seen in tandem. When Ms. Nagiko refers to the concept ‘nose’ it is in kanji, when she corrects the student’s earlier mistake, the native sounds are portrayed in hiragana, and then, when a student repeats it, her influent or imitative tones disallow her the use of kanji or hiragana, and her speech is relegated to katakana.
In contrast, Daarin wa gaikokujin [My Darling is a Foreigner] (or DWG) features less frequent use of non-standard orthography on the whole, although some of the strategies noted in NSN can be observed. The use of non-standard katakana, for example, is employed similarly. The most poignant example actually comes when the main character, Saori, attempts English. In one panel of the manga, she greets the mother of her partner, Tony, with ‘na…
naisu tu miichuu’, an attempt at ‘nice to meet you’. This is written in katakana, rather than Roman letters. Her frequently mentioned discomfort with her low English abilities thereby manifests itself visually through the author’s decision not to use the Roman alphabet.
Katakana also performs an imitative function in DWG, as can be seen when a NNS of Japanese mocks Japanese women for fawning over him. Despite the fact that he is telling a story and therefore technically quoting speech on both occasions, when he puts words in the girls’ mouths they are in standard hiragana, yet when he repeats these terms himself the orthography switches to katakana, while an arrow labeled ‘imitating’ points at him. This is similar to the use of katakana to portray onomatopoeia (Nishimura, 2006), but in this case human speech, not animal calls or natural noises, are being replicated.
Kanji, as before, is connected to knowledge or confidence, limiting the fre-quency with which it is used to portray non-native speech. This phen om enon is perhaps easiest to view when Tony, the titular ‘darling’, attempts to count pigeons in Japanese. At first he refers to pigeons [hato] in katakana (ハト), but as be becomes flustered trying to remember the correct way to count them in Japanese, his incorrect guesses are portrayed in hiragana. When Saori corrects him, playing the role of a teacher and fluent native speaker, kanji is used for both the word pigeon and the necessary counter. What makes this interaction particularly interesting, though, is that Tony then attempts to justify his mistake, arguing that the Japanese counting system is overly complex, and here kanji is used for pigeon again. While neither katakana nor kanji are clearly standard for this term (122 instances in kanji vs. 144 instances in katakana), the change in script is still able to transmit paralinguistic information to the reader through comparison with the form employed by Saori. In short, Tony’s lack of confidence is first portrayed through dissimilarity, and his later attempt to adopt a knowledgeable stance is reinforced through the use of same script as the NS.
Hiragana, again, appears to show speech as unmarked, or as representing sound that is fluent-sounding, but not intended to be linked to an actual word.
The attempt at producing counters in the pigeon story is one example of this, as is an instance where Tony is shocked by the grotesque title of the ghost story Miminashi Hoichi [Hoichi the Earless]. Unsure that mimi here actually refers to ears, he first repeats it twice in hiragana before switching to kanji. These
first utterances are interpretable as sounds he does not yet, or does not want to, attach meaning to, while the latter instances in kanji convey both the sound and the word ‘ear’ itself. This selection of script again works in tandem with the art in the panels, in this case Tony’s terrified expression, to guide readers’
interpretation. While in some ways the achieved affect is similar to writing ‘by ear you don’t mean ear … do you?’, the change of scripts clearly delineates the depth of Tony’s growing level of comprehension and horror in a way that would be difficult, if not impossible, to do in other languages or mediums.
Comparing the Series
In regards to the first research question, NSN and DWG show a number of similarities in their use of non-standard orthography. In both series, katakana has attachments to foreign, harsh and imitative elements; kanji projects auth-ority, competence and erudition; and hiragana connotes smooth, fluent and unmarked speech. However, the two manga differ in the extent to which they point out differences between characters, with level, ability and foreignness being more starkly emphasised in NSN. This may be rooted in the narrative needs of the manga themselves, with NSN’s humor and story relying heavily on the difficulties of being a learner. In contrast, DWG expects the audience to sympathise with the character of Tony, and has a stated goal of emphasising that all people are, at heart, the same. As such, its use of orthography seems to run counter to Loveday’s comments (1986) about foreign speech, as even speakers with limited abilities are usually depicted via standard orthography, the content of their message more important to the story than their actual linguistic ability.
Both series also seem to place more importance on the speaker’s level of confidence than their actual ability when deciding on a script. Non-standard orthographies are often used for stuttering, self-correction, lapses of memory and other such slip-ups, whereas standard portrayals can be employed for mistakes and mispronunciations that are made with assurance. In other words, portraying NNSs speech via orthography that matches Japanese norms appears to be used by both manga to show confidence and fluency, but these terms are not synonymous with correctness.
As for the second research question, some uses can indeed be seen to match the psychological and historical associations attributed to each script.
Hiragana is linked to smooth and unmarked speech, while katakana carries clear connotations of harsh, inorganic or marked utterances as a whole, hiragana can also serve this function when used in place of kanji-standard nouns. Katakana is also linked to the concept of ‘foreign’, but at times this is more in the sense of ‘not-acquired’ than ‘from another place’. The use of katakana for emphasis, in a similar that italics are used, is conspicuously absent from the speech of foreigners, and a different font or calligraphic style is used for emphasis in their speech instead. Nothing about the choice to use hiragana in these series seems to be directly rooted in its feminine associations.
The masculine connotations of kanji are also missing, but its connections to the scientific, difficult and erudite clearly influence its application. Somewhat surprisingly, non-standard use of rōmaji is almost completely absent from the NNS’s utterances, despite its non-Japanese and international impressions.
This may be due to practical factors, such as the difficulty of reading the rōmaji script.
It must be mentioned that the explorative and small-scale nature of this study brings about various limitations, and it may be difficult to extrapolate these findings into general rules (although this was never the study’s intention).
The fact that neither author is seen to make use of certain connotations that certain scripts are argued to have does not mean that no authors take such aspects into consideration. It must also be recognised that some of these orthographic strategies could be used to portray NSs as well. The speech of NSs who are, for example, stuttering or confused could theoretically be presented in a non-standard manner. Although no instances of this were found in these four volumes, the non-standard use of orthography should be in no way viewed as something restricted to the depiction of non-native speech. Further research on this subject that looks at the speech of manga characters whose salient trait is not related to their foreignness, or the non-standard employment of orthography in other genres, would greatly expand the understanding of this phenomenon.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it is clear that the orthographic choices in these manga are deliberate and strongly influenced by the authors’ viewpoints and associations with each
script, as well as the ways they expect their audience will read them. When different scripts are used for different characters, each one is meant to be read a certain way and this builds on, plays with and manipulates various socially proscribed images. This follows a rich historical tradition of orthographic play in Japanese and shows the continued gravity of these decisions in contemporary writing.
Different orthographic choices might seem minor and are perhaps un-intelligible or confusing to students of Japanese who are at a beginner level.
But for native or fluent readers who are decoding a text these choices are significant. In manga this is doubly true, as it must convey aspects of tone or phrasing largely without the descriptive resources other written mediums allow.
Ultimately, unconventional blends of orthography make up a vital part of the Japanese literary landscape and can combine with manga’s already existent receptivity to visual modifications to provide an especially unique and detailed way for readers to navigate a text when the line between conversation and writing is blurred.
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