Soliloquy in Japanese and English

Language is recognized as an instrument of communication and thought. Under the shadow of prevailing investigation of language as a communicative means, its function as a tool for thinking has long been neglected in empirical research, vis-à-vis philosophical discussions. Language manifests itself differently when there is no interlocutor to communicate and interact. How is it similar and how does it differ in these two situations—communication and thought? Soliloquy in Japanese and English analyzes experimentally-obtained soliloquy data in Japanese and in English and explores the potential utility of such data for delving into this uncharted territory. It deals with five topics in which elimination from discourse of an addressee is particularly relevant and significant. Four are derived from Japanese: the sentence-final particles ne and yo, deixis and anaphora, gendered speech, linguistic politeness; the fifth topic is the use of the second person pronoun you in soliloquy in English.

Peter Backhaus, Waseda University, Tokyo, on Linguist List 22.2875 (2011):
The strength of her argument is that she considers the topic of soliloquy not in isolation, but uses her analysis to gain some fresh insight into ordinary discourse as well, [...]. This makes the book much more than merely a profound analysis of a larger speech corpus of people talking to themselves. Other strong points of the book are its sound and self-conscious methodology, [...]; the application of both qualitative and quantitative types of analyses; and a critical reading of the findings against the backdrop of previous research . [...] Hasegawa's book is a fascinating read that is highly recommendable to anyone interested in the pragmatic, sociolinguistic, and cognitive functioning of soliloquy, in Japanese and in general.