Presentation of one’s view in Japanese newspaper columns: Commentary strategies and sequencing
Senko Kumiya Maynard · Text and Talk · 1996
This article analyzes Japanese mass media text-specifically 38 examples of the newspaper opinion column Column, My View- taken from the Asahi Shinbun newspaper. The manner in which the writer presents his or her own view as it relates to the column's central message is examined by appealing to the concepts of commentary strategy. Discourse levels that this article focusses on include: (I) the location of the headline paraphrase, i.e., where the central message reflecting the writer's view and/or opinion appears within the column; (2) the characteristics of column-initial paragraphs, (3) the overall sequencing of commentary sentences in Column, My View; and (4) the sequencing of commentary sentences within each danraku paragraph. The preferred rhetorical style in Japanese newspaper texts places commentary sentences toward the conclusion in multiple levels of discourse. This article argues that such preference is enhanced, in part, by inclination toward the topic-comment information structure as well as an array of grammatical phenomena that are critically functional in the Japanese language