LINGUISTIC CONCEPTUALIZATION OF LYING IN JAPANESE

Speech actions (GENGO KOODOO, речевые действия), as opposed to speech acts (HATSUWA KOOI, речевые акты), comprise a broader scope of instances of language use, including the usage of specific articulative devices (covered by verbs of phonetic realization, such as whisper, howl), or certain attitudes and descriptions of speech tactics and linguistic behavior of an individual in general (resulting in a series of speech verbs with in-built evaluative elements). Verbs depicting lying fall into the latter category. Their broadest prototype in a metalanguage d’après Wierzbicka

The basic set of lexical realizations for the study are picked via bilingual and explanatory dictionaries

Below are offered some observations on how this framework fill out with data available from an open-access corpus of written Japanese

1. USO, generally translated as ‘a lie’, in fact rather relates to basic definition of falsehood

Another typical context for non-intentional construal is a simile:

昨日の朝の天神さんの境内。前夜の喧騒が嘘のように静かである。= The grounds of Tenjin Shrine yesterday morning. It was so quiet that the hustle and bustle of the night before all seemed unreal.

Non-intentional falsehood is furthermore clear with the colloquial MITAI:

ブランド物でも在庫処分で嘘みたいに安く買えますから。= Even branded items can be bought at ridiculously low prices due to inventory clearance.

This doesn’t hold, apparently, in verbalized idioms such as USO O TSUKU, that, being an intentional verb, cannot lose the principal component of ‘intent’ even in a construction with an aspectual SHIMAU, generally striking out the intentionality: 私は嘘をつかなくてもいい場面でもより条件がいいように嘘をついてしまいます。= Even in situations where I don't need to lie, I still end up lying to make things better for myself.

With USO qualifying a noun the abovesaid feature appears context-dependent. On the one hand, in collocations of USO NO JOOHOO/ MEIJIN = false information/ star an element of intentional deception seems difficult to rule out. On the other, with SEKAI = world (not supporting intentionality as a non-artificial entity) or KOTO/ HANASHI = talk/ statement it can remain neutral or, in the latter cases, quite well convey the peculiar situation referred to as ‘knowledge-lies’

Modified, USO bends to a meant falsehood, as with intensifiers MATTAKU NO or MAKKANA (bright red), covering the notion of ‘blatant’. SHIRAJIRASHII (whiteish) fall close to the ‘white’, or ‘innocent’ (but nevertheless intentional) lies, though more often an expression with a counterfactual component would be used to describe the speaker’s actions, as TORITSUKUROU = smooth the situation over.

All in all, USO fits beautifully with the notions of prototype semantics that were posited on its English counterpart

2. DAMASU rather stands apart from the rest of the verbs in its overwhelming orientation towards the partner, reflected in its transitive status. As such it focuses on the effect of the liar’s action unto the victim, the blame for which the former has to face fully. It is by far the most common-used transitive verb of lying, with its 1135 entries in the corpus against 938 with GOMAKASU and 263 with AZAMUKU.

AZAMUKU, being transitive, unlike DAMASU, accepts not only humans, but also mechanisms or (generally hostile) outer forces as its direct objects. SHINRI O AZAMUKU = to speak up against the truth, SONO BA O AZAMUKU = to save the situation [by a false pretense] would have been unacceptable with DAMASU. This difference is traceable to AZAMUKU’s semantic feature ‘betraying expectation’

3. DAMASU still reveals one secondary pattern of exception when the direct object is the piece of false information provided, as in NENREI O DAMASU = lie about [one’s] age. Similar double pattern is characteristic of further several verbs where it dominates in frequence, with persons as direct objects relatively less common. Among those, ITSUWARU would be closest to DAMASU in its designate, or, for that matter, USO. Unlike those, it has a more salient feature of an intentional lie, socially condemnable, see in formal contexts like GENSANCHI/ SHOKUMU KEIREKI O ITSUWARU = forge country of origin/ falsify work history. A more striking difference with both DAMASU and USO (O TSUKU) is in the apparent non-existence of affected passive construction: DAMASARETA = deceived, even AZAMUKARETA, but *ITSUWARARETA. This shows less concern with interpersonal damage than with the ignoble act of lying as such, see also adjectivized patterns as ITSUWARI NO CHUCHOO/ JOOHOO = false pretense/ infos etc., all more harshly critical than USO NO with its allowance for sheer phantasizing.

This latter is all the more apparent in nominations of concrete unlawful actions, specifying their technical side, such as NETSUZOO = forgery, KAIZAN = [illegal] tampering with documents. Personal damage is peripheral here while breach of rules becomes central. Opposed to it, SAGI = fraud, while a strict penal code term, related the perpetration to breach of a person’s trust (but seen through the prism of law). This mindset, however, focused on the factual detail, does not rule out such ‘neutral’ (purely practical) characteristics as with left-edge KANTAN-NI or right-edge KANTAN (DA) = easy, MUZUKASHII = difficult. These are not found at all with ITSUWARU, in contrast with DAMASU, GOMAKASU and even AZAMUKU.

4. A group of transitive verbs show a different pattern where the focus moves to the substituted value, the intentional ‘lie’ thus retreating from the centre of the conceptualized situation. That leads to a complete exclusion of the defrauded person (from the verbalized horizon). Such are YOSOOU (reconstrued from ‘putting on’ a costume, originally), and MISEKAKERU (a compound verb with the MISE stem for show). In the former case the direct object is either an untruthful state of the speaker (MUKANSHIN = indifference, CHUUJITSU = loyalty) or someone else’s identity (KEIKAN = a cop, KYAKU = a customer), 記憶喪失を装ってしどろもどろの言い訳をして = feigning amnesia to make up some lame excuses. In fact, this pattern is also shared by ITSUWARU, see in NISEMONO O HONMONO TO ITSUWARU = to pass off a fake as the real thing. With the following group it would yield only rare and exceptional hits, as HI O ZE TO GOMAKASU = disguise the evil as the good.

This type of transitivity conveys the idea of substitution. As follows from the right-adjacent material (see example), the point of naming the actual communicative practices of deception is to elaborate on the technicalities of such tactics. This starkly contrasts with the DAMASU group, where it is the motif of the liar’s profit that is stated, so that the utterance as a whole takes on a strong nuance of blame for unacceptable action. Not only are unsightly goals of lying uncovered in the material that follows to the right, but the most commonly observed contraptions make it into amalgamated verbs like DAMASHITORU/ URU/ KATSU/ UCHI = to defraud, to sell/ win by deception/ surprise attack with the second element becoming head.

5. The prominent feature of GOMAKASU is contrary to that discussed in AZAMUKU – here it is not the mental frame challenged, but a zone of inattention (of the victim). This opens to more expressions corresponding to Carson’s instances of withholding or Concealing information, Keeping in the dark, and Half-truths

That no direct and full-front challenge neither to a concrete person’s beliefs nor to the socially established order in general takes place becomes an obvious factor mitigating the blame for such actions (GOMAKASU is broadly modified with UMAKU, again, and right-adjacent MURI = useless by far outnumber YOKUNAI = not good). It is still frowned upon, but already there are entries where its use in the 1st person is not limited to confessions of guilt, as is the case with ITSUWARU and DAMASU. Moreover, specific inanimate targets actually are allowed to be cheated upon not just for some higher purpose but as such, see ITAMI O GOMAKASHITE = to conceal/ ignore the pain, FUMAN O MAGIRAWASU = to vent frustration. In transitive phrases with action names the legal offense is considerably lighter, as in 議論をずらして説明をごまかす = cheat with the explanation by shifting the argument.

Negative attitude on the part of the speaker here appears rather hushed by the pragmatic focus either on the consequences or the means of deceit, or both, as in KUYASHIKATTA KEREDO WARATTE GOMAKASHITA = disappointed, [I] just laughed it off, or RAMERAME DE GOMAKASU = to cover [it] up with glitter.

All the mentioned features of this group confirm analysis highlighting social acceptance of lies within certain limits, as summarized in

It comes as little wonder that the zone of ‘incomplete’ lying should be related to that covering the tactics of evasion. A criterion for delimiting the two can be tentatively posited at whether a falsehood has been effectively put forward, or only the truthful (but harmful) utterance withheld.

6. A discussion on deceit would not be full without a case of deliberate (and not hidden, as in cases above) flouting of Grice’s maxim of quality. In the English linguistics it has recently been largely covered by the concept of ‘bullshit’

Another branchoff is offered by the concept of Bluff, elaborated on by Carson

Let me draw some conclusions. That language-based perceptions of lies and lying are deeply intertwined with social reality is underscored by the history of borrowings. See the English mislead with a subtle nuance accountable for a direct loan of MISURIIDEINGU in Japanese (none of the GOMAKASU group fits in with it). See, on the other hand, the reinvented, rather than borrowed, дезинформация in Russian, for decades serving as a (non-interpretable) ready rubber-stamp for a certain cliché in public discourse, denouncing something much more sinister than misinform.

Now, in the case of Japanese, as this study shows, nominations for types of deceit, heavy with qualitative semantics, are by and large structured around socially relevant features of the act of deceit. As follows from the analysis above, the principal criteria are graveness of offense (ranging from merely dispreferred to criminal) and degree of its interpersonal (or else institutional) nature. These in turn correspond to the more basic notions of cognitive statuses of both sides, intentionality, damage and distortion scope. As we could see, relevance of corresponding elements of the speech event is reflected in the governance models of verb and their derivatives. Below is how an enriched structure of this semantic field would look as a result.

I will close with the remark that generally the pervasive domination of USO as non-verbally derived seems to fulfill largely a sociopragmatic task of avoiding confrontation in communication first and foremost by withdrawing excessive judgment. Furthermore, it is mainly at the level of USO that general discussion in terms of true-false is conducted (including rather subtle conclusions like USO DE WA NAI = not [quite] false). Similar trends, to be certain, are underway in Russian врать reconstrued in non-volitional contexts (such as hitting a wrong note in a musical performance, or a misfunction of measuring equipment), while in English a lie and not true seem to decouple more along the lines of politeness principles.

At the same time, all in all, for a culture allegedly tolerant to lies and lying