Emotional expression in language shows great variation crosslinguistically; how and to what extent are questions central to linguistic and cognitive anthropology. Preliminary research on written materials indicates that emotions which we English speakers would call 'love' can be subdivided in Japanese into two native categories, koi and ai. Japanese also has different grammatical characteristics of emotional expression, the discursive rules for which are not yet thoroughly understood for two of three descriptive word classes. Furthermore, many anthropological and popular sources describe a preference for nonexpression or underexpression of emotion as a Japanese cultural ideal. The interaction of these semantic, grammatical, and cultural phenomena has never been examined. There are, however, sites in Japanese culture where emotional expression is valued and expected, which would allow data collection through interview and participant observation. Enka is an overtly emotionally expressive, indigenous Japanese musical genre whose lyrics often focus on love and its loss, and nostalgia for one's hometown, similar in some respects to American country music. Enka music will provide a culturally appropriate frame, not only yielding data for analysis through examining its lyrics but also as a basis for elicitation of discourse about emotions by native speakers. This project will analyze both grammatical and semantic aspects of conversational Japanese and the poetic lyrics of enka music to describe the linguistic and cultural phenomena characteristic of emotional expression in Japanese, with specific attention to potential discursive evidence for categories of koi and ai.
