JAPANESE VERB “NARU”: KEY TO UNDERSTANDING OF JAPANESE MENTALITY

Abstract

The connection between language and culture, specifically how the grammatical and lexical constructions of a language manifest the peculiarities of a nation’s culture, has long been researched. In Japan, one such grammatical construction of interest is the verb “naru”. There is a commonly held thesis that the use of this word strongly reflects the Japanese worldview and value system. Hence, considering how it is translated by speakers of other languages can be one way in which to consider the different perspectives they may hold. For the most part, Japanese researchers believe that there are two important camps of thought, either translating “naru” with a word close in meaning to the Russian “stanovitsya ; stati” (to become) or with a verb similar to the Russian “delati ; sdelati” (to do). In this paper, the author analyzes 28 variants of the use of the verb “naru” in Japanese and variants of its translation into Russian. The study concludes that only in 6 out of 28 cases, the translation of this verb using the Russian verb “stanovitsya–statj (to become)” is adequate. In response to these findings, the author hypothesizes that the frequent use of the verb “naru” in the Japanese context is meant to emphasize the importance placed on how the state of a person or the surrounding world has changed. In contrast, when placed into the Russian context, emphasis is given to action and the actor performing it. By attempting to explain these linguistic differences, we are able to make grounded assumptions about the perspectives and values held by the speakers of these two languages.