日本の若者層の会話における｢みたいだ｣の使用様相

Abstract

This study empirically examines the usage patterns of ‘mitiaida’ in conversations of Japanese high school students and university students. Looking at the frequency of ‘mitiaida’ and ‘yoda’ in conversations of Japanese high school students and university students , it was found that ‘mitiaida’ is overwhelmingly more used than ‘yoda’ as indicated in many existing Japanese language textbooks where ‘mitiaida’ is presented as a colloquial expression of ‘yoda’ . However, compared to conversations of university students, the significantly higher frequency of ‘mitiaida’ in conversations of high school students suggests that high school students use ‘mitiaida’ more often in actual conversations and prefer the informal expression ‘mitiaida’ over the more formal expression ‘yoda’ . On the other hand, it was observed that ‘mitiaida’ is used as a hedging expression in over 50% of both high school and university conversations, which is higher than the combined frequency of the main usages presented in Japanese language textbooks, such as metaphor, exemplification, and supposition. In conversations of university students, the frequency of ‘yoda’ used as a hedging expression is higher than that of high school students. ‘yoda’ used as a hedging expression is primarily used in the middle of sentences, but ‘mitiaida’ is mainly used at the end of sentences for hedging purposes. This indicates that the hedging usage of ‘mitiaida’ in conversations of both high school students and university students is predominantly used in the form of ‘mitiaida’ at the end of sentences. By using a modifier form like ‘mitiaida’ at the end of a sentence, it not only conveys the original meaning of supposition but also implies that the sentence is not complete grammatically, thereby avoiding the definiteness of utterance. It can be interpreted that the desire of young people to avoid making definitive statements is reflected in expression ‘mitiaida’.