‘高等遊民’ 계층의 어휘적 특징으로 보는 언어 활동 연구 -소세키(漱石)의 『彼岸過迄』(1912)를 중심으로 -

Abstract

In this article, I explore the linguistic behaviour of the “Higher Educated Free- Spirited People”, an intellectual class of people in modern Japan, in terms of lexical expressions, especially the use frequencies of kango words and the etymologies of kango words. The result is summarised as follows. First, the Higher Educated Free-Spirited People are distinguished from people of other classes in terms of lexical expressions. The use frequencies of kango words and the ratio of kango words in the language of the Higher Educated Free-Spirited People are higher than those in the language of people of other classes. Second, the use frequencies and the ratio of kango words that emerged during the modern era are particularly high in the language of the Higher Educated Free- Spirited People. Notable examples are medical terms such as soshiki ‘organisation’ and shinkei ‘nerve’. The Higher Educated Free-Spirited People freely used these technical terms, which clearly distinguishes themselves from people of other classes. The present study examines the linguistic behaviour of a specific “class” of people, namely, the Higher Educated Free-Spirited People, in the domain of Japanese linguistics that analyses data in various “phases”, and reveals that the use frequencies of kango words and modern kango words constitute an important analytical factor.