The first person pronouns observed in Rakugo during the Meiji period: About “wasi” and “Ore” in terms of phase

Abstract

The purpsoe of this paper is to understand the use of the first person pronouns according to the phase of the first person pronouns “Wasi” and “Ore” during the Meiji and Taisho periods, and understand its position before the settlement of the first person pronouns “Wasi” and “Ore” in modern Japanese. The subject of the study is “Kouensokki MeijiTasyoRakugoSyusei” published by combining Rakugo from the Meiji and Taisho periods, and “Wasi” and “Ore” observed here is analyzed by dividing it by the phase of each speaker. As for the results of the study, both “Wasi” and “Ore” are mostly used by the male by gender, and “Wasi” in used by older people compared to “Ore” by age. In addition, by context, “Ore” is often used to express the speaker’s anger or furious feelings in an equal relationship with some acquaintance. In the case of the female, although observed very rarely, “Ore” is use to indicate the valor of the speaker. “Kouensokki MeijiTasyoRakugoSyusei” is a suitable data for observing the actual language life of people during the Meiji and Taisho periods, and it can be found to be meaningful in that it is a result obtained based on these data. In the future, I will study the personal pronouns observed in “Kouensokki MeijiTasyoRakugoSyuusei” in terms of politeness expression and sociolinguistics.