Comparative Language Styles in the Book of Kike Wadatsumi no Koe

The use of language style is a language activity reality that has a close relationship with language objectives. Language choice aims to represent thoughts, experiences, psychological conditions, and feelings. The comparative language style is found in a written language in the form of family letters, wills, and journals or diaries written by Japanese Navy soldiers serving military duties. Several writings were compiled into a book entitled Kike Wadatsumi no Koe used as a data source. It was found that there were ten types of comparative language style and metaphor was the most widely used type with 60 data. Based on their functions, those ten types have various functions, including: (1) the function of expressing the author's pride expressed by simile, metaphor, allusion, eponym, metonymy, and antonomasia; (2) the function of providing information related to the author's psychological condition during his military duty expressed by simile, metaphor, irony, metonymy, hyperbole, and personification; and (3) the function of resistance to express criticism of disagreements as well as rejections. The resistance form is subtly expressed using metaphor, irony, and personification. In contrast, using sarcasm, the resistance form that is expressed straightforward, firmly, and has a rough