What Are the Major Speech Styles in Japanese?(<Feature Articles>Current Issues in Intonational Research)

Through searches on the Internet using Google, 396 adjective expressions that immediately precede the noun kutyoo (tone of voice) were identified as candidates for the major types of Japanese speech styles. Thirty-seven percent of them characterize the speaker's emotional, physical or social state, 31% describe the social or psychological relationship between the speaker and the hearer, and 17% concern the styles used in particular situations or of particular speakers. Comparisons with the results of other searches using Google performed 11 months later and with those using Yahoo! JAPAN Search revealed that there are 16 kutyoos that are constantly used with high frequency on the Internet. They are, in frequency order, tuyoi (strong), meeree (commanding), yasasii (gentle), teeneena (polite), kibisii (severe), odayakana (mild), ikari (angry), karui (light, not heavy), sizukana (quiet), tantantosita (plain), kitui (stern), otituita (calm), hagesii (violent), setumee (explaining), reesee (cool), and dantee (assertive) tones of voice. A multidimensional scaling analysis of perceived similarities among these kutyoos suggests that they can be grouped into 12 categories of speech style.