Question
27 Dec 2016
- French (France)
-
Japanese
-
Simplified Chinese (China)
Question about Japan
Why is comic books speech so different from regular speech? For example, the overuse of the "you" pronouns, and how their meanings seem very different from real life (like they sound more respectful or less condescending in comic books). Do you just understand it in another way (as if comic books speech is simply a different dialect) or is it more complex than that?
I hope this wasn't a weird question. Thank you very much!
Why is comic books speech so different from regular speech? For example, the overuse of the "you" pronouns, and how their meanings seem very different from real life (like they sound more respectful or less condescending in comic books). Do you just understand it in another way (as if comic books speech is simply a different dialect) or is it more complex than that?
I hope this wasn't a weird question. Thank you very much!
I hope this wasn't a weird question. Thank you very much!
Answers
Read more comments
- Country or region Japan
I think comic books speech is different from daily speech.
And using "あなた/you" instead of "〜さん/Mr. 〜" sounds less respectful.
- Country or region China
@matreshkaB Thank you for your answer. Yes, indeed, I get that addressing a person in real life with pronouns is rude compared to using their name. I meant that pronouns don't sound rude in comic books just as much as they would sound in real life. And comic books seem to use regularly this style. My question was, what is the reason comic books don't use realist speech? (is it to give characters more personality? to make it closer to other languages in cases when the story happens in another land? Or something else?). Also, how do Japanese people view this contrast between books and reality? Is it just how in most countries, people find some speech natural in books and some other speech natural in daily life and don't question it?
- Country or region Japan
I think that people just don't question it

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