JHASS
A Study of Subjectivity in Chinese and Japanese Reported Speech: Focusing on First-person Pronouns and Reflexives
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Abstract
This study investigates subjectivity encoding in Chinese and Japanese indirect speech through a comparative analysis of reflexive and first-person pronouns. Combining cognitive linguistics, self-expression theory, and perspective analysis, we develop an innovative framework for assessing pronominal subjectivity hierarchies. The results show that reflexive pronouns (Japanese jibun/Chinese zìjǐ) exhibit systematically higher subjectivity than first-person pronouns in indirect contexts, serving as grammaticalized perspective markers that promote speak-er-subject alignment. Although both languages display a similar subjectivity cline (reflexives > personal pronouns), critical differences emerge: Japanese obligatorily marks high subjectivity through reflexive morphology in self-evaluative contexts, while Chinese allows flexible pronoun choice based on pragmatic factors. These patterns reflect fundamental typological contrasts—Japanese’s morpho-syntactic subjectivity encoding versus Chinese’s context-sensitive pragmatic strategies. Our findings contribute to linguistic theory by (1) elucidating how self-reference systems interact with perspective-taking in typologically distinct languages, and (2) demonstrating the continuum between grammaticalized and pragmatic subjectivity marking. The study calls for further research to (i) verify these patterns across additional syntactic constructions, and (ii) incorporate them into comprehensive models of linguistic subjectivity.
Keywords
Subjectivity; Reported speech; First-person pronouns; Reflexives; Cross-linguistic comparison
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How to cite this paper
A Study of Subjectivity in Chinese and Japanese Reported Speech: Focusing on First-person Pronouns and Reflexives
How to cite this paper: Kailing Lv. (2025) A Study of Subjectivity in Chinese and Japanese Reported Speech: Focusing on First-person Pronouns and Reflexives. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, 9(7), 1426-1435.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.07.027
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