MARDRÖMMEN MOT SNÖNS RIKE. En jämförande lexikal-analys av japansk jukugo och kanji-vokabulär mellan författarna Oe Kenzaburo och Kawabata Yasunari.

Abstract

This is a thesis comparing the analysis of the compound words and overall kanji used in the pieces written by two famous Japanese Nobel-prize recipients in literature, Ōe Kenzaburo and Kawabata Yasunari. The novels in question are A Personal Matter, by Ōe and Snow country, by Kawabata. Kanji, chinese characters is the biggest group within the japanese writing system. If standing alone they can reflect one meaning but they can also be utilized by combining two or more characters together to create a word with new or more defined meaning, thus creating a compound word. The area of application of compound words, which also are called jukugo, are wide and varying in terms of utilization. The two authors I’ve chose for this thesis are famous for their big differences in writing styles. By comparing these two authors I hope to be able to contribute to the research about this specific strata of the Japanese language. The analysis in this thesis will concern the origin of the jukugo (kango or wago), the relation between the elements inside the compound and the difficulty of level in the kanji.