日语升降调与年龄段的关系——基于《日语日常对话语料库》

The Correlation between Japanese Rising-Falling Intonation and Age Group—Using Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation

摘要: 升降调是日语中的一种语调，关于升降调在对话中的使用倾向还存在一些尚未定量证实的问题，关于升降调与语用因素的关系仍存在不同的见解。因此，本研究从说话人的年龄段切入，分析日语母语者在日常对话中使用升降调的倾向。本研究使用《日语日常对话语料库》所提供的针对核心数据标注的句末语调数据，通过卡方分析调查了119人的6个年龄段与升降调的相关性。结果显示，升降调的使用率为“14岁及以下 < 20~29岁 < 50~59岁 < 30~39岁 ≈ 40~49岁 < 60岁及以上”，且不论是否用于以“けど”等助词结尾的较大的句法边界，总体而言说话人的年龄段越高则升降调的使用率越高。本研究调查了日语母语者在对话中使用升降调的实际情况，希望为中国日语学习者根据情况使用升降调提供启示。

Abstract: Rising-falling intonation is a notable feature of Japanese, yet its usage in conversation remains insufficiently explored through quantitative methods, and its relationship with pragmatic factors is still debated. This study examines how native Japanese speakers of different age groups employ rising-falling intonation in daily conversations. Using phrase-final intonation annotations from the core data of the Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation, I conducted a chi-square analysis to investigate the relationship between rising-falling intonation and six age groups of 119 participants. The results indicate that the frequency of rising-falling intonation follows the pattern 0~14 < 20~29 < 50~59 < 30~39 ≈ 40~49 < 60 and older, indicating that elderly speakers use it more frequently. This tendency holds regardless of whether the intonation occurs at large syntactic boundaries, such as clauses ending with particles like kedo. By revealing how native speakers use rising-falling intonation across different age groups, this study aims to provide insights for Chinese learners of Japanese on the way to use rising-falling intonation.