The aim of this study is to describe and explain the cultural and linguistic differences between the text organizational patterns in French and Japanese.
On the basis of the contrastive rhetoric, Part I of this thesis describes the differences in text organization between the two languages and attempts to determine the origins of these differences. Nine Japanese specificities are identified as contributing factors: (1) the organizational pattern “ki-syô-ten-ketu”, (2) released structure and framework, (3) subject as a starting point, (4) symbolic expression, (5) expression of ego, (6) interaction, (7) indirect expression, (8) fragmentary nature, and (9) evocation and associative ties. An examination of these specificities with other specificities is conducted at the production level (comparison of French and Japanese school handbooks) and at the representation level (a sample survey conducted among Japanese students and French teachers).
Part II is devoted to analyzing linguistic factors and characterizing the two languages. By adopting the theoretical framework of Jean-Michel Adam (2008), we examine five aspects of text: continuity, discontinuity, and the three dimensions of a “proposition-énoncé (proposition-utterance).” Five fundamental differences are observed between the French and Japanese languages. 1. Cohesion is stronger in French. 2. Reference is more explicit in French. 3. Point of view is expressed less explicitly in French. 4. Illocutionary force is weaker in French. 5. Text segmentation is stronger in French. To verify these hypotheses, four phenomena are examined: connectors, “the unsaid,” oui/si/non (and their Japanese equivalents hai/îe), and persons.