Ben Humphreys

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From a linguistics point of view I found it interesting that some Japanese speakers emphasise by using quotation marks as do some in the English-speaking world (usually to some criticism).

This example roughly translates as:


  Smoking “tobacco” in the toilet is a cause of fire.
  
  Please refrain from smoking “tobacco” here.


Writing that in English makes it sound more sarcastic than emphatic. Alluding to maybe not just smoking tobacco, but something more illegal.

Also in the longer example below:


  Recently there has been an increase in “toilet blockages caused by plastic bottles and newspapers”
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From a linguistics point of view I found it interesting that some Japanese speakers emphasise by using quotation marks as do some in the English-speaking world (usually to some criticism).

This example roughly translates as:

Smoking “tobacco” in the toilet is a cause of fire.

Please refrain from smoking “tobacco” here.

Writing that in English makes it sound more sarcastic than emphatic. Alluding to maybe not just smoking tobacco, but something more illegal.

Also in the longer example below:

Recently there has been an increase in “toilet blockages caused by plastic bottles and newspapers”

    • #linguistics
  • 2 years ago
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About

Avatar Computational linguistics researcher at Kyoto University, focussing on machine translation. Also learning Japanese, Korean, French and other badassery.
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