Ödmjukhetens Makt : en studie av maktspråk på företag i manga

Författare

Karl-Axel Knutson

Summary, in English

A substantial part of modern Japan’s workforce consists of men and women employed at corporation offices. These are the Japanese that are known as “sararîman” (“salarymen”) in case of being male, or OL (“Office Ladies”) in case of being female.
As one such, it is crucial that one can wield one’s language abilities skillfully in order to be able to make other members of staff fully appreciate and recognize one’s arguments as sound. Whilst doing so, it is considered to be of great importance that one also pays attention to the hierarchal structures that make up the fine ligaments that social interaction at a Japanese workplace is tied to. The purpose of this thesis is to present the social fundaments and Focault’s theories on dynamic power that allows us to understand how language is being used by fictional Japanese characters at their white collar workplaces in contemporary manga literature. This analysis serves to prove that expressing humility through Japanese honorific language may prove to be a potential source of power for individuals in relatively lower hierarchal positions.

Avdelning/ar