Connie’s language and sexuality: Lady Chatterley’s Lover in Japanese

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to investigate the link between the sexuality of a female character in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and her language use in three Japanese translations of the novel. The speech of female characters in Japanese translations tends to be overly feminised, and research on various genres has been conducted to empirically assess the extent to which female characters are feminised. However, there has not been an empirical study if the sexuality of characters in novels affects their language use in Japanese translations. Therefore, this article will analyse the Japanese translations of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, both qualitatively and quantitatively, to investigate the following issues: (1) whether there is any difference in Connie’s language use in the translations, (2) whether there is any difference in Connie’s language according to her sexual or non-sexual relationship with Clifford and with Mellors, and (3) whether the shift in Connie’s relationship with Mellors affects her language use. The novel has been controversial, both in literary circles and in Japanese society, because the first Japanese translation was banned in 1950 and the publisher and the translator were found guilty of public indecency.