The Role of <i>kunten</i> Materials in the Process of Sino-Japanese Hybridization

Abstract

The history of the Japanese written language can be seen as a main frame of different registers of the native language – buntai 文体 – intersecting at various levels with a foreign one, namely classical Chinese. Although these diatypes are different, they are all part of the same lexico-syntactic repertoire shared by the community and whose use is determined by context. Hence, the type of code in use depends on the field and purpose of the message. In recent years the field has been enriched by a number of thought-provoking theories. However, buntai studies still constitute a complex and intricate discipline within which numerous questions remain to be answered. This paper will a) provide a review of existing scholarship on the role played by kunten materials in defining the formation process of Sino-Japanese hybrid writing – wakan konkōbun; b) outline, for the first time, the main differences between the two most controversial forms of written language, Japanized written Chinese – waka kanbun – and Sino-Japanese hybrid writing, and redefine their role within the history of the Japanese written language; c) survey textual evidence to show how an embryonic form of Sino-Japanese hybrid writing existed before the twelfth century, proving that the evolution of wakan konkōbun is not directly linked to the formation of middle Japanese.