JAPANESE “SECRETS”: THE SOCIAL MEANINGS OF QUALITATIVE EXUBERANCE IN POPULAR JAPAN-THEMED SELF-HELP BOOKS

Abstract

This thesis explores the use of selected Japanese words such as ikigai ‘reason to live; raison d'être’, omoiyari ‘compassion; empathy’ and kaizen ‘improvement’ in popular English self-help book titles as key marketing strategies. Based on the promotional materials (e.g., book reviews, descriptions, and endorsement comments), I noticed that these words were intentionally left in the original language and presented as “hard-to-translate” or “Japanese secrets”. Adapting common notions used in translation studies, I refer to the promoted sentiments surrounding these hard-to-translate book titles, which are usually explained with abstract concepts, as “qualitative exuberance”. Together with qualitative exuberance, the deliberately untranslated words in the book titles then create (pseudo-)mystical impressions that are conceptually connected to secrets for happiness in self-help, which function as niche commodification strategies. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of affective regime and indexical field, I attempt to unpack the mechanisms of qualitative exuberances and how they are used as a semantic commodification strategy in my data. By examining the linguistic aspects as well as the purposeful non-translations of the book titles, the findings reveal how specific non-English (in this case, Japanese) words can invoke positive affects on self-help book readers. Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, the abstract explanations of these “Japanese secrets” in the book titles deviate from the original meanings as they are often highly modified to fit the publishers’ and authors’ convenience in promoting the books. This thesis demonstrates how cross-linguistic exotification in the form of qualitative exuberances can lead to a semantic ambiguation in non-English concepts attached to certain loanwords. Moreover, by demonstrating how qualitative exuberance works in invoking positive affects through book covers and promotional materials, it sheds light on the marketing strategies employed in the self-help genre and highlights the significance of language and culture in influencing consumers’ behaviour.