| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 日本語文學研究所 === 103 === For a long time, it is generally believed that Japanese sports terminology consists mainly loanwords (Gairaigo). However, Sino-Japanese vocabulary (or Kango) and pidgin are also often used in Japanese baseball terminology, which does not correspond the common belief mentioned above. This study is one that aims at explaining the phenomenon.
The study surveyed baseball terminology, including baseball skills lingo (the narrow-sense baseball terminology) and topical terms (the broad-sense baseball terminology). The reality and particularity of professional baseball terminology were then analyzed in terms of the word-categories (Goshu) and usages of the vocabulary.
To begin with, the study surveyed basic baseball terms in three books of baseball glossary published from before the Second World War to the post-war era. Via the survey, one can find not only that loanwords were easily added to baseball terminology, but that the growth of Sino-Japanese and pidgin was observable. In addition, the survey shows a command of the characteristics of the basic lingo and new terms in baseball terminology.
Second, another trend analysis of baseball terminology based on The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words examined the characteristics of the new and the topical terms in post-war baseball lingo. Via this survey, one can know that, compared with the majority of loanwords in baseball skills, there are more non-loanwords (Sino-Japanese or native Japanese vocabulary) in topical terms.
The last survey investigated written and spoken baseball terminology. Compared with the larger proportion of loanwords in broadcasting terms, Sino-Japanese words are more often used in newspapers. However, when observing different kinds of terms, one can find that different purposes of language usage opt for the comprehensibility of loanwords or the brevity of Sino-Japanese.
Through the study, one can find the tendency of topical being more and more often included in baseball glossary or encyclopedia. Therefore, one could infer that baseball terminology is influenced by the tendency, in which the proportion of loanwords declines while that of pidgin increases. In the sport, baseball, loanwords and Sino-Japanese dominate different fields in the baseball diamond, applying their own influences and communication functions.
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