Analysis of Japanese Adverbs in Japanese Drama Suizokukan Gaaru

Abstract

This study aims to determine the adverbs that are often used by Japanese people in daily conversation. The data used in this study is a Japanese drama called "Suizokukan Gaaru" aired in NHK in 2016. This drama was used considering a lot of scenes that depict conversations in family and work environment. The study used a qualitative descriptive method. The note-taking technique is used in this study to collect utterance that appears in the drama and the adverbs with the most occurrences are prioritized to be analyzed it meaning and usages. This study found that 464 of all utterances in the drama contain 2274 adverbs. Among the 464 adverb utterances, there are 44 adverbs with the highest frequency of occurrence (23-34 times) namely mou (already), chotto (a moment, a little), dou (how), "nanka" (somewhat). The adverbs mou and chotto has been taught basic level, while dou and nanka are taught in the advanced level as form of aizuchi in conversation. In the future dou and nanka are also need to be taught in the basic level so the learners could speak more fluently. Based on the category, the situation adverb, degree adverb, and modal adverb have higher frequencies than denotation adverb. In the future, it is necessary to rethink how the order of placement of the adverb categories is from the basic level, so that students can become proficient in daily Japanese conversation.