A Study on the Language Activities of ‘intelligent non employed’ in the Late Meiji Period : A Comparison between the 1912 Novels “Kanoyouni” and “Higansgimade”

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the characteristics of vocabulary use of godeungyumin (unemployed intellectuals) in Mori Ogai's Kanoyoni and Natsume Soseki's Higansgimade published in Meiji 45 (1912). The results and considerations of the analysis are as follows. First, the number of Chinese words used by unemployed intellectuals between the two works is about twice as different, but the ratio is in the 30% range. Second, the lexical characteristic of unemployed intellectuals appearing in the two works is that the usage rate of Chinese characters since modern times remains around 20%. Finally, the linguistic characteristic of unemployed intellectuals in the two works is that beyond everyday terms, technical terms, which are non– everyday terms, are melted into everyday life. Through these three analytic processes, it was possible to confirm the linguistic characteristics of unemployed intellectuals who belonged to the intellectual class. This study was able to confirm the characteristics of Chinese characters used by the intellectual class of the Meiji period through the linguistic characteristics of the unemployed intellectuals by comparing the 1:1 ratio of unemployed intellectuals in the two works. This study is significant in that it sheds light on the language situation of that era.