The Tragedy of the Japanese Response to the Potsdam Declaration "Mokusatsu" Being Translated as "Ignore" or "Reject" by the U.S. - Thoughts on Machine Translation (Part 5-3)

(Part 5-3)

“The Tragedy of the Japanese Response to the Potsdam Declaration "Mokusatsu" Being Translated as "Ignore" or "Reject" by the U.S. - Thoughts on Machine Translation (Part 5-1) |”
“The Tragedy of the Japanese Response to the Potsdam Declaration "Mokusatsu" Being Translated as "Ignore" or "Reject" by the U.S. - Thoughts on Machine Translation (Part 5-2) | Yuji Suzuki N.Yuji Suzuki” follows with (Part 3).

The Potsdam Declaration is a performative utterance in the Declaration category.

The Potsdam Declaration, like the declaration of war in the previous example, is a typical performative utterance belonging to the category of Declaration in Searle's terms. It can be said that diplomatic agreements are generally composed of performative utterances. In that sense, it is no exaggeration to say that the laws established by a country are themselves composed of prohibitions, permissions, and various other performative utterances. In the United States, state legislators and federal congressmen are called lawmakers, and it is thought that they are well-versed in performative utterances. Many have graduated from law schools and are qualified as lawyers. Looking at a site called Speech Acts in Linguistics, it seems that many of them learned speech acts in public speaking courses taken in middle school, high school, and university.

Let's look at the Potsdam Declaration again. There are no obvious Declaration performative utterances that possess a first-person pronoun (“I”/ “we”) + a declaratory performative verb (e.g., “declare”). The “We call upon the government of Japan…” in Article 13 is certainly a performative utterance, but with the performative verb “call upon,” it becomes a Declaration (request) which has less coercive power compared to a Directive (request) that has an irresistible coercive force. Whether or not the requested content is carried out depends on the judgment of the other party, in this case, the Japanese government. However, a native English speaker reading this sentence would surely feel a sense of intimidation close to a commandment or an order. Like the sentence “We call upon violators to pay fines immediately, or we will confiscate their cars,” they would perceive that there will be punishment or retaliation if the order is not fulfilled.

Legal auxiliary verb "shall" "will" "must" sentences = performative utterances, from G. Leech's research

A similar high-pressure force can be felt in other sentences. For example, the legal auxiliary verb “shall” in “Japan shall be given the opportunity to end the war.” in Article 1, and “will” in “We will not deviate from them.” in Article 5. The legal auxiliary verb “shall” is used only in very limited cases in modern American English, such as “Shall I…” or “Shall we…?” In most cases, it has been replaced by “will.” For details, see Chapter 4, “The Modal Auxiliaries,” of G. N. Leech's Meaning and the English Verb for an explanation of the usage of modal auxiliaries in modern English. [1] Below is a summary of only the parts relevant to the theme of this paper.

“Will” and “shall” are modal auxiliaries that mean future time, and at the same time, [2] they are modal auxiliaries that mean volition or prediction (as in “That will be the milkman.”). “Will” and “shall” also mean volition, and can be subdivided into weak volition (willingness), stronger volition (insistence), and intermediate volition (intention). However, the decisive difference is that “will” is the volition of the subject of the sentence, whereas “shall” is the volition of the speaker of the sentence. The following is a summary. Readers taking the TOEFL iBT test should keep this in mind.

[Volitional Will = The Subject’s Volition]

“My chauffeur will help you.” (Weak volition = the subject’s willingness = My chauffeur is willing to help you.) “He will go swimming in dangerous waters.” (Strong volition = the subject’s insistence = He insists on going swimming…) “I will write tomorrow.” (Intermediate volition = the subject’s intention = I intend to write.)

[Volitional Shall = The Speaker’s Volition]

“Good dog, you shall have a bone when we get home.” (Weak volition = the speaker’s willingness = I, the speaker, am willing for you to have a bone…) “You shall obey my orders.” (Strong volition = the speaker’s volition = I, the speaker, insist that you obey my order.) “I shall write tomorrow.” (Intermediate volition = the speaker’s intention = I, the speaker, intend to write tomorrow.)

Leech calls the former the subject-oriented, and the latter the speaker-oriented. The same applies to “can” and “may” for permission, and “have to” and “must” for obligation.

“You can go now.” (The subject-oriented permission = You are permitted to go now.) “You may go now.” (The speaker-oriented permission = I, the speaker, permit you to go now.) “You have to go now.” (The subject-oriented = You are compelled to go now.) “You must go now.” (The speaker-oriented = I, the speaker, compel you to go now.)

In other words, these “speaker-oriented” volitional “shall,” “must” of compelling/obligation, and “may” of permission are performative utterances that combine first-person subjects (I/we), performative verbs (insist/compel/permit, etc.), and syntactic features such as the indicative present in their deep semantic structure; that is, they are Searle's speech acts. Applying this to the aforementioned Speech Act Theory, the “must” of obligation/compelling fits exactly into the category of Declaration (declaration), but regarding volitional “shall,” what fits is the “shall” of the speaker’s strong volition/insistence, while the “shall” of the speaker’s weak volition (willingness) and the “shall” of the speaker’s intermediate intention fit into the categories of Expressive

(psychological expression) and Directives (request), respectively. Also, the “may” of permission belongs to the category of Commissive (promise).

Looking at it this way, it can be seen that the Potsdam Declaration is composed of these five types of performative categories, and in particular, is composed of sentences belonging to the category of Declaration. While the general framework of the declaration is in the category of Representative (conclusion), the “shall” of the speaker’s insistence and the “must” of the speaker’s compelling, which belong to the category of Declaration, support the backbone of this entire declaration.

Leech (1971) mentioned above states the following regarding this usage:

This meaning is also of very restricted use, and carries strong overtones of imperiousness. Like the preceding use of shall, it is undemocratic, in suggesting that the listener’s will is entirely subservient to that of the speaker. This may account for its obsolescence in present-day English, and the tendency to prefer must and the “democratic imperative” can. [3] A similar use of shall with second-and third-person subjects for commandments was formerly widespread, as is seen from the wording of the Ten Commandments in the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorized Version of the Bible: Thou shall not kill, etc….Nowadays this archaic usage survives in legal and quasi-legal documents, such as rules for card games and academic dress: A player who bids incorrectly shall forfeit fifty points; The hood shall be of scarlet cloth, with a silk liming of the colour of the faculty. (Leech 1971, p81)

In other words, the combination of a second or third-person subject and this usage of “shall” has strong overtones of imperiousness, and in English spoken in modern society (since around 1971) that advocates democracy and equality, it gives an old-fashioned impression. Therefore, it remains only in the Authorized Version of the Bible (also known as the King James Version), laws [9], and rules for various games. (Written in 2022)

The Potsdam Declaration is a series of “performative utterances,” continuing to the discrepancy in interpretation between the Japanese and U.S. governments - Thoughts on Machine Translation (Part 6-1)

[1] This is a book that I also used as a reference in my doctoral dissertation, A Generative Semantic Analysis of the English Modals. It covers the structure, meaning, and usage of English verb phrases comprehensively, and even 50 years after its first edition, it remains a fine book cited in English linguistics and natural language processing research. The meanings of English verbs (especially modal auxiliaries) change moment by moment. If you track these changes against English data as of 2021, you will likely produce interesting research results. I recommend it to readers who aim to teach English in the future.

[2] Syntactic tense and semantic time are different things. Modern English does not have a future tense like French. Therefore, we use “will” (as in “It will rain.”), be +(about) to-infinitive (as in “I am about to go.”), or the present tense (as in “I leave tomorrow.”) to signify future time. Please refer to “Four Basic English Grammatical Structures (Part 3)... Catenary Construct | Yuji Suzuki”.

[3] “Must” also has a usage as a performative, “I command you to__,” but it seems that nowadays, most instances are not performative but rather neutral usages (Circumstances oblige one to-infinitive, meaning “need to,” as in “My doctor says that I must quit smoking.”). Similarly, “may” also has a performative usage as “I permit you to __,” but it seems that the neutral usage “Circumstances allow you to__” as in “You may smoke in the smoking lounge,” or what Leech calls the “democratic can” as in “You can leave the flower vase on the dining table,” are more commonly used in place of “may.” However, as will be discussed later, “may” and “must” in the Potsdam Declaration are used as performatives. For example, “Whoever commits or attempts to commit any act to obstruct, impede, or interfere with any fireman or law enforcement officer lawfully engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties incident to and during the commission of a civil disorder which in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or adversely affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce or the or adversely affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce or the conduct or performance of any federally protected function—Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (Legal Information Institute https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/23)