Abstract
Although the English variant ‘Japanese English’ is not yet widely known and accepted, some characteristics of Japanese English influenced by the mother tongue do exist and have both explicit and implicit effects on English. The purpose of this study is to confirm, through analysis of the phenomenon of“heavyuse of ‘I think’ in Japanese English”, that modality usages of Japanese have a possibility to influence and characterize Japanese English. In this study, based on the hypothesis that heavyuse of ‘I think’ is partly caused by attitudinal modality of the corresponding Japanese phrase ‘to-omou’, the author analyzed translated sentences containing ‘to-omou’, and revealed the fact that modality functions of ‘to-omou’ are highly relevant to the heavyuse of ‘I think’ in Japanese English.
