Newspaper article analysis on the social construction process of “volunteer” and “NPO” in Japan: An attempt of “postpositional particle analysis”

Abstract

Social construction process of "volunteer" and "NPO" in Japan was investigated. Numbers of newspaper articles which include each two terms were increased year after year. Then author paid attention to the Japanese grammatical forms and made an attempt of "postpositional particle analysis", in which author computed how frequently these two words were used as the nominative case or the other cases. The frequency in use of the term "NPO" as the nominative case was relatively high ratio from first to last. In contrast, the frequency in use of the term "volunteer" as the nominative case was relatively declined after the Great Hanshin Earthquake 1995. These results suggest that "NPO" is now on the process of social construction but is flat and thin as a social reality. On the contrary, "volunteer" has changed in quality after the great disaster. "Volunteer" has increased its layers as the social reality and penetrated into our life world. Validity of postpositional particle analysis for the social representation research was discussed.