Based on the discourse analysis of the text, this paper attempts to clarify the formation of advices in the ‘personal-advice column’. The origin of the ‘personal-advice column’ was established in the late Meiji era. In the late Meiji era, the ‘personal-advice column’ was generally dealt by the newspaper reporters. In contrast, persons in charge of advices today are professionals, for example, writers, lawyers, psychiatrists, and so forth. About 300 articles are published each year, and almost half of the advices in these articles are dealt by writers. Therefore, this paper assumes that there are some particular discourse patterns in the formation of advices created by the writers of which are not based on the professional knowledge, and categorized them into the following three patterns. Firstly, this paper focuses on their discourse to reconfirm the issues posted by contributors. Secondly, this paper looks at the process of how the writers affirm the issues. Thirdly, it focuses on the process of how the writers themselves appear as “I” in the advices. Through these devices, the discourse of advices is formed by sharing the process of creating the sense of cooperation among the writers and contributors as well as legitimates the logical righteousness of the proposed ideas by writers.
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