Page 35 - Makino,Tsutusi.DictionaryOfIntermediateJGrammar

SPECIAL TOPICS IN INTERMEDIATE JAPANESE GRAMMAR
the story. The rest of the sentences (i.e., sentences 3,7-14) describe in the past
tense whatever Shingo did or felt in the given circumstances. To put it in gen-
eral terms, tense switching is a strategy available to the writer to differentiate a
stage and a set of chronological events that occur within that stage. The stage
is certainly important in that it defines a space in which a drama develops, but
it is less important than the drama itself. So, important, dramatic information
is described in the past tense, whereas relatively unimportant circumstantial
information is described in the nonpast tense. The use of such nonpast tenses
has an effect of creating a vivid sense of immediateness for the reader.
A principle that appears to govern Tense Switching goes as follows:
Principle of Tense Switching
A part of a past event (often a state rather than an action) can be described
using the nonpast tense, if the writer perceives it to be relatively unimportant
circumstantial information that has no direct bearing upon the major story line.

B. Formality Switching
By formality switching is meant switching from formal style to informal style
or less frequently switching from informal style to formal style. The latter, i.e.,
switching from informal style to formal style, occurs in spoken Japanese. The
informal style is a suitable style to be used when the speaker / writer wants to
express his feeling, his knowledge or his conviction in a straightforward man-
ner. So, in a formal setting which requires the speaker / writer to use the for-
mal style, the style can switch from formal to informal as shown in the fol-
lowing examples (2a, b, c).

I: liL <I: %L,:<~L W. Lri
(2) a. ~~~L~~~C~~HAD~G:~;~.~T)L~~~;~~~~~L~~~~~B

tvh,
-
(Japan is giving foreigners an impression of a country very much
closed. Foreigners are called "gaijin," that is to say, outsiders and