First Personal Pronouns in Children's Stories Appeared in Akai-Tori : With a Focus on Miekichi Suzuki

This study attempts to examine first personal pronouns found within children's stories that appear in Akai-Tori with a primary focus on Miekichi Suzuki. Akai-Tori a magazine for children, first published in 1918 by Suzuki is recognized as the origin of all modern Japanese children literature. This research was conducted on children's stories found in copies of Akai-Tori printed between 1918-1929, focusing on stories written by 15 selected authors. The results are as follows:1) Akai-tori uses 14 forms of first personal pronouns that occurred 3719 times throughout the texts. 2) Suzuki uses more forms of first personal pronouns than other authors. 3) Suzuki uses boku solely referring to male children, while other authors use it to address male children and adults. 4) Occurrences of oira and ora are rare, and non-existent in Suzuki's writings. Finally results indicate that through his varied use of first personal pronouns, Suzuki succeeded in creating defined character boundaries, and that Akai-Tori perhaps contributed to the establishment of modern Japanese usage of first personal pronouns