Chinese and Japanese ‘laughter’ onomatopoeia

Abstract This study documents onomatopoeia of laughter in Chinese comics and their Japanese translations, by comparing the translation of Chinese laughter onomatopoeia into Japanese laughter onomatopoeia and then by observing and analyzing the sentence-ending particle. The study ultimately seeks to examine the similarities and differences between two languages as their laughter onomatopoeia discourse markers. The results indicate that the onomatopoeia of laughter appears in both languages to describe social and aggressive laughter through discourse markers that advance the flow of conversation. In Chinese face threatening contexts, speakers generally use the onomatopoeia of laughter, where in the Japanese context, speakers largely resort to using a sentence-ending particle, and in the process to alleviate embarrassment.