Unfortunately, things are rarely so neat and Oyama’s analysis has certain shortcomings. The sample of texts she draws on is limited and she omits any mention of the directional environment from which the images were drawn. As will be seen, in Japan, where directionality is unstable, context play a singularly important role. Furthermore, as I will show, the notion of ‘the traditional way of writing Japanese’ needs careful examination.
Oyama’s analysis is based on consideration of;
- one exit sign from the UK and one from Japan (reproduced in Oyama 2001), and
- four ‘before and after’ printed advertisements, two from Japan and two from the UK.
It seems reasonable to assume that Oyama’s Japanese exit sign points to the left (and carries the illustration of the figure exiting to the left) because that is the direction in which the exit lies, and similarly the sign from the UK points to an exit located spatially to the right of the viewer. If the physical location of the exits were reversed so, perhaps, would be the signs.
Having said that, the exit signs shown in fig.2 do seem to back up Oyama’s observation. Where the physical relationship of the sign to its referent is ambiguous (to exit in either direction would make equal spatial sense here) there may be a preference in Japan for RL directionality. My point here is that Oyama, while arriving at what might be an acceptable analysis, does so via inadequate evidence, seemingly having ignored any possible physical relationship – that is, the situational context – of her texts (the exits signs) and their referents.