Emotional and Moral Impressions Associated with Buddhist Religious Terms in Japanese Blogs-Preliminary Analysis

Jagna Nieuwazny, Fumito Masui, Michal Ptaszynski, Kenji Araki, Rafal Rzepka, Karol Nowakowski

Abstract: This paper is an attempt at analyzing how much religious vocabulary (in this case Buddhist vocabulary taken from a large scale dictionary of Buddhist terms available online) is present in everyday Japanese social space (in this case in a repository of blog entries form the Ameba blog service) and thus in the consciousness of people. We also investigate and what associations (positive or negative) it generates, thus indicating the connotations associated with several Buddhist terms – whether expressions containing Buddhist vocabulary are considered proper or not from a moral point of view – as well as the emotional response of Internet users to Buddhist terminology.