Item Details

Variability and multiplicity in the meanings of stereotypical gendered speech in Japanese

Issue: Vol 1 No. 1 (2016)

Journal: East Asian Pragmatics

Subject Areas:

DOI: 10.1558/eap.v1i1.27953

Abstract:

Recent research on the use of gendered speech in Japanese has demonstrated extensive within-gender diversity, suggesting that the relationship between linguistic forms and gender is variable, not fixed. While this diversity in use suggests a diversity in interpretation, the latter has not been adequately examined in its own right and deserves closer attention, given that it has important implications for the relationship between linguistic forms and social meanings. To address this gap, this study analyses both native speakers’ metapragmatic comments on the use of gendered linguistic forms and the interpretation of such forms used in situated conversations. It considers how and why forms normatively interpreted as feminine or masculine may be (re)interpreted differently by different persons or in different social contexts. Drawing on the notion of variable indexicality, I consider how such diverse and multiple interpretations can be accounted for in a theoretically coherent manner.

Author: Shigeko Okamoto

View Original Web Page

References :

Abe, H. (2010). Queer Japanese: Gender and sexual identities through linguistic practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Agha, A. (2005). Voice, footing, and enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 15(1), 38-59.

Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bohn, M. T. & Matsumoto, Y. (2008). Young women in the Meiji period as linguistic trendsetters. Gender and Language, 2(1), 9-44.

Briggs, C. L. (1998). "You're a liar--You're just like a woman!": Constructing dominant ideologies of language in Warao men's gossip. In B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard, & P. V. Kroskrity (Eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory (pp. 229-255). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bucholtz, M. (2014). The feminist foundations of language, gender, and sexuality research. In S. Ehrlich, M. Meyerhoff, & J. Holmes (Eds.), The handbook of language, gender, and sexuality, 2nd edition (pp. 24-47). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

Bucholtz, M. & Hall, K. (2004). Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research. Language in Society, 33, 469-515.

Bucholtz, M. & Lopez, Q. (2011). Performing blackness,
forming whiteness: Linguistic minstrelsy in Hollywood film. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(5), 680-706.

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. London: Routledge.

Cameron, D. (1997). Performing gender identity: young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In S. Johnson & U. H. Meinhof (Eds.), Language and masculinity (pp. 47-64). Oxford: Blackwell.

Cole, D. & Pellicer, R. (2012). Uptake (un)limited: The mediatization of register shifting in US public discourse. Language in Society, 41, 449-470.

Duranti, A. (1993). Truth and intentionality: an ethnographic critique. Cultural Anthropology, 8, 214-245.

Eckert, P. (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(4), 453-476.

Eckert, P. & McConnell-Ginet, S. (2013). Language and gender (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Endo, O. 遠藤織枝 (1997). Onna no kotoba no bunkashi 女のことばの文化史 (A cultural history of Japanese women's language). Tokyo: Gakuyō Shobō.

Gal, S. (1998). Multiplicity and contention among language ideologies: A commentary. In B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard, & P. V. Kroskrity (Eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory (pp. 317-331). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Inoue, M. (2004). Gender, language, and modernity: Toward an effective history of "Japanese women's language." In S. Okamoto & Shibamoto Smith, J. S. (Eds.) (pp. 57-75).

Inoue, M. (2006). Vicarious language: The political economy of gender and speech in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Irvine, J. R. & Gal, S. (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities (pp. 35-83). Santa Fe NM: School of American Research Press/Oxford: James Currey.

Johnstone, B. (2013). Indexing the local. In N. Coupland (Ed.), The handbook of language and globalization, paperback edition (pp. 386-405). Oxford: Blackwell.

Kinsui, S. (2003). Vācharu Nihongo: Yakuwarigo no nazo (Virtual Japanese: The mysteries of role language). Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten.

Kroskrity, P. V. 2000. Regimenting languages: Language ideological perspectives. In P. V. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities (pp. 1-34). Santa Fe NM: School of American Research Press/Oxford: James Currey.

Maree, C. (2011). Crossing into print: Writing queerness/reinforcing heteronormative beauty in self-help manuals. Paper presented at the 2011 International Pragmatics Conference, Manchester, England.

Maree, C. クレア・マリイ(2013). ‘Onee kotoba’-ron 「おネエことば」論 (A theory of ‘onee language’). Tōkyō: Seidosha.

Matsumoto, Y. (1996). Does less feminine speech in Japanese mean less femininity? In N. Warner, J. Ahlers, L. Bilmes, M. Oliver, S. Wertheim, & M. Chen (Eds.), Gender and belief systems: Proceedings of the 4th Berkeley Women and Language Conference (pp. 455-467). Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group.

McConnell-Ginet, S. (2014). Meaning-making and ideologies of gender and sexuality. In S. Ehrlich, M. Meyerhoff, & J. Holmes (Eds.), The handbook of language, gender, and sexuality, 2nd edition (pp. 316-334). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

Mills, S. & Mullany, L. (2011). Language and feminism: Theory, methodology and practice. New York: Routledge.

Milroy, J. (2001). Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5(4), 530-555.

Miyazaki, A. (2004). Japanese junior high school girls’ and boys’ first-person pronoun use and their social world. In S. Okamoto & Shibamoto Smith, J. S. (Eds.) (pp. 92-109).

Mizumoto, T. 水本光美 (2006). Terebi dorama to jisshakai ni okeru josee bunmatsushi shiyoo no zure ni miru jendaa firutaa テレビドラマと実社会における女性分末使用のずれにみるジェンダーフィルタ (The gender filter as seen in discrepancies in women’s use of sentence-final forms in television dramas vs. real society). In Nihongo Jendaa Gakkai (Japanese Gender Association) (Ed.), Nihongo to Jendaa 日本語とジェンダー (Japanese and Gender) (pp. 73-94). Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobō.

Nakamura, M. 中村桃子 (2007a). "Onnakotoba" wa tsukurareru 「女ことば」はつくられる(“Women’s language is constructed). Tokyo: Hitsuzi Shobō.

Nakamura, M. 中村桃子 (2007b). “Sei” to Nihongo: Kotoba ga Tsukuru Onna to Otoko「性」と日本語:ことばがつくる女と男 (Sex and the Japanese Language: Women and Men Constructed by Language). Tokyo: NHK Shuppan Kyōkai.

Nakamura, M. (2014). Gender, language and ideology: A genealogy of Japanese women’s language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ochs, E. (1992). Indexing gender. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 335-358). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Okada, M. (2008). When the coach is a woman: The situated meanings of so-called masculine directives in a Japanese boxing gym. In J. Mori & A. Snyder Ohta (Eds.), Japanese applied linguistics: Discourse and social perspectives (pp. 160–187. New 720 York: Continuum.

Okamoto, S. (1995). "Tasteless" Japanese: Less "feminine" speech among young Japanese women. In K. Hall and M. Bucholtz (Eds.), Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self (pp. 297-325). New York: Routledge.

Okamoto, S. 岡本成子 (2010). Kotoba-bijin ni naru hō: Josei no hanashikata o oshieru jitsuyōsho no bunseki 言葉美人になる法:女性の話し方を教える実用書の分析 (How to become language beauty: Analysis of self-help books that teach women how to talk). Nihongo to Jendaa 日本語とジェンダー (Japanese Language and Gender), 10: 1-24.

Okamoto, S & Sato, S. 1992. Less feminine speech among young Japanese females. In K. Hall, M. Bucholtz, and B. Moonwomon (Eds.), Locating power: Proceedings of the 2nd Berkeley Women and Language Conference (pp. 478-488). Berkeley: Women and Language Group, University of California.

Okamoto, S. & Shibamoto Smith, J. S. (eds.). 2004. Japanese language, gender, and ideology: Cultural models and real people. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Okamoto, S. & Shibamoto Smith, J. S. 2008. Constructing linguistic femininity in contemporary Japan: Scholarly and popular representations. Gender and Language, 2(1), 87-112.

Okamoto, S. & Shibamoto Smith, J. S. Forthcoming. The social life of the Japanese language: Cultural discourses and situated practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. London: Routledge.

Rampton, B. (1995). Crossing: Language and ethnicity among adolescents. London: Longman.

Satake, K. 佐竹久仁子 (2003). Terebi anime no rufu-suru ‘onna kotoba/otoko kotoba’ kihan テレビアニメの流布する「女ことば/男ことば」規範 (Norms for ‘women’s language and men’s language disseminated by TV anime). Kotoba ことば (Language), 24, 43-59.

Shibamoto-Smith, J. S. & Chand, V. (2013). Linguistic anthropology. In R. Bayley, R. Cameron, and C. Lucas (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of sociolinguistics (pp. 70-96). London: Oxford University Press.

Silverstein, M. (1985). Language and the culture of gender: At the intersection of structure, usage, and ideology. In E. Mertz and R. J. Parmentier (Eds), Semiotic mediation: Sociocultural and psychological perspectives (pp. 219-259). New York: Academic Press.

Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication, 23, 193-229.

SturtzSreetharan, C. L. (2004). Students, sarariiman (pl.), and seniors: Japanese men’s use of “manly” speech register. Language in Society, 33, 81-107.

SturtzSreetharan, C. L. (2009). Ore and omae Japanese men’s uses of first- and second-person pronouns. Journal of Pragmatics, 19(2), 253-278.

Sunaoshi, Y. (2004). Farm women's professional discourse in Ibaraki. In S. Okamoto & Shibamoto Smith, J. S. (Eds.) (pp. 187-204). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tanaka, Y. 田中ゆかり (2011). "Hōgen kosu pure" no jidai: Nise-Kansaiben kara Ryōma-go made 「方言コスプレ」の時代:ニセ関西弁から龍馬語まで (The era of dialect costume play: From fake Kansai Dialect to Ryōma Language). Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten.