Japanese women’s language use and regional language varieties
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.61Keywords:
regional dialects, Japan, microanalysis, representations of linguistic femininity, interactional sociolinguisticsAbstract
This paper addresses the paucity of research on women’s language use in regional Japan by investigating Iwate Dialect (ID) and Japanese Women’s Language (JWL) in face-to-face interactions among women in northeastern Japan. By bringing a consideration of region to bear on investigations of women’s language use in Japan, the aim is to contribute to work that breaks down essentialist categories of “the way Japanese women speak” to a more fruitful focus on the range of resources women employ in situated interactions. Analysis is based on ethnographic data and a close analysis of interactions, and focuses on speakers’ use of ID and JWL as devices for negotiating roles. Findings show ID is used by speakers in hesitating to take on a high-status role, and to mitigate direct challenges to claims made by other participants. JWL features are used when reiterating a point or disclaiming a role.
References
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Ochs, elinor (1992) indexing gender. in alessandro duranti and charles goodwin (eds) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon 335–357. new york: cambridge university press.
Okada, misao (2006) speaker’s sex or discourse activities? a micro-discoursebased account of usage of nonparticle questions in japanese. Language in Society 35: 341–365.
Okamoto, shigeko (1995) ‘tasteless’ japanese: less ‘feminine’ speech among young japanese women. in kira Hall and mary Bucholz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self 297–325. new york: routledge.
Okamoto, shigeko (1997) social context, linguistic ideology, and indexical expressions in japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997): 795–817. doi:10.1016/s0378-2166(97)81491-9
Ookamoto, shigeko (2004). ideology in linguistic practice and analysis: gender and politeness in japanese revisited. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 38–56. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Okamoto, shigeko (2007) kaiwa no naka no ‘hougen’ to ‘hyoojungo’ (‘regional dialects’ and ‘standard japanese’ in conversations). Gengo (Language) 36(3): 53–61.
Okamoto, shigeko and shibamoto smith, janet s. (eds) (2004) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People. oxford/ new york: oxford university press.
Okamoto, shigeko and shibamoto smith, janet s. (2008) constructing linguistic femininity in contemporary japan: scholarly and popular representations. Gender and Language 2 (1): 87–112. doi:10.1558/genl.v2i1.87
Reynolds, katsue akiba (1985) female speakers of japanese. Feminist Issues 5: 13–46. doi:10.1007/Bf02685576
S
Snada, shinji and long, daniel (1997) Shakai gengogaku zush?: Japanese Sociolinguistics Illustrated. tokyo: akiyama shoten.
Satoh, kazuyuki and yoneda, masato (1999) D? naru nihon no kotoba (What will happen to language in Japan?). tokyo: taishukan shoten.
Schiffrin, deborah (1994) Approaches to Discourse. cambridge: Blackwell.
Shibamoto, janet s. (1985) Japanese Women’s Language. new york fl: academic press.
Shibamoto, janet s. (1987) The womanly woman: manipulation of stereotypical and nonstereotypical features of japanese female speech. in susan u. phillips, susan steele and christine tanz (eds) Language, Gender and Sex in Comparative Perspective 26–49. new york: cambridge university press
Sturtz sreetharan, cindi (2004) japanese men’s linguistic stereotypes and realities: conversations from the kansai and kanto regions. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) in Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 275–289. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Sunaoshi, yukako (2004) farm women’s professional discourse in ibaraki. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 187–204. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Tamanoi, mariko asano (1999) japanese nationalism and the female body: a critical reassessment of the discourse of social reformers on factory women. in Hitomi tonomura, anne walthall, and wakita Haruko (eds) Women and Class in Japanese History 275–298. ann arbor: center for japanese studies, university of michigan.
Terkourafi, marina (2005) Beyond the micro-level in politeness research. Journal of Politeness Research 1(2005): 237–262.
Bourdieu, pierre (1991) Language and symbolic power. cambridge: cambridge university press.
Buckley, sandra (ed.) (1997) Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism. Berkeley: university of california press.
Cherry, kittridge (1987). Womansword: What Japanese Words Say about Women. tokyo and new york: kodansha international.
Cook, Haruko minegishi (1999) situational meanings of japanese social deixis: the mixed use of the masu and plain forms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8(1): 87–110.
De kok, Bregje christina (2008) The role of context in conversation analysis: reviving an interest in ethno-methods. Pragmatics 40 (5): 886–903.
Drew, paul and Heritage, john (eds) (1992) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. cambridge: cambridge university press.
Endo, orie (1995) aspects of sexism in language. in kumiko fujimura-fanselow and atsuko kameda (eds) Japanese women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future 29–42. new york: The feminist press.
Geyer, naomi (2008) Discourse and Politeness: Ambivalent Face in Japanese. london: continuum.
Hanzawa, Hiroki (2000). Hougen ishiki (dialect attitudes). in tsuyoshi kobayashi (ed.) Miyagi- ken Sendai-shi hougen no kenkyuu (sendai, miyagi prefecture dialect research) 145–156. sendai: t?hoku university japanese language research group.
Hondoh, Hiroshi (1982) iwate-ken no hougen (dialects in iwate prefecture). in ki’ichi iitoyo, sukezumi Hino and shoh’ichi satoh (eds) Kouza hougen-gaku 4: Hokkaido/Tohoku chihou no hougen 237–269.tokyo: kokushokan gyoukai.
Hondoh, Hiroshi (1994a) (1977) iwate-ken hougen ni okeru keigo chitsujo ni tsuite no ikkousatsu (a consideration of the honorific system – keigo – in iwate prefecture dialects). in f. inoue, t. kobayashi, and t. ohnishi (eds) Nihon rettou hougen sousho: Tohoku hougen so, Iwate-ken, Miyagi-ken, Fukushima-ken 375–388. tokyo: yamani shobo.
Hondoh, Hiroshi (1994b) [1977] iwate-ken hougen no keitou to kukaku ni tsuite (iwate prefecture dialects: systems and regions). in f. inoue, t. kobayashi, and t. ohnishi (eds) Nihon rettou hougen sousho: Tohoku hougen so, Iwate-ken, Miyagi-ken, Fukushima-ken 431–459. tokyo: yamani shobo.
Hondoh, Hiroshi (1994c) (1975) chiiki shakai no kyoutsuugoka: iwate-ken shimano-gun kawai-mura no gengo henyou (language standardization in regional societies: language change in kawai Village, iwate prefecture). in f. inoue, t. kobayashi, and t. ohnishi (eds) Nihon rettou hougen sousho: Tohoku hougen so, Iwate-ken, Miyagi-ken, Fukushima-ken 475–485. tokyo: yamani shobo.
Ide, sachiko (1982) japanese sociolinguistics: politeness and women’s language. Lingua 57: 357–385.
Inoue, miyako (2004) gender, language and modernity: toward an effective history of ‘japanese women’s language’. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 57–75. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Inoue, miyako (2006) Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan. Berkeley/ los angeles/london: university of california press.
Jones, kimberly and ono, tsuyoshi (2008) Style Shifting in Japanese. amsterdam and philadelphia: john Benjamins publishing.
Keating, elizabeth (2001) The Ethnography of Communication. in paul atkinson, amanda coffey, sara delamont, lyn lofland, and john lofland (eds) Handbook of Ethnography 100–130. london and Thousand oaks, ca: sage publications.
Long, daniel (2001) searching for native dialect identity through perceptual dialect maps. Nihongo Kenkyuu 21: 33–49.
Mcgloin, naomi H. (1990) sex difference and sentence-final particles. in s. ide and n.H. mcgloin (eds) Aspects of Japanese Women’s Language 23–41 tokyo: kuroshio.
Matsumoto, yoshiko (2004) alternative femininity: personae of middle-aged mothers. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 240–255. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Morita, emi (2005) Negotiation of Contingent Talk: The Japanese Interactional Particles ne and sa. amsterdam and philadelphia: john Benjamins publishing company.
Ochs, elinor (1992) indexing gender. in alessandro duranti and charles goodwin (eds) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon 335–357. new york: cambridge university press.
Okada, misao (2006) speaker’s sex or discourse activities? a micro-discoursebased account of usage of nonparticle questions in japanese. Language in Society 35: 341–365.
Okamoto, shigeko (1995) ‘tasteless’ japanese: less ‘feminine’ speech among young japanese women. in kira Hall and mary Bucholz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self 297–325. new york: routledge.
Okamoto, shigeko (1997) social context, linguistic ideology, and indexical expressions in japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 28 (1997): 795–817. doi:10.1016/s0378-2166(97)81491-9
Ookamoto, shigeko (2004). ideology in linguistic practice and analysis: gender and politeness in japanese revisited. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 38–56. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Okamoto, shigeko (2007) kaiwa no naka no ‘hougen’ to ‘hyoojungo’ (‘regional dialects’ and ‘standard japanese’ in conversations). Gengo (Language) 36(3): 53–61.
Okamoto, shigeko and shibamoto smith, janet s. (eds) (2004) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People. oxford/ new york: oxford university press.
Okamoto, shigeko and shibamoto smith, janet s. (2008) constructing linguistic femininity in contemporary japan: scholarly and popular representations. Gender and Language 2 (1): 87–112. doi:10.1558/genl.v2i1.87
Reynolds, katsue akiba (1985) female speakers of japanese. Feminist Issues 5: 13–46. doi:10.1007/Bf02685576
S
Snada, shinji and long, daniel (1997) Shakai gengogaku zush?: Japanese Sociolinguistics Illustrated. tokyo: akiyama shoten.
Satoh, kazuyuki and yoneda, masato (1999) D? naru nihon no kotoba (What will happen to language in Japan?). tokyo: taishukan shoten.
Schiffrin, deborah (1994) Approaches to Discourse. cambridge: Blackwell.
Shibamoto, janet s. (1985) Japanese Women’s Language. new york fl: academic press.
Shibamoto, janet s. (1987) The womanly woman: manipulation of stereotypical and nonstereotypical features of japanese female speech. in susan u. phillips, susan steele and christine tanz (eds) Language, Gender and Sex in Comparative Perspective 26–49. new york: cambridge university press
Sturtz sreetharan, cindi (2004) japanese men’s linguistic stereotypes and realities: conversations from the kansai and kanto regions. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) in Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 275–289. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Sunaoshi, yukako (2004) farm women’s professional discourse in ibaraki. in shigeko okamoto and janet s. shibamoto smith (eds) Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People 187–204. oxford/new york: oxford university press.
Tamanoi, mariko asano (1999) japanese nationalism and the female body: a critical reassessment of the discourse of social reformers on factory women. in Hitomi tonomura, anne walthall, and wakita Haruko (eds) Women and Class in Japanese History 275–298. ann arbor: center for japanese studies, university of michigan.
Terkourafi, marina (2005) Beyond the micro-level in politeness research. Journal of Politeness Research 1(2005): 237–262.
Published
2011-07-20
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Didi-Ogren, H. H. K. (2011). Japanese women’s language use and regional language varieties. Gender and Language, 5(1), 61-87. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.61
