Gender and Language

Language, gender and sexuality in Japanese popular media

Momoko Nakamura — 2020-09-02

Rewriting Language: How Literary Texts Can Promote Inclusive Language Use by Christiane Luck (2020)

Donna L. Lillian — 2020-09-02

Rewriting Language: How Literary Texts Can Promote Inclusive Language Use

Christiane Luck (2020)

London: UCL Press, 204 pp.

Queer, Latinx, and Bilingual: Narrative Resources in the Negotiation of Identities by Holly Cashman (2018)

Douglas Sanque — 2020-09-02

Queer, Latinx, and Bilingual: Narrative Resources in the Negotiation of Identities

Holly Cashman (2018)

New York: Routledge, 205 pp.

Masculinity, race and national identity

Satoko Suzuki — 2020-09-02

Language ideologies have been of central concern to the study of Japanese language, gender and society. Many scholars have researched ideologies surrounding representations of Japanese women’s speech; however, investigations of representations of men’s speech have been limited. This study contributes to filling this gap through the analysis of non-Japanese male characters found in contemporary Japanese novels. The article reveals that authors assign strongly masculine expressions to their East Asian characters much more frequently than to their white characters and argues that these differentiated representations of non-Japanese male characters’ speech reproduce and are influenced by ideologies concerning cultural nationalism, racial determinism, class and sexuality. Linguistic data are presented that both unsettle the constructed image of Asian males as asexual beings and question the historically assumed relationship between gendered language and authenticity.

The formation of a sociolinguistic style in translation

Momoko Nakamura — 2020-09-02

This paper illustrates the powerful role of translation in creating a sociolinguistic style. Through a quantitative survey of Japanese native speakers and a qualitative analysis of translated speech in an imported TV show and its Japanese parody, the study shows that Japanese translation practices have invented and preserved a widely recognised Japanese style associated with non-Japanese men. The study demonstrates that the style is linked with an image of non-Japanese young men characterised by cool informality; that it is marked by the use of linguistic features not commonly used among native speakers; and that it can be used to enregister a negative stereotype of non-Japanese masculinity, which serves to legitimate a polite, formal, Japanese normative masculinity. The findings suggest that translation is a process in which dominant ideologies of the target-language culture can be reinforced through the voices and bodies of nonnatives.

Identity and category construction of the sengyoshufu (‘househusband’) in Japanese TV shows

Chie Fukuda — 2020-09-02

This study illustrates the discursive construction of the househusband in Japanese TV shows as a situated gender practice. Although the category of sengyoshufu ‘househusband’ has existed since at least the 1980s in Japan, the dominance of the ideology of ‘salaryman masculinity’ has ensured its marginalisation. The recent emergence of the househusband as a topic in mainstream media discourse reflects a social change in the gendered division of labour in Japan. Employing conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis, this study explores how participants in TV shows constitute the identity and category of househusband, drawing on verbal and embodied resources in interaction. Through this analysis, the study reveals both positive and covertly negative attitudes towards househusbands, suggesting that the ‘traditional’ gendered division of labour in Japan is in transition.

Contesting and advocating gender ideologies

Junko Saito — 2020-09-02

Previous scholars have identified sarariman (salaried men), who prioritise work over family, as the ideal of hegemonic masculinity in Japan. This study focuses on sarariman characters’ language use in the workplace as depicted in the 2015 Japanese TV drama Age Harassment. Employing the concepts of stance and hegemonic masculinities, the study demonstrates that, in this mediatised representation, the sarariman characters draw on diverse gender ideologies to display masculine identities. Using online commentary, the study also explores audience members’ responses to the drama’s depiction of masculinities. The study’s analysis of these two types of data suggests that despite increasing social acceptance of more diverse masculinities, the stereotypical sarariman remains to some extent the hegemonic ideal in contemporary Japan.

Creation of femininity in Japanese televised “beauty ads”

Natalia Konstantinovskaia — 2020-09-02

Advertising is a powerful tool that encapsulates and reinforces gender ideologies through the repeated presentation of stereotyped visions of femininity. In response to societal change, however, advertising has recently begun to incorporate postfeminist ideals of ‘power femininity’ alongside traditional gender stereotypes (Lazar 2014). In Japan, this duality is further complicated by the dominant spread of kawaii‘cuteness’, which has become a crucial feature of normative femininity. The present work demonstrates the importance of investigating Japanese television advertisements to uncover the layered nature of women’s portrayals, which blend traditional gender roles and the reigning contemporary ideology of kawaii, along with sporadic infusions of postfeminist values. Based on quantitative and qualitative multi-modal discourse analysis, this article examines the use of women’s language and visual images in 50 Japanese televised ‘beauty ads,’ exploring the tactics they use to maintain and promulgate an idealized but powerless femininity of kawaii.

Nerdy girls talking gross

Giancarla Unser-Schutz — 2020-09-02

This article examines how people view language use in manga (Japanese comic books and graphic novels) through an analysis of posts on a Japanese online bulletin board system. The analysis uncovers three central assumptions regarding texts understood as manga: they lack linguistic sophistication; their linguistic authenticity is problematic; and they negatively impact real-world speech. In the posts, language in manga is often assigned a vaguely negative influence on communication skills, and engagement with manga is foregrounded as a problematic social issue. Beliefs about language in manga parallel commonly held beliefs about language used by otaku ‘nerds/fans’, suggesting that metapragmatic stereotypes have expanded from media users to the media itself. Such criticism often targets women: although otaku are normatively viewed as male, women seen as encroaching masculine forms of engagement with manga may also receive criticism. The article thus contributes to an understanding of how perceptions of language and gender in media are formed.