LITERATURE REVIEW
Sociolinguistics is an important field of study because the language used by a community is extremely indicative of the inner workings and dynamics of that community. Following the 2011 March 11 disasters, which consisted of an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster at Fukushima, the language used by the Japanese was very revealing of public opinion towards the events. The Japanese began referring to Fukushima in Katakana instead of Kanji to distinguish the disaster from the city, just as they speak about Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Japan Copes with Calamity 2015).
The words a society uses are very suggestive of underlying sentiments that may not be directly apparent. Equating Fukushima with the atomic bomb incidents shows just how disdainfully the Japanese look upon it. Similarly, linguistic differences between genders can be very revealing of unspoken sexism that exists within the society. People might not even be aware of the rules that they are following, because they exist subconsciously. Studying these rules from a scientific perspective, we can learn more about the places of males and females in the structure of Japanese society.
In 1985, Katsue Akiba Reynolds published a categorical study explaining that male speech is more assertive than female speech. She then claimed that women rarely use neutral gendered terms, because they are perceived as impolite. However, this study is rather crude in its interpretation of female speech, and assumes that all female forms are less assertive. This is one of the earliest studies that directly examines linguistic differences in male and female speech, and makes very bold interpretations. When interpreting categorical results, it is also important to consider the influence of other variables, such as status, and how these variables may also influence speech forms used. Reynolds also asserts that in 1985, images of women had not changed drastically, and women were supposed to behave onna-rasika, or “what is expected of women” (Reynolds 1985).
This concept of rather unmoving gender roles over decades is concisely summarized by Max Adler in 1978 when he wrote that “Japan has changed astoundingly little and remained very conservative,” despite a century of swift modernization, and that this lack of change is manifested in “ways in which women are supposed to use language” (Adler 1978). This is part of the reason that Japanese is such an interesting example: after a period of extremely rapid industrialization, which elevated Japan to one of the most powerful countries in the world, social change has been relatively stagnant.
In 1986, Sachiko Ide conducted a study to quantify different degrees of politeness in men and women in Tokyo. She found that when spoken to at a certain degree of politeness, women are expected to respond even more politely, or else they will be perceived as being rude. Men and women cannot converse with each other using the same degree of politeness. Ide also interestingly found that women use profanity and phonological reduction less frequently than men. This is an example of complying with overt prestige, of what is thought to be the “correct” dialect. Although linguistic correctness is arbitrary, often women are keener to comply with these prescriptive rules in order to be perceived as more prestigious in society. It is part conscious and part subconscious. Much of the linguistic shortening and profanity that is common in male speech is not used by women, and is likely a show of overt masculinity (Ide 1986). To follow up on these examples in my qualitative research, I opened a dialogue about the use of profanity and vulgar speech, and how that has changed generationally, in regards to what is socially acceptable in different settings.
Almost a decade later after Ide’s study, in 1995, feminist and linguist Hideko Abe points out that the linguistic study of female speech is very underrepresented because women have been marginalized for so long, that there is not an abundance of data that explores it. For this reason, it is not a topic that is extremely well investigated by scholars, Japanese or otherwise. It is an important field of study because it examines the unspoken spheres where men and women exist in society. By examining and understanding the unspoken rules of these spheres, they can begin to be broken down methodically in order to elevate women’s social status. Also, there are negative stereotypes of stupidity and inferiority that are associated with women’s speech.
Throughout the process of this project, I found that the social boundaries that bar women from being seen as equivalent to men are still very real, even in 2019. Also, there are many conflicting claims regarding how women speak differently, because how people perceive they speak is often different than how they actually speak. This is due to the limits of human perception, and is something I will need to be aware of when conducting my research.