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This volume invites the reader into the world of pragmatic and discourse studies in Japanese popular culture. Through \"character-speak\", the book analyzes quoted speech in light (graphic) novels, the effeminate onee kotoba in talk shows, narrative character in keetai (mobile phone) novels, floating whispers in manga, and fictionalized dialects in television drama series. Explorations into conversational interaction, internal monologue, rhetorical figures, intertextuality, and the semiotic mediation between verbal and visual signs reveal how speakers manipulate language in performing playful \"characters\" and \"characteristics\". Most prominent in the discourse of Japanese popular culture is its \"fluid orality\". We find the essential oral nature in and across genres of Japanese popular culture, and observe seamless transitions among styles and speech variations. This fluidity is understood as a feature of polyphonic speech initiated not by the so-called ideal singular speaker, but by a multiple and often shifting interplay of one's speaking selves performing as various characters. Challenging traditional (Western) linguistic theories founded on the concept of the autonomous speaker, this study ventures into open and embracing pragmatic and discourse studies that inquire into the very nature of our speaking selves.

In Bali, honorifics serve as interactional tools determined by the situational context of discourse. In this regard, the present research aimed to uncover patterns of honorific usage in intercultural marriages between Japanese and Balinese individuals within the realm of pragmatic studies. The researchers employed observation along with data collection techniques involving listening, note-taking, and interviewing families of Japanese-Balinese intermarriages. Primary data consisted of dialogues among intermarried families in the districts of Badung, Gianyar, and Denpasar City, considering the high frequency of intercultural marriages in these regions in Bali. The findings revealed a dynamic interplay of honorifics within the context of cross-cultural marriages, shedding light on how language interaction reflected and shaped social interaction norms based on the context of cross-cultural marriages. Specifically, honorifics for Balinese women and children followed the social status of the father's family. Naming conventions for women from the Wangsa Jaba caste, including foreign citizens married to men from the Tri Wangsa caste, involved a process termed \"perkawinan naik status\" (status-elevating marriage), where the woman was given the honorific \"jero\" followed by her first name. In contrast, those not belonging to the Wangsa Jaba caste were named according to the birth order of the Japanese woman. This condition also applied to children born from intercultural marriages. Considering these results, this research is expected to contribute significantly to the academic literature on cultural anthropology, linguistics, and cross-cultural studies, offering insights into tolerance, appreciation of differences, and the ability to adapt to cross-cultural relationships.

Japanese society’s traditional gender norms are reflected by sentence-final particles (SFPs) in daily conversation. However, recently, Japanese young people have started to use gendered SFPs in “unclassical” ways. This study mainly examines the usage of the so-called “female” SFPs wa and no by male speakers. In total, 68 cases of wa (43 by male speakers and 25 by female speakers) and 84 cases of no (47 by male speakers and 37 by female speakers) usage were collected from casual conversations of Japanese college students in TalkBank, a public linguistic database. This study demonstrates that the “female” SFPs wa and no are used more frequently by male speakers than by female speakers. Different from the female speakers’ usage to soften the utterances and enhance conversational rapport, wa and no used by male speakers perform other functions. In particular, wa directly indexes self-centeredness, serving the speaker to express emotion, share personal ideas, or perform speech acts such as teasing or amae in a self-focused way, while no directly indexes truthfulness, which allows the speaker to share a story in a vivid tone, reconfirm the speaker’s prior statement, or provide the speaker’s explanation/reasoning in an assertive tone. This study suggests that the new, unconventional gender-based usages of SFPs reveal the social changes in gender dynamics in modern Japanese society, which should not be overlooked in language education.

Linguistic insecurity about polite registers constitutes a serious barrier for any new speakers specifically in settings between parents and children or between married couples. Politeness might very well be the register that prevents new speakers from either learning or using their heritage language. This paper examines the current use of honorifics in Okinawan between parents and children, and between married couples. It examines the use and awareness of honorifics in the family domain, paying due attention to situations when honorifics are used without causing communicative and sociolinguistic problems. Two families serve as a case study, including myself and my parents. The results of the analysis of the two families illustrate that the traditional honorific system (use of strict honorifics) has changed to fit modern life and that its accompanying values are characteristic of contemporary Okinawan society. We found that honorifics are rarely used in Okinawan conversations between married couples both by rusty speakers and semi-speaker. The use of honorifics between parents and children (semi-speaker) has been also moderated. If such flexible use of honorifics is adopted at home, there may be a possibility of intergenerational transmission of Okinawan within the family. Lastly, I introduce the opinion of new speakers, all in their 20s, about the use of honorifics. The y do not wish fluent speakers to criticize their mistakes one by one, but they still want fluent speakers to correct crucial errors to master honorifics step by step.

Based on extensive original research, this book explores the early educational experiences of foreign children in Japan. It considers foreign children's experiences of Japanese schools, examines the special tutoring such children often have to improve their language proficiency, and explores the role of mothers in encouraging their children's education. It contrasts the experiences of foreign children with those of Japanese children and sets out the extensive difficulties foreign children encounter in becoming fully accepted by and integrated into Japanese society. The book concludes by discussing the nature of citizenship in Japan and the importance of education, including early education, in shaping Japanese citizenship.

This book is the first full-length study in English to examine the use of discriminatory language in Japan. As in other countries, there has been much debate about the public use of language deemed demeaning to certain groups within society especially in relation to the issue of minority rights versus freedom of speech. Adding a new dimension to the discussion of language and society in Japan, the book focuses on an aspect of language and power which highlights some of the dissent underlying Japan’s officially promoted ideology of a harmonious society. The text presents a revealing examination of the discriminatory language, known as sabetsu yogo , as identified by five minority groups, the Burakumin, the Ainu, people with physical or mental disabilities, women and ethnic groups within Japan

This article investigates cultural interactions and influences between Japan and Taiwan in the realm of popular culture during the later half of the colonial period and the immediate postcolonial era (1920s to 1960s). In particular, it focuses on the genre of crime fiction, a genre that enjoyed widespread readership that cut across all spectrum of the colonial society. It examines the history and scope of crime fiction as a transnational genre fiction that first emerged in Anglo-American literary production in the mid-nineteenth century. Its rapid dissemination, first to Japan and then to its colonies, serves as an indicator for one to track the trajectory of a cultural current that emphasizes scientific methods and logical, deductive reasoning. Using close reading of several (post)colonial texts that involved ethnic body, local and cosmopolitan identities, social chaos caused by crime and the restoration of social order and colonial authority. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Presenting new approaches and results previously inaccessible in English, the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics provides an insight into the languages and society of contemporary Japan from a fresh perspective. While it was once believed that Japan was a linguistically homogenous country, research over the past two decades has shown Japan to be a multilingual and sociolinguistically diversifying country. Building on this approach, the contributors to this handbook take this further, combining Japanese and western approaches alike and producing research which is relevant to twenty-first century societies. Organised into five parts, the sections covered include: The languages and language varieties of Japan. The multilingual ecology. Variation, style and interaction. Language problems and language planning. Research overviews. With contributions from across the field of Japanese sociolinguistics, this handbook will prove very useful for students and scholars of Japanese studies, as well as sociolinguists more generally.

Japanese Language, Gender and Ideology is a collection of previously unpublished articles by established as well as promising young scholars in Japanese language and gender studies. The contributors to this edited volume argue that traditional views of language in Japan are cultural constructs created by policy makers and linguists, and that Japanese society in general, and language use in particular, are much more diverse and heterogeneous than previously understood. This volume brings together studies that substantially advance our understanding of the relationship between Japanese language and gender, with particular focus on examining local linguistic practices in relation to dominant ideologies. Topics studies include gender and politeness, the history of language policy, language and Japanese romance novels and fashion magazines, bar talk, dictionary definitions, and the use of first-person pronouns. The volume will substantially advance the agenda of this field, and will be of interest to sociolinguists, anthropologists, sociologists, and scholars of Japan and Japanese.