Gender differences in Japanese
The Japanese language has some words and some grammatical constructions associated with men or boys, while others are associated with women or girls. Such differences are sometimes called "gendered language".[1]: 10 In Japanese, speech patterns associated with women are referred to as onna kotoba (
In general, the words and speech patterns associated with men are perceived as rough, vulgar, or abrupt, while those associated with women are considered more polite, more deferential, or "softer". Some linguists consider the description of "rough–soft continuum" more accurate than the description of "male–female continuum". For example, Eleanor Harz Jorden in Japanese: The Spoken Language refers to the styles as "blunt/gentle", rather than male/female.[3][verification needed]
There are no gender differences in written Japanese (except in quoted speech), and almost no differences in polite speech (teineigo).[4]
Conventional women's speech
[edit]The word onnarashii (
Some linguistic features commonly associated with women include: omission of the copula da, the use of first person pronouns such as watashi or atashi among others, use of feminine sentence-final particles such as wa, na no, kashira, and mashō, and the more frequent use of the honorific prefixes o- and go-.[5]
Actual language used by Japanese-speaking women differs from these ideals. Such onnarashii speech is a social norm that institutions such as education and media encourage women to adopt. Similarly, these forms may be prescribed for women learners by Japanese textbooks and other materials. There are, however, various deviations from these norms in conversation.[5]
Although Japanese women may not follow the gender norm in speech, some linguistic studies indicate that Japanese women tend to use more honorific language than men do, which reinforces the idea of onnarashii and conventional gender roles.[7]
Sentence-Final Particles
[edit]One of the sentence-final particles often found in women's speech in Japan is wa. It is generally used in a conversation in which the speaker and addressee are close to each other. On the other hand, it is inappropriate to use wa in an official relationship such as business relationships or formal interviews. The wa found in women's speech has a rising intonation, while the wa with falling intonation can be used by male speakers in modern standard colloquial Japanese. However, both serve the same function of conveying a sense of insistence on the part of the speaker.[8] One possible explanation of the femininity associated with wa is the high and gentle intonation which appropriates the insistence to the better judgement of the addressee.[9] However, other researchers argue that the rising and high intonation are used to show an interest in the conversation and therefore help to continue it because falling intonation is often associated with ending a conversation.[10]
Conventional men's speech
[edit]Just as there are modes of speaking and behaviour that have sometimes been considered intrinsically feminine, there are also those that are considered otokorashii (
Some words associated with men's speech include: the informal da in place of the copula desu, first person pronouns such as ore and boku, and sentence-final particles such as yo, ze, zo, and kana.[5] Masculine speech also features less frequent use of honorific prefixes and fewer aizuchi response tokens.[12]
Research on Japanese men's speech shows greater use of "neutral" forms, forms not strongly associated with masculine or feminine speech, than is seen in Japanese women's speech.[12]
Some studies of conversation between Japanese men and women show neither gender taking a more dominant position in interaction. Men, however, tend to show a "self-oriented conversation style", telling stories and expressing their expertise on topics being discussed more than is typical of women in these studies.[13]
Sentence-Final Particles
[edit]Sentence-final particles that are generally considered within the realm of male speech are zo, ze and sa. They are used to impart information that belongs to the speaker's sphere to an adressee. The perceived masculinity of these particles comes from the stronger level of assertive force that they have in comparison to particles like wa or no.[14]: 36-37 Zo is the most imposing particle, stating a proposition with an authorative tone to an addressee of lower status. It can mostly be observed among intimate male friends and within the senior-junior social realm.[14]: 27 Ze is viewed as a milder version of zo and employed by the speaker if they have a buddy-like relationship with the adressee.[14] Sa has a very similar status to ze but the pragmatic/semantic force of it is not as clear as the other two. Attributes contributed to sa are "vigorous and ego-assertive"[15] while others argue that sa is used to state something "obvious" and "matter-of course".[16] Generally sa implies a sense of resignation or acceptance of a given situation on the part of the speaker.[14]
Work by Misao Okada shows that so-called male speech is not just used in Japanese for male identity; imperatives can be utilised in order to make the hearer perform a fast movement immediately, for instance, in a sport session.[17]: 174 Moreover, imperatives and particles with a traditional male connotation (such as zo) can be used to stress criticism.[17]: 177 In these contexts imperatives and other directives are part of the vocal, kinetic and material environment they occur in, making male speech dependent on a specific situation without being linked to gender.[17]: 183 These examples could demonstrate that the label "men's speech" (danseigo) is much more diverse than originally considered.[17]: 181 [1]: 14
In modern society
[edit]Since the late twentieth century observers have noted that individual Japanese men and women do not necessarily speak in the ways attributed to their gender. Scholars have described considerable variation within each gender; some individuals use these characteristics of gendered speech, while others do not.[5] Upper-class women who did not conform to conventional expectations of gendered speech were sometimes criticized for failing to maintain so-called "traditional Japanese culture".[5]
In the LGBT community
[edit]Another recent phenomenon influencing gender norms in speech is the popularity of okama (おかま) entertainers, typically men who enact very feminine speech, dress, and other gender markers. The word okama originally referred to feminine male homosexuals, but its usage has expanded to refer to masculine gay men, male cross-dressers, and trans women, among other uses.[18][19] Entertainers who identify as okama sometimes use a form of speech called onē kotoba (オネエ
- あたし
今 カレー食 ったら下痢 だ わ。
- Atashi ima karē kuttara geri da wa.
- "If I ate curry now, I'd get diarrhea."
The pronoun atashi and the sentence-final da wa is typical of women's speech, while the verb kuttara is typical of men's speech and the topic itself is very blunt.[20]
Hideko Abe suggests that onē kotoba originated during the Shōwa era among sex workers known as danshō (
The word onabe (おなべ), although it originally referred to masculine lesbians and female cross-dressers, has evolved to include trans men.[18][19][23] Onabe hosts interviewed in the 1995 documentary Shinjuku Boys use a variety of gendered markers in their speech that are traditionally considered feminine or masculine. One speaker exclusively uses the reflexive pronoun jibun (
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Okamoto, Shigeko; Shibamoto Smith, Janet S. (2004). "Introduction". Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People. Oxford University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-19-516617-0.
- ^ Okamoto, Shigeko (2013). "Variability in societal norms for Japanese women's speech: Implications for linguistic politeness". Multilingua. 32 (2): 203–223. doi:10.1515/multi-2013-0010.
- ^ Jorden, Eleanor Harz; Noda, Mari (1987). Japanese: The Spoken Language. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-03834-7.
- ^ David, Oana (2009). Teineigo and style-mixing: Formality variation in the interview register and application of conversation analysis theory (PDF) (Master of Sciences). University of Oxford. Retrieved 30 August 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f Siegal, Meryl; Okamoto, Shigeko (2003). "Toward reconceptualizing the teaching and learning of gendered speech styles in Japanese as a Foreign Language". Japanese Language and Literature. 37 (1): 49–66. doi:10.2307/3594875. JSTOR 3594875.
- ^ Kazuko, Ashizawa (1998). Mangajin's Basic Japanese Through Comics. Weatherhill. ISBN 0-8348-0452-2.
- ^ Tanaka, Lidia (2004). Gender, Language and Culture: A Study of Japanese Television Interview Discourse. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-3079-9.
- ^ McGloin (2005): 30—31.
- ^ Chisato Kitagawa (1977): A Source of Femininity in Japanese: In Defence of Robin Lakoff's Language and Woman's Place. P. 287.
- ^ Edelsky, C. (1979): Question intonation and sex roles. In: Language in Society 8. P. 28.
- ^ Sturtz Sreetharan, Cindi (2004). "Japanese men's linguistic stereotypes and realities". In Shigeko Okamoto and Janet Shibamoto Smith (ed.). Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology. Oxford. ISBN 0-19-516617-5.
- ^ a b Sturtz Sreetharan, Cindi (2004). "Students, sarariiman (pl.), and seniors: Japanese men's use of ′manly′ speech register". Language in Society. 33 (1). doi:10.1017/S0047404504031045. ISSN 0047-4045. S2CID 145516163.
- ^ Itakura, Hiroko; Tsui, Amy B. M. (2004). "Gender and conversational dominance in Japanese conversation". Language in Society. 33 (2). doi:10.1017/S0047404504332033. hdl:10397/7638. ISSN 0047-4045. S2CID 55161059.
- ^ a b c d McGloin, Naomi Hanako (1990). "Sex Difference and Sentence-Final Particles". In Ide, Sachiko; McGloin, Naomi Hanako (eds.). Aspects of Japanese Women's Language. Tokyo: Kurosio. ISBN 978-4-87424-044-1.
- ^ Martin, Samuel (1975). A Reference Grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 919.
- ^ Uyeno, Tazuko Yamanaka (1971). A study of Japanese modality—A performative analysis of sentence particles (Ph.D. thesis). University of Michigan. p. 82.
- ^ a b c d Okada, Misao (2008). "When the Coach is a Woman: The Situational Meanings of So-Called Masculine Directives in a Japanese Boxing Gym". In Mori, Junko; Snyder Ohta, Amy (eds.). Japanese Applied Linguistics: Discourse and Social Perspectives. New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-8961-6.
- ^ a b Wim Lunsing (2005). "The politics of okama and onabe". In Mark McLelland and Romit Dasgupta (ed.). Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-26058-4.
- ^ a b McLelland, Mark (January 2000). "Male Homosexuality and Popular Culture in Modern Japan". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context (3).
- ^ a b Wim Lunsing; Claire Maree (2004). "Shifting speakers: Negotiating reference in relation to sexuality and gender". In Shigeko Okamoto and Janet Shibamoto Smith (ed.). Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology. Oxford. ISBN 0-19-516617-5.
- ^ a b c Abe, Hideko (2010-03-15). Queer Japanese: Gender and Sexual Identities through Linguistic Practices. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-10616-1.
- ^ Maree, C. (2008-09-24), Martin, Fran; Jackson, Peter; McLelland, Mark; Yue, Audrey (eds.), "Grrrl-Queens - Onee-kotoba and the Negotiation of Heterosexist Gender Norms and Lesbo(homo)phobic Stereotypes in Japanese", AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities, University of Illinois Press, pp. 67–84, hdl:11343/29045, ISBN 978-0-252-03307-0
- ^ Abe, Hideko (2015-04-20), "Onabe", in Bolin, Anne; Whelehan, Patricia (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality, Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 831–860, doi:10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs316, ISBN 978-1-118-89687-7, retrieved 2022-12-26
- ^ Maree, Claire (August 2003). "Ore wa ore dakara ['Because I'm me']: A study of gender and language in the documentary Shinjuku Boys". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context (9).
Further reading
[edit]- Cherry, Kittredge; Kurihara, Yoko; Nakanishi, Kiyomi (1995).
日本語 は女 をどう表現 してきたか (Womansword: What Japanese Words Say About Women) (in Japanese). Benesse. ISBN 4-8288-5728-1. - Graddol, David; Joan Swann (1990). Gender Voices. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-13734-3.
- Sapir, Edward (1958). Culture, language and personality: Selected essays. University of California Press.
- Schonfeld, Alexander (1999). "Manifestations of Gender Distinction in the Japanese Language". Archived from the original on 2010-09-22. Retrieved 2005-09-09.
- Smith, Phillip M. (1979). "Sex Markers in Speech". Social Markers in Speech. London: Cambridge University Press.
- Tannen, Deborah (1990). You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. William Morrow & Co. ISBN 0-688-07822-2.