Gender, Language and Ideology
A genealogy of Japanese women's language
The book examines women’s language as an ideological construct historically created by discourse. The aim is to demonstrate, by delineating a genealogy of Japanese women’s language, that, to deconstruct and denaturalize the relationships between gender and any language, and to account for why and how they are related as they are, we must consider history, discourse and ideology. The book analyzes multiple discourse examples spanning the premodern period of the thirteenth century to the immediate post-WWII years, mostly translated into English for the first time, locating them in political, social and academic developments and describing each historical period in a manner easily accessible for those readers not familiar with Japanese history. This is the first book that describes a comprehensive development of Japanese women’s language and will greatly interest students of Japanese language, gender and language studies, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and history, as well as women’s studies and sexuality studies.
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 58] 2014. xv, 253 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 28 November 2014
Published online on 28 November 2014
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements | pp. vii–x
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List of figures and tables | pp. xi–xii
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List of abbreviations in transcriptions | pp. xiii–xiv
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Notes on Japanese names, the Romanization of Japanese language and translation of Japanese into English | pp. xv–xvi
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Introduction | pp. 1–36
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Part 1. Women’s speech as the object of regulation: The premodern period
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Chapter 1. The norms of feminine speech | pp. 39–54
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Chapter 2. Normalization of court-women’s speech | pp. 55–72
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Part 2. Gender and national language: Nation-state building in the early modern period
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Chapter 3. Construction of a national language for men | pp. 77–86
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Chapter 4. Modernization of the norms of feminine speech | pp. 87–102
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Chapter 5. Creating indexicality: Schoolgirl speech | pp. 103–135
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Chapter 6. Masculinizing the national language | pp. 137–156
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Part 3. Women’s language into national language: The impact of war
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Chapter 7. Women’s language as imperial tradition: Legitimating colonization | pp. 159–169
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Chapter 8. Gendering of the national language under national mobilization | pp. 171–194
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Part 4. Essentializing women’s language: The postwar U.S. Occupation
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Chapter 9. Women’s language as reflection of femininity | pp. 199–207
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Chapter 10. A gendered Japanese national language: Symbol of patriarchy | pp. 209–225
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Conclusion: Going beyond the gendered linguistic ideologies | pp. 227–230
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References
“In this wide-ranging work, Momoko Nakamura develops a challenging, sometimes surprising, but always persuasive critical corrective to deeply entrenched, essentialist conceptions of Japanese women’s language. Her historical discourse approach provides an especially productive vantage point not only on language and gender in Japan but on the formation and transformation of language ideologies everywhere.”
Richard Bauman, Indiana University
“Through a critical analysis of voluminous historical data on metalinguistic discursive practices, Momoko Nakamura, a preeminent scholar of Japanese language and gender, effectively denaturalizes the orthodox relationship between language and gender and elucidates the process and implications of the ideological construction of “Japanese women’s language.” A stimulating and invaluable addition to the field!”
Shigeko Okamoto, University of California, Santa Cruz
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2022. Gender in Translation: The Handmaid’s Tale in Greek. In Multilingual Routes in Translation [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ], ► pp. 217 ff.
Noguchi, Mary
2022. The Shifting Sub-text of Japanese Gendered Language. Journal on Asian Linguistic Anthropology 4:2 ► pp. 1 ff.
Nakamura, Momoko
2021. indexical regimentation of a male youth style in Japanese. East Asian Pragmatics 6:1
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General