Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 13:1 (2022) ► pp.22–44

Negotiating identities

First person pronominal use between Japanese university students

| Arizona State University

This study examines processes through which social personae are conveyed by male Japanese students at a public university in Yokohama. Focusing on the frame-setting function of first person pronominals (FPPs) in contexts where there is no intra/inter speaker variation in the choice of FPP, this paper analyzes how speakers manage identity-associated discursive alignments related to a shared Okinawa prefecture background. The common experience of being from Okinawa prefecture and attending university far from home is the primary reason that these speakers are close friends. However, analysis reveals speakers’ continual and active contention and re-formulation of this shared ‘Okinawan-ness’ and the personae to which it is linked. In particular, FPPs are implicated in speakers’ discussion of heterogeneity and/or local differences with respect to their Okinawa prefecture background. Strategic use of FPPs thus emerges as a salient tactic for speakers’ active negotiation of conversation relevant personae categories even in interactional contexts without variation.

Keywords: Japanese, first person pronominals, social personae, youth culture, stance, local identity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Theoretical framework
    • 1.2Japanese university and placehood: Contextualizing the data
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1FPPs as loci of social meaning
    • 2.2Okinawan jimoto ishiki ‘Local Consciousness’
  • 3.Quantitative analysis
    • 3.1Overall patterns of use
    • 3.2Rates of FPP use
  • 4.Qualitative Analysis: FPPs and social groups
  • 5.FPPs and place-based identity across interactions
  • 6.Discussion: FPPs, stance, identity and placeness
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 21 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.18061.kro
References
Agha, Asif
2007 Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen
2000 “Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties.” American Psychologist 55(5): 469–480. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall
2004 “Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research.” Language in Society 33(4): 469–515. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach.” Discourse Studies 7(4–5): 585–614. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cook, Haruko Minegichi
1999 “Language socialization in Japanese elementary schools: Attentive listening and reaction turns.” Journal of Pragmatics 311: 1443–1465. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, John
2007 “The stance triangle.” In Stancetaking in discourse – Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dunn, Cynthia Dickel
1999 “Coming of age in Japan: Language ideology and acquisition of formal speech registers.” In Language and Ideology: Selected Papers from the 5th International Pragmatics Conference, Vol. 1, ed. by Jef Verschueren, 89–97. Antwerp: International Pragmatics Association.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
2000 Linguistic variation as social practice: The linguistic construction of identity in Belten High. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2008 “Variation and the indexical field.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 121: 453–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Endo, Orie
2001 “ Onna no ko no ‘boku/ore’ wa okashikunai [Girls’ use of ‘boku/ore’ isn’t strange].” In Onna to kotoba [Women and language], ed. by Orie Endo, 30–39. Tokyo: Asahi Shohan.Google Scholar
Inoue, Miyako
2006 Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kiesling, Scott
2009 “Style as Stance: Can Stance be the Primary Explanation for Patterns of Sociolinguistic Variation?.” In Sociolinguistic perspectives of stance, ed. by Alexandra Jaffe, 171–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroo, Judit and Yoshiko Matsumoto
2018 “The case of Japanese otona ‘adult’: Mediatized gender as a marketing device.” Discourse and Communication 12(4): 401–423. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri
1991 The production of space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko
1989 “Politeness and Conversational Universals – Observations from Japanese.” Multilingua 8(2–3): 207–221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 “Alternative femininity: Personae of middle-aged mothers.” In Japanese language, gender, and ideology: Cultural models and real people, ed. by Shigeko Okamoto & Janet S. Shibamoto Smith, 240–255. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maynard, Senko K.
1997 Japanese Communication: Language and Thought in Context. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miyazaki, Ayumi
2004 “Japanese Junior High School Girls’ and Boy’s First-Person Pronoun Use and their Social World.” In Japanese language, gender and ideology: Cultural models and real people, ed. by Shigeko Okamoto and Janet S. Shibamoto Smith, 256–274. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mizumoto, Hiromi
2001 “ Terebi dorama ni okeru josei kotoba to jendaa firuta-: bunmatsushi (shuujoshi) shiyoo jittai choosai no chuukan hookoku yori [Women’s language in television dramas and the gender filter: From an interim report on actual use of sentence final particles].” Nihongo to jendaa [Japanese and gender] 5(3). [URL]
Ochs, Elinor
1993 “Constructing social identity: A language socialization perspective.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 26(3): 287 – 306. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Okamoto, Shigeko
2013 “Variability in Societal Norms for Japanese Women’s Speech: Implications for Linguistic Politeness.” Multilingua 32(2): 203–223. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ono, Tsuyoshi and Sandra A. Thompson
2003 “Japanese (w)atashi/ore/boku ‘I’: They’re Not Just Pronouns.” Cognitive Linguistics 14(4): 321–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Podesva, Robert
2011a “Salience and the social meaning of declarative contours: Three case studies of gay professionals.” Journal of English Linguistics 39(3): 233–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011b “The California vowel shift and gay identity.” American Speech 86(1): 32 – 51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Preston, Dennis R.
1999 Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
2003 “Indexical order and the dialectics of social life.” Language and Communication 231: 193 – 229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soja, Edward W.
1996 Thirdspace. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
SturtzSreetharan, Cindi
2004 “Students, Sarariiman (pl.), and Seniors: Japanese Men’s Use of the ‘Manly’ Speech Register.” Language in Society 33(1): 81–107.Google Scholar
2006 “Gentlemanly gender? Japanese Men’s Use of Clause-Final Politeness in Casual Conversations.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(1): 70–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “ Ore and Omae: Japanese Men’s Uses of First and Second-Person Pronouns.” Pragmatics 19(2): 253 – 278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “Resignifying the Japanese father: Mediatization, commodification and dialect.” Language and Communication 531: 45–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Takekuro, Makiko
2005 Attunement in Interaction: Sequential Use of Japanese Honorifics. Berkeley: University of California dissertation.
Yamaguchi, Toshiko
2015 “The Historical Development of Person Markers in Japanese: The Roles of Linguistic Signs.” Language Sciences 47(1): 117 – 128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar