Genre conventions, speaker identities, and creativity: An analysis of Japanese wedding speeches

Cynthia Dickel Dunn

Abstract

Recent approaches to genre as discourse practice have examined how genres as “orienting frameworks” allow speakers to creatively adapt conventional forms to specific situational contexts. This article analyzes congratulatory speeches at Japanese wedding receptions to show how the interaction of conventionalization and creative contextualization varies across both different parts of the wedding speech and different categories of wedding speakers. The analysis demonstrates how the wedding speech genre provides speakers with a spectrum of performance possibilities which are systematically linked to different speaking roles and social identities.

Keywords:
Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Atkinson, J. Maxwell
(1982) Understanding formality: The categorization and production of ‘formal’ interaction. The British Journal of Sociology 33: 86-117. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bahktin, M.M
(1986) Speech genres and other late essays. Trans. By Vern W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard
(1996) Transformations of the word in the production of Mexican festival drama. In M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds.), Natural histories of discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 301-328.Google Scholar
(1999) Genre. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9: 84-87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berkenkotter, Carol, and Thomas N. Huckin
(1995) Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication: Cognition/culture/power. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bhatia, Vijay K
(2004) Worlds of written discourse: A genre-based view. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan
(2004) Grassroots historiography and the problem of voice: Tshibumba’s Histoire du Zaire . Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14: 6-23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Briggs, Charles L., and Richard Bauman
(1992) Genre, intertextuality, and social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2: 131-172. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Condon, John C
(1974) Introduction: A perspective for the conference. In J.C. Condon and M. Saito (eds.), Intercultural encounters with Japan: Communication - Contact and Conflict. Tokyo: Simul Press, pp. 3-14.Google Scholar
Davis, Gerald L
(1985) I got the Word in me and I can sing it, you know: A study of the performed African-American sermon. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dunmire, Patricia L
(2000) Genre as temporally situated social action: A study of temporality and genre activity. Written Communication 17: 93-138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dunn, Cynthia Dickel
(2004) Cultural models and metaphors for marriage: An analysis of discourse at Japanese wedding receptions. Ethos 32: 348-373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
in press) Pragmatic functions of humble forms in Japanese ceremonial discourse. To appear in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15.2. DOI logo
Edwards, Walter
(1989) Modern Japan through its weddings: Gender, person and society in ritual portrayal. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
(1993) Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: The universities. Discourse and Society 4: 133-168. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Fujino, Osamu
(1977) Shikiji, aisatsu jitsureishuu (Collected example speeches and addresses). Tokyo: Seitousha.Google Scholar
Goldstein-Gidoni, Ofra
(1997) Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, business, and brides. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne, and Hubert Knoblauch
(1995) Culturally patterned speaking practices – the analysis of communicative genres. Pragmatics 5: 1-32.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hamabata, Matthews M
(1990) Crested kimono: Power and love in the Japanese business family. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hanks, William F
(1984) Sanctification, structure, and experience in a Yucatec ritual event. Journal of American Folklore 97: 131-66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1987) Discourse genres in a theory of practice. American Ethnologist 14: 668-692. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Irvine, Judith T
(1979) Formality and informality in communicative events. American Anthropologist 81: 773-790.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
(1979) A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance declination. In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington, pp. 79-96.Google Scholar
Kamberelis, George
(1995) Genre as institutionally informed social practice. Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 6: 115-171.Google Scholar
Kotthoff, Helga
(1995) The social semiotics of Georgian toast performances: Oral genre as cultural activity. Journal of Pragmatics 24: 353-380. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson
(1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Maynard, Senko Kumiya
(1989) Japanese conversation: Self-contextualization through structure and interactional management. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Miller, Carolyn R
(1984) Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech 70: 151-67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Minnis, Michele
(1994) Toward a definition of law school readiness. In V. John-Steiner, C.P. Panofsky, and L.W. Smith (eds.), Sociocultural approaches to language and literacy: An interactionist perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 347-90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moeran, Brian
(1986) One over the seven: Sake drinking in a Japanese pottery community. In J. Hendry and J. Webber (eds.), Interpreting Japanese society. Oxford: JASO Occasional Papers, pp. 226-242.Google Scholar
Murray, Colleen I., and Naoko Kimura
(2003) Multiplicity of paths to couple formation in Japan. In R.R. Hamon and B.B. Ingoldsby (eds.), Mate selection across cultures. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage, pp. 247-268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosmarin, Aden
(1985) The power of genre. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Shida, Kiyoshi
(1991) Heisei kekkonshiki engi (The modern wedding ceremony). Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha.Google Scholar
(1999) The Shintoist wedding ceremony in Japan: An invented tradition. Media, Culture and Society 21: 195-204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Teeburu Spiichi Jissen Kenkyuukai
(n.d.) Sugu hanaseru kekkon supiichi jitsurei hyakuka (One hundred easy wedding speeches). Tokyo: Kabushuki Gaisha Kyoiku Shuppan Centaa.Google Scholar
Wray, Alison
(2002) Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Yates, Joanne, and Wanda J. Orlikowski
(1992) Genres of organizational communication: A structurational approach to studying communication and media. Academy of Management Review 17: 299-327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar