The Social Life of the Japanese Language

Shigeko Okamoto is a Professor in the Department of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1986. Her areas of research include sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics and functional grammar. She has published numerous articles on Japanese language and gender, honorifics, regional dialects, grammaticization and grammatical constructions. She is a co-editor of the volume Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology (with Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith, 2004). Her latest interest is in semiotic diversity and multiplicity and its relationship to language ideologies. Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith is Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She is a specialist in Japanese language, society and culture, with an emphasis on the interaction between ideology and practice. Publications include Japanese Women's Language (1985) and the edited volume Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology (with Shigeko Okamoto, 2004). Her latest long-time interest in language and gender has merged with studies of contemporary cultural models of femininity/masculinity and romantic love through textual analyses of popular print and televisual materials.

• Introduction: toward a dynamic model of Japanese language and social meaning; Part I. The Notion of Nihongo; 1. Standard Japanese and its others: building the national language; 1.1 Standard Japanese: a building block in the making of modern Japan; 1.2 Representations of standard and regional Japanese in the media; 2. Standard and regional Japanese: diversity in attitudes and practice; 2.1 Diversity in attitudes toward standard and regional Japanese; 2.2 Meanings of standard and regional Japanese in practice: negotiating norms; Part II. Japanese Honorifics and Japanese 'Politeness': 3. Keigo: from official policy to popular pedagogy; 3.1 Institutional policy on honorific form and use: constructing the Japanese essence; 3.2 Keigo for the public: authoritative accounts by linguists; 3.3 Honorifics: popular pedagogy; 4. Keigo: diversity in attitudes and practice; 4.1 Diversity in attitudes toward honorifics; 4.2 Honorifics in practice: negotiating norms; Part III. Japanese Language and Gender: 5. Gendered Japanese: normative linguistic femininity and masculinity; 5.1 Dominant narratives of gendered Japanese: a historical perspective; 5.2 Media representations of gendered speech in contemporary Japan; 6. Gendered Japanese: diversity in attitudes and practice; 6.1 Diversity in attitude toward gendered speech; 6.2 Meanings of gendered speech in practice: negotiating norms; Reflections: looking backward, looking forward.