Item Details

Language and masculinity: the role of Osaka dialect in contemporary ideals of fatherhood

Issue: Vol 11 No. 4 (2017) Special issue: Globalisation, modernity and enregisterment in contemporary East Asia

Journal: Gender and Language

Subject Areas: Gender Studies Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/genl.31609

Abstract:

The unexpected use of Osaka dialect in the 2013 film Like Father, Like Son directed

by Hirokazu Kore’eda, presents an opportunity to scrutinise its role in indexing

masculinity, class and fatherhood. The film depicts two styles of fatherhood: one,

a cool and disconnected father representing the archetypal upper-middle class

but absent salaryman patriarch; the other, a warm and emotionally connected

father representing a new kind of patriarch who is engaged in child rearing.

These contrasting styles are indexed linguistically through standard Japanese

and Osaka dialect respectively. Extending the framework of a sociolinguistics

of the periphery to a case of internal language variation, the mobility of Osaka

dialect is highlighted. Specifically, through the process of translocalisation, the

enregistered indices of Osaka dialect mediate the creation of a new social type:

the caring and connected father.

Author: Cindi SturtzSreetharan

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