Item Details

The formation of a sociolinguistic style in translation: cool and informal non-Japanese masculinity

Issue: Vol 14 No. 3 (2020) Special Issue: Language, gender, and sexuality in Japanese popular media

Journal: Gender and Language

Subject Areas: Gender Studies Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/genl.39954

Abstract:

This paper illustrates the powerful role of translation in creating a sociolinguistic style. Through a quantitative survey of Japanese native speakers and a qualitative analysis of translated speech in an imported TV show and its Japanese parody, the study shows that Japanese translation practices have invented and preserved a widely recognised Japanese style associated with non-Japanese men. The study demonstrates that the style is linked with an image of non-Japanese young men characterised by cool informality; that it is marked by the use of linguistic features not commonly used among native speakers; and that it can be used to enregister a negative stereotype of non-Japanese masculinity, which serves to legitimate a polite, formal, Japanese normative masculinity. The findings suggest that translation is a process in which dominant ideologies of the target-language culture can be reinforced through the voices and bodies of nonnatives.

Author: Momoko Nakamura

View Original Web Page

References :

Agha, Asif (2003) The social life of cultural value. Language & Communication 23(3): 231–273. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00012-0

 

Bibarī hiruzu kōkō hakusho [Beverly Hills High School Report] (2007) Season 1, Vol. 1. Tokyo: Paramount Japan. DVD.

 

Bucholtz, Mary and Hall, Kira (2004) Language and identity. In Alessandro Duranti (ed) A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology 369–394. Malden, MA: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470996522.ch16

 

Charlebois, Justin (2014) Japanese Femininities. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203072073

 

Cook, Haruko M. (2018) Socialization to acting, feeling, and thinking as shakaijin: new employee orientations in a Japanese company. In Haruko M. Cook and Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith (eds) Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power, and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse 37–64. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63549-1_3

 

Coupland, Nikolas (2007) Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755064

 

Dahlberg-Dodd, Hannah E. (2018) Voices of the hero: dominant masculine ideologies through the speech of Japanese shōnen protagonists. Gender and Language 12(3): 346–371. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.32536

 

Dasgupta, Romit (2013) Re-reading the Salaryman in Japan: Crafting Masculinities. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203102084

 

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (1917) Karamāzofu no kyōdai [The Brothers Karamazov]. Translated by Masao Yonekawa. Tokyo: Shinchōsha.

 

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor (2006) Karamāzofu no kyōdai [The Brothers Karamazov]. Translated by Ikuo Kameyama. Tokyo: Kōbunsha.

 

Dunn, Cynthia D. (2018) Bowing incorrectly: aesthetic labor and expert knowledge in Japanese business etiquette training. In Haruko M. Cook and Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith (eds) Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power, and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse 15–36. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63549-1_2

 

Edley, Nigel (2001) Conversation analysis, discursive psychology and the study of hegemony: a response to Susan Speer. Feminism & Psychology 11(1): 136–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353501011001007

 

Gal, Susan and Irvine, Judith T. (1995) The boundaries of languages and disciplines: how ideologies construct difference. Social Research 62(4): 967–1001.

 

Gaubatz, Martin T. (2007) Shōsetsu niokeru beigo hōgen no nihongoyaku ni tsuite [On the Japanese translation of American dialects in novels]. In Satoshi Kinsui (ed) Yakuwarigo kenkyū no chihei [The Horizon of Role Language] 125–158. Tokyo: Kuroshio shuppan.

 

Hill, Jane H. (1993) Hasta la vista, baby: Anglo Spanish in the American Southwest. Critique of Anthropology 13(2): 145–176. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X9301300203

 

Hiramoto, Mie (2009) Slaves speak pseudo-Toohoku-ben: the representation of minorities in the Japanese translation of Gone with the Wind. Journal of Sociolinguistics 13(2): 249–263. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-

9841.2009.00406.x

 

Hiramoto, Mie and Kang, M. Agnes (2017) Media articulations of gender and sexuality. Gender and Language 11(4): 453–459. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.33342

 

Inoue, Miyako (2003) Speech without a speaking body: ‘Japanese women’s language’ in translation. Language & Communication 23(3): 315–330.

 

Inoue, Miyako (2006) Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00011-9

 

Irvine, Judith T. (2001) ‘Style’ as distinctiveness: the culture and ideology of linguistic differentiation. In Penelope Eckert and John R. Rickford (eds) Style and Sociolinguistic Variation 21–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613258.002

 

Jakobson, Roman (1960) Closing statement: linguistics and poetics. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed) Style in Language 350–377. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

 

Johnstone, Barbara, Andrus, Jennifer and Danielson, Andrew E. (2006) Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of ‘Pittsburghese.’ Journal of English Linguistics 34(2): 77–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/0075424206290692

 

Kiesling, Scott F. (2004) Dude. American Speech 79(3): 281–305. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-79-3-281

 

Kinsui, Satoshi (2010) Otoko kotoba no rekishi: ore, boku o chūshin ni [The history of men’s language: centering on ore and boku]. In Momoko Nakamura (ed) Jendā de manabu gengogaku [Learning Linguistics from Gender] 35–49. Kyoto: Sekaishisōsha.

 

Kobayashi, Mieko (1993) Sedai to josēgo: Wakaisedai no kotoba no chūsēka nitsuite [Generations and women’s language: on gender neutralization of young generations]. Nihongogaku 12(6): 181–192.

 

Long, Daniel and Asahi, Yoshiyuki (1999) Honyaku to hōgen: eiga no fukikaehonyaku ni mirareru nichibei no hōgenkan [Translation and dialect: ideas of dialects in Japan and the U.S. observed in film dubbing]. Nihongogaku 18(3): 66–77.

 

McGloin, Naomi H. (1990) Sex difference and sentence-final particles. In Sachiko Ide and Naomi Hanaoka McGloin (eds) Aspects of Japanese Women’s Language 23–41. Tokyo: Kuroshio Shuppan.

 

Nagasaki, Yasuko (1998) Edogo no shūjoshi ‘sa’ no kinō ni kansuru ichi kōsatsu [A study of the functions of the final particle sa in the Edo language]. Kokugogaku 192: 13–26.

 

Nagasaki, Yasuko (2008) Gendaigo no shūjoshi ‘sa’ no kinō ni kansuru kōsatsu [A study of the functions of the final particle sa in contemporary Japanese]. Kawamuragakuen Joshidaigaku Kenkyūkiyō 19(2): 173–186.

 

Nakamura, Momoko (2006) Creating indexicality: schoolgirl speech in Meiji Japan. In Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick (eds) The Language and Sexuality Reader 270–284. London: Routledge.

 

Nakamura, Momoko (2013) Honyaku ga tsukuru nihongo [Translation Constructing Japanese Language]. Tokyo: Hakutakusha.

 

Nakamura, Momoko (2014) Gender, Language and Ideology: The Genealogy of Japanese Women’s Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.58

 

Okamoto, Shigeko (1995) ‘Tasteless’ Japanese: less ‘feminine’ speech among young Japanese women. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self 297–325. New York: Routledge.

 

Okamoto, Shigeko (2011) The use and interpretation of addressee honorifics and plain forms in Japanese: diversity, multiplicity, and ambiguity. Journal of Pragmatics 43: 3673–3688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.06.012

 

Okamoto, Shigeko and Shibamoto-Smith, Janet S. (2016) The Social Life of the Japanese Language: Cultural Discourse and Situated Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139680400

 

Ozaki, Yoshimitsu (1997) Joseisenyō no bunmatsukeishiki no ima [The present use of female exclusive sentence-final forms]. In Gendai Nihongo Kenkyūkai (ed) Josei no kotoba: Shokuba hen [Women’s Speech: At the Workplace] 33–58. Tokyo: Hitujishobo.

 

Queen, Robin (2004) ‘Du hast jar keene Ahnung’: African American English dubbed into German. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8(4): 515–537. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2004.00272.x

 

Saito, Junko (2018) ‘Sarariiman’ and the performance of masculinities at work: an analysis of interactions at business meetings at a multinational corporation in Japan. In Haruko M. Cook and Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith (eds) Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power, and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse 97–121. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63549-1_5

 

Shibamoto Smith, Janet S. (2005) Translating true love: Japanese romance fiction, Harlequin-style. In José Santaemilia (ed) Gender, Sex and Translation: The Manipulation of Identities 97–116. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome.

 

SturtzSreetharan, Cindi (2004) Students, sarariiman (pl.), and seniors: Japanese men’s use of ‘manly’ speech register. Language in Society 33(1): 81–107. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404504031045

 

SturtzSreetharan, Cindi (2017a) Academy of devotion: performing status, hierarchy, and masculinity on reality TV. Gender and Language 11(2): 176–203. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.21361

 

SturtzSreetharan, Cindi (2017b) Language and masculinity: the role of Osaka dialect in contemporary ideals of fatherhood. Gender and Language 11(4): 552–574. https://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.31609

 

Wahl, Alexander (2012) The global metastereotyping of Hollywood ‘dudes’: African reality television parodies of mediatized California style. In Mie Hiramoto (ed) Media Intertextualities 31–55. Amsterdam: John

Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.37.03wah

 

Yamanishi, Masako (2003) Gendaigo ni okeru shūjoshi sa no seikaku [Characteristics of the final particle sa in present usage]. Mejiro daigaku jinbungakubu kiyō 10: 1–14.

 

Yoda, Megumi (2007) Seiyōgo ‘Ō, Romio!’ no bunkei [The sentence form of ‘Oh, Romeo’ as the language of Westerners]. In Satoshi Kinsui (ed) Yakuwarigo kenkyū no chihei [The Horizon of Role Language] 159–178. Tokyo: Kuroshio shuppan.

 

Yoshimoto Kōgyō (2008) Diran & Kyasarin Bibarīhiruzu seiten hakusho [Dylan & Catherine Beverly Hills Fine Weather Report]. Tokyo: Yoshimoto R and C.