Home Linguistics & Semiotics What is a dialect? What is a standard?: shifting indexicality and persistent ideological norms
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

What is a dialect? What is a standard?: shifting indexicality and persistent ideological norms

  • Judit Kroo ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 18, 2024

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which the indexical meanings that attach to enregistered speaking styles are debated and contested in interaction by younger Japanese adults. Contested meanings include discourses of so-called hyoojungo ‘Standard Japanese’ and the speaking styles that are collectively described as ‘Okinawan dialect’, which are associated with the islands of Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. This paper uses data from casual conversations between younger male adults who were all born and raised in Okinawa Prefecture but moved to the main island of Honshu for university. Discourse analysis of these conversations demonstrates how these younger adults negotiate the social meanings attached to Okinawan speaking styles, linking them to broader ideologies of so-called hyoojungo as well as gendered styles, and reproducing normative ideologies of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ speech. Homing in on moments in which these speech styles are negotiated, the results of this paper emphasize the persistence of normative linguistic ideologies even as the meaning and content of linguistic styles are being re-imagined.

Japanese Abstract

この論文は、enregistered (エンレジスターされた) 話し方に付随する指標的な意味が、いわゆる「標準語」と沖縄県の島々に関係する「沖縄方言」と呼ばれる話し方の文脈内で、どのように議論され争われてきたのかを検討するものである。 この論文では、沖縄県で生まれ育ち、大学進学のために本州に移住した若い成人男性の間で行われた、カジュアルな会話データを分析した。 談話分析の結果、沖縄での話し方に付随する社会的意味の交渉が明らかになった。 特に、いわゆる標準語やジェンダー別の話し方のイデオロギーがどのように結びつき、「良い」話し方と「悪い」話し方の規範的イデオロギーが再生産されているのかが見て取れる。 この論文は、これらのスピーチスタイルについて交渉の瞬間に焦点を当てたが、言語スタイルの意味と内容が再考されているにもかかわらず、規範的な言語イデオロギーが存続していることは強調する必要がある。


Corresponding author: Judit Kroo, Japanese Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies, School of International Letters and Cultures, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA, E-mail:

Award Identifier / Grant number: P17744

References

Agha, Asif. 2005. Voice, footing, enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15(1). 38–59. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2005.15.1.38.Search in Google Scholar

Agha, Asif. 2006. Language and social relations. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511618284Search in Google Scholar

Ball, Christopher. 2004. Repertoires of registers: Dialect in Japanese discourse. Language & Communication 24(4). 355–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2004.01.004.Search in Google Scholar

Beal, Joan C. 2009. Enregisterment, commodifiction, and historical context: “Geordie” versus “Sheffieldish”. American Speech 84(2). 138–156. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2009-012.Search in Google Scholar

Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn. 2012. Contestation and enregisterment in Ohio’s imagined dialects. Journal of English Linguistics 40(3). 281–305. https://doi.org/10.1177/0075424211427911.Search in Google Scholar

Canut, Cécile. 2019. Tell me that I am not a Ciganin, damn your mother! The social and political consequences of enregisterment in Bulgaria. Signs and Society 7(3). 398–426. https://doi.org/10.1086/704985.Search in Google Scholar

Coupland, Nikolas. 2001. Dialect stylization in radio talk. Language in Society 30. 345–375. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404501003013.Search in Google Scholar

Dong, Jie. 2010. The enregisterment of Putonghua in practice. Language & Communication 30(4). 265–275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2010.03.001.Search in Google Scholar

Du Bois, John W. 2007. The stance triangle. In Robert Englebretson (ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/pbns.164.07duSearch in Google Scholar

Frekko, Susan E. 2009. “Normal” in Catalonia: Standard language, enregisterment and the imagination of a national public. Language in Society 38(1). 71–93. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404508090040.Search in Google Scholar

Gal, Susan. 2005. Language ideologies compared. Language in Society 15(1). 23–37. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2005.15.1.23.Search in Google Scholar

Hein, Ina. 2010. Constructing difference in Japan: Literary counter-images of the Okinawa boom. Contemporary Japan 22(1–2). 179–204. https://doi.org/10.1515/cj.2010.011.Search in Google Scholar

Heinrich, Patrick. 2004. Language planning and language ideology in the Ryūkyū Islands. Language Policy 3(2). 153–179. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:lpol.0000036192.53709.fc.10.1023/B:LPOL.0000036192.53709.fcSearch in Google Scholar

Heinrich, Patrick. 2012. The making of monolingual Japan: Language ideology and Japanese modernity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781847696588Search in Google Scholar

Heinrich, Patrick. 2018. Dialect cosplay: Language use by the young generation. In Patrick Heinrich & Christian Galan (eds.), Being young in super-aging Japan: Formative events and cultural reactions, 166–182. London: Taylor and Francis Group.10.4324/9781351025065-11Search in Google Scholar

Heinrich, Patrick, Shinsho Miyara & Michinori Shimoji. 2015. Handbook of the Ryukyuan languages: History, structure, and use. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9781614511151Search in Google Scholar

Henry, Eric Steven. 2010. Interpretations of “Chinglish”: Native speakers, language learners and the enregisterment of a stigmatized code. Language in Society 39(5). 669–688. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404510000655.Search in Google Scholar

Inoue, Miyako. 2004. What does language remember?: Indexical inversion and the naturalized history of Japanese women. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(1). 39–56. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2004.14.1.39.Search in Google Scholar

Inoue, Miyako. 2006. Vicarious language: Gender and linguistic modernity in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar

Irvine, Judith T. 1989. When talk isn’t cheap: Language and political economy. American Ethnologist 16(2). 248–267. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1989.16.2.02a00040.Search in Google Scholar

Johnstone, Barbara. 2009. Pittsburghese shirts: Commodification and the enregisterment of an urban dialect. American Speech 84(2). 157–175. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2009-013.Search in Google Scholar

Johnstone, Barbara. 2014. Ideology and discourse in the enregisterment of regional variation. In Peter Auer, Martin Hilpert, Anya Stukenbrock & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (eds.), Space in language and linguistics, 107–127. Boston: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110312027.107Search in Google Scholar

Johnstone, Barbara. 2016. Enregisterment: How linguistic items become linked with ways of speaking. Language and Linguistics Compass 10(11). 632–643. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12210.Search in Google Scholar

Johnstone, Barbara, Jennifer Andrus & Andrew E. Danielson. 2006. Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of “Pittsburghese”. Journal of English Linguistics 34(2). 77–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/0075424206290692.Search in Google Scholar

Kroo, Judit. 2022a. Negotiating identities: First person pronominal use between Japanese university students. Pragmatics and Society 31(1). 22–44. https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.18061.kro.Search in Google Scholar

Kroo, Judit. 2022b. The cultural logic of the ordinary: Interactional semiosis and the (re)-framing of daily life among Japanese younger adults. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 32(2). 386–407. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12366.Search in Google Scholar

Kroo, Judit. 2023. Remaking futsuu ‘ordinary’ in the discourse of younger Japanese adults. Language and Communication 88(1). 129–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2022.11.007.Search in Google Scholar

Kroo, Judit & Yoshiko Matsumoto. 2018. The case of Japanese otona ‘adult’: Mediatized gender as a marketing device. Discourse and Communication 12(4). 401–423. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481318757776.Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Yeounsuk. 2010. The ideology of kokugo: Nationalizing language in modern Japan (English-language ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.10.21313/hawaii/9780824833053.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Nakamura, Momoko. 2014. Gender, language and ideology: A geneology of Japanese women’s language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Search in Google Scholar

Occhi, Debra J., Cindi L. SturtzSreetharan & Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith. 2010. Finding Mr Right: New looks at gendered modernity in Japanese televised romances. Japanese Studies 30(3). 413–429. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2010.518605.Search in Google Scholar

Pharao, Nicolai, Marie Maegaard, Janus Spindler Møller & Tore Kristiansen. 2014. Indexical meanings of [s+] among Copenhagen youth: Social perception of a phonetic variant in different prosodic contexts. Language in Society 43. 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404513000857.Search in Google Scholar

Remlinger, Kathryn. 2009. Everyone up here: Enregisterment and identity in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. American Speech 84(2). 118–137. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2009-011.Search in Google Scholar

Shibamoto Smith, Janet S. & Debra Occhi. 2009. The green leaves of love: Japanese romantic heroines, authentic femininity, and dialect. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3(4). 524–546. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2009.00422.x.Search in Google Scholar

Silverstein, Michael. 2003. Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language & Communication 23(3–4). 193–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0271-5309(03)00013-2.Search in Google Scholar

Slotta, James. 2012. Dialect, trope, and enregisterment in a Melanesian speech community. Language & Communication 32(1). 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2011.11.003.Search in Google Scholar

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

Received: 2024-02-07
Accepted: 2024-06-02
Published Online: 2024-07-18
Published in Print: 2024-09-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 21.12.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/multi-2024-0034/html
Scroll to top button