CC BY
66
Вестн. Моск. ун-та. Сер. 19. Лингвистика и межкультурная коммуникация. 2016. № 1
ЯЗЫК И МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНАЯ КОММУНИКАЦИЯ
V.M. Alpatov
GENDER PECULIARITIES OF THE JAPANESE DISCOURSE AND THEIR REASONS
Хорошо известны тендерные различия в японском языке. Мы можем здесь видеть тендерные особенности даже в официальной речи, где языковые различия могут и отсутствовать. Структура японского дискурса, правила диалога различаются для мужчин и женщин. Даже в современной Японии многие думают, что женская речь должна быть мягкой, вежливой, скромной, внимательной к собеседнику, форма этой речи важнее, чем ее содержание: она более эмотивна, чем информативна. Требования к мужской речи иные: она должна быть четкой и информативной. Например, в женской речи чаще встречаются восклицательные частицы, женщины имеют особые междометия и др. Гендерные особенности японского дискурса отражают коммуникативное неравенство мужчин и женщин. Во многих работах отмечают мужскую монополию в прерывании речи собеседника и контроле над ее развитием. Разница более видна в устной речи, но существует даже в письменных текстах, часто в них бывает очевиден пол автора. И в японском обществе, и в японской речи происходят изменения, но язык консервативнее, чем общество, и женщины могут говорить в соответствии с традиционными правилами просто по привычке.
Ключевые слова: языковая коммуникация, гендерные исследования, социолингвистика, языковая картина мира, японский язык.
The gender differences in the Japanese language are well-known. We can see some gender peculiarities in discourse even in the formal speech where such differences of language do not exist. The structure of discourse in Japanese, the rules of dialog in it are different for men and women. Many people even in the modern Japan think that the female speech must be gentle, polite, modest, attentive to addressees; the form of the speech is more important than its content: it is more emotive than informative. Demands to the male speech are different: it has to be clear and informative. For instance exclamatory sentences are more frequent in the female speech; women use frequently specific interjections and so on. The gender peculiarities of the Japanese discourse reflect the communicative inequality of men and women. The male monopoly in interrupting speech and control of floor is noted in many works. The differences are more evident in the oral speech but they exist even in the written texts, frequently the gender of
Алпатов Владимир Михайлович — докт. филол. наук, чл.-корр. РАН, директор Института языкознания Российской академии наук. E-mail: v-alpatov@ivran.ru
the author of a text is evident. Some changes are going on both in the Japanese society and in the Japanese language but language is more conservative than society and women can speak according to traditional rules purely out of habits.
Key words: language communication, gender studies, sociolinguistics, linguistic worldview, Japanese language.
The gender differences in the Japanese language (forms of etiquette, personal pronouns, emotional particles, lexical units etc.) are well-known (there are specific dictionaries of male and female words in several volumes1); I don't mention it specially in my article. However we can see some gender peculiarities in discourse even in the formal speech where such differences of language do not exist2. The structure of discourse in Japanese, the rules of dialog in it are different for men and women.
The reasons of these differences are social and historical ones. Such peculiarities are connected with the position of women in the Japanese society and change in different epochs. The modern differences are gone back to the speech of court ladies of the XV—XVII centuries (nyooboo-kotoba). The peculiarities of the female discourse were especially significant at the Tokugawa times (XVII—XIX centuries). It was considered that women had to be visible but not audible. There were numerous handbooks of the women speech; the rules of them were mainly prohibitive. Women had to be silent and speak only in special cases3; the use of words of the Chinese origin was prohibited4. At the Meiji time (1868— 1912) the situation partly changed since the Western ideal of woman as "good wife and wise mother" was spread. Good wife remained silent but wise mother had to speak with her children. The ideology of silence was replaced by ideology of a correct speech. However the main criterion of the appraisal of the women speech was "womanhood" (onnarashisa). It means that the female speech must be gentle, polite, modest, attentive to addressees; the form of the speech is more important than its content: it is more emotive than informative. Demands to the male speech are different: it has to be clear and informative5. Such opinion is widespread up to now.
Some experiments confirm the reflection of traditional ideas in the everyday discourse. For instance the Japanese-American linguist S. Ma-kino fulfilled the following experiment. He proposed some men and
1 Sasaki Mizue. Otoko to onna no nihongo jiten. \ol. 1—2. Tokyo, 2000—2003.
2 Tanaka Lidia. Gender, Language and Culture. A Study of Japanese Television Interview Discourse. Amsterdam; Philadelphia; John Benjamin's, 2004. P. 29.
3 Nakamura Momoko. "Onnakotoba" wa tsukurareru. Tokyo, 2007. P. 57.
4 Ibid. P. 50.
5 Nakajima Etsuko. "!" to "ii sa shi" no darake no josei shuukanshi // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
women to write a composition about Cinderella (well-known topic). The men retold the subject without any emotions and appraisals. However the women expressed their empathy to the hero and some of them could not describe the subject consecutively. The form of the male compositions was freer but the women used some stock phrases. The conclusion of Makino: men describe events, women express emotions6. Analogous phenomena are discovered in male and female correspondence, essays, diaries etc. It is considered traditionally that men speak (hanasu) and women talk (shaberu), the verbal noun o-shaberi 'talking' is included in the above-mentioned dictionary of the women's words7. The female discourse is more monotonous (especially from the point of view of etiquette forms and cliché) and the male discourse is more variable8. Another peculiarity of the female discourse: Japanese women avoid estimations9 (at least not estimations of Cinderella and her stepmother but estimations of real persons).
The other gender peculiarity of the Japanese discourse is the communicative inequality of men and women. At the time of an experiment some pairs that consisted of one male student and one female student were selected accidentally. They had to talk and their speech was secretly recorded. It is well-known that the relations of participants of almost every dialog are asymmetric: one of them becomes leader, he or she begins and ends the conversation, determines themes of it, changes these themes, interrupts the speech of his or her addressee. It was found as a result of the experiment that the leader of every dialog was a man, every woman obeyed her partner10. The male monopoly in interrupting speech and control of floor is noted in many works11.
The communicative inequality of men and women is clearly evident on the Japanese television. At the time of interviews, talk-shows and even weather forecasts the roles of men and women are usually differentiated. Participants of interviews can be not two but three persons: object of interview (man or woman), interviewer (usually man) and a nice girl, her role is in pronouncing the utterances or particles of encouragement (backchannels, in Japanese aizuchi): hai, e 'yes', naruhodo 'really?' and so on. Such girl can be the second participant of weather forecasts with the meteorologist who is always a man. There are many persons in talk-
6 Makino Seiichi. Sexual Differentiation in Written Discourses // PJL. V. 6. 1979.
7 Sasaki Miz.ue. Op. cit. Vol. 1. P. 10.
8 Shiba Motoichi. Gendaigo no jinshoo-daimeishi ni tsuite // Keiryuu-kokugogaku, 70. Tokyo, 1974. P. 37.
9 Urushida Kazuyo. "Onnarashii" bunshoo wa kakoo no mono // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001. P. 81.
10 Yamazaki Keiichi, YoshiiHiroaki. Kaiwa no junbantori shisutemu // Gengo. 1984. 7.
11 Tanaka Lidia. Op. cit. P. 104.
shows, their male participants carry a dialog on but girls insert aizuchi periodically. It is significant that usually these girls are not from the stuff of a TV company but office ladies, young girls who work at time of the period between graduation of education and marriage. Japanese authors write that the main role of women on the Japanese television comes to aizuchi12. Not only on the television but in everyday conversation women answer man's questions, sometimes add some information to man's speech and insert aizuchi but don't become leaders13. The Japanese specialists write that the Japanese women are more listeners than speakers and usually they send only channel signals14. The maximum case of onnarashisa is silence, of course Japanese women are not so silent as at the Tokugawa times but traditions of women's silence are preserved in the modern Japan too15.
The differences are more evident in the oral speech but they exist even in the written texts, frequently the gender of the author of a text is evident as it was in the compositions about Cinderella. The special genre — "works of writing housewives" — is singled out. Such texts are formed as letters to newspapers or magazines and its themes are free. Their authors speak with an imaginary partner, since their discourse emphasizes the dialog relations. Writing housewives use many colloquial words and forms including specific female ones in combination with numerous etiquette and polite forms16. The usual feature of the Japanese female speech — the heightened emotionality at the expense of the poorness of the informative side — is evident in them. The constant theme of the "works of writing housewives" is peculiarities of the dialog. One married woman was glad because she was called by her first name but not as a member of her family even after her marriage; the other woman complained that she had lost her first name because everybody called her okusan (standard address to a married woman)17.
Of course this feature is more evident in the oral discourses. The heightened emotionality is produced by various linguistic sources. For instance exclamatory sentences are more frequent in the female speech18; women use frequently specific interjections19 and so on. Japanese specialists explain the heightened frequency of interrupted sentences
12 Japan Times. 29.03.1985.
13 Tanaka Lidia. Op. cit. P. 99, 104.
14 Ibid. P. 177.
15 Sasaki Eri. Hisei sabetsu go e no gengo kaikaku ni imi hitsuyoo na koto // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001. P. 233.
16 Kumagai Sigeko. Yakusho de "kanan koto wa" kanan to osoo // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001. P. 183; Urushida Kazuyo. "Onnarashii" bunshoo wa kakoo no mono // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001. P. 86.
17 Kumagai Sigeko. Op. cit. P. 185-186.
18 Nakajima Etsuko. Op. cit. P. 56-57.
19 Sasaki Mizue. Op. cit. Vol. 2. P. 260-264.
in the female discourse by the same reason too20. Japanese is the SOV language and every full sentence ends by its predicate but many sentences are interrupted in dialogues. However on the average 60% of sentences end by predicate in male direct speech in magazine texts but only 28-33% in female one21. Copulas omit especially frequently, the compensational predication can be created by emotional particles, the omission of the case particles is more usual in the female speech too22.
Some gender subsystems of Japanese can be singled out. It is especially noticeable in slangs. The slang of geishas is well-known from the Tokugawa times. However some contemporary slangs of young people exist too23. More exactly such slangs are different and represent extreme points of the Japanese gender stratification. Some slangs especially the student ones do not have almost any gender differentiation: many female students prefer to speak as men. However some slang of "office ladies" has typical features including in written texts, especially in SMS and Internet letters between them. For instance these girls like to deform characters and letters, unite two tokens or divide one token to two ones, combine tokens of different alphabets (Japanese, Latin, even Cyrillic) and so on. Such slang is named gyaru-moji 'girl tokens'. Their male colleagues of the same age prefer to avoid such linguistic games. It is considered that the gender differences in language and discourse increase with age (excluding some slangs of youths), become maximal at the age of 50-60 and diminish after it24.
Foreign specialists appraise these phenomena in the terms of two different registers of the Japanese languages reflecting two subcultures25. The Japanese linguist Endo Orie writes that every Japanese woman (at any rate an adult one) uses peculiarities of the female speech unconsciously but she must make conscious efforts to avoid them26.
The peculiarities of male and female speech are considered "eternal" in Japan; they are explained by psychological ore even biological rea-sons27. It is considered that the mail speech is connected with work and the female speech is connected with beauty28; female discourse must re-
20 Tanaka Lidia. Op. cit. P. 28.
21 Nakajima Etsuko. Op. cit. P. 56.
22 Hinds J. Ellipsis in Japanese. Edmonton, 1982. P. 178.
23 См.: Благовещенская О.В. Язык молодежи в Японии: Дисс. ... канд. филол. наук. М., 2007.
24 Ogino Tsunao. Yamanote to Shitamachi ni okeru keigo shiyoo no chigai // Gengo Kenkyuu. 84. 1983. P. 89.
25 Tanaka Lidia. Op. cit. P. 23—25.
26 Endoo Orie. Onna no ko no "boku.ore" wa okashiku nai // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001. P. 35.
27 Nakamura Momoko. Op. cit. P. 16.
28 Sasaki Mizue. Op. cit. Vol. 1. P. 2.
fleet features of the female character: love, consolation, friendliness29. However the real reasons of gender differences in language and speech are socio-cultural ones. The Japanese female sociolinguist Nakamura Momoko writes that such differences are, first of all, the ideology of the unequal rights30; all another factors are consequences of the press of this ideology on the mass consciousness. She uses the ideas of the British neomarxist N. Fairclough: social supremacy is more effective if the policy put on a mask of the everyday life and rules of life (including language ones) are pressed31. Nakamura Momoko writes that not onnarashisa gives birth to ideology but vice versa32.
Some above-mentioned examples can be explained by social reasons. For instance the variability of the male speech is explained by diversity of male social connections in contrary to their limit for women33. The inclination of young office girls to specific slang in conversations between them is connected with their marginal and temporary place in companies while their male colleagues of the same age have to occupy the constant place and begin their career, therefore they must speak the standard language. The social roles of boys and girls and even male and female students are equal but then man moves ahead while woman usually abandons her work after marriage, this situation is reflected in her speech. At the age of 50—60 man reaches the summit of his career and gender differentiation is maximal, it diminishes when man abandons his work too. Such differentiation can't be innate and it is caused not so much by the family as by the social environment. In the early childhood the gender differentiation in speech is minimal, it appears mainly at the school time.
The gender inequality is reflected not only in the Japanese language and discourse but in the traditional mental conceptions. One of roots of the cognition of them is the analysis of collocations and proverbs. Some results of this analysis demonstrate peculiarities of Japanese. Collocations and proverbs connected with father and mother in the European languages are approximately equally numerous but in Japanese they are numerous only for father, not for mother, who is not practically represented there34. Gender differentiations including discursive ones are cultivated in advertisements, in magazines for men and for women, on television and so on. One of the Japanese researches of this theme writes
29 Nakamura Momoko. Op. cit. P. 238-239.
30 Ibid. P. 27, 38.
31 Ibid. P. 60.
32 Ibid. P. 27.
33 Shiba Motoichi. Op. cit. P. 37.
34 Гуревич Т.М. Человек в японском лингвокультурном пространстве. М., 2005. C. 90.
that the Japanese women change but the world of magazines for women remains the same35.
Traditional appraisal preserves even now and the modern Japanese society can be characterized as male oriented36 although the social activity of women rose. The spreading of Western ideas is important too. Although the word feminisuto in Japanese can have the meaning of 'person (usually man) who produces things for women' the feminist movement is spread in Japan too since 1980th, feminists are struggling not only for equal rights for women (that are mentioned in the constitution) but for the full equality in all the spheres including language and discourse. However many traditional norms are shattered and some of them are changed because of demands of women (the latter phenomenon is unprecedented in the Japanese history). There are three words with the meaning 'woman' in Japanese: onna, fujin and josei. Usually they were considered as synonyms but now the first and the second words became connected with gender discrimination because they have not analogous words for men whereas josei is better because it is opposed to dansei 'man'. Now josei and dansei are usual words in newspapers and on TV, onna became rare and fujin almost disappeared37.
However such changes apply only to the official sphere where some rules can be changed by some decisions. The situation in the everyday discourse can be different. On the one hand many tradition gender peculiarities are stable especially as they are supported by television or advertisements. On the other hand many new phenomena such as gyaru-moji can spread spontaneously. On the whole in the opinion of N. Gottlieb the gender differentiations in Japanese did not change significantly from 1952 to 199 038.
However the problem of the female speech at the work time is serious. "The "true" woman must speak politely, without any persistence. But she must be confident, straightforward, and categorical if she functions in the society as chief, administrator, teacher, doctor, lawyer, in order to be apprehended as a colleague or worker with equal rights... In such cases the conflict between the traditionally expected models of behavior and the necessity to obtain the aim of communication arises"39. Men can choose among many different language forms but the female speech is
35 Nakajima Etsuko. Op. cit. P. 59.
36 Tanaka Lidia. Op. cit. P. 205.
37 Gottlieb N. Language and Society in Japan. Cambridge University Press, 2005. P. 110; Satake Kuniko. Shimbun wa seisabetsu ni dore dake keikin ni natta ka // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001. P. 163.
38 Gottlieb N. Op. cit. P. 14.
39 Крнета Н. Речь японских работающих женщин // Япония. Язык и культура. М., 2015. С. 66.
more monotonous. At the work time any person must be authoritative to his or her colleagues and subordinates but from the traditional Japanese point of view women have no authority. Every person must speak firmly and confidently at his or her work place but if a woman speaks in such manner her behavior can be estimated as rude40.
Now some women-chiefs break consciously the rules of language behavior. For instance one woman — head of a school cried to her subordinates (mainly men) at time of a school meeting: Bakayaroo 'fools', it is a very rood expression used only by men. She explains her behavior: "Sometimes it is necessary to show who is the chief"41. Such situations become frequent because the position of a chief associated with impolite speech in Japan42. Such development is not approved by many men. For instance in manga the image of a female chief is negative, her speech is ridiculed too43. The male style in the woman discourse (even in official situations) is denounced even now and is considered as a feature of lack of education44.
Some women-chiefs avoid this strategy but they can't speak traditionally, using polite forms and words. It is possible to propose or to advice but not to order in the polite speech. Therefore some women use family forms and words used for the address to husbands or children. Such speech is not too polite but not too rude. "Women combine direct assignments with sentences that soften the sensation of order... These sentences create the image of a work collective as a family unity"45.
Some changes are going on both in the Japanese society and in the Japanese language but we must not identify two processes. Language is more conservative than society and one uses his or her language mainly unconsciously. Women can speak according to traditional rules purely out of habits46. Lidia Tanaka writes that a women-chief can use commanding strategies in her discourse with conservations of traditional female elements47. Both discursive and linguistic female peculiarities in Japanese are rather stable and will be preserved for a long time.
40 Ibid. P. 67.
41 Akiba Reynolds K. Female speakers of Japanese in Transitions // Language and Gender: a Reader. Blackwell Publishers, 1998. P. 303.
42 Крнета K. Op. cit. P. 70.
43 Koyano Tetsuo. Shiko manga "Fuji Santaroo" ni miru josei // Onna to kotoba. En-doo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
44 Tanaka Lidia. Op. cit. P. 205.
45 KpHema K. Op. cit. P. 71-72.
46 Sasaki Eri. Op. cit. P. 231-232.
47 Tanaka Lidia. Op. cit. P. 205.
References
Благовещенская О.В. Язык молодежи в Японии: Дисс. ... канд. филол. наук. М., 2007.
Гуревич Т.М. Человек в японском лингвокультурном пространстве. М., 2005.
Крнета Н. Речь японских работающих женщин // Япония. Язык и культура. М., 2015.
Akiba Reynolds K. Female speakers of Japanese in Transitions // Language and Gender: a Reader. Blackwell Publishers, 1998.
Endoo Orie. Onna no ko no "boku.ore" wa okashiku nai // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
Gottlieb N. Language and Society in Japan. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Hinds J. Ellipsis in Japanese. Edmonton, 1982.
Koyano Tetsuo. Shiko manga "Fuji Santaroo" ni miru josei // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
Kumagai Sigeko. Y&kusho de "kanan koto wa" kanan to osoo // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
Makino Seiichi. Sexual Differentiation in Written Discourses // PJL. V. 1979.
Nakamura Momoko. "Onnakotoba" wa tsukurareru. Tokyo, Hitsuji-shoboo, 2007.
Nakajima Etsuko. "!" to "ii sa shi" no darake no josei shuukanshi // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
Ogino Tsunao. Yamanote to Shitamachi ni okeru keigo shiyoo no chigai // Gengo Kenkyuu. 1983. 84.
Sasaki Eri. Hisei sabetsu go e no gengo kaikaku ni imi hitsuyoo na koto // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
Sasaki Mizue. Otoko to onna no nihongo jiten. V. 1—2. Tokyo, 2000—2003.
Satake Kuniko. Shimbun wa seisabetsu ni dore dake keikin ni natta ka // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
Shiba Motoichi. Gendaigo no jinshoo-daimeishi ni tsuite // Keiryuu-koku-gogaku, 70. Tokyo, 1974.
Tanaka Lidia. Gender, Language and Culture. A Study of Japanese Television Interview Discourse. Amsterdam; Philadelphia; John Benjamin's, 2004.
Urushida Kazuyo. "Onnarashii" bunshoo wa kakoo no mono // Onna to kotoba. Endoo Orie (ed.). Tokyo, 2001.
Yamazaki Keiichi, Yoshii Hiroaki. Kaiwa no junbantori shisutemu // Gengo. 1984. 7.
