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Representing the Japanese Workplace: Linguistic Strategies for Getting the Work Done

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Japanese at Work

Part of the book series: Communicating in Professions and Organizations ((PSPOD))

Abstract

Company employees receive explicit training in verbal politeness. But models for how to speak in the workplace also circulate outside the explicit pedagogical sphere: popular media disseminate implicit messages to mass audiences about what language styles work in the workplace. This chapter examines mediatized messages about workplace speech circulating through televisual texts from the dual perspectives of norms about “appropriate” status asymmetric communication and gendered language. Data are drawn from two recent business dramas featuring both female and male characters. The focus is on directives as they operate within the more general framework of gendered speaking norms and serves to illustrate that a gendered distribution of access to directive forms aligns with and thus reinforces a more general matrix of gendered possibilities at work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Yakuwarigo ‘role language’ refers to highly stereotypified associations between particular linguistic forms and particular social characters; such associations make the deployment of such linguistic forms highly suitable for creating fictional “characters” circulated in print or televisual media (Teshigawara and Kinsui 2011). The relationship between yakuwarigo and the similar concept of enregisterment (Agha 2007), perhaps more familiar to English readers, may center around the core mode of transmission stipulated in each case, with Agha claiming transmission through processes of socialization and Kinsui’s group claiming contact with media as the primary mode through which these stereotypes circulate (Dodd and Redmond n.d.).

  2. 2.

    The two dramas are here described as they aired; the transcribed data, however, are from the DVD Box sets released and sold subsequent to the series’ final episodes (Nihon Terebi 2016; Fuji Terebi/Pony Canyon 2016).

  3. 3.

    Here and throughout, Japanese names are given in standard Japanese order, that is, Last Name + First Name.

  4. 4.

    For the purposes of this analysis, verbs in the plain form plus desu and variants thereof are included; in other research, these are termed “semi-polite” (e.g., Hudson 2008). Nuances of difference between these and full addressee honorifics (desu/-masu forms) are not considered.

  5. 5.

    This is in addition to the choice dekai ‘big’, here, ‘loud’ itself as a slang term for the more standard ōkii, as use of slang terms is associated with male speaking styles. Readers will recall that Hanasaki also uses “masculine” terms, such as kuso ‘shit[ty]’ in this same example; she does not, however, violate the pattern of asymmetric addressee honorific use/non-use evident here and demonstrated at greater length in the next example.

  6. 6.

    Another aspect of Soma’s speech that also contributes to the gender asymmetry in this example (and throughout the series) is his use of the masculine, non-deferent 2nd person pronoun omae ‘you’ to address Hanasaki; Hanasaki, on the other hand, addresses Sōma by last name + -san, thereby avoiding, as subordinates often do when addressing status superiors, pronominal address of any sort.

  7. 7.

    It should be noted, of course, that not all differences are claimed to be attributable to gender, since the status difference between them remains intact and, indeed, re-emerges at the end of their lunchtime exchange.

  8. 8.

    Invariant, that is, where real conversations between status asymmetric interlocutors are not; for detailed studies of conversation-internal variation in honorific use, see, e.g., Cook (2011), Hudson (2011), and Okamoto (2011).

  9. 9.

    Or, as discussed in Takano (2005), in increasing order of stereotypified (and gendered) “politeness.”

  10. 10.

    By far the most common in this data and the most often obeyed by the addressee(s).

  11. 11.

    Except, of course, for Saigyōji’s and Sōma’s constant use of Iku zo.

  12. 12.

    Kure is the imperative form of kureru ‘to give me/us’ and kudasai is the imperative form of kudasaru ‘to giveHON me/us’. Because kudasaru is an honorific form, however, the imperative force of kudasai is mitigated. Thus, -te kure has a far more direct impact than either -te, which lacks the imperative auxiliary entirely, or -te kudasai.

  13. 13.

    Of course, this is not the moment to forget that the male characters have the stronger V + -te and V + -te kure forms at their disposal. It is not at all the case that men issue, per character, fewer directives than women.

  14. 14.

    And the three unusual occurrences in the female characters’ dialogue were in the interrogative potential -te itadakemasu ka form.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith

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  1. Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Haruko Minegishi Cook

  2. University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith

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Shibamoto-Smith, J.S. (2018). Representing the Japanese Workplace: Linguistic Strategies for Getting the Work Done. In: Cook, H., Shibamoto-Smith, J. (eds) Japanese at Work. Communicating in Professions and Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63549-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63549-1_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63549-1

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