Papers by Shigeko Okamoto
Rethinking Language and Culture in Japanese Education
Contrastive Pragmatics, 2021
The repertoire of linguistic expressions that index sociopragmatic meanings differs considerably ... more The repertoire of linguistic expressions that index sociopragmatic meanings differs considerably from language to language. This difference becomes particularly noticeable when one language is translated into another. As an example, this study examines dialogs in the Japanese translations of two English crime novels to see how the translator deals with normatively gendered morphological forms in Japanese for which no corresponding forms exist in English. The analysis shows that although the same imperative, declarative, and interrogative forms are used for female and male characters in the English originals, in the translations, gendered forms are used not simply based on the gender of the characters but on the interaction of gender with other social variables, in particular class and age. The results and their theoretical implications are discussed, employing the notions of indirect indexing, double-voiced discourse, and cultural filter.
Gender and Language, 2021
In the past thirty years, major contributions from Japanese language and gender studies have prov... more In the past thirty years, major contributions from Japanese language and gender studies have provided necessary insights from the perspective of a non-European language. Future research will demand ever broader approaches – in particular, I call for investigations of the sociolinguistic life of understudied speakers, such as regional Japanese speakers, to examine how they understand linguistic gender norms and deploy a wide variety of linguistic and other semiotic resources for styling diverse forms of gender and sexual identity in situated practice. These questions have profound implications for the relationship between language and gender.
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 2018
Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), 1999
While the theories of linguistic politeness advanced by Lakoff (1973), Leech (1983), and Brown an... more While the theories of linguistic politeness advanced by Lakoff (1973), Leech (1983), and Brown and Levison (1987) have been influential and spurred great interest in ensuing research on this topic, limitations of their theories have also been pointed out by many scholars: These theories do not consider cultural and situational variability in the meanings of politeness; politeness rules and maxims are proposed without detailed descriptions of when and how to use them; certain speech acts or linguistic expressions are assumed to be inherently polite/impolite (or face-threatening); and politeness of individual utterances rather than connected discourse has been the focus of study (
Japanese Language and Literature, 2003
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1998
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Sess... more Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Phonetics and Phonological Universals (1998)
Studies in Language Companion Series, 2014
It is often said that language standardization has been steadily advancing in modern Japan and th... more It is often said that language standardization has been steadily advancing in modern Japan and that speakers in regional Japan are now bi-dialectal and code-switch between “Standard” and “regional” Japanese. The notion of code-switching, however, assumes the existence of varieties, or well-defined linguistic systems, that are distinct from each other. In this study, I examine the use of “Standard Japanese” and “regional dialects” and argue that it is much more complex and dynamic than what can be possibly accounted for in terms of the notion of code-switching involving two distinct varieties. I explore an alternative account employing the notion of variant choice and characterize the social meanings of “Standard” and “regional” variants as context-dependent and as multiple and ambiguous.
East Asian Pragmatics, 2015
Recent research on the use of gendered speech in Japanese has demonstrated extensive within-gende... more Recent research on the use of gendered speech in Japanese has demonstrated extensive within-gender diversity, suggesting that the relationship between linguistic forms and gender is variable, not fixed. While this diversity in use suggests a diversity in interpretation, the latter has not been adequately examined in its own right and deserves closer attention, given that it has important implications for the relationship between linguistic forms and social meanings. To address this gap, this article analyses both native speakers’ metapragmatic comments on the use of gendered linguistic forms and the interpretation of such forms used in situated conversations. It considers how and why forms normatively interpreted as feminine or masculine may be (re)interpreted differently by different persons or in different social contexts. Drawing on the notion of indirect and variable indexicality, I consider how such diverse and multiple interpretations can be accounted for in a theoretically co...
Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1996
Style Shifting in Japanese, 2008
... it's the age' * A/AN/N/V -jam (0) lyaro (o) A/AN/N/V -daro (o) 'isn't it?'... more ... it's the age' * A/AN/N/V -jam (0) lyaro (o) A/AN/N/V -daro (o) 'isn't it?', 'probably' soo jam'probably so' V-charu V-te ... jibun'oneself' meeme ga shitara 'if (he) himself did' Conjunctions * hetara soshitara'then' hetara ne 'then, you know' * hede, hete sorede'then, so' hede ima made wa ...
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 2003
... nice cop comp indescribable 'It is indescribable how nice it is ... expressed by S. ... more ... nice cop comp indescribable 'It is indescribable how nice it is ... expressed by S. This attitude, or stance, may be epistemic (eg, Yamada-kun ga Amerika ni itta koto wa tashika da'It's certain that Yamada went to Amerika'), evaluative or emo-tional (eg, Ryooshin ga rikon-suru koto ni ...
Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2014
Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1981), pp. 222-235
Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 2011
The English I mean and the Japanese teyuuka differ syntactically and semantically, but they have ... more The English I mean and the Japanese teyuuka differ syntactically and semantically, but they have similar pragmatized uses. Both verbs, mean and yuu , function as regular verbs in main clauses and also as part of formulaic expressions which indicate a modal meaning with respect to an utterance, or project back to an earlier utterance and index it as inadequate or in need of modification. Both constructions can also frame another expression as a modification of the earlier utterance. They also function metacommunicatively to manage the interaction on a strategic level. The article compares the structure and functions of these two constructions in conversation and shows how structurally different expressions used in certain kinds of discourse and interactional contexts have come to serve similar but not identical pragmatic needs.
Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1990
Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1990), pp. 248-256
Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1991
Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Sessio... more Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Grammar of Event Structure (1991), pp. 218-229
Japanese Language and Literature, 2003
... (he isn't really proficient).' (8) (IMJ, p. 70) Mic... more ... (he isn't really proficient).' (8) (IMJ, p. 70) Michiko: Kore tsumarai mono desu ga doozo. 'Here's a little something for you.' Yamaguchi: Doomo sumimasen. Chotto matte kudasai. Ocha o iremasu kara. 'Thank you. Wait a minute, please. I'll make tea.' Michiko: Doozo okamainaku. ...
Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics, 1996
... Page 234. PRAGMATICIZATION OF MEANING 223 illustrated in (9) and (10): (9) Ara kiree da koto.... more ... Page 234. PRAGMATICIZATION OF MEANING 223 illustrated in (9) and (10): (9) Ara kiree da koto. oh pretty COP 'Oh, how pretty!' (10) Maa yoku o-benkyoo-suru koto. my! hard PPX study 'My! ... oh nice COP 'Oh, how nice!' (27a) Suteki na/* desu koto to ittara nai. ...
Journal of Pragmatics, 1993
The usage of the Japanese nominal 'tautological' construction X wa X is compared with the usages ... more The usage of the Japanese nominal 'tautological' construction X wa X is compared with the usages of two other formally similar constructions: X ga X and X mo X. Despite their apparent similarities, the three constructions are shown to possess distinct core meanings. X wa X emphasizes the category immutability or the autonomy of an item. Both X ga X and X mo X indicate that the referent of X has some undesirable quality; the two constructions differ in their presuppositions. The meanings of all three constructions are motivated rather than arbitrary: the particular particle and the repetition of the noun phrase have a certain bearing on the meaning of each construction. Yet each core meaning is not fully analyzable by regular compositional semantics. Rather, it is to be regarded as conventionally associated with each morphosyntactic pattern, which can be adequately analyzed only by recourse to irregular phrase structures. It is further argued that given their core meanings, 'tautologies' may convey additional meanings which are only inferable pragmatically. Hence the meanings of 'tautologies' are best described in terms of both conventionality and pragmatic calculability. Accordingly, 'radical semantics' and 'radical pragmatics' are both found to be inadequate for the interpretation of 'tautologies'.
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Papers by Shigeko Okamoto