Cover not available

In:Informality in Japanese: Getting close in a formal context
Edited by Haruko Minegishi Cook and Momoko Nakamura
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 357] 2027
► pp. 174–199

Chapter 8
Sounding like a skateboarder at the Tokyo Olympics

Vernacular honorific speech style and innovative speaker identity construction in Japanese

 | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Drawing on the Japanese broadcast of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics skateboarding event, this chapter examines how a sports commentator’s use of a vernacular honorific speech style served to distinguish dual roles they assumed during the event. While a large body of work has demonstrated style shifting with the addressee honorific desu/masu style and the non-honorific plain style signal shifts in speaker stance (Cook 1996ab, 1997, 1998, 2008a; Geyer 2008ab; Enyo 2015), relatively few works have investigated style shifting with the vernacular honorific style marked by su (cf. Nakamura 2021, Nakamura this volume). The analysis reveals that, as a variant of the desu/masu style, the su style can create a third space in a formal context within which a speaker can construct situationally relevant distinctions in the public presentation of self. The findings of this study contribute to emerging work on the su style, question the dichotomous paradigm of (non-)honorific speech style, and put a spotlight on innovative speaker identity construction in Japanese.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The su style and ideology
  • 3.Indexicality, style shifting, and identity
  • 4.Data
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Sports announcer talk
    • 5.2Quantitative analysis
    • 5.3Qualitative analysis
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
  • Interlinear glossing key
References (52)
References
Akagi, Nobuaki, Mio Bryce, and Hiroshi Suzuki. 2020. “Maji ssu ka? Isn’t that Honorific?: Ambiguity of New Japanese Honorific ssu.” Pragmatics and Society 11(4): 505–523. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barke, Andrew. 2018. “Constructing identity in the Japanese workplace through dialectal and honorific shifts.” In Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power, and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse, ed. by Haruko Minegishi Cook, and Janet Shibamoto-Smith, 123–150. Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Lucien. 2010. “Observations on Korean and Japanese Speech Style Shifting.” Journal of Korean Culture 14: 65–102.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Steven C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, Haruko M. 1990. “An Indexical Account of the Japanese Sentence-Final Particle No.” Discourse Processes 13(4): 401–439. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1992. “Meanings of Non-Referential Indexes: A Case Study of the Japanese Sentence-Final Particle Ne.” Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse 12(4): 507–540. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1996a. “Japanese Language Socialization: Indexing the Modes of Self.” Discourse Processes 22: 171–197. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1996b. “The Use of Addressee Honorifics in Japanese Elementary School Classrooms.” In Japanese/Korean Linguistics Volume 5, ed. by Noriko Akatsuka, Shoichi Iwasaki, and Susan Strauss, 43–58. Stanford: Center Study Language & Information.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1997. “The Role of the Japanese Masu Form in Caregiver-Child Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 28: 695–718. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1998. “Situational Meanings of Japanese Social Deixis: The Mixed Use of the Masu and Plain Forms.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8(1): 87–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1999. “Particles.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(1–2): 181–183. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2002. “The Social Meanings of the Japanese Plain Form.” In Japanese/Korean Linguistics 10, ed. by Noriko Akatsuka, Susan Strauss and, Bernard Comrie, 150–163. Stanford: Center Study Language & Information.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. “Japanese Politeness as an Interactional Achievement: Academic Consultation Sessions in Japanese Universities.” Multilingua 25: 269–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2008a. Socializing Identities through Speech Style: Learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language. Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2008b. “Construction of Speech Styles: The Case of the Japanese Naked Plain Form.” In Japanese Applied Linguistics: Discourse and Social Perspectives, ed. by Junko Mori, and Amy S. Ohta, 80–108. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dunn, Cynthia D. 1999. “Public and Private Voices: Japanese Style Shifting and the Display of Affective Intensity.” In Languages of Sentiment, ed. by Gary B. Palmer, and Debra J. Occhi, 107–127. John Benjamins Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2008. “Variation and the Indexical Field.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4): 453–476. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles A. 1983. “Sports Announcer Talk: Syntactic Aspects of Register Variation.” Language in Society 12(2): 153–172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, Susan, and Judith T. Irvine. 1995. “The Boundaries of Languages and Disciplines: How Ideologies Construct Difference.” Social Research 62(4): 967–1001.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geyer, Naomi. 2008a. “Interpersonal Functions of Style Shift: The Use of Plain and Masu Forms in Faculty Meetings.” In Style Shifting in Japanese, ed. by Kimberly Jones, and Tsuyoshi Ono, 39–70. John Benjamins Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008b. Discourse and Politeness: Ambivalent Face in Japanese. Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. “Friendly or Condescending?: Negotiating Appropriateness in Online Discourse on Medical Practitioners’ Non-Use of Honorifics.” East Asian Pragmatics 6(1): 351–362. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hill, Beverly, Sachiko Ide, Shoko Ikuta, Akiko Kawasaki, and Tsunao Ogino. 1986. “Universals of Linguistic Politeness: Quantitative Evidence from Japanese and American English.” Journal of Pragmatics 10(3): 347–371. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ide, Sachiko. 1982. “Japanese Sociolinguistics: Politeness and Women’s Language.” Lingua 57: 357–385. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. “Formal Forms and Discernment: Two Neglected Aspects of Universals of Linguistic Politeness.” Multilingua 8(2/3): 223–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1992. “On the Notion of Wakimae: Toward an Integrated Framework of Linguistic Politeness.” Mosaic of Language: Essays in Honour of Professor Natsuko Okuda, Mejiro Linguistic Society: 298–305.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith. 2001. “Style as Distinctiveness: The Culture and Ideology of Linguistic Differentiation.” In Style and Sociolinguistic Variation, ed. by Penelope Eckert, and John R. Rickford, 21–43. Cambridge University Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Minju. 2023. “Between Honorifics and Non-Honorifics: A Study of the Korean Semi-Honorific Style and a Comparison with Japanese.” Discourse Studies 25(5): 664–691. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kose, Kotaro. “Sukebō “gonzeme” kaisetsusha senshū “maji yabakatta” [Skateboard “aggressive attack” commentator athlete “was really sick”].” Asahi Shimbun. July 27, 2021. [URL]
Kuramochi, Masuko. 2009. “Shinkeigo ‘su’ no shiyōbamen no kakudai to kinō no henka [Expanded situational use and change in function of new honorific ‘su’].” Meikainihongo 14: 25–35.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Manzenreiter, Wolfram. 2011. “Climbing Walls: Dismantling Hegemonic Masculinity in a Japanese Sport Subculture.” In Recreating Japanese Men, ed. by Sabine Frühstück, and Anne Walthall, 220–240. University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Masuda, Kyoko. 2016. “Style-Shifting in Student–Professor Conversations.” Journal of Pragmatics 101: 101–117. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nagatomi, Tomoko. 2012. “Shinkeigo ssu no atarashī kinō ni tsuite –– yakuwarigoteki kinō wo motsu shinkeigo ssu [Regarding new functions of the new honorific ssu –– new honorific ssu holds role language functions].” The University of Kitakyuushuu: University Bulletin 25: 129–147.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nakamura, Momoko. 2007. Sei to nihongo: Kotoba ga tsukuru onna to otoko [Sex and Japanese: Language constructing women and men]. Tokyo: Nihon Hōsōshuppan Kyōkai.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Honyaku ga tsukuru Nihongo: Hiroin wa onna kotoba o hanashi tsuzukeru [Japanese language constructed by translation: Heroines speak women’s language]. Tokyo: Hakutakusha.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. Shinkeigo “majiyabai ssu”: Shakaigengogaku no shiten kara [The new honorifics “maji yabai ssu”: A sociolinguistic approach]. Hakutakusha.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. “Indexical Regimentation of a Male Youth Style in Japanese: Two Approaches of Metapragmatic Discourse on a Q&A Website.” East Asian Pragmatics 6(1): 9–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2022. “Easy-going Masculinity: Persona Creation, Reindexicalization, and the Regimentation of Sociolinguistic Styles.” KGU Journal of Business and Liberal Arts 1: 51–67.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor. 1992. “Indexing Gender.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, and Charles Goodwin, 335–358. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. “Constructing Social Identity: A Language Socialization Perspective.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 26(3): 287–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1996. “Linguistic Resources for Socializing Humanity.” In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, ed. by John Gumperz, and Stephen Levinson, 407–437. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okamoto, Shigeko. 1998. “The Use and Non-Use of Honorifics in Sales Talk in Kyoto and Osaka: Are they Rude or Friendly?” In Japanese/Korean Linguistics Volume 7, ed. by Noriko Akatsuka, Hajime Hoji, Shoichi Iwasaki, Sung-Ock Sohn, and Susan Strauss, 141–157. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “Situated Politeness: Manipulating Honorific and Non-Honorific Expressions in Japanese Conversations.” Pragmatics: Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association 9(1): 51–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “The Use and Interpretation of Addressee Honorifics and Plain Forms in Japanese: Diversity, Multiplicity, and Ambiguity.” Journal of Pragmatics 43(15): 3673–3688. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Okamoto, Shigeko, and Janet Shibamoto-Smith. 2016. The Social Life of the Japanese Language: Cultural Discourse and Situated Practice. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ozaki, Yoshimitsu. 2002. “Atarashī teineigo s(s)u [The new polite form s(s)u].” In Dansei no kotoba: Shokuba hen [Men’s language: Workplace], ed. by Gendai Nihongo Kenkyūkai, 89–98. Tokyo: Hitujishobo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saito, Junko. 2010. “Subordinates’ Use of Japanese Plain Forms: An Examination of Superior–Subordinate Interactions in the Workplace.” Journal of Pragmatics 42(12): 3271–3282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “‘Sarariiman’ and the Performance of Masculinities at Work: An Analysis of Interactions at Business Meetings at a Multinational Corporation in Japan.” In Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power, and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse, ed. by Haruko. M. Cook, and Janet Shibamoto-Smith, 123–150. Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi, and Elinor Ochs. 1986. “Language Socialization.” Annual Review of Anthropology 15: 163–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yonekawa, Akihiko. 1996. Gendai wakamono kotoba kō [Modern youth language]. Tokyo: Maruzen Kabushiki Gaisha.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue