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Women in charge: Politeness and directives in the speech of Japanese women1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Janet S. Smith
Janet S. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616
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Abstract

This article explores the linguistic practices of Japanese men and women giving directions to subordinates. Previous research on language and gender across a number of languages has equated the speech of women with powerlessness. The literature on Japanese women's speech would support this notion. It characterizes Japanese female speech as soft, polite, indirect, in sum, as powerless. This presents problems for women who must command. The present study, an extension of my previous work on Japanese female speech (Shibamoto 1985, 1987) centered on women in more typically female roles, examines the directives of women in positions of authority in traditional and nontraditional domains and compares them with the directive forms chosen by men in similar positions. Explanations for the differences found are placed within the frameworks of a general theory of politeness and the culturally specific, gendered strategies for encoding politeness and authority in Japanese. (Sociolinguistics, language and gender, politeness)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 59 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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