Metroethnicity, Naming and Mocknolect : New Horizons in Japanese Sociolinguistics.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maher, John C.

Series:

IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society

IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society ; v.49

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sociolinguistics--Japan.

Sociolinguistics.

Japanese language--Social aspects.

Japanese language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (255 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam/Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2021.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

"Language is a social space, an aesthetic, a form of play and communication, a geographical reference, a jouissance, a producer of numerous social and personal identities. This book takes up salient issues of sociolinguistics with a specific focus on Japan: language and gender (the married name controversy), language and the 'portable' identities being fashioned around traditional, essentialist notions of ethnicity (metroethnicity) endangerment, slang, taboo and discriminatory language in Japanese especially regarding minorities, place-names from indigenous languages, the fellowship and parody of children's songs, and the diversity of nicknames among children and young people. This books gives radical and new perspectives on the sociolinguistics of Japanese"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Intro

Metroethnicity, Naming and Mocknolect

Editorial page

Title page

Copyright page

Epigraph

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Portable language and the jouissance of identities

The structure of this book

Chapter 1. Metroethnicity and cool: A theory of lifestyle identities

The lightness of being ethnic: The creative 'acquirement' of multiple meanings

Cool: A swerving trajectory

Post-ethnic languages

The texture of language: Slang du jour

Empires of cool: Bilingualism and language learning

Ethnic reconstruction: Hybridities

Italian Ainu

The problems of ethnic romance

Metroethnicity: Decentering ethnicity

The principle of Cool

Chapter 2. Mocknolect: Language and identity imitation

Mocknolect

"Je n'ai plus osé ouvrir la bouche" (I no longer dare open my mouth)

Japanese mocknolect

Mocknolect in the media

Yellow English and Asian English

Japanese mocknolect in war and peace

Japanese mocknolect in film: Karate Kid

The delicate aesthetic and the psycho absurd

The polyvalency of Japanese mocknolect

Chapter 3. The linguistic identity of place: Where things are, where we are

A sense of place

Linguistic signatures

Place-names and continuity

Place names and the person: Our interior world

Utamakura: Poetic place-names

Signs of identity: Where things are, where we are

Demonyms: Identifying people of a place

Metonymy. No more Hiroshimas!!

Chapter 4. Married names: Continuous identities and social conflict

The semiotics of continuous identity

Power, hierarchy and expediency

"This must be some import from Chicago"

Rationale for name retention

Diglossic naming

Fūfu Bessei vs Fūfu Dōsei ('separate' vs 'same' married names)

History of the Fūfu Bessei movement

Rationale for name change.

Structural transformations

Chapter 5. "Hirosima! Hiroshima! We all fall down!!": The speech fellowship of children

The speech fellowship of children

Warabe Uta, children's song and language games

Baby talk

Dialect and place in children's language life

Politics and parody

Chapter 6. Multilingual Japan: Word borrowers of the Chuo line

Borrowing

Going the other way: Japanese loanwords in Chinese

Sea hermits and language

The borrowers

Why borrow?

A survey of language awareness of borrowing

Chapter 7. Discriminatory language, taboo and language hygiene

The Meiji period and standardization

Discriminatory talk

Racist tropes and pronouns of discrimination

The dangerous game of language and social groups

Chapter 8. Ainu and the Celtic languages: Comparing vitality and endangerment

Metroethnicity and cool Celtic

Multilingualism in Japan and the British Isles

The beginnings of revival: Ainu and the Celtic languages

A sociological theory of 'Reversing Language Shift' (RLS)

From rocking chair languages to intergenerational oracy

a. The Ainu language situation: Stages 8-6

b. The Celtic Languages Situation

Stages 8-6

c. The Ainu Languages Situation: Stages 5-1

d. The Cornish and Manx Gaelic Rennaissance Stages 5-1

Politics and struggle: It ain't easy

Expectations and over-estimations

The Ainu language situation: Celtic and other European connections

Chapter 9. The Sanka and Sanshōkotoba: Lost argot of mountain itinerants

Argot and anti-language

Sanka: An extinct language community

Ethnonym: From India to Oita

Origins

Lifestyle

Sanshokotoba: The Sanka language

Sanshokotoba (Secret language)

Secret language: Sanshokotoba and shirube

Speech taboo and prohibitions

Postscript on 'Orphan Languages' of 20th Century Asia.

Chapter 10. Cool rules: Language loyalty, translation and ironic detachment

Hyphenated people, Levi jeans

Ethnicity in quotation marks

Minorities. Bring on the icons

Race, translation and cool

Cool rules

Cool dialects

The history of Cool

Cool and being

Ironic detachment and empowerment

Freedom vs exile?

Conclusion

Chapter 11. A sociophonetics of the Japanese /r/: Mocknolect and variation

The Japanese /r/ sound

Pronunciation of /r/ in the world's languages

The sociophonetics of the Japanese /r/

Racialised phonetics and Asian identity

Varieties of the Japanese /r/

Chapter 12. Language difficulty and difficult languages

The easy and the difficult

Five meanings of difficulty

Difficulty as cultural capital

Art, music and difficulty

Languages near, languages remote

The remote and the difficult

Language and distance

A survey of Japanese attitudes towards language difficulty

FDLs: 'Fiercely Difficulty Languages': The view from schools

Absolute difficulty

a. Reading

b. Sound and spelling

c. Pragmatics

d. Pronunciation

A note on simplified language: A solution for the difficult?

Note 1

Chapter 13. Slang and modernity: Innovation and controversy about language

Slang and language innovation

Japanese slang in history

Tracking slang

Mechanisms of youth slang

The leader of the pack: 'Language boss'

The /r/ deletion controversy

Chapter 14. Names and nicknames: Personal recognition, solidarity and social management

Names: The confluence of past and present

The Eastern name order

Personal names

Family names

Nicknaming

The structure of nicknames

The origin of nicknaming

Conclusion.

Appendix. List of names and nicknames (1-2 year, M. K. Junior High School, Tokyo)

Appendix. List of names and nicknames (1-2 year, M. K. Junior High School, Tokyo)

Chapter 15. Ethnic toponomy in Tokyo: Folklinguistics and multilingualism

Naming the landscape

Multilingualism and place-name education

Place-names laws in Colonial Hokkaido

Place-names in the Kanto region

Ainu place-names in the Kanto region

Tōkyō 東京

Kanagawa 神奈川 Prefecture

Saitama 埼玉 Prefecture

Chiba 千 Prefecture

Ibaraki 城

Gunma 群

Tochigi 栃木

Naming and renaming in the Meiji Period

Place-names, folklore and identity

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

OCLC:

1240264444