{"id":1684,"date":"2011-08-11T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T08:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1684"},"modified":"2011-08-01T08:44:36","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T06:44:36","slug":"style-shifting-in-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1684","title":{"rendered":"Style shifting in Japanese"},"content":{"rendered":"
Style shifting in Japanese<\/strong>. Ed. by Kimberly Jones <\/strong>and Tsuyoshi Ono<\/strong>. (Pragmatics and beyond new series 180.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008. Pp. vii, 335. ISBN 9789027254252<\/a>. $149 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Irene Theodoropoulou<\/a><\/strong>, Qatar University<\/em><\/p>\n

The volume consists of twelve chapters dealing with style shifting in Japanese as a context-bound phenomenon inextricably linked to language structure (2). The editors bring together diverse perspectives on the types of style shifting and factors influencing it. Several chapters focus on style shifting between \u2018polite\u2019 predicates ending in desu<\/em> or masu<\/em> and \u2018plain\u2019 predicates (non-desu<\/em>\/masu<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Haruko Minegishi Cook<\/strong> argues that in university academic consultation sessions between professors and students, the static tie of masu<\/em> to social status is cast into doubt, given that both masu<\/em> and desu<\/em> can be used interchangeably within the same social context for the construction of diverse social personae. Similarly, Naomi Geyer<\/strong>\u2019s <\/strong>study situates style shifting within politeness studies and argues that both forms have distinct but interrelated functions: the plain form marks solidarity among interlocutors and mitigates the threat of performed actions, while masu<\/em> impersonalizes the speaker and indicates deference to the addressee. Politeness is the key focus also in Shoko Ikuta<\/strong>\u2019s contribution on conversation interviews: her findings suggest that the (non) use of desu<\/em>\/masu<\/em> style can work as an interactional politeness strategyfor saving face.<\/p>\n

Senko K. Maynard<\/strong>\u2019s article argues that two expressive aspects of style mixture, emotivity and creativity, are used to manipulate different voices in written discourse, while Mutsuko Endo Hudson<\/strong>\u2019s study of semi-polite styles associated with the negative forms masen<\/em> and nai desu<\/em> argues for their signaling a psychological distance between speakers, as well as indexing their explaining or evaluating a situation. Similarly, Satoshi Uehara <\/strong>and Etsuko Fukushima<\/strong> show that masen<\/em> forms index politeness and are to be found at the beginning of conversations, while nai desu<\/em> forms are found in other parts of the conversation and point to growing familiarity among interlocutors.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yuka Matsugu<\/strong> and Yoshiko Matsumoto<\/strong> each flesh out gender issues in style shifting. Matsugu argues that a binary distinction between masculinity and femininity in gendered styles is challenged by her analysis of women conveying masculine social stances when frustrated or displeased. Matsumoto\u2019s study of middle-aged middle-class women suggests that there are several layered meanings within one style that need to be analyzed in unison.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shigeko Okamoto<\/strong>\u2019s article on regional and standard varieties of Japanese makes the important argument that regional and standard variants are used in complex manners, led by functionally-driven choices. Kuniyoshi Kataoka<\/strong> and Shoji Takano<\/strong> both push research on style shifting in new directions. Kataoka argues for the need for interactional analysis of deictics as aspects of style (shifting), while Takano argues for the need of a multi-stylistic approach to style beyond a single social situation, with casual conversations as the fundamental site.<\/p>\n

Overall, despite its limited crossreferencing, which hinders its cohesiveness, this volume contains some eye-opening contributions that will interest not only scholars working on Japanese but also (socio)linguists interested in style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Style shifting in Japanese. Ed. by Kimberly Jones and Tsuyoshi Ono. (Pragmatics and beyond new series 180.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008. Pp. vii, 335. ISBN 9789027254252. $149 (Hb). Reviewed by Irene Theodoropoulou, Qatar University The volume consists of twelve chapters dealing with style shifting in Japanese as a context-bound phenomenon inextricably linked to language structure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}