Gender, Language and Culture

Abstract

This book analyzes the relationship between gender, age and role in Japanese television interviews. It covers a wide range of topics on Japanese communication; cultural and gender variables are interwoven in the interpretation of the findings. The study shows how participants interact through language and how they project their identities in the context of the interview. Based on a qualitative analysis, speech in mixed and same gender interactions is analysed, turntaking, terms of address and aizuchi (listener’s responses) are examined. The findings reveal interesting characteristics of all-female interactions, such as the influence of age that appears to be more important than gender; an observation that has repercussions in the study of gender and language differences in modern Japan. This book is an interdisciplinary study that integrates notions of politeness and theories of gender and language, and will be of interest to people researching Japanese culture and communication, gender studies and institutional language.

Diverse ELT reading materials: Cross mapping gender ideas of respective readers

“…(212-13) Language serves as a mirror to culture. Tanaka (2004) declares language as the most enduring record of a society's culture. Here the term culture encompasses the ways of doing and believing for every single prospect and move made by a society.…”

Using UAM CorpusTool to Explore the Language of Evaluation in Interview Program

“…Other studies have dealt with the linguistic and discursive aspects of the discourse of interview programs: the interpersonal metaphor and its functions in interview programs (Perdana & Saragih, 2013), the interaction patterns in interview programs from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Huang & Liao, 2008) and the Engagement resources in interview programs (Li & Zhang, 2010). Interviews are goal-oriented and are conducted with the particular aim of obtaining information (Jucker, 1986;Drew & Heritage, 1992;Tanaka, 2004). Interview programs, as "an interactional encounter between a journalist and one or more newsworthy public figures" (Clayman & Heritage, 2002), have their special interpersonal meaning.…”