Linguistic Tactics and Strategies of Marginalization in Japanese, 1st ed. 2021

This edited book brings together studies on different aspects of marginalization in Japanese, creating a framework for studying marginalization which can also be applied in other linguistic and international contexts. The chapters in this book look at both marginalization of others and self-marginalization, examining the pragmatic strategies used to achieve marginalization, and investigating situations where it acts as an agentive tactic of speakers, in addition to a strategy of broader social structures. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and East Asian languages and cultures. 

Part I Marginalization and Natural Language Data

2 Strategies of Discourse (Re)-Framing as Micropolitics Among Contemporary Japanese University Students

3 When the Model Becomes the Marginalized: Identity Struggles of Japanese Job-Hunters

4 The Struggle Against Hegemonic Femininity: The Narrative of a Japanese Actress

6 Epistemic Primacy and Self/Other-Marginalisation in a Parliamentary Debate: A Case Study of Female Japanese Politicians

Part II Marginalization and Mediatized Data

7 “We’re family”: Japanese Characters’ Categorizations of a Gay Man in a TV Drama

8 Street Corners and Hugs: Queer Japanese Challenges to Heteronormativity Through Social Media

10 Connecting the Personal to the Collective: The haafu aruaru (things that happen to racially/ethnically ‘mixed’ people) Narratives on Twitter

11 Afterward

Judit Kroo is Assistant Professor of Japanese Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies at Arizona State University, USA. Her current projects consider the social construction of standard or desirable gendered adulthoods in Japan and Korea, alternative economic practices among younger Japanese adults, and the construction of mediatized social personae.

Analyzes marginalization from both the individual speaker and broader social regulatory perspective

Focuses on the linguistic strategies through which speakers are marginalized or marginalize themselves

Constructs a framework of marginalization also applicable in contexts beyond Japan