| Women's speech is a gendered category of language, which has been reinforced by the expectation of society towards women since the late nineteenth century in Japan. Women's speech was constructed according to the demands of the modern state, which required the standardization of Japan's national language, kokugo. However, Japan's language policy implemented by the government did not overtly include women's speech into its problematized topics and discussions. This study investigates how women's speech and national language policy were related to each other in the modern period, and how this relationship in the past is inherited as a gendered legacy of language use in the present. To examine Japanese women's speech as an issue of language policy, I use a covert/overt distinction as the framework of this study. Unlike overt language policy, covert language policy is not codified, but functions effectively in society. In my study, women's speech is a covert language policy, which was paired with overt language policy and conducted by both the government and new/old middle class women as agents during the 1890s--1920s. Women's speech was strongly influenced by the governmental gender policy, ryosai kenbo or "good wife, wise mother." This policy required the use of modest and gentle language for women. Although it encouraged women to actively choose polite, feminine language, it also allowed them to resist the policy and create rough, deviant speech. I found that concepts that restricted women's speech were thoroughly promoted through educational texts such as colloquial grammar books, school textbooks, educational women's magazines, and modern literature during the 1890s--1920s. The forms of women's speech developed based more on the genbun-itchi style in literature rather than on language reform of the government. In the post-WWII period, discussions at Kokugo Shingikai [The National Language Council] as representative of overt Japanese language policy indirectly included women's speech as an issue related to keigo [honorifics]. Although the boundaries of the feminine and masculine use of language became blurred, it is clear that women's speech is hard to terminate and a certain degree of gender discrimination through language use still remains. |
