linguistics stuff

[sethrenn]

This is an interesting paper about pronoun use among Japanese children, how it's changing, and the increasing use of 'boku' by girls and the social reaction to it. It does have a few brain-breaky phrases near the beginning (like 'hegemonic linguistic construction,' which... I keep feeling like that refers to something that would seem really self-

Comments

[totorojo]

This looks really interesting! I've bookmarked it for later reading.

I'm pretty sure the hubby's nephew uses ore, and has done since I've known him. He's 6.

Thanks for the link!

[pendelook]

I've heard slightly different stereotypes about some of these than what TVTropes says...

Anyway, sensei was a little bit disapproving of girls in my class who used "boku". She kept changing what they said when she wrote it on the board to "watashi", and she said she "couldn't recommend for girls to say it". Despite that, I hear it in anime a lot, including from characters who aren't so much tomboyish but just military and reserved.

I ended up switching to "uchi" when being super-casual, in emulation of Nikki from Mana Khemia, who, while she does goof around, is not at all an idiot (she got recruited for Al-Revis despite how hard it was for some people to get in!), she's just genki, and is actually pretty feminine in her way. She's... I don't know, she just seems like a good dialogue model for casual stuff, at least while I'm still learning and can only really talk about kid stuff instead of formal/professional tings.

[pendelook]

...also, you know, I'm pretty sure "hegemonic linguistic construction" is pretty much just "society policing language".