Girls Shouldn’t Use Rough Language? Diverse Views of Japanese Speech Norms

Speech norms, or ideas about how one should speak, are often taken for granted as common sense. But if we attempt to articulate them, we may in fact find ourselves giving only vague descriptions. This study reconsiders what speech norms are, or how they are conceptualised – a markedly understudied question. It examines native speakers’ metapragmatic comments concerning Japanese girls’/women’s speech norms in posts on an online discussion forum. The analysis demonstrates considerably diverse views of norms, or different criteria used in evaluating language use – criteria related to the intersectionality of gender with other social and situational variables, including age, class status, and interpersonal relationships. The analysis of these diverse views reveals the “hidden” ideological biases, including sexism, in women’s speech norms, which tend to be unquestioned as natural. The implications of the findings for situated language practice are considered

Conversation analysis · Ideology · Interpersonal communication · Intersectionality · Pragmatics · Situated · Situational ethics · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Gender Studies in Language · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies

• The indexical field and pragmatics learning

  Open Access•Joy Maa•Journal of Pragmatics•2026

  Add to list