The regimentation of femininities in the world

The translated speech of non-Japanese women in a Japanese TV documentary series

Bibliographic Data

ID4838843
AuthorsMomoko Nakamura (0000-0003-2998-0973, Kanto Gakuin University , Yokohama , Japan, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume2023
Issue284
Pages107-130
Publication date2023-11-27
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of the Sociology of Language (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-2516 • E-ISSN: 1613-3668
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ijsl-2022-0081
OpenAlexW4389131262
LanguageEN
References cited28

This paper aims to demonstrate the ideological workings of translation by analyzing the ways Japanese women's language is employed to translate the speech of women in seven cities worldwide in a Japanese TV documentary series. The analysis finds that the TV production team allocates the features of Japanese women's language differently to the speech of women according to region, drawing boundaries between women in Europe and the Americas, those in Asia and Africa, and Japanese women. The program's practices of translation regiment the femininities of women according to region in terms of formality and politeness by actively expanding the indexicality of features of Japanese women's language away from reticence, politeness, and gentleness, and by restricting the use of these features to co-occurrence with the plain form. The analysis implies that this regimentation of femininities serves to reproduce and reinforce Japanese domestic stereotypes concerning women in distinct regions among Japanese audiences

Formality · Ideology · Indexicality · Japanese language · Linguistics · Media studies · Politeness · Political science · Politics · Reality tv · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender Studies in Language · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Translation Studies and Practices

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