Metroethnicity, Naming and Mocknolect : New Horizons in Japanese Sociolinguistics

255 Pages·2021·1.496 MB·English

by  John C. Maher

Metroethnicity,
Naming and
Mocknolect
New horizons
in Japanese sociolinguistics
i
m
p
John C. Maher a
c
t
s
ct
u
u
ld
ti
ue
s
r
ei
n

a
nl
da
n

sg
ou
ca
ieg
te
y, 49
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Metroethnicity, Naming and Mocknolect
IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society
issn 1385-7908
IMPACT publishes monographs, collective volumes, and text books on topics
in sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, and applied linguistics that
aim to advance thinking and understanding of the complex intersections
of language, culture and society. The scope of the series is broad, with a
goal to push traditional disciplinary boundaries through theoretical and
methodological innovation. Explorations of new communicative contexts
and practices are particularly welcome, as works that break new ground by
making connections with other disciplines.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
benjamins.com/catalog/impact
General Editors
Li Wei
University College London
Associate Editors
Miguel Pérez-Milans Alfonso Del Percio
University College London University College London
Patricia Baquedano-López Cecile B. Vigouroux
University of California, Berkeley Simon Fraser University
Volume 49
Metroethnicity, Naming and Mocknolect
New horizons in Japanese sociolinguistics
by John C. Maher
Metroethnicity, Naming
and Mocknolect
New horizons in Japanese sociolinguistics
John C. Maher
International Christian University, Tokyo
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
doi 10.1075/impact.49
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress:
lccn 2021001646 (print) / 2021001647 (e-book)
isbn 978 90 272 0857 6 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 6002 4 (e-book)
© 2021 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com
‘We are in the world and the world is in us.’
(J. R. Firth, Speech, 1930)

Table of contents
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction
Portable language and the jouissance of identities 1
Chapter 1
Metroethnicity and cool: A theory of lifestyle identities 7
The lightness of being ethnic: The creative ‘acquirement’
of multiple meanings 7
Cool: A swerving trajectory 10
Post-ethnic languages 12
The texture of language: Slang du jour 13
Empires of cool: Bilingualism and language learning 14
Ethnic reconstruction: Hybridities 15
Italian Ainu 16
The problems of ethnic romance 17
Metroethnicity: Decentering ethnicity 18
The principle of Cool 19
Chapter 2
Mocknolect: Language and identity imitation 23
Mocknolect 23
“Je n’ai plus osé ouvrir la bouche” (I no longer dare open my mouth) 24
Japanese mocknolect 25
Mocknolect in the media 27
Yellow English and Asian English 28
Japanese mocknolect in war and peace 28
Japanese mocknolect in film: Karate Kid 30
The delicate aesthetic and the psycho absurd 32
The polyvalency of Japanese mocknolect 34
viii Metroethnicity, Naming and Mocknolect
Chapter 3
The linguistic identity of place: Where things are, where we are 37
A sense of place 37
Linguistic signatures 38
Place-names and continuity 39
Place names and the person: Our interior world 40
Utamakura: Poetic place-names 43
Signs of identity: Where things are, where we are 44
Demonyms: Identifying people of a place 45
Metonymy. No more Hiroshimas!! 48
Chapter 4
Married names: Continuous identities and social conflict 49
The semiotics of continuous identity 49
Power, hierarchy and expediency 50
“This must be some import from Chicago” 51
Rationale for name retention 55
Diglossic naming 56
Fūfu Bessei vs Fūfu Dōsei (‘separate’ vs ‘same’ married names) 57
History of the Fūfu Bessei movement 60
Rationale for name change 60
Structural transformations 61
Chapter 5
“Hirosima! Hiroshima! We all fall down!!” The speech fellowship of children 63
The speech fellowship of children 63
Warabe Uta, children’s song and language games 65
Baby talk 68
Dialect and place in children’s language life 71
Politics and parody 73
Acknowledgements 74
Chapter 6
Multilingual Japan: Word borrowers of the Chuo line 75
Borrowing 75
Going the other way: Japanese loanwords in Chinese 78
Sea hermits and language 79
The borrowers 80
Why borrow? 81
A survey of language awareness of borrowing 85
Gairaigo: Complex architecture 92
Metroethnicity, Naming and Mocknolect ix
Chapter 7
Discriminatory language, taboo and language hygiene 91
The Meiji period and standardization 93
Discriminatory talk 95
Racist tropes and pronouns of discrimination 98
The dangerous game of language and social groups 102
Chapter 8
Ainu and the Celtic languages: Comparing vitality and endangerment 103
Metroethnicity and cool Celtic 103
Multilingualism in Japan and the British Isles 105
The beginnings of revival: Ainu and the Celtic languages 106
A sociological theory of ‘Reversing Language Shift’ (RLS) 107
From rocking chair languages to intergenerational oracy 109
Politics and struggle: It ain’t easy 118
Expectations and over-estimations 122
The Ainu language situation: Celtic and other European connections 123
Chapter 9
The Sanka and Sanshōkotoba: Lost argot of mountain itinerants 125
Argot and anti-language 125
Sanka: An extinct language community 126
Ethnonym: From India to Oita 126
Origins 128
Lifestyle 129
Sanshokotoba: The Sanka language 130
Sanshokotoba (Secret language) 131
Secret language: Sanshokotoba and shirube 134
Speech taboo and prohibitions 135
Postscript on ‘Orphan Languages’ of 20th Century Asia 135
Chapter 10
Cool rules: Language loyalty, translation and ironic detachment 139
Hyphenated people, Levi jeans 139
Ethnicity in quotation marks 141
Minorities. Bring on the icons 141
Race, translation and cool 143
Cool rules 144
Cool dialects 145
The history of Cool 146
Cool and being 147