Speaking with an Accent in Northern Japan: Discrimination and Dialect Ideologies

229 Pages·2017·18.27 MB·English

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UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Speaking with an Accent in Northern Japan: Discrimination and Dialect Ideologies
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9888279n
Author
Everhart, Edwin Keely
Publication Date
2018

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Speaking with an Accent in Northern Japan: Discrimination and Dialect Ideologies

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

in Anthropology

by

Edwin Keely Everhart

2018
© Copyright by

Edwin Keely Everhart

2018
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Speaking with an Accent in Northern Japan: Discrimination and Dialect Ideologies

by

Edwin Keely Everhart

Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology

University of California, Los Angeles, 2018

Professor Paul V Kroskrity, Chair

This dissertation investigates the practices by which local language activists and college
students in the Touhoku (Tōhoku 東北) region reproduce and challenge stigma toward local
language (“dialect,” “accent”). Touhoku has for decades been a source of labor and other resources
for the national economy of Japan which favors the urban core, and language standardization
reinscribes Touhoku speakers as belonging to a periphery. People of this region, subject to
metropolitan cultural hegemony in the post-war period, often came to bear an inferiority complex
about local culture due to linguistic discrimination and cultural marginalization. Registers of local
language here tend to absorb weighty meaning from social relations of power, as emblems of
shameful backwardness, tourist appeal, political resistance, and fashionable authenticity by turns.
Following the last “dialect boom” (1980s-90s), local language activists (“dialect activists”) have
pursued projects of language documentation, language valorization, and language revitalization in a
spirit of renewal after the triple disasters of March 11, 2011. Meanwhile institutions like media and
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schools, which the state set up to privilege national “standard” language (i.e. Tokyo-style language),
have never been decolonized.
This dissertation is based on 16 months of ethnographic research primarily in Morioka,
Iwate Prefecture, with college students at Iwate University, as well as with language activists, drawing
on established approaches in linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. It draws together a range
of approaches to analyze language varieties as registers, that is, as products of enregisterment. Part
of this dissertation addresses language activism e.g. in the case of Kesen and Yamáura Harutíğu
(Yamaura Harutsugu). In addition to discussing such language activism (largely among elders), this
study asks how young people in northern Touhoku experience local language: what are their
language ideologies vis-à-vis local language, how do they express social identities using linguistic
resources, and how is their agency to use language constrained? People in northern Touhoku are
experiencing a form of language endangerment, but local language is by no means “extinct,” though
commoditization and linguistic colonization are dominant forces. Analysis of life histories and
everyday interaction demonstrate that speakers use local language as a resource for negotiating
cultural authority.

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The dissertation of Edwin Keely Everhart is approved.

Mariko Tamanoi

Katsuya Hirano

Norma Mendoza-Denton

Paul V Kroskrity, Committee Chair

University of California, Los Angeles

2018

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松本源蔵氏と、多くの北東北の方言活動家の皆さんに

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Table of Contents

LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................... ix

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................. x

PERSONAL NAMES ........................................................................................................................... xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................... xii

VITA ......................................................................................................................................................... xvi

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction. .......................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Linguistic colonization and Touhoku history .............................................................................. 1
1.1.1 History of linguistic difference ...................................................................................... 2
1.1.2 Standardization debates .................................................................................................. 3
1.1.3 Linguistic colonization in the present .......................................................................... 6
1.2 Theoretical approaches to linguistic discrimination
in linguistic anthropology ............................................................................................................... 8
1.2.1 Research in linguistic discrimination ............................................................................ 10
1.2.1.1 Value ................................................................................................................. 12
1.2.1.2 Style ................................................................................................................... 14
1.2.2 Toward a comprehensive concept of linguistic discrimination ................................ 16
1.2.2.1 General tools ................................................................................................... 21
1.2.2.2 Language shift and maintenance .................................................................. 23
1.2.2.3 Linguistic racism ............................................................................................. 24
1.2.3 Defining linguistic discrimination ................................................................................. 25
1.2.3.1 Proposed definition of linguistic discrimination ........................................ 27
1.2.4 Broader applications ........................................................................................................ 28
1.2.4.1 Potential usefulness of a comprehensive notion
of linguistic discrimination ............................................................................ 29
1.2.5 Linguistic discrimination in Japan ................................................................................. 30
1.2.5.1 Language attitudes and language politics .................................................... 31
1.2.5.2 Discrimination ................................................................................................. 32
1.2.5.3 Potential applications of linguistic discrimination research
in Japanese contexts ....................................................................................... 35
1.2.6 On variety and enregisterment ...................................................................................... 37
1.3 Metapragmatics of this dissertation ............................................................................................... 40
1.3.1 Romanization ................................................................................................................... 40
1.3.2 Preferred terms ................................................................................................................ 41
1.4 Research methods ............................................................................................................................ 43
1.4.1 Maps .................................................................................................................................. 45
1.4.2 With language activists .................................................................................................... 46
1.4.3 With university students ................................................................................................. 47
1.4.4 Observer effects ............................................................................................................... 49
1.5 Chapters of this dissertation ........................................................................................................... 51
1.5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 51
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1.5.2 Local Language Activism in Touhoku:
Revitalization Practices and Preservation Ideologies ................................................. 51
1.5.3 Metalinguistic Discourse Among Iwate University Students ................................... 52
1.5.4 Students’ Lingual Life Histories: Identity, Agency, Alienation ................................ 52
1.5.5 Kesen, Independence, and Yamáura Harutíğu:
A Final Case of Language Activism ............................................................................. 52

CHAPTER TWO: Local Language Activism in Touhoku:
Revitalization Practices and Preservation Ideologies ........................................................................ 53
2.1 Linguistic diversity and movement toward standardization ...................................................... 53
2.2 Reaction to standardization: local language activism .................................................................. 59
2.2.1 Unexpected success of standardization ........................................................................ 59
2.2.2 Metropolitan desire for the authentic periphery ......................................................... 59
2.2.3 Prestigious registers of local language .......................................................................... 60
2.2.4 Resistance to standardization ........ ............................................................................... 60
2.3 Local language activists: individuals.............. ................................................................................ 62
2.3.1 Imoto................................................ ................................................................................. 62
2.3.2 Osima................................................ ................................................................................ 65
2.4 Local language activists: groups.................... .. ............................................................................... 68
2.4.1 Nanbu summit................................ .. ............................................................................... 70
2.4.2 Activists’ ideologies of local language .......................................................................... 73
2.4.2.1 Ambivalent evaluation of local language ..................................................... 73
2.4.2.2 Mitigated foreboding...... ................................................................................ 74
2.4.2.3 Seriousness and fun in language activism ................................................... 77
2.4.2.4 Staying distinct from standard language ...................................................... 81
2.5 Limits to valorization........................... ............................................................................................ 84

CHAPTER THREE: Metalinguistic Discourse
Among University Students....... ........................................................................................................... 91
3.1 Uncertainty and enregisterment ..................................................................................................... 91
3.1.1 Terms for national “standard” language ...................................................................... 91
3.1.2 Enregisterment in interaction ........................................................................................ 99
3.2 Scale and imaginaries ....................................................................................................................... 105
3.2.1 Emic concept categories ................................................................................................. 105
3.2.2 Scales. . .............................................................................................................................. 109
3.3 Idealized temporality. ....................................................................................................................... 113
3.4 Immediate practicality. ..................................................................................................................... 121
3.5 Ideologies of local language: additonal considerations. .............................................................. 126

CHAPTER FOUR: Students’ Lingual Life Histories:
Identity, Agency, Alienation. ................................................................................................................ 128
4.1 Sawada. ............................................................................................................................................... 128
4.1.1 Sawada: home town and family. .................................................................................... 130
4.1.2 Sawada: at school. ............................................................................................................ 132
4.2 Narita. ................................................................................................................................................. 141
4.2.1 Narita: observations. ....................................................................................................... 142
4.2.2 Narita: in his own words. ............................................................................................... 144
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4.2.3 Narita: a fuller picture. .................................................................................................... 147
4.3 Kumagai. ............................................................................................................................................ 150
4.3.1 Kumagai: being accented. ............................................................................................... 151
4.3.2 Kumagai: alienation. ........................................................................................................ 158
4.4 Hatori. ................................................................................................................................................ 159
4.5 Lingual life histories and linguistic personae. ............................................................................... 164

CHAPTER FIVE: Kesen, Independence, and Yamáura Harutíğu:
A Final Case of Language Activism. .................................................................................................... 167
5.1 Yamáura: early life. ........................................................................................................................... 168
5.2 Possible inspirations. ........................................................................................................................ 169
5.3 Projects based in Kesen. .................................................................................................................. 170
5.4 Economic decline and new strategies. .......................................................................................... 173
5.5 Theatre Kesen after 2015. ............................................................................................................... 175
5.6 Conclusion. ........................................................................................................................................ 178
5.6.1 Analyzing linguistic discrimination. .............................................................................. 178
5.6.1 On varieties, registers, ideologies, and users of language. ......................................... 180

END NOTES ......................................................................................................................................... 181

WORKS CITED .................................................................................................................................... 194

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