La sanidad en Córdoba

Today, gendered language is widely considered to be one of the major characteristics of Japanese (Kindaichi (1989), Tsujimura (2007)). Structurally, gendered language in Japanese is non-obligatory, meaning that speakers are not required to use gender-appropriate speech patterns in order to form grammatical sentences. Rather, the use of gendered languages speaks of one’s social position, one’s relationship to one’s listener(s), and one’s own personal feelings. Many aspects of Japanese are subject to such non-obligatory gendered differences, and they are found in a variety of phonological, morphological and lexical environments. Shibamoto (1987) lists some of the more common examples as intonation; politeness; personal pronouns; and emphatic sentence final particles (SFPs). Personal pronouns and SFPs are particularly interesting in Japanese, in part because they are clearly marked forms that are easily extracted for analysis, but also because these are both elements which appear to be undergoing change.

As Okamoto (1995) reviews, the use of feminine language in Japanese has particular social values associated with it, and the characteristics ascribed to it—such as women’s speech being polite, soft-spoken, and nonassertive—are partially interpretable as a reflection of women’s lower social status. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the recent shift in women’s roles in Japanese society has been accompanied with a marked decrease in the differences in speech patterns between male and female speakers. These changes can be seen in many different locations; one particularly prominent example is that of sentence final particles (SFPs). SFPs are—at risk of sounding redundant—special particles which occur at the end of sentences. SFPS are non-referential elements, meaning that they do not change the semantics of the sentences themselves (Inoue M. , 2006, p. 53); rather, they are “an affective and evidential marker with which speakers signal their social attitudes or stances . . . (Inoue M. , 2006, p. 76).” Without a specific linguistic meaning, they thus might be considered to fall under the category of pragmatic markers, or “. . . the linguistically encoded clues which signal the speaker’s potential communicative intentions (Fraser, 1996, p. 168).” Generally, they give emphasis or show the relationship between speakers, and are commonly categorized into feminine, masculine and neutral forms that are thought to be primarily used by the respective genders. SFPs may be used together, and the categorization of a given SFP depends on the other lexical items it is being used with. Yo, for example, can be neutral, feminine or masculine

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depending on the context: When it appears after a verb in the polite masu form, it is considered neutral, but when it is after a noun, it is considered feminine, and after a verb in the plain form, it is considered masculine. Some examples of feminine forms are wa with a rising intonation; no followed by the particles yo/yo-ne/ne; and ne following nouns. Some masculine forms are ze and zo; and yo after the command form of the verb. Neutral forms include yo-ne after verbs and adjectives.

Numerous studies on changes in the use of SFPs have recently come out, however, and it has been widely reported that the female-specific forms are essentially out of use amongst young women, with clear differences in the percentages used by older and younger women (Philips (2001), Ozaki (1999), Kobayashi (1993), Okamoto (1995), etc.). Even more interesting, however, is the fact that while the feminine forms appear to be on their way to extinction in colloquial speech, some young women are choosing to use some masculine SFPs (e.g., Philips (2001), Okamoto (2005)). These changes seem to suggest that these traditional—with caution as regards the meaning of traditional, given the strong arguments to consider gendered speech differences as the creation of the Meiji period and the modern state (Nakamura M. , 'Onna-kotoba' wa Tsukurareru, 2007)— distinctions are becoming less important, causing some such as Kobayashi (1993) to suggest that Japanese women’s speech is undergoing a process of neutralization (chuuseika).

In comparison with SFPs, personal pronouns have long seemed to be holdouts in gendered speech, showing relatively little change or diversification. Unlike standard English, which is restricted to one form for each pronoun, Japanese features many forms of first and second person pronouns, and their choice depends not only on gender, but also on formality, the speaker’s relationship with the listener, and their own preferences. For first pronouns, women tend to use atashi or watashi, whereas men tend to use ore or boku. For second person pronouns, women tend to avoid them altogether or use anata, and men tend to use omae or kimi. While there are no exclusively feminine forms, kimi, omae, and temee are generally considered masculine forms (Shibamoto J. , 2005). Because Japanese is a pro-drop language, meaning that it allows subjects (and, to a lesser degree, objects) to be dropped when context is sufficiently rich to make the dropped words clear, personal pronouns are generally used less frequently in Japanese than they are in languages such as English. Examining the first chapter of the

Little Prince in several different languages, Nakano (1976), summarized in Hayashi, et al. (1982), found that

pronouns took up just 3.1% of substantives, compared to 20.9% in English and 20.7% in French. There is a tendency to avoid using personal pronouns at all, with the use of second person pronouns often considered to be rude: While there are second person pronouns for inferiors or equals, there is no such form for superiors, making them thus inappropriate for such usages (Whitman, 1999). When they cannot be avoided, it is common to use names or titles instead of second person pronouns. It is also possible to refer to oneself by one’s name, although this is a habit largely associated with young women (Kajino & Podesva, 2007).

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As Abe (2004) describes, personal pronouns are generally thought to be the strongest index of gender in Japanese, and as such, are the slowest to change. In reflection of that, as both Ozaki (2002) and Hishikari (2007) report, there are no first person pronouns used in common with both male and female young adults in Tokyo of junior-high-school to college-age. However, the situation may not be that clear-cut. While young girls do not appear to be using them en masse, there have been several reports of young women using the masculine first person pronouns boku and ore at some point in their lives. In a survey of a 136 female students, Endo (2001) found that 23 students have used boku and ore at some point; 72 students reported observing other girls use them, too. Miyazaki (2004) also observed their being used amongst some junior high schools girls. While they may be a distinct minority, it appears that some girls are now choosing to use masculine pronouns. People also appear to be conscious of changes in the usage of personal pronouns, with girls using boku and ore labeled boku-kko (boku-girls) and ore-onna (ore-ladies) (Shinomoto, 2008). Changes in girls’ personal pronoun patterns also appear to be a point of popular concern, with many discussions on forums such as Yahoo Chiebukuro—literally, ‘Yahoo Bag of Wisdom,’ otherwise known in the English-speaking world as Yahoo Questions—concerning girls’ usage of boku and ore, which I will describe further below. With changes in their usage patterns seemingly looming in the horizon, and with deep and wide impacts on gendered language, personal pronouns are an element to follow in these coming years.