The rise and fall of the term <em>'shujin</em>' (husband) — The Association Specialists
  1. Schedule
  2. SESSION 6: Language, gender, and sexuality
  3. The rise and fall of the term 'shujin' (husband)

The rise and fall of the term 'shujin' (husband) (20294)

Orie Endo 1 , Barbara Pizziconi 2
  1. Nihongo no kai Company Union, Suginami-ku, TOKYO, Japan
  2. East Asia Department SOAS, University of London, London

Terms of address and reference in Japanese (whether role descriptors or pronouns) constitute rich sets of lexical items which enable speakers to express nuanced positioning in conversation. Their structural richness make interpersonal meanings such as degree of intimacy, power relations, and other indexicalities relatively explicit, and speakers’ choices are therefore ideologically loaded and subject to reflexive interpretation and contestation. Our study focuses on the history of the term shujin (husband), considered until recently to be the most common, default form of reference for a male spouse. Endo (1987) observed that “traditional” forms of reference were varied and possibly more egalitarian than commonly believed, and that terms indexing female subordination gained traction during the period preceding WW2. This study therefore focuses on the formidable ideological shifts characterizing the period from post-war to today.

While the disputes in and about women’s language are well documented (see Endo, Nakamura, Okamoto), through the analysis of historical and literary sources, official surveys, newspaper articles and reader letters, this study sheds light on a further domain of Japanese language in which gendered positions are negotiated: the culturally sensitive domain of family structure. We also discuss how structural factors – for example difficulty in conceptualizing an alternative for reference to other people’s husbands as goshujin - constrains speakers’ resistance to the sexist connotations of shujin.

Endo, Orie (1987) Ki ni naru kotoba: Nihongo saikentou", Nan'undo

Endō, O. (2006). A Cultural history of Japanese women’s language. Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan.

Okamoto, S. (2018). Metapragmatic discourse in self-help books on Japanese women’s speech. In Hudson, Matsumoto & Mori (eds.), Pragmatics of Japanese—Perspectives on Grammar, Interaction and Culture, John Benjamins: 245–266.

Nakamura, M. (2014). Gender, language and ideology: A genealogy of Japanese women’s language. John Benjamins