Do the Speeches of Japanese Female Politicians Feature Japanese Women's Language? -Political Language from a Gender Perspective

Abstract

This thesis focuses on so called Japanese women’s language by analysing Japanese female politicians’ language use in written speeches. Compared to the rest of the world there is a severe lack of female politicians in the Japanese Diet, and the reasons for this are complex. By analysing female politicians’ speeches language patterns and norms can be made clear. Through understanding these patterns and norms there can be a deeper understanding of the reality that female politicians face in Japan, and by extension it could help the advancement of women in politics. This thesis will be a contribution to the field of language and gender studies by exploring if Japanese women’s language is used in political speeches. First tables identifying different aspects of Japanese women’s language were created. Six speeches from three prominent female politicians were then analysed with these tables. The theoretical frameworks used for analysing the speeches are the Dominance Approach, the Deficit Approach, and Robin Tolmach Lakoff’s 3 Rules of Politeness. Shigeko Okamoto’s counterproposals on how to interpret politeness and women as a group were also used in the analysis. The results show a limited usage of women’s language in the analysed speeches, which might suggest that women’s language is deficit; it does not contain the elements needed for women to be able to use it as a powerful speech style. This implies that the world of male dominated politics have forced female politicians to adopt the same type of speech as their male counterparts. The results also infer that camaraderie as a form of politeness is an important tool for female politicians.