The Discursive Construction of Hierarchy in Japanese Society
The Discursive Construction of Hierarchy in Japanese Society

Author: Zi Wang

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-08-10

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1501514598

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Seniority-based hierarchy (jouge kankei) is omnipresent in Japanese group dynamics. How one comports, depends on one’s status and position vis-à-vis others. To-date, no study shows what constitutes this hierarchy, where and when individuals growing up in Japan first come into contact with it, as well as how they learn to function in it. This book fills in the lacunae. Considering jouge kankei as a social institution and adopting a discourse analytic approach, this volume examines the ways in which institutional jouge kankei as an enduring feature of Japanese social life are created and reproduced. The monograph analyses how seniority-based relations are enacted, legitimised, transmitted, and reified by social actors through language use and paralinguistic discursive practices, such as the use of space, objects, signs, and symbols. It also looks at how established rules could be challenged. The empirical data on which findings are based are gathered through 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork from 2015 to 2018 in Japanese schools, with certain types of data (school club etiquette books and uniforms) being presented and analysed for the first time. This volume also shows continuity and change of jouge kankei from school to work.

The Discursive Construction of Hierarchy in Japanese Society
The Discursive Construction of Hierarchy in Japanese Society

Author: Zi Wang

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-08-10

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1501514873

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Seniority-based hierarchy (jouge kankei) is omnipresent in Japanese group dynamics. How one comports, depends on one’s status and position vis-à-vis others. To-date, no study shows what constitutes this hierarchy, where and when individuals growing up in Japan first come into contact with it, as well as how they learn to function in it. This book fills in the lacunae. Considering jouge kankei as a social institution and adopting a discourse analytic approach, this volume examines the ways in which institutional jouge kankei as an enduring feature of Japanese social life are created and reproduced. The monograph analyses how seniority-based relations are enacted, legitimised, transmitted, and reified by social actors through language use and paralinguistic discursive practices, such as the use of space, objects, signs, and symbols. It also looks at how established rules could be challenged. The empirical data on which findings are based are gathered through 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork from 2015 to 2018 in Japanese schools, with certain types of data (school club etiquette books and uniforms) being presented and analysed for the first time. This volume also shows continuity and change of jouge kankei from school to work.

Japanese Propriety, Past and Present
Japanese Propriety, Past and Present

Author: Florian Coulmas

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-31

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 1000885836

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This book thus offers a fresh view on Japanese society focussing on the role of comportment for group cohesiveness. It explores the stereotype that Japan is the world’s most polite country, examining how proper conduct is acquired and expressed, and how the apparent conflict with some of the concepts considered essential for Western modernity, such as society, freedom and the individual, are balanced with Japan’s great emphasis on courtesy, politeness and civility. By comparing the present situation in Japan with behavioural standards of former periods as well as with other cultural traditions the book explains some of the distinctive features of present-day Japanese society. Overall the book argues that Japan is a prime example of multiple modernities concerning individuals, collectives and relationships between state and society.

The EU Migrant Generation in Asia
The EU Migrant Generation in Asia

Author: Helena Hof

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2022-12-01

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1529225027

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Drawing on an extensive study with young individuals who migrated to Singapore and Tokyo in the 2010s, this book sheds light on the friendships, emotions, hopes and fears involved in establishing life as Europeans in Asia. It demonstrates how migration to Asian business centres has become a way of distinction and an alternative route of middle-class reproduction for young Europeans during that period. The perceived insecurities of life in the crisis-ridden EU result in these migrants’ onward migration or prolonged stays in Asia. Capturing the changing roles of Singapore and Japan as migration destinations, this pioneering work makes the case for EU citizens’ aspired lifestyles and professional employment that is no longer only attainable in Europe or the West.

The Organisational Dynamics of University Reform in Japan
The Organisational Dynamics of University Reform in Japan

Author: Jeremy Breaden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0415528798

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This book offers a new approach to Japan's internationalisation conundrum by proceeding from the 'inside out'. It presents an extended case study one university organisation that has been changed through its adoption of a radical program of internationalisation. Through this case study Jeremy Breaden identifies patterns by which internationalisation is situated in administrative discourse and individual action, and determines how these patterns in turn shape organisational practice. The result is a multi-dimensional narrative of organisational change that advances our understanding of both the dynamics of university reform and the concept of internationalisation, one of the most durable yet contentious themes in the study of contemporary Japanese society.

The Gaze of the West and Framings of the East
The Gaze of the West and Framings of the East

Author: S. Nair-Venugopal

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-05-09

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1137009284

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This volume explores Western attitudes towards the phenomenon of Easternization, drawing upon Eastern perspectives and examining the impact upon contemporary culture to argue that Easternization is another type of globalization.

The Social Life of the Japanese Language
The Social Life of the Japanese Language

Author: Shigeko Okamoto

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-08-04

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1316720616

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Why are different varieties of the Japanese language used differently in social interaction, and how are they perceived? How do honorifics operate to express diverse affective stances, such as politeness? Why have issues of gendered speech been so central in public discourse, and how are they reflected and refracted in language use as social practice? This book examines Japanese sociolinguistic phenomena from a fascinating new perspective, focusing on the historical construction of language norms and its relationship to actual language use in contemporary Japan. This socio-historically sensitive account stresses the different choices which have shaped Japanese and Western sociolinguistics and how varieties of Japanese, honorifics and politeness, and gendered language have emerged in response to the socio-political landscape in which a modernizing Japan found itself.

Nationalism and Gender
Nationalism and Gender

Author: Chizuko Ueno

Publisher: Trans Pacific Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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Ueno (humanities and sociology, U. of Tokyo, Japan) explores interrelated issues of gender, war, history, and public memory. She first looks at Japanese women's support for aggressive war and their acceptance of the gender strategy for nationalizing women through mobilization. She next turns to the discursive battle over the Japanese treatment of

The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism
The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism

Author: Sidney Xu Lu

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-07-25

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1108482422

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Shows how Japanese anxiety about overpopulation was used to justify expansion, blurring lines between migration and settler colonialism. This title is also available as Open Access.

From White to Yellow
From White to Yellow

Author: Rotem Kowner

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2014-12-01

Total Pages: 707

ISBN-13: 0773596844

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When Europeans first landed in Japan they encountered people they perceived as white-skinned and highly civilized, but these impressions did not endure. Gradually the Europeans' positive impressions faded away and Japanese were seen as yellow-skinned and relatively inferior. Accounting for this dramatic transformation, From White to Yellow is a groundbreaking study of the evolution of European interpretations of the Japanese and the emergence of discourses about race in early modern Europe. Transcending the conventional focus on Africans and Jews within the rise of modern racism, Rotem Kowner demonstrates that the invention of race did not emerge in a vacuum in eighteenth-century Europe, but rather was a direct product of earlier discourses of the "Other." This compelling study indicates that the racial discourse on the Japanese, alongside the Chinese, played a major role in the rise of the modern concept of race. While challenging Europe's self-possession and sense of centrality, the discourse delayed the eventual consolidation of a hierarchical worldview in which Europeans stood immutably at the apex. Drawing from a vast array of primary sources, From White to Yellow traces the racial roots of the modern clash between Japan and the West.