Video Game Localisation of Japanese Gender Role Language: Analysing multilingual role-playing game Bravely Default.

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Video Game Localisation of

Japanese Gender Role Language:

Analysing multilingual role-playing game

Bravely Default

.

By: Beau Altenaar 10466932 University of Amsterdam Supervisor: dhr. dr. E.R.G. (Eric) Metz Second reader: prof. dr. I.B. Smits

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Language, translation, and video games have an interesting, interactional relation. For example, while Lee (1976, 995) spoke of the then-new loan word waifu, used to refer to one’s female spouse back in 1976; today, when one performs a YouTube search of ‘waifu’, the query results list countless English Western-made videos showcasing the uploader’s beloved, who originates from an anime, manga or video game. Indeed, English has loaned the loan word waifu which originates from English. Naturally, a global market necessitates translation of products, in this case video games. During the last couple of decades, various problems have arisen related to translation of this interactive new-media text source. This has resulted in the concept of video game localisation—a name which deliberately avoids the word ‘translation’, as O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 106:100) have stated. O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 106:149) prefer to label the process of video game localisation as transcreation, which celebrates the creativity involved more than a label such as translation.

The video game industry is currently enjoying an unforeseen prosperous growth, generating $116.0 billion in video game revenues globally (Newzoo 2017). For example, while AppLift (2014) in 2014 had predicted the total revenue of the mobile games market to double in 2017 to $35.4 billion, Newzoo (2017) has recently reported that the global mobile games market will have generated $50.04 billion by the end of 2017. One of the reasons mobile gaming is seeing such astonishing success, is undoubtedly the lucrative release of the mobile game

Pokémon GO which generated $470 million in its first 80 days, with one in every four

smartphones downloading the mobile game (Newzoo 2016). This economic overview should help to make clear the immense amount of texts involved, and therefore the necessitated translation or localisation work.

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Localisation of video games from Japanese into English seemingly predominates the game localisation industry. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has detailed that the Japanese export market of video games is more than 80 times as big as the import market (O’Hagan 2007, 242). However, Japanese is rich with many unique—or rather, not-in-English-occurring—features such as its Kanji ‘Chinese Characters’ writing which enables considerably more information than Western writing to be displayed using the space of only a few characters. Many properties of Japanese have complicated the video game localisation process this way. Japanese is, for example: a pro-drop language; abundant with homophones, which allows for many plays on words; heavily reliant on implied and often unspoken

contextual information; etc. These examples result in space shortage due to Western languages simply needing more characters or context to transfer equivalent meaning.

The present thesis, however, analyses yet another Japanese linguistic idiosyncrasy and translation thereof: Japanese gender role language—the Japanese language usage segmented according to linguistic gender ideology. The video game analysed as case study is Bravely

Default (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2013a, 2013b), of which the first three chapters form the

data of the present thesis. Concretely formulated, the present thesis attempts to analyse and draw conclusions from the research question: How has Bravely Default translated Japanese gender role language?

By analysing issues further complicating the video game localisation process, the present thesis attempts to contribute meaningfully to current discussions regarding role language, Japanese women’s language, language and gender, and equivalence in translation. These issues include female usage of male Japanese gender role language (hereafter: JGRL), censorship in localised video games, and lack of a prominently gendered English usage system.

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1. Transcription Notes and Abbreviations

The romanization of the data extracted for analysis largely abides by the Modified Hepburn romanization system which the Library of Congress has adopted as the ALA-LC romanization system for Japanese.1_{However, the transcription of the Japanese data in the} present thesis does differ from Modified Hepburn on the following five points.

Accusative marker を is transcribed as ‘wo’, and both the hiragana づ and its katakana counterpart ヅ are transcribed as ‘dzu’ and ‘DZU’, respectively. を is transcribed as ‘wo’ to

enable differentiation between を ‘wo’ and お ‘o’. づ and ヅ are transcribed as ‘dzu’ and ‘DZU’ to

distinguish them from ず ‘zu’ and ズ ’ZU’.

Prefixes and suffixes are hyphenated to the compound word to which they are affixed. The types of these compound words are abundant, of which some common examples are:

o Counters: 九番 kyuu-ban ‘number nine’, 一人 hito-ri ‘one person’, 一度 ichi-do ‘once’; o Address suffixes (least to most intimate): さん -san, 君 -kun, ちゃん -chan;

o Honorific pre- and suffixes: 御父君 o-chichi-gimi ‘your father’, 様 -sama ‘Lord’; o Regular pre- and suffixes: 大 dai- ‘large’, べき -beki ‘should’; and,

o Auxiliaries: くれる -kureru ‘to do something for me’, 始める -hajimeru ‘to begin doing’; o Auxiliary suffixes: らしい -rashii ‘seemingly’, づらい -dzurai ‘hard to’;

1. ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts. Compiled and edited by Randall K. Barry. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1997. Also available at:

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Furthermore, the object and multipurpose verb suru ‘to do’ of morphologically incorporated verbal nouns are transcribed separately, i.e. nouns are transcribed separately from the succeeding verb suru when they form a verbal noun (Miyamoto 1999, 4–6). For example, 操縦する ‘to fly; to pilot’ is transcribed as soujuu suru.

Of both the hiragana and the katakana syllabaries, long vowel combinations are

transcribed separately—without macrons. For example, お父様 (おとうさま) ： o + to + u +

-sama = o-tou--sama ‘Father’.2_{The only exception is in case of specific reference to the Japanese} original of the video game: BUREIBURĪ DEFORUTO:FŌZA SHĪKUWERU [Japanese katakana-title: 『ブレイ

ブリーデフォルトフォーザ・シークウェル』_{; English title: Bravely Default: For the Sequel].} Finally, all text originally rendered in katakana is transcribed using small caps in the main body of the present thesis—see, for example, the Japanese original title of Bravely Default in the previous sentence—and using capital letters in the data. Table 1 below clarifies all abbreviations used for glossing as well as those used in the main text.

2. Note that the kanji writing makes up most of the Japanese written language and is severely more intricate than the syllabaries. For example, 父 ‘father’ in above example is such a kanji or ‘Chinese character’. While in the example its pronunciation is tou, should the character occur independently of an address suffix (which in above example is -sama), its pronunciation is chichi which also denotes ‘father’. The present thesis uses identical formatting for transcription of hiragana and kanji text.

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Table 1. List of Abbreviations

3

3. This usage is transcribed as ‘TSU’ and appears in this manner in the data semi-frequently. TSU ending a sentence or phrase indicates a sudden halt in pronunciation of the preceding mora/syllable. However,

occasionally it is preceded by ‘…’, in which case it usually denotes a gasp, shriek, sigh, etc.

ACC Accusative

ADV Adverbial particle

ATT Attributive conjugation or suffix

COM Comitative

CONN Connective; continuative conjugation COP (POL.COP) Copula (Polite Copula)

DAT Dative

EMPH Emphatic particle

GEN Genitive

HON Honorific pre- or suffix HORT Hortative; ‘Let’s [V]’

i -A i-adjective; adjectival; verbal adjective; true adjective INT Interrogative [particle]; sentence- or embedded clause-final INTJ Interjection, usually sentence-initial

IMP; PROH Imperative and Prohibitive conjugation or construction NA Nominal Adjective; na- adjective; pseudonominal NEG Negative conjugation

NMLZ Nominaliser; Nominalising particle

NOM Nominative

NP Noun Phrase

NPST Present or Future Tense; Non-Past Tense

PL Plural suffix

PR Phonological Reduction PRED; PRED.COP Predicate; Predicative Copula POT Potential conjugation

PST Past Tense

QP Quantifier Particle

QUOT Quotative

SFP Sentence-Final Particle

2. Theoretical Framework

The present thesis combines knowledge of research done in several fields of study. These fields of study are translation studies, Japanese studies, linguistics, as well as game studies. Similarly, the transcreation process, generally labelled game localisation, unites

translation, video games, and, oftentimes, Japanese and English (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 106:326). Game localisation differs, as the term implies, from traditional translation. Therefore, O’Hagan and Mangiron have described this process as transcreation rather than translation; it involves several factors not or rarely encountered with translation. The following subsection discusses these factors.

The present thesis draws knowledge from several sub-domains of linguistics: sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, grammar, and ‘language, gender and sexuality’. Here, however, ‘sociolinguistics’ refers not to ‘actual language use’ per se, but rather to linguistic-ideological language usage which influences specific language patterns used by speakers, in this case based on the gender(s) speakers identify with.

Different from English, Japanese includes specific lexicon and grammar which are meant to be used either by male or female speakers. These linguistic-ideological language patterns are distributed through, among others, fictional characters in media—including video games. Kinsui (2003, 33) has named this language patterning phenomenon yakuwarigo or ‘role

language’; the language ascribed to specific roles of characters based on social extralinguistic

elements such as gender and age. Note that this lexicon includes synonyms, such as different words with the meaning ‘I’ or ‘you’, as well as semantically vacant grammatical particles. The present thesis discusses both types in section 3.2.

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2.1. Game Localisation

O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 106:17–18) have explained that abovementioned

difference between game localisation and translation is their goals. The goal of translation is to transfer text as perfectly as possible from one language to another—either by direct or by semantic translation. (Usually, however. the latter is the preferred method of translation.) By contrast, the goal of game localisation is to recreate the ‘player experience’ using the ST as adaptable source. Mandiberg (2015, 242–43) has interpreted the means to meet this end as preventing any out-of-place elements due to conflicting cultural elements or references. O’Hagan and Mangiron’s interpretation of game localisation as transcreation seems affirmed by game localisation and development company DeNA in a recent event which had the customer service of DeNA state that the original and global versions of the mobile game Final

Fantasy Record Keeper are to be considered as two different games (SquallLeonhartVIII 2016).

This is an exceptional case, however, but it does show a certain freedom translators exercise during game localisation.

Issues arising during game localisation are typically related to culture-specific content and cultural references, synchronisation, word jokes, and censorship (Mandiberg 2009, sec. 5. Impossibility of Translation). Listed below are examples of several solutions to such issues and, regarding the video game Kingdom Hearts (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2002), issues caused by game localisation. Case studies of research regarding game localisation have mentioned and analysed these examples. Some of these issues arise during literary and audio-visual

translation as well, while others are more exclusive to game localisation. However, they are all indicative of abovementioned freedom exercised by translators during game localisation.

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 Final Fantasy X (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2001) in Mangiron (2004, sec. Constraints in Video Games Localization).

o Main female protagonist Yuna’s final valediction to main male protagonist Tidus was localised from arigatou ‘thank you’ into ‘I love you’. Mangiron has noted that this localisation decision had generated controversy among the users of the English version. The users expressed dissatisfaction regarding this phrase, arguing the translated phrase was—in Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1995) terms—explicitation of an element that had remained implied throughout the whole story, and—in Reiss and Vermeer’s (1984) terms—lack of coherence with the feeling of the Final Fantasy series.  Final Fantasy X-2 (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2003) in O’Hagan (2005, 80–82, 2009, 159).

o Yuna performs two songs in the sequel to Final Fantasy X. During localisation, translators decided to not use a translated version of a song provided by the artist of its Japanese original.4_{Instead, they opted instead for a version sung by an} American singer with its lyrics rewritten. The lyrics of these two versions differed considerably; for example, the provided lyrics included the chorus line: ‘Those

thousand words, have never been spoken’. In the International version of the video game,

this line appears as: ‘‘Cause a thousand words, call out through the ages’. To make matters worse, for the re-release of the game, which includes only English voice acting, the lyrics of the original song are the subtitles of the American-made

version, effectively disregarding any translational changes made during localisation o For the sake of ‘text and image synchrony’ (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2004, 59), in one

scene the motion of Yuna’s head was altered from nodding in response to shaking her head. This results from the linguistic difference in negative answers to negative questions. Take, for example, the negative question: ‘That is not the case?’. ‘In Japanese, one replies with ‘yes, that is not the case’; as opposed to English, where one replies with ‘no, that is not the case’.

4. The song referred to is entitled “1000 の言葉” [Sen no Kotoba, ‘A Thousand Words’] released by Japanese music artist Koda Kumi (2003).

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 Kingdom Hearts (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2002) in Mandiberg (2009, sec. 6. Localization’s Failure; and sec. 2. The Games).

o Peculiar, yet intentional and systematic, usage of Japanese kanji and katakana writings for, respectively, ‘Magic’ and ‘Item’ vocabulary, as well as the connotative notions tied to these writing systems are lost in the TT. These notions are, as Mandiberg has stated, transnational; kanji—as well as hiragana—characters chiefly serve as characters of ‘indigenous’ language, while katakana characters spell language originating from foreign languages. Here ‘indigenous’ denotes Japanese and Chinese.

o Rhetoric regarding complex international political issues is lost in the TT; as Mandiberg has stated, this loss results from alteration of part of the text’s content containing thematically recurrent elements of transnationalism (as well as

extratextual elements and abovementioned dual writing system usage).

o Japanese re-release, the Final Mix version, which only includes English voice acting, deprives Japan of its authority over the video game by framing it as an English product with Japanese subtitles.

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2.2. Gender

At the heart of the present thesis lies the sociological concept ‘gender’. The present thesis adopts the view of Lorber (1994) on gender, a view that is based on the pioneering gender research of West and Zimmerman (1987). This view entails that gender is not based on sex, rather it is a social construct, constructed by society’s constant performing of gender. Gender-appropriate behaviour is applauded or, at the very least, not scolded or frowned upon. On the other hand, gender-inappropriate behaviour is. Imagine a male high school student coming to class wearing a dress. The reactions he will receive are the essence of ‘performing gender’ or, in other words, gender appropriation. It is likely his classmates will laugh at him, call him names, perhaps even physically assault him. By indoctrinating one another, like in above hypothetical scenario, individuals of society shape gender norms—norms dictating what each gender should do and how to do it appropriately.

Lorber (1994, 62) has added the notion of gender inequality. This inequality, according to Lorber, has ingrained itself deep into society. Performing gender, then, systematically worsens the conditions of the socially weaker or weakest gender of a society, reinforcing social

stratification with that disadvantaged gender occupying the stratum subordinate to the socially stronger gender or genders. This applies disturbingly well to Japanese women’s language (discussed below), which multiple research studies have noted to be soft, polite and devoid of assertiveness (Reynolds 1990, 136; Takano 2005, 634; Okamoto 1995, 1997; Ohara 2000). Japanese gendered language, then, is the ‘script’ of gender performers, metaphorically speaking. These Japanese gender performers are readily observable, especially in media such as video games, manga and anime series; in other words, linguistic ideology permeates the text fictional characters speak.

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2.3. Japanese Gender Role Language

Kinsui (2000, later republished in Kinsui, 2007) coined the term yakuwarigo ‘role language’, explicating a linguistic ideology which segregates usage of Japanese into various patterns strongly evoking specific social stereotypes. Kinsui (2000, 2003, 2007) has originally described role language as specific language usage which connotes specific characters or personae, as well as language usage perceived as natural to be used by these specific personae. These personae include stereotypes based on, among others, gender, age, social class,

personality, etc.; furthermore, ‘language usage’ denotes both lexicon and grammar (2003, 205). Thus, for instance, by reading a scripted line of spoken Japanese text, one is able—assuming it contains role language—to deduce from its vocabulary and grammatical construction whether the character who is supposed to speak that line is male or female, senior or teenager or child, meek or assertive, etc.

More recently, Kinsui and Yamakido (2015) have elucidated this concept of JGRL as being linguistic stereotypes based on society and culture and being a subset of ‘character language’, which constitutes speech patterns used to create the identities of the myriad of fictional characters in popular media. In other words, character language is the language usage of specific characters which include role language. Though, possibly a variety of different, or even contradictory, types of role language. Through such role language combinations,

characters are given identity. For example, Hiramoto (2013) in her study of translation of JGRL in popular media, has stated that female villains often use male-gendered role language. Furthermore, Hiramoto has stated that characters who do not embody social ideals, for example, older or unattractive female characters, tend to use male-gendered role language.

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Hiramoto and Park (Hiramoto 2012, 6) have defined Kinsui’s concept of yakuwarigo ‘role language’ as fundamental in creating identities for fictional characters in mass media. In addition, Hiramoto and Park (ibid.) have stated that this attributing of role language to ‘appropriate’ characters is reinforcing stereotypes through ‘iconisation’ and ‘erasure’. ‘Iconisation’ denotes the process of naturalisation (Hiramoto 2012, 59), the forming of social norms which are perceived as natural or self-evident. Furthermore, Hiramoto (2012, 2–3) and Park (2009, 548) have identified ‘linguistic regimentation’ in mediatised texts—e.g., video games, anime, etc.—as part of the cause of this self-enhancing naturalisation process. Regulating language usage according to linguistic ideals through assignment of JGRL to

‘appropriate’ personae is done in order to linguistically satisfy an as large as possible audience (Hiramoto 2012, 2-3). Subsequently, this leads to ‘erasure’; to deviations of the norm

disappearing from mediatised texts (Hiramoto 2012, 3). Put differently, behavioural and speech patterns not conforming to social (linguistic) ideology are not utilised to create identity of characters; unless these characters are either rendered unattractive or antagonists, such as female antagonists consistently using male-gendered language.

Conversely, there is an exception to this rigid separation of male and female JGRL. Sakata (1991, 121–22) has deduced from her study that when mothers speak regarding ‘male activities’ to their male children, male JGRL is used frequently. These ‘male activities’ include playing catch, playing with miniature cars, etc.; while ‘female activities’ include playing with kitchen set toys, playing with accessories (for example, earrings), cooking, etc. (ibid., 124). Sakata further notes that gender-neutral activities too are permeated with gender; for example, stuffed animals contain gendered items, such as a Pooh bear being male-gendered (ibid., 125).

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In addition, Sakata has concluded that, possibly due to the content of the mothers’ examples using female JGRL not necessarily being interrelated, female JGRL is not copied by children completely (ibid., 123-124). Thus, it is assumable that, despite defying general ideology, when speaking regarding activities associated with masculinity, female characters may use male JGRL; as well as vice versa, male characters may use female JGRL in utterances related to female activities or attributes.

However, in real life situations, female speakers of Japanese do suffer from this ultimately rigid linguistic gender division. One part of such women being, as Reynolds (1990, 135–37) has pointed out, women who have a superior position in their professional

environment—for example, teachers, principals, CEOs, etc. Japanese female-gendered language is generally associated with softness, politeness and negation of assertiveness (Reynolds 1990, 136; Takano 2005, 634; Okamoto 1995, 1997; Ohara 2000). This inevitably collides with

authoritative language, which is expected of one who has to exert control over a group of inferiors. Reynolds (1990, 135–36) has stated that Japanese females lack the linguistic means to realise such control. This social disadvantage of women is, however, firmly rooted into

Japanese culture and a salient feature of its language. Momoko Nakamura has identified the Japanese linguistic ideology regarding the female gender as:

[the] three major normative ideologies are 1) women should not speak, 2) if they do, they should speak politely, and 3) they should speak indirectly.(M. Nakamura 2002, 10)

Seemingly agreeing with Momoko Nakamura’s findings, Reynolds (2000, 42) has stated the following two rules to capture the essence of Japanese female-gendered language. One being, ‘use a polite manner of speaking’; the other being, ‘use a manner of speaking which negates self-assertion’. The latter dictates female speakers to convey their lacking of assertiveness either implicitly, explicitly, or by combining those strategies.

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Reynolds (2000, 44) has explicated this last rule using the transcribed speech sample which is included in her article. The speech was uttered by a Japanese female speaker who combined implicit and explicit strategies to convey her message while negating self-assertion. The linguistic technique employed by the speaker is the usage of tteiuka, a conjunctive adverb comparable to ‘or rather’. The function of tteiuka is to explicitly state the succeeding clause is a correction of the preceding clause; therefore, it is explicit. By itself, this construction is not necessarily related to negating self-assertion; however, the manner in which the speaker used it definitely is related to this process. In the analysed speech, originally one and a half minute in length, the speaker used tteiuka 11 times. In all these instances, the speaker first utters a clause which partly expresses what she actually wants to say, then utters tteiuka ‘or rather’, and finally corrects her preceding clause with an ‘appropriately’ toned-down version.

This implicitly communicates, as Reynolds (2000, 44) has put it, anxiety of the speaker regarding her internal conflict between: on the one hand, expressing that which she wants to; and, on the other hand, social norms or linguistic ideology depriving her of the freedom to express herself or state her opinion clearly. Reynolds (ibid., 44) has interpreted this self-assertion negating linguistic technique as saying: ‘I want to say that I strongly believe…, but I do not know how I can properly voice my thoughts and ideas’.5

5. Original interpretation by Reynolds (2000, 44): ‘私は……を強く信じていると言いたいのですが，でも，この私の言い方が私の信念を正しく伝えることばかどうかよくわからないんです’ [watashi wa …… wo

tsuyoku shinjiteiru to iitai no desu ga, demo, kono watashi no ii-kata ga watashi no shinnen wo tadashiku tsutaeru kotoba ka douka yoku wakaranai n desu] (in-text interpretation, translation mine).

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Thus, by both explicitly uttering part of the actual message, followed by conjunctive adverb tteiuka ‘or rather’ and the corrected message, as well as implicitly stating not being able to equivalently voice her own ideas, self-assertion is negated by combining implicit and

explicit linguistic strategies. This ties in with Lakoff’s pioneering work on women’s language (1973), which is discussed in the following subsection.

Social consequences for female speakers of Japanese who break the ‘rules’ of gender ideology are stated by Ohara (2000, 90) to ‘be linked to presumably negative attributes such as stubborn, selfish, strong, and straightforward’. Furthermore, the lower the pitch in which Japanese women speak, ‘the more a woman [is] perceived as being likely to remain single for life’. (Also, see note 6 below.) Evidently, this consensus puts rather severe social constraints on Japanese women and their use of language.

Finally, to concretise on a more grammatical level; JGRL contains both lexicon and grammatical constructions. The lexicon largely consists of first-person and second-person deictics (Kinsui 2003, 67; Shibatani 1990, 371; Takahara 1992); the grammar can be divided into politeness and declarative formulation (Kinsui 2003, 67; Shibamoto-Smith 1992; Ide 1982), sentence-final particles and copula usage (K. Nakamura 1997; Sakata 1991; Kinsui 2000; Teshigawara and Kinsui 2011), and interjections (Shibatani 1990, 371).6

6. One final component of female JGRL is prosody. In Japan, women are expected to speak in high pitch, preferably combined with a nasal tone. Prosody in relation to Japanese linguistic ideology concerning gender, almost invariably the female gender, has been subject to many research studies (Ohara 1992, 1999, 1993, 1997, 2004; Loveday 1981; Van Bezooijen 1995).

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Ordinarily, all gendered language items apply only to informal or intimate speech— Okamoto (1997, 796) as well as Mizutani and Mizutani (1987, 72) have declared that formal or impersonal language is unsuitable for JGRL analysis. Rather, at public gatherings formal language equals polite language and is a commonly-tapped source of gender-neutral alternatives, which—to an impersonal, distanced extent— allow for evasion of gendered speech. As for written formal language, it is simply devoid of any gendered language and written in plain form without honorifics.

Specific JGRL lexicon and grammatical constructions are discussed and explicated in section 3.3 of the present thesis. At this point, it is clear the various characters appearing in the Japanese ST can be analysed and categorised based on their JGRL usage; however,

qualitative analysis is required due to the many contextual nuances being at influence such as, for example, female characters temporarily ‘borrowing’ a masculine role.

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2.4. English Gender Role Language

Exact research on the subject English gender role language (hereafter: EGRL) is still scarce; however, research on the closely related subject ‘women’s language’ is not and goes back to Lakoff (1973). Lakoff has primarily discussed the impact of women’s language on the social position of females, or rather, the reinforcing role of women’s language in what Lorber (1994) later named ‘gender inequality’, as mentioned above. Lakoff (1973) has proposed a

variety of gendered linguistic characteristics of English which are listed and categorised below. o Specialised vocabulary: terminology related to certain ‘fields’ associated with women. o Expletives: type of interjections used to convey the strength of the speaker’s emotions

regarding what is said or has occurred (Lakoff 1973, 50).

o Adjectives: words used to express the speaker’s admiration for someone or something, rather than their original meaning (Lakoff 1973, 51).

o Requests:

 Tag questions and tag orders: statements or orders devoid of self-assertion or confidence, providing addressee with the option to disagree with the speaker. Tag questions and tag orders end in a tone typical of confirmation-seeking questions (Lakoff 1973, 54–56, 1972). Female-gendered.

 Imperatives: commanding something be done (Lakoff 1973, 56). Male-gendered. o Intonation:

 One particular female-gendered intonation pattern combines a declarative answer with the rising inflexion of a yes-no question (Lakoff 1973, 55–56). o Hedging: female-gendered if done in conveying one’s own disposition (Lakoff 1973, 54

n).

o Formality: more recently, Lakoff (Lakoff and Bucholtz 2004, 3:106–7) has supplemented the reissue of her original 1973 article with the statement that women’s language is primarily confined to informal language use.

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Among others, Hiramoto (2013) has implemented these characteristics into the methodology of her own study on hegemonic masculinity in popular media and translation thereof. The concrete examples given by Lakoff and Hiramoto are given in section 3.2.2.2.

Several of the English gendered language characteristics noted by Lakoff seem to correspond to the Japanese women’s language ideology attributes stated by Reynolds (2000) and Momoko Nakamura (2002), especially to the element of negating self-assertion which is discussed in the previous subsection. Specifically, the aspect of seeking confirmation or approval by using tag questions and tag orders rather than statements and direct requests is an example of an implicit linguistic strategy of negating self-assertion. Indeed, as Lakoff (1973, 54–57, 1972) has pointed out, enabling the addressee to disagree with the statement made by the speaker and to disobey the command of the speaker is characteristic of English female-gendered language usage. In other words, relocation of linguistic authority over statements and commands or requests to the addressee by using confirmation- or approval-seeking intonation is perceived as female-gendered usage of English. Thus, this relocating of linguistic authority to the addressee away from the speaker is parallel to the act of negating self-assertion; two ideological precepts perceived as ‘appropriate’ female-gendered language usage in English and Japanese, respectively.

Lakoff has stated one specific intonation pattern to be exceedingly female-gendered. Namely, when providing a declarative answer using intonation typical of confirmation- or approval-seeking questions, rendering it devoid of any proclamation. This intonation pattern, especially, can lead to presumptions regarding female speakers, such as being insecure or lacking the ability to decide (Lakoff 1973, 56). This seems to be an interlingual female-gendered characteristic, corresponding to the backlash of the ‘rules’ stated by Reynolds (2000).

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However, there is one different aspect at play here. In Japanese, as mentioned previously, the communicating of this inability itself has been identified as one of the

fundamental ‘rules’ of JGRL ideology dictating female language use. In other words, conveying this bereft condition is desirable; one could even say it is considered a virtue or value in contemporary Japan. Nonetheless, this virtue does inevitably lead to sexist stereotyping.

Another interlingual characteristic of female-gendered language usage listed above is found in hedging in statements regarding oneself or one’s own psychological state. This is an act of explicitly negating self-assertion through relocation of linguistic authority—or, perhaps, ‘linguistic power’ describes this case more correctly—to the addressee. Since it is to be

expected that not one person knows this information as accurately as does the speaker, hedging in this context is, using the words of Lakoff (1973, 54n), ‘to seek to avoid making any strong statement’—the feature which is central to the linguistic technique tteiuka as well, as mentioned above.

Closely related to gender language is the concept of stereotypes, as Kinsui (e.g., 2003, 2007) has explicated as well in his definition of JGRL. Cameron (2014, 8, original publication 1988) has defined stereotyping as attributing characteristics of an individual to a group the individual might identify with and portraying this mass-ascription as common sense

knowledge. Additionally, Cameron has stressed that this process involves overgeneralisation, as well as nullification of individuality or personality. Furthermore, Cameron (ibid., 35) has stated female-gendered language to have been perceived as disfluent—due to inability to converse in predominantly male-gendered heteronormative society—and that statements had the tendency of being uttered as confirmation-seeking questions; parallel to Lakoff (1973), as mentioned above.

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Another noted feature of stereotypical female-gendered English language use

(Cameron 2014) is the apparent tendency to be used in a cooperative manner in public, mixed-gender conversations, contrary to the tendency of male-mixed-gendered language to be used in a competitive manner in similar contexts. This female-gendered language element of

confirmation-seeking, again, resembles abovementioned JGRL ideology.

Talbot (2008, 472) has detailed that gender stereotypes and gender ideologies are interconnected, and are reinforcing naturalised differences between genders by

overgeneralisation, diminution and further naturalisation. This sharply contrasts the process of ‘socially typing’ people, the basis of getting to know someone (ibid. 2008, 472–73). According to Talbot (ibid., 473), one acquaints oneself with somebody’s identity on a deep level through amassed ‘social typing’. This entails utilisation of numerous classificatory schemata as reference; for example, social position, communities identified with, characteristic features, etc. Evidently, this is a heavily time-invested process.

On the other hand, stereotyping ‘reduces and simplifies’ (Talbot 2008, 473), whereby it reinforces present-day social hierarchy and divides people into the ‘normal’ and the

‘abnormal’. Take, for example, the presumption that women are unskilful drivers—this

conjecture is reified when a male or mixed-gender group of people sees a driver having trouble with, for example, parallel parking, and notice the troubled driver is female. It does not seem unlikely that one of the (likely male) spectators will utter something along the lines of: ‘Of course, it’s a woman trying to park.’ Remarks of this kind—be it a joke or serious—actually reify the conjecture that women are unskilful drivers, rendering it stereotypical or creating a commonsensical air around the negative attribute.

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Thus, the simplifying and misdescribing of typical male and female behaviour, and proclaiming of deficits as gender differences (such as parallel parking) is maintaining present-day social supremacy favouring only normative, usually heterosexual (Kiesling 2006, 2005; Hiramoto 2013), males, i.e. heterosexual normativity. This micro-levelled sustenance of heteronormative hegemony does undoubtedly more often occur subconsciously than deliberately; nonetheless, it does strengthen the construction of gender stereotypes. Talbot (2008, 473) has, furthermore, stated that gender stereotypes operate as ideological role models which indoctrinate society in what sort of behaviour is supposedly good and what sort is unacceptable and undesirable. In addition, Talbot has elucidated one principle of English gender ideology, which echoes one of the abovementioned rules identified by Reynolds (2000) and Momoko Nakamura (2002): ‘Ideally women should be saying nothing at all’ (Talbot 2008, 473). Therefore, to counter disobedience of this silent female ideal, a negative female stereotype is presented as faux universality: the misrepresentation of all women

chatting and gossiping excessively.

However, despite the linguistic core of this latter stereotype, Talbot (2008, 474–80) has rephrased the view of Lakoff (1973), noting that female-gendered speech strongly connoted deficient language use; additionally, Talbot identified this analytical view to be the first analysis framework of language and gender. This ‘deficit framework’ has been succeeded by the dominance- and difference frameworks. Nonetheless, regardless of how women’s language was approached in academics, it seems certain that some form of EGRL has been used over an extended period of time—all the while creating its own peculiarities and specific language usage conventions or pragmatics even.

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An indication of a general consensus regarding specific English female-gendered language use can be found in Hall (1995), a study in which Hall has affirmed female-gendered language is being applied in order to gain economic power and security, despite the deficit image of Women Language. Hall has concluded this from her interviews with phone sex operators, among whom a male bisexual operator posing as a woman (ibid., 1995, 202–4). Hall referred to this act as ‘verbal cross-expressing’, a purely vocal version of the more eminent act of ‘cross-dressing’. In other words, presenting oneself as the opposite sex through usage of strictly oral skills—due to the communication being limited to audio (Hall 1995, 201, 17n; Barrett 1994, 1997).

The cross-expressing operator is remarkably aware of the significance the renditions of his linguistic personae hold, and mentioned that using a ‘soft and quiet’ voice while joining his own state of mind in harmony with the customer’s has proven especially effective (Hall 1995, 202). However, all personae had to voice stereotypical (mis)representations of women—usually as submissive or inferior to the male customer. Nevertheless, the interviewed operators have all stated to experience superiority over the customer and being in control of the intimate contrived ‘trips’ (ibid. 1995, 204). Therefore, it can be hypothesised there certainly exists EGRL. The lexicon of which should include specific colour terms such as, as another interviewee has stated, ‘peach, or apricot, or black lace- or charcoal-colored lace, not just black’ (ibid. 1995, 199–200). Indeed, this gendered lexicon strongly resembles JGRL lexicon in manner of functioning as well as in shape, i.e. actual vocabulary used by women to express femininity.

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While this does indicate existence of EGRL, this dichotomous view of gender language itself is recently being problematised with increasing frequency (Bucholtz and Hall 2006) in linguistic research. Bucholtz and Hall (2006, 757) have partly ascribed this shift of research attention to poststructuralist gender theory and queer theory. Relevant for the present thesis is the clarification provided by Bucholtz and Hall (2006, 756) regarding the role of ‘indexicality’ in these academic views:

What was missing from such a perspective was the concept of ‘indexicality,’ the process whereby language ‘points to’ the social and discursive context of its own production. Seen in this way, many instances of perceived cross-gender language use might more accurately be understood as indexing interactional stances such as affect or force/mitigation, not gender identities.

(Bucholtz and Hall 2006, 756)

Because ‘gender’ was not yet understood as being separate from ‘sex’ up to the 1990s, gender language was perceived as sex- or sexuality-determined. This led to further misinterpretations regarding gender- and sexuality language, such as cross-gender language usage equalling disobedience of sexuality, which rendered bisexual and flamboyant speakers marked as exceptions to the rules (2006, 756).

Among others, Barrett (1997, 190–92) has criticised this earlier, dichotomous view on gender language, clarifying such research is reinforcing heterosexual normativity due to it unjustly portraying speech communities as homogeneous and sharing linguistic usage norms. Barrett has also criticised research methodologies which, in preventing problems regarding linguistic variation, either ignore parts of a speech community or label parts as ‘sexual minorities’. Therefore, in order to prevent this kind of exclusion, linguistic variation should always be taken into account, and identities should be described carefully instead of

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Barrett (1997, 190–95) has also clarified that one can associate oneself with multiple speech communities. This means one can use multiple language patterns, including those which are associated with the gender of the opposite sex without fully taking on another gender identity, as Bucholtz and Hall have stated as well. Holly Whyte, a character analysed in the present thesis, exemplifies this fluidity of—at least Japanese—gender language and

gendered identity, and the complexity thereof.

McIntyre and Walker (2010) have studied language use in thriller movies, juxtaposing lexicon employed and subject matter discussed by male characters to those employed and discussed by female characters. This corpus-based research led to various findings, of which some support several statements mentioned above, while other findings are more unexpected.

Politeness, for instance, is a key domain only of female characters (McIntyre and Walker 2010, 526–27)—a characteristic ideologically ascribed to female speakers of Japanese as well. This has been stated by Momoko Nakamura (2002), Reynolds (2000) and Kinsui (2003), among others (see previous subsection). In addition, Lakoff (1973, 56–57) has stated that

politeness is a linguistic female characteristic of English gender language as well. McIntyre and Walker (ibid., 525-26) have interpreted the male-gendered usage of speech act lexicon as indicative of male dominance, which confirms the argument made by Kiesling (2006), Lakoff (1973) and Hiramoto (2013) as well, among others.

More unexpected were the analysis results revealing that the subject ‘relationship: intimacy and sex’ is recurrent only in the analysed female characters’ text. McIntyre and Walker (2010, 527) have interpreted this as portraying exclusively female characters as sensual and erotic. Furthermore, a relatively high number of ‘personal names’ lexicon uttered by female characters consists of first names.

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It has since long been stated (Erwin-Tripp 1972) that calling someone by their first name implies sharing a bond. In addition, endearment terms are also key terms occurring only in the female characters’ text, such as ‘honey’. McIntyre and Walker (2010, 527) have

concluded that female characters cast in thrillers tend to be emotive and interpersonally oriented. This conclusion does, however, align with abovementioned statement made by Cameron (2014) regarding female-gendered language being used cooperatively.

On the other hand, exclusively male key subjects are ‘in power’ and, more surprisingly, ‘people: male’. The ‘people: male’ lexicon include various vocatives, indicating respect for hierarchy. The data show reinforcement or naturalisation of gender role differences and male dominance, as well as indicate that—at least the analysed—conversation is male-oriented in general (McIntyre and Walker 2010, 526–28). McIntyre and Walker have mentioned, however, that their data include no movies featuring female lead characters, possibly sketching a somewhat distorted image regarding the entirety of contemporary thrillers.

2.5. Politeness and Formality

One final, commonly-stated note regarding both languages is exclusion of formal or impersonal speech from gender language analysis. Formal language or formality should not be confused with politeness—which, to a certain extent, connotes female-gendered language (see, for example, Lakoff 1973, 56–57; Ide 1982; Shibamoto-Smith 1992). However, being and

speaking polite is customary and expected in communal formal situations. In English, polite language does not differ considerably in grammar or form from formal and informal language, save for a few modal auxiliaries such as ‘could’ (see Lakoff 1972). Rather, it is encoded or embedded in a deeper level than the superficial structures of sentences; another motivation to not disregard extralinguistic factors shaping the social context of the data (Lakoff 1972, 908).

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On the other hand, polite or honorific forms of Japanese (sonkeigo, kenjougo and teineigo; ‘respectful’, ‘humble’ and ‘polite language’, respectively) each include their own lexicon, grammatical structures, and morphemes. Thus, politeness in Japanese is immediately

recognisable in any context and text. However, absence of gendered language is characteristic of polite Japanese as well as formal Japanese proper—the language one can find in academic reports, articles, etc. (Shibamoto-Smith 1987, 29; Shibatani 1990, 373). Therefore, in both Japanese and English, informal or intimate language usage should be the primary subject of gender language analysis, factoring in politeness cautiously after qualitative analysis, and preferably dismissing formal language altogether.

2.5. Neomedievalism

Robinson and Clements (2012, 56) have defined neomedievalism as:

a new type of medievalism that is born of postmodernist, increasingly globalized values that include an appreciation for the absurd. Thus, it is not anti-romantic [. . .], but simply non-romantic in an anti-nostalgic and decreasingly Euro-centric, and clearly anti-historical sort of way.

Put differently, neomedievalism is a category of practices which place contemporary values within a medieval setting in a self-conscious and a-historical manner. Such practices include modern issues and ideas which involve appreciation for the absurd, without a concern for historical facts or reality. Recurrent themes include: ‘the self’ versus ‘the Other’; government and society; and—or so the present thesis proposes—contemporary linguistic ideology.

However, linguistic ideology differs from the former themes in that it recurs not as subject but as means of personality expression characters employ or as identity creation tool game

designers utilise. Viewed differently, neomedievalism is the clarification as to why modern language, or elements thereof, appear so saliently in fictional texts with a medieval setting.

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3. Methodology

This chapter consists of two sections. The first introduces the case study video game

Bravely Default by briefly reviewing key aspects of its content and context. After which it

specifies the extracted data and documentation; detailing how Appendix B orders the data and tags token occurrences, as well as the scope of the data. Furthermore, characters of interest are described to make the context of the data is as clear as possible. The second section consists of two subsections; the first describes the method of analysing the Japanese ST data, the second describes the analysis approach of the English TT data.

3.1. Material

3.1.1. The Video Game: Bravely Default

Bravely Default is a role-playing game (RPG), released on the Nintendo 3DS console. This

genre of video games is known to be excessively text-heavy, and Bravely Default is no exception. The story is carried through voiced dialogic events—scenes depicting characters engaging in conversation. Two options are available to the player for language configuration: one, the language in which characters speak—Japanese or English; and two, the language in which text is rendered on-screen—Japanese, English, French, Spanish or German. Here, ‘text’ denotes all visualised text of Bravely Default; i.e., the video game’s subtitles, user interface (also known as ‘UI’), tutorial and in-battle messages, in-game encyclopaedia, etc.

Bravely Default features a medieval setting, as is typical of RPGs. The main cast consists

of two male and two female characters. These are, respectively, Tiz Arrior, Ringabel, Agnès Oblige and Edea Lee. Furthermore, Bravely Default includes a multitude of minor characters, each using JGRL on a frequent basis. Section 3.1.3 briefly describes characters of particular interest, while Appendix A includes a more comprehensive list of analysed characters.

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3.1.2. Extracted Data

The data of the present thesis comprise the bilingually transcribed events which form the Prologue (including the opening video), Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Bravely Default. The scope of the present study includes these first three of the in total nine chapters, which include a varied cast of characters. There are two event types; the mandatory Main Events, and the optional Sub-Scenario Events. Appendix B groups the events according to these types per chapter. The transcript shows the data per speaking turn bilingually; a character’s name follows the event title and precedes their uttered text in Japanese along with its corresponding English localisation, followed by the succeeding character’s name and uttered text, etc. This enables quick comparison of ST and TT regarding translation of JGRL tokens—for example, gendered lexicon. Tagging styles marking occurrences of JGRL tokens further streamline this process. A list preceding the data in Appendix B explains what the different tagging styles indicate, such as gender-conforming and gender-contradicting JGRL usage.

In total, the data contain: 185 events, 9.357 lines of text, and 27.993 English words. The Japanese word count is too ambiguous to state an exact number here, especially due to the ambiguity of what defines a word. However, with the applied manner of transcription the Japanese data amount to approximately 28.000 words. The English data of text uttered by male characters consist of 13.991 words and 2.342 lines of text, the English data of text uttered by female characters consist of 14.002 words and 2.468 lines of text. The transcript displays the data per ‘line of text’ as the game renders the text on screen (see figure 1, below).7

7. While the video game utilises dialogue boxes for one or two lines of Japanese text (as is the case in the captured image shown in figure 1); if set to English, these boxes contain up to three lines of text.

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The data consist of the text uttered by all characters, including dialogue with or

between miscellaneous characters. Dialogue with or between miscellaneous characters should not be disregarded as superfluous data. On the contrary, it is necessary in representing or recreating the context as accurately possible. Lakoff (1972, 922, 926) has stated that the correlation between linguistic and extralinguistic context—including gender and social status—is vital to analysing translation because meaning is not immediately deducible from a sentence’s superficial structure. Thus, the data include all text uttered by main characters, minor characters, and miscellaneous characters, reproducing as completely as possible the social context in which the characters act; in other words, the settings of the events in which they each converse, react and respond with and to each other. Furthermore, having as much data as possible heightens the probability of attaining reliable results by using the text analysis software AntConc (Anthony 2018).

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Appendix B has numbered all transcribed events for reference functionality. Note that there are several sets of events in Chapter 2 which consist of mutually exclusive events. The titles of these events are identical, save for a majuscule designating the events as precluding each other. Various gameplay aspects trigger the occurrence of these events. Concise notes directly succeeding the event title specify these triggers in the data, and usually concern order of initiation. Furthermore, in case of merely partially differing events, the alternate speaking turns only make up the transcript of their event (see, for example, Event #150 and #151: ‘How to

Make a Hairpin – A/B’).

3.1.3. Characters of Interest

The present thesis analyses numerous characters individually as well as collectively. These characters include, in addition to abovementioned four main characters, several non-player or non-playable characters (NPCs) and are relevant due to their frequent usage of JGRL, as Teshigawara and Kinsui (2011, 38) have stated regarding minor characters in Japanese media in general. They have explained that this frequent JGRL usage by minor characters has as goal seamless recognition of any minor character’s role or relation with the main

characters. Therefore, the extracted data consist of all text uttered throughout the first three chapters by the characters listed below and in Appendix A, as well as by unnamed NPCs.

Directly following below character names are the descriptions provided by the in-game encyclopaedia D’s Journal (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2013b, vol. Remake, International, sec. Notes-People). These descriptions serve to reconstruct the social context of the data, allowing for more accurate qualitative analysis. Therefore, to sketch these characters’ personalities as objectively as possible, these descriptions are quoted directly from Bravely Default and can thus be considered canon.

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Main characters:

o Tiz Arrior: ‘A nineteen-year-old boy from Norende. A simple and honest soul, he has a gentle and amiable demeanor that makes him well-liked. He acts as a mediator between friends, and often ends up with a lot on his plate’ (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2013b, vol. Remake, International, sec. D’s Journal-Notes-People-No.002, 2).

o Agnès Oblige: ‘A twenty-year-old girl from Ancheim. As a vestal, she has devoted her life to the crystals’ (ibid., sec. D’s Journal - Notes - People - No.003, 2).

o Ringabel: ‘A man of unknown age, currently experiencing amnesia’ (ibid., sec. D’s Journal - Notes - People - No.001, 2).

o Edea Lee: ‘A [sic] eighteen-year-old girl hailing from Eternia. On first impression, she appears to be a spoiled princess type. However, while strong-willed and opinionated, she is also kind and filled with a sense of justice. She never shies away from a conflict’ (ibid., sec. D’s Journal - Notes - People - No.004, 2).

Minor characters (partly; see Appendix A for a more comprehensive list):

o Airy: ‘A female of unknown age. This self-proclaimed cryst-fairy seems to know much about the crystals and the path the vestal should take. With regard to anything else, however, she tends to act like a precocious, fussy crybaby’ (ibid., sec. D’s Journal - Notes -

People - No.005, 2).

o Holly Whyte the White Mage: ‘A 26-year-old woman from Eternia. [. . .] Though a healer of great skill, she is sadistic to the core. Hedonistic and capricious, she has a wanton personality’ (ibid., sec. No.010, 2).

o Jackal the Thief: ‘A 16-year-old boy hailing from Ancheim. His real name is not known. [. . .] He was taken in by thieves as a young boy, gradually rising up the ranks through his accomplished thievery and sheer recklessness’ (ibid., sec. No.019, 2).

o Mephilia Venus the Summoner: ‘A twenty-four-year-old woman from Eternia. [. . .] Her mind is broken, and she delights in seeing the destruction of beauty’ (ibid., sec. No.027, 2).

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Note that the ages of the following seven characters have been increased by three years (artificially) during the process of localisation: Tiz Arrior, Agnès Oblige, Edea Lee, Alternis Dim, Artemia Venus, Mephilia Venus, and Einheria Venus. These modifications have rendered them characters of age, except for Artemia Venus. Interestingly, all modified ages are written using spelled-out numbers, as opposed to all other mentionings of ages. This possibly indicates that these alterations have been made in a near-final stage of the localisation process, which would explain how the grammar mistake in the description of Edea has remained unnoticed by the localisation team.

The character descriptions listed above include several points which affect part of the analysis. The first is the portrayal of Edea as convention-challenging, as character who is not afraid to ask the hard questions. This relatively assertive personality expresses itself in her language usage by incorporating male and female JGRL. This verbalised personality trait could, then, also manifest itself in the TT—shaped as, for example, lexicon, tonal attitude, etc.

Therefore, when analysing female characters’ TT data, this cross-gender indexicality should be kept in mind.

More gender-contradictively in their language usage are the analysed female

antagonists—except for Mephilia Venus—who use male JGRL as basis for their language usage, aside from first-person and second-person pronominals (the following section explicates the JGRL pronominals). Taking Holly Whyte as representative female antagonist, creating her identity, described above as ‘hedonistic’ and ‘capricious’, surely necessitated her regular usage of male JGRL, rendering her a linguistic-ideological negative stereotype.

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The first two subsections of section 3.2.1 explicate the specific JGRL deictics, and section 4.1 discusses the female antagonists’ JGRL profile into more detail. In addition, section 3.2.1.2 explicates further relevant gendered Japanese grammar, concretising these

grammatical constructions using examples taken from the data of the present thesis. Section 3.2 clarifies how the present thesis analyses the TT data, as well as how the corpus analysis software AntConc (Anthony 2018) is configured and utilised.

3.2. Analysis Method

The present thesis analyses the ST and TT data using multi-method corpus analysis; first, quantifying the ST data, then quantitatively analysing the TT data utilising corpus analysis software, and finally qualitatively analysing suggested patterns and compromising issues. Based on the results, the present thesis draws conclusions regarding the translation of JGRL employed in Bravely Default (Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. 2013a). The expected result is identification of a correlation between gendered role language tokens occurring in the ST and tokens occurring in the TT. The two subsections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 serve to display in detail the methodology applied to analyse the data of the ST and TT, respectively.

The ST data are analysed according to JGRL tokens which indicate or index a specific gender. Section 3.2.1 discusses these tokens, sectioned into two distinctive categories: deixis and grammar. The JGRL grammar tokens include the following specific construction types: copula usage, confirmation-seeking, question formulation, sentence-final particle (hereafter: SFP) usage, request formulation, and interjections. Each JGRL token occurring in the data is tagged as gender-conforming or gender-contradicting, specifying whether the gender indexed by the JGRL token aligns with the sex of the character uttering it. Appendix B includes the complete and tagged data, preceded by a complete overview clarifying the used tagging styles.

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The TT data are analysed, however, by utilising the comparison capabilities of the software AntConc (Anthony 2018), aimed at uncovering key tokens in the TT. Furthermore, the concordancing function assists with qualitatively analysing such key tokens regarding

syntactic and lexical context. More specifically, AntConc can display selected key terms in context, revealing directly preceding and succeeding vocabulary as they appear in the data. Section 3.2.2 discusses the relevant AntConc functions and configurations, references two corpus analysis research on English gender language (EGRL) which the present thesis compares results with, and includes an overview which recaps the EGRL characteristics discussed in section 2.4.

3.2.1. Source Text Analysis: Applying Tokens of Japanese Gender Role Language

This subsection explicates all JGRL tokens using various examples taken from the data extracted from the case study video game of the present thesis: Bravely Default. These tokens are used to quantify the ST data, allowing for swift recognition of gendered lexicon and

grammatical constructions. The tables throughout this section together with the explanations aim to enable reapplication of the methodology to quantify other Japanese texts on gender language as well, as well as to assist the reader.

This subsection consists of two parts. The first part includes relevant JGRL deictics, focused mainly upon first-person and second-person pronominals. The second part consists of the various abovementioned grammatical categories. This division is made due to the

difference in sort and amount of explanation needed to present the JGRL tokens in a comprehensible manner. Selection of JGRL tokens included has been based on numerous research studies and literature on the subject, of which the authors are referenced alongside the tables listing their tokens.

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Before moving on to the JGRL tokens, however, several research articles are deserving of some brief, focused attention here due to the influence these papers have exerted on the methodology of the present thesis. In particular, the research conducted by Benediktsdottir (2015) and Tompowsky (2013) is comparable in nature to the present thesis, as well as abovementioned study by Hiramoto (2013). The former two studies have examined JGRL in video games, the latter study scrutinised JGRL in popular media and its connection to heterosexual normativity. Furthermore, Benediktsdottir and Hiramoto have examined how JGRL is translated to English, taking as case study video game Harvest Moon: A New Beginning (Marvelous AQL 2012) and anime series Cowboy Bebop (Watanabe 1998), respectively. On the other hand, Tompowsky has analysed contemporary usage of JGRL in so-called ‘relationship simulation RPGs’, taking as case study two such ‘dating-sim games’, one aimed at the female-oriented market and one at the male-female-oriented market. Thus, the present thesis uses for its ST analysis a methodology comparable to the methodologies of these three studies.

Note, however, that these three studies—like many other studies on JGRL—have largely based their selection of JGRL tokens on work provided by only a select few authors. In addition to Kinsui (discussed and referenced in section 2.3), the authors of these often-consulted

sources are: Okamoto (1995, 1997; Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith 2004), Shibatani (1990), Shibamoto-Smith (1985, 1981, 2003), Ide and McGloin (1990), and Inoue (2002, 2003). These articles—except for those by Kinsui—focus on Japanese women’s language; which, technically, is the sociolinguistic counterpart of essentially linguistic-ideological JGRL. Nevertheless, as discussed in section 2.4, society and mediatised linguistic ideology have a reciprocally

fortifying relation in which JGRL can be perceived as the ideal from which actual language use inevitably deviates, which means they share one set of tokens or gender indices.

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3.2.1.1. Japanese Gender Role Language: Person Deixis

These gender-indexing tokens include various deictics, of which the first-person and second-person pronouns are displayed, respectively, in table 2 and table 3 below. Naturally, this means all Japanese tokens included in table 2 essentially mean ‘I’, and those included in table 3 express ‘you’. In case of pluralisation being possible of singular first-person pronouns, the deictics are displayed alongside their plural suffixes. Affixing these suffixes changes the first-person deictics’ meanings into ‘we’. The second-person pronouns, however, can always be pluralised and instead are displayed alongside conventionally used address suffixes. Plural suffix -tachi, or its honorific variant -gata, is affixed to the address suffix to express plural ‘you’. For example, Satoshi-kun-tachi consists of first name Satoshi, informal address suffix -kun and plural suffix -tachi—this is effectively translated as plural ‘you’, in which case Satoshi is the addressee.

It should be noted that grammatically Japanese personal deictics differ from those found in Indo-European languages. Yamaguchi (2015, 123) has argued that Japanese personal deictics are open-class nominals; nouns which allow for direct modification, as well as affixation of various—and possibly consecutively multiple—suffixes. Some of these suffixes transform nouns, including personal deictics, into adverbs or adjectives. In other words, as Yamaguchi has counterargued Heine and Song’s (2011) analysis of second-person deictic anata, Japanese personal pronouns have not been subject to grammaticalization to the extent of losing their lexical property. For example, Japanese personal deictics are commonly modified by prepositional phrases. This contrasts sharply with the English quasi-nominal closed-class personal deictics which supposedly lack the ability to take modifiers (stated by Heine and Song 2011, 588–89; see also: Yamaguchi 2015, 122–23; Aikhenvald 2014, 181–82; Noguchi 1997, 771).

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However, the main function of Japanese deictics remains identical to that of English deictics: expressing deixis. In other words, the referring to and locating of the relevant grammatical person, place or time, from the speaker’s viewpoint (Levinson 2006, 112–18). These references are made by using deictics which, in English, are pseudo-lexical items with context-dependent meanings (Noguchi 1997, 771). Common English examples include: personal deictics, such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘they’, etc.; and spatiotemporal deictics, such as ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘before’, ‘after’, ‘behind’, ‘now’, etc. Slightly less common English personal deictics also include vocatives, for example, ‘sir’, ‘Mr. President’ and ‘Mrs. President’ or ‘Ms. President’, ‘ma’am’, ‘Boss’, etc. Another naming of these deictics is provided by Noguchi (1997, 777–83) who names English personal pronouns ‘determiners’, and contrasts these with the lexical nouns of Japanese.

Japanese deictics contain, in addition to pronominal nouns, specific predicates

(hereafter: PREDs) which realise politeness and voice directions of giving and receiving verbal action (Wetzel 1988, 7). The succeeding sub-subsection below discusses the relevant, gender-indexing constructions of these deictic expressions. Additionally, Japanese personal deictics, as well as English vocatives and third-person pronouns, also express social deixis (Yamaguchi 2015, 118; Takahara 1992, 119). This expressing of social deixis means they concern ‘the

marking of social relationships in linguistic expressions, with direct or oblique reference to the social status or role of participants in the speech event’ (Levinson 2006, 119). Indeed, gender is included in social deixis and, as is discussed below, a large proportion of Japanese personal deictics simultaneously index the genders of both the speaker and the addressee (Takahara 1992). Thus, various Japanese personal deictics express not only the genders of the speaker and addressee, they also express their social positions as the speaker perceives them.

Video Game Localisation of Japanese Gender Role Language: Analysing multilingual role-playing game Bravely Default.