This innovative and interdisciplinary book on style shifting in Japanese brings together a wide range of perspectives and methodologies—including discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and functional linguistics—to look at a variety of types of style shifting in both spoken and written Japanese discourse. Though diverse in approach, the contributions all reflect the belief that language use is inextricably linked to both context and language structure in mutually constitutive relationships. Topics covered include shifting between "polite" and "plain" styles, the emergence of a "semi-polite" style, speakers' strategic use of gendered styles or regional dialects, shifting between different deictic expressions, and prosodic shifting. This careful and detailed examination advances our understanding of the complex phenomenon of style shifting not only in Japanese, but also more generally, and will be of interest to researchers and students in fields such as linguistics, linguistic anthropology, communication studies, and second language acquisition and teaching.

This innovative and interdisciplinary book on style shifting in Japanese brings together a wide range of perspectives and methodologies—including discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and functional linguistics—to look at a variety of types of style shifting in both spoken and written Japanese discourse. Though diverse in approach, the contributions all reflect the belief that language use is inextricably linked to both context and language structure in mutually constitutive relationships. Topics covered include shifting between "polite" and "plain" styles, the emergence of a "semi-polite" style, speakers' strategic use of gendered styles or regional dialects, shifting between different deictic expressions, and prosodic shifting. This careful and detailed examination advances our understanding of the complex phenomenon of style shifting not only in Japanese, but also more generally, and will be of interest to researchers and students in fields such as linguistics, linguistic anthropology, communication studies, and second language acquisition and teaching.

This new edition of TUFS Studies in Linguistics, we aim to showcase the various linguistics research conducted at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. In this first volume, we report on the international symposium hosted by the Global Center of Excellence Program "Corpus-based Linguistics and Language Education (CbLLE)" throughout 2008.

Applied linguistics is the best single label to represent a wide range of contemporary research at the intersection of linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and sociology, to name a few. The Handbook of Japanese Applied Linguistics reflects crosscurrents in applied linguistics, an ever-developing branch/discipline of linguistics. The book is divided into seven sections, where each chapter discusses in depth the importance of particular topics, presenting not only new findings in Japanese, but also practical implications for other languages. Section 1 examines first language acquisition/development, whereas Section 2 covers issues related to second language acquisition/development and bilingualism/multilingualism. Section 3 presents problems associated with the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Section 4 undertakes questions in corpus/computational linguistics. Section 5 deals with clinical linguistics, and Section 6 takes up concerns in the area of translation/interpretation. Finally, Section 7 discusses Japanese sign language. Covering a wide range of current issues in an in an in-depth, comprehensive manner, the book will be useful for researchers as well as graduate students who are interested in Japanese linguistics in general, and applied linguistics in particular. Chapter titles Chapter 1. Cognitive Bases and Caregivers' Speech in Early Language Development (Tamiko Ogura, Tezukayama University) Chapter 2. Literacy Acquisition in Japanese Children (Etsuko Haryu, University of Tokyo) Chapter 3. Age Factors in Language Acquisition (Yuko Goto Butler, University of Pennsylvania) Chapter 4. Cross-lingual Transfer from L1 to L2 Among School-age Children (Kazuko Nakajima, University of Toronto) Chapter 5. Errors and Learning Strategies by Learners of Japanese as an L2 (Kumiko Sakoda, Hiroshima University/NINJAL) Chapter 6. Adult JFL Learners' Acquisition of Speech Style Shift (Haruko Minegishi Cook, University of Hawai'i at Manoa) Chapter 7. Japanese Language Proficiency Assessment (Noriko Kobayashi, Tsukuba University) Chapter 8. The Role of Instruction in Acquiring Japanese as a Second Language (Kaoru Koyanagi, Sophia University) Chapter 9. The Influence of Topic Choice on Narrative Proficiency by Learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language (Masahiko Minami, San Francisco State University) Chapter 10. CHILDES for Japanese: Corpora, Programs, and Perspectives (Susanne Miyata, Aichi Shukutoku University) Chapter 11. KY Corpus (Jae-Ho Lee, Tsukuba University) Chapter 12. Corpus-based Second Language Acquisition Research (Hiromi Ozeki, Reitaku University) Chapter 13. Assessment of Language Development in Children with Hearing Impairment and Language Disorders (Kiyoshi Otomo, Tokyo Gakugei University) Chapter 14. Speech and Language Acquisition in Japanese Children with Down Syndrome (Toru Watamaki, Nagasaki University) Chapter 15. Revisiting Autistic Language: Is "literalness" a Truth or Myth? Manabu Oi (Osaka University/Kanazawa University) Chapter 16. Towards a Robust, Genre-based Translation Model and its Application (Judy Noguchi, Mukogawa Women's University; Atsuko Misaki, Kwansei Gakuin University; Shoji Miyanaga, Ritsumeikan University; Masako Terui, Kinki University) Chapter 17. Japanese Sign Language: An Introduction (Daisuke Hara, Toyota Technological Institute) Chapter 18. Japanese Sign Language Phonology and Morphology (Daisuke Hara, Toyota Technological Institute) Chapter 19. Japanese Sign Language Syntax (Noriko Imazato, Kobe City College of Technology) Chapter 20. Sign Language Development and Language Input (Takashi Torigoe, Hyogo University of Teacher Education)

Language acts are acts of identity, and linguistic variation reflects the multifaceted construction of verbal alternatives for transmitting social meaning, where style-shifting represents our ability to take up different social positions due to its potential for linguistic performance, rhetorical stance-taking and identity projection.Traditional variationist conceptualizations of style-shifting as a primarily responsive phenomenon seem unable to account for all stylistic choices. In contrast, more recent formulations see stylistic variation as initiative, creative and strategic in personal and interpersonal identity construction and projection, making a significant contribution to our understanding of this aspect of sociolinguistic variation. In this volume social constructivist approaches to style-shifting are further developed by bringing together research which suggests that people make stylistic choices aimed at conveying (and achieving) a particular social categorization, sociolinguistic meaning, and/or to project a specific positioning in society. Therefore, there is a need, we collectively argue, to adopt permeable and flexible multidimensional, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to speaker agency that take into consideration not only reactive but also proactive motivations for stylistic variation, and where individuals – rather than groups – and their strategies are the main focus when examining style-shifting in public. This book will be of interest to advanced students and academics in the areas of sociolinguistics, dialectology, social psychology, anthropology and sociology.

This book empirically explores how different linguistic resources are utilized to achieve appropriate workplace role inhabitance and to achieve work-oriented communicative ends in a variety of workplaces in Japan. Appropriate role inhabitance is seen to include considerations of gender and interpersonal familiarity, along with speaker orientation to normative structures for marking power and politeness. This uniquely researched edited collection will appeal to scholars of workplace discourse and Japanese sociolinguistics, as well as Japanese language instructors and adult learners of Japanese. It is sure to make a major contribution to the cross-linguistic/cultural study of workplace discourse in the globalized context of the twenty-first century.

This book addresses the topic of interactional competence in the area of learning Japanese as a second language. It presents data collected from learners studying abroad in Japan to explain developments in their interactional competence as found in their use of speech styles and co-construction of an utterance. The book also offers insights into the types of learning resources and experiences study abroad offers to assist learners' progress.