Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines from a sociological perspective the narratives of Japanese female professional translators/interpreters, throwing into relief their bodily, gendered, and emotional experiences in professional life emerged from an ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Tokyo.

Paper long abstract:

The conceptualization of the 'sociological turn in Interpreting Studies' through Bourdieu's practice theory (Inghilleri 2003, 2005; Snell-Hornby 2006; Wolf 2007, 2010) recently led to a view of language professions such as translation and interpreting as a social practice. In Japan, language professions have slowly witnessed a 'shift in gender' as women crowded out men and made of linguistic expertise 'a female thing' (Kelsky 2006). This pioneer research project ethnographically explores, from a sociological perspective, the profession of language interpreting in Japan as a women's social practice, considering the body and mind of the interpreter at work as professional expertise, carrier of both practical knowledge and emotional activities (Schatzki 1996; Reckwitz 2002), while investigating the embedded gender issues of women's occupation and segregation in the Japanese labour market. Notwithstanding the socio-cultural prominence of interpreters in Japan as high-level, bilingual female professionals serving in diplomatic and business settings, their body/mind is still depicted as a 'kurogo' (Torikai 2009), invisible, subordinate presences whose translational, female voice supports other more visible, often male, social actors.

This presentation aims to examine the embodied narratives of female professional interpreters in contemporary Japan as emerged in my ethnographic fieldwork, conducted in Tokyo in 2015-2016. It fills a gap in knowledge of female occupation in the Japanese labour market by looking at conference interpreting, which is regarded as the most prestigious among linguistic-translation professions. Employing the qualitative empirical research methodologies of interviews with Japanese interpreters and participant observation of selected interpreting sessions in Japan's interpreting market, the presentation examines the gendered expertise of Japanese conference interpreters and their socio-professional identity by using the informants' own narratives, throwing into relief the social patterns and oddities of what entails being a working bilingual woman, a freelancer, and a wife/mother in contemporary Japanese professional world. Furthermore, it will look at the dynamics between female interpreters' occupational segregation and private, family life, considering the related symbolic shift in the value of the professionals' status at the economic and social level.

Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnography in Tokyo and TV drama analysis, I will delineate how listeners adapt their senses of hearing, sight and touch, and how they control their bodies with the help of materials such as phones. This will reveal the complexities of Japanese communication and listeners' unspoken rules.

Paper long abstract:

In face-to-face conversations, people seem to know how to behave as listeners both consciously and unconsciously. Listeners can be said to follow unwritten rules, using listening behaviour to present themselves or to pretend to be listening. As Goffman (1990) notes that performers have tacit consent to behave and control their images to audiences. I found and named one of the unwritten rules of listening, which is nagara listening, a kind of listening as multitasking.

Based on ethnography in Tokyo and analysis of TV dramas, I found that during nagara listening, listeners adopt their senses of hearing, sight, and touch, and skilfully control their bodies with the supports of materials such as smart-phones or one's hair. Listeners use these materials (tentatively called 'auxiliary artefacts') as ways to control their senses, particularly eyes and hands for different reasons such as to reduce social unease or not to appearing threatening others. For example, there are two women in their fifties sitting in a Starbucks in Tokyo. One of them as a listener touches her smart-phone on the table with her left hand, smoothes her hair with her left hand and eats a slice of chocolate cake with her right hand, turns her face to her friend, nods and mumbles 'hō'. This can be explained by her trying to create comfortable mental spaces to the speaker by being engaged in nagara listening, such as smoothing hair or eating a cake as a way to control her hands and eyes. She also had to show bodily reactions such as nodding to prove she is not just hearing but also listening. In another example, although listeners use the same auxiliary artefacts and show similar behaviours such as checking phones or reading books while listening, a student is considered as a listener, but not a politician. It is clear that several aspects such as purpose, situational context, social status or gender must influence the listeners' unwritten rules.

Overall, analysing Japanese listeners' senses, bodily practices (behaviour), and auxiliary artefacts will offer better understandings of the dynamics of Japanese communication and reveal unspoken rules for listeners.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is an examination of "Akahachi no irei-sai", a commemoration of a local hero of Ohama vlg. By analysing the event`s narrative, I reveal how it is constructed to function as both a religious ritual and a storytelling practice that places the village at the center of regional politics.

Paper long abstract:

The connections between storytelling and anthropology have been a theme repeatedly discussed in recent years, with interesting conversations being carried both about anthropology as storytelling and the anthropology of storytelling (see, for example, Maggio 2014). This paper relies on this discussions about storytelling in anthropology to approach the way people of the former Ryukyu kingdom space pass down their history in the context of religious practices.

Examining the categories of traditional storytelling existent in Japan, Fukuda Akira (2011) states that besides the three traditional genre of stories defined by Yanagita Kunio (legend, folktale, gossip), for the space of the southern islands we have to admit to the existence of a different genre of stories which he calls "shitan"(史譚) or historical stories and describes as a form of public storytelling of history. Little attention has been paid thus far to the way this storytelling is reinforced in the context of public ceremonies, but this paper intends to approach this aspect by analyzing "Akahachi no irei-sai, an event happening every year in Ohama village of Ishigaki island. The event is of modern origin and its aim is to commemorate Oyake Akahachi, a historical figure who fought against the annexation of the island to the Ryukyu kingdom, on the supposed day of his death. By analyzing this event, I show how Fukuda`s "historical stories" are being passed down to new generations and the worldviews imbedded within them.

This paper relies on both ethnographic data and the interpretation of historical sources to point to the different interpretations of this event in different regions of the Ryukyuan space and the storytelling both within and surrounding the event. Since one of the most remarkable characteristic of the event is its obvious educational intent, with the local school children being brought to the commemoration site for a lecture on the story of Akahachi and his revolt against the kingdom, I intend focus on the elements that are being highlighted or left aside in the process of transmitting the story to the younger generation, but also the ethnic politics involved in the storytelling.