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Paper short abstract

This study examines how an MtF transsexual speaker, Hirasawa Yüna, a manga artist has transitioned from a man to a woman linguistically. Based on 25-hour-videotaped-conversation over the period of 10 months in 2016, it analyzes two aspects of linguistic transfer; (1) voice quality and (2) grammar.

Paper long abstract

There have been 6021 individuals who changed their sex in koseki since 2004 in Japan. My informant is one of them. This study examines how a transsexual speaker of Japanese, Hirasawa Yüna, whom I met in 2016, has transitioned from a male to a female speaker linguistically. Hirasawa, well-educated, early 30s, who had an SRS (sex reassignment surgery) a few years ago in Thailand quit her well-paying job and has become a manga artist after the surgery. The author of "Boku ga watashi ni narutame ni (How I 'boku' became 'watashi')" claims that the linguistic transition has been the easiest among other issues she dealt with, which is shared by many other MtF transgender and transsexual speakers I interviewed. However, it was not as simple as she claims.

In this study, I discuss two aspects of linguistic transfers; (1) voice quality, and (2) grammar. Since taking hormones would not change the voice quality for MtF transgender and transsexual speakers, they have to train themselves, which takes years. Some hire a professional trainer, but eventually they have to develop their own training procedure as Hirasawa did. By discussing the process of her voice training, I analyze what the feminine sounding voice quality means to transgender and transsexual speakers. As for grammar, not only the use of gender-coded linguistic features such as person pronouns and sentence-final forms, but also choice of vocabulary is crucial to sound feminine. Avoidance of voiced sound is such an example.

This study is part of my on-going research on transgender and transsexual speakers of Japanese since 2012. Qualitative analysis of Hirasawa's linguistic practice as well as her position toward linguistic transfer based on 25-hour-videotaped-conversation over the period of 10 months, tries to answer a question of what it means to be, in her own words, "kissui no josei (real/genuine woman)" linguistically. She challenges the notion of "imitation" and "performance" in her linguistic transition.