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.