Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the acoustic quality of voice of anime characters, performed by female college students in a voice actor course as well as by professional voice actresses, and discusses the sociocultural meaning of anime voices as a register in the sociolinguistic context of contemporary Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Anime cartoons are one of the most well-known genres of Japanese popular culture. The voices of anime characters are usually dubbed by professional voice actors (seiyu), who provide some distinctive phonetic qualities recognised as anime-goe (anime voice) or moe-goe (moe or 'adorable' voice). The voice quality produced by voice actors can be regarded as being linguistically embedded or institutionalized in contemporary Japanese language due to its stereotypical auditory image, which is easily recollected by not only anime-otaku (anime fanatics) but also by the masses. Bearing in mind the particularity of the cultural situation surrounding Japanese anime, such as the recent high popularity of anime cartoons or the acceptance of voice actors as pop culture idols, the aim of our project is to give a sociolinguistic account of how anime voices are culturally institutionalized or enregistered in the changing media environment of the early 21st century.

As a part of the project, this paper aims to report some findings obtained by analysing the voice performances of female college students who are being trained in a course for voice actors, and to consider how they manipulate their voices to represent anime characters. In the vocal data collection, the students were asked to perform several roles, such as an ordinary woman, a kawaii or cute girl, a female warrior, a boyish girl, etc., in three different tasks (reading sentences, reading a passage, and dubbing). In addition, the formal interview was also recorded to obtain their normal voices. By analysing these voices, we argue what acoustic parameters contribute to the creation of typical auditory images of anime voices. Furthermore, we compare the results of the students' performance with the findings of Utsugi et al. (2019), where we presented some preliminary results of acoustic analysis of young voice actresses' performance in recent anime. We then consider what acoustic features are deeply involved in creating anime voices, and discuss how the anime voice is linguistically and culturally institutionalized as a register in the contemporary sociolinguistic environment of Japan.

Paper short abstract:

This study focuses on 'Requests' on LINE communiation to investigate the pragmatically and interactionally unique features of this medium, such as interactional structures, use of visual language, handling the 'switch-back' interaction, and gender representation.

Paper long abstract:

Across the globe, mobile media have developed considerably since the first introduction of accessible mobile phones towards the end of the 20th century. One notable global trend in recent years is the widespread use of SNS (Social Networking Systems). Among them is LINE, which is similar to WhatsApp and the most popular platform in Japan, with 98.1% use among youths in their 20s and an avarage of 82.3% in all generations (Somusho 2019). As mobile media and SNS have become increasingly central to our daily communication, they are arguably also influencing our interpersonal communication patterns. This study, as part of an investigation into the differences between mobile media and face-to-face communication, examines how 'Requests' are carried out in LINE communication and demonstrates how communication patterns are structurally and pragmatically influenced by the features of this medium:

1. 'Requests' on LINE tend to be made 'in one go', using single, long speech balloons, while general conversations involve short speech balloons and extend along the screen. This contrasts greatly with face-to-face communication, where 'Requests' tend to involve preambles and negotiation between the interactants;

2. The interactants naturally handle the 'switch-back' interactions, delayed answers and comments caused by the time-lag, while the intial topic is already shifted to a new one;

3. The opening and closing of the interaction with greetings and addressing has much less significance compared to face-to-face interactions. The interactants do not have to make a fresh start or close their conversation as the screen on the LINE platform is always open for them to start a conversation;

4. Extremely flexible gender representation can be observed. Male-female language boundaries are blurred; women often use male-oriented words and expressions, while there are some cases of women's and men's use of stickers representing opposite genders;

5. Abundant use of visual languages such as emoji, kaomoji, symbols, and stickers can be seen.

By examining the above phenomena, this study sheds light on the differences between face-to-face communication and LINE communication, and argues the need for further research in this area to develop our understanding of future directions of interpersonal communication.

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Paper short abstract:

This study investigates the structure and function of LINE stickers. The sociolinguistic analysis revealed specific gender differences not only in the images chosen but also in functional aspects, why and to what purpose LINE stickers are used.

Paper long abstract:

In Japan, the popular messenger LINE provides not only the function of conventional graphicons (Herring and Dainas 2017) like emoji and other emoticons, but also of virtual stickers スタンプ which are visual supplements to language as well (Kato 2017). Stickers differ from emoji and other emoticons in that they are larger in size (Wang 2016) and that they have to be sent separately and cannot be integrated into a text message. The illustrations of the stickers can represent virtually anything, but body images are particularly common. In order to assess gender differences in the illustrations of the stickers as well as in the actual usage style, 505 screenshots of natural LINE communication were collected and analyzed in a small-scale language corpus consisting of 764 stickers sent by 140 university students in Kyoto during September-October 2017. The sociolinguistic analysis revealed specific gender differences not only in the images chosen but also in functional aspects, why and to what purpose LINE stickers are used.

Herring, S., and A. Dainas (2017). "Nice Picture Comment!" Graphicons in Facebook Comment Threads. In Proceedings of the Fiftieth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Press. https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2017.264.

Kato, Y. (2017). LINE no sutanpu ga shiyō sareru jōkyō ni kansuru kiso chōsa [Basic Survey on the Use of LINE Stamps]. Journal of information and media studies, 3, 21-34.

Wang, S. S. (2016). More Than Words? The Effect of Line Character Sticker Use on Intimacy in the Mobile Communication Environment. Social Science Computer Review, 34(4), 456-478.

Paper short abstract:

While browsing "kawaii" objects or not "kawaii" objects, I compared the two cases with or without communication by utterance. As a consequence of the analysis in those two factors showed that the communicating group significantly felt positive no matter which objects they were browsing.

Paper long abstract:

It is a common behavior for people who have similar tastes to share their feelings about an object related to "kawaii" and to communicate them linguistically. It seems that communication by utterance of "kawaii" has a positive effect on short-term mood by the action of relieving psychological stress and improves the adaptability of human relationships.

An experiment was conducted to measure short-term mood changes when viewing "kawaii" images, and when viewing with or without communication. The moods of the collaborators were measured using TDMS. The results were evaluated by analysis of variance.

The degree of activity, comfort, and arousal was increased when there was communication. Vitality increased after viewing the image with a high level of "kawaii", and it became comfortable and active.

However, in the case viewing images with a low level of "kawaii", there was no change in mood before and after viewing the images regardless of whether with or without communication, indicating that communication had no effect. This suggests that only linguistic communication related to "kawaii" may amplify pleasure emotions. As a result of the gender difference, the same results as those of all the collaborators were seen in male, but in the case of female, viewing images with a low "kawaii" impression made them feel uncomfortable and depressed mood regardless of communication. Therefore, for females, it was found that the image condition affects the short-term mood more than the communication condition.