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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the linguistic prestige of Kansai and Tōhoku dialects influences the representation of these varieties in contemporary Japanese literature.

Paper long abstract:

The representation of dialects in fictional texts often reflects real language attitudes and ideologies towards non-standard varieties (Hodson 2012). This paper focuses on two dialects: Kansai dialect, known for its covert prestige due to cultural and historical importance of its region, and Tōhoku dialect, one of the most ridiculed and stigmatized variety of Japanese (Inoue 1989, Kumagai 2019). A corpus of Japanese novels written after 1980 with the representation of either of those two dialects was analyzed, using an interdisciplinary methodology, which combined methods from perceptual dialectology and literary studies within Fairclough's (1995) three-dimensional framework for discourse analysis. First, the history of the two varieties was discussed, especially their past and present social significance. Next, the fragments featuring the dialects were examined to determine how, through the narration, stylistic devices and linguistic means, an image of each dialect was created. Then particular attention was paid to the social characteristics of the fictional speakers and the situations in which the dialects are used. Finally, after establishing reoccurring patterns in those texts, Kansai and Tōhoku dialect representations were compared to see to how the prestige influence their representation. The research findings showed that while the difference in prestige plays a significant role in the perception of Kansai and Tōhoku dialects, their overall images in contemporary literature are much more diverse than expected.

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