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Paper short abstract

This presentation investigates language ideologies in Japanese video game dialogue, using a triangulated approach (developers, texts, and players) to analyse non-human characters’ linguistic representation and user perceptions, offering a new perspective on fictional identity construction.

Paper long abstract

This presentation addresses an underexplored area within pop cultural linguistics, by investigating how language ideologies are reproduced and circulated through the linguistic stylisation of non-human characters in contemporary Japanese video game dialogues. Despite being one the world’s largest video game market, with a distinct media ecosystem shaped by media-mix strategies, the role of Japanese video games in shaping language ideologies remains significantly under-researched. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how specific linguistic varieties contribute to the construction of identity and narrative roles, and how stereotyped registers activate linguistic and metapragmatic stereotypes that influence audience’s perceptions due to the intertextuality of the media mix.

The research engages with the phenomenon of yakuwarigo ‘role language’ (Kinsui, 2000), while integrating Anglo-American sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological perspectives. Through a triangulated approach (author-oriented, text-oriented, and player-oriented), the study investigates both the implicit and explicit processes through which virtual identities are shaped in the videogame medium by language.

The theoretical section provides an overview of existing research on the relationship between language, ideology, and representation in popular culture, with particular attention to indexicality (Eckert, 2008), iconization (Irvine & Gal, 2000), and enregisterment (Agha, 2007), the ideological mechanisms through which specific linguistic forms become recognizable registers associated with fictional speaker categories.

As for the analytical part, the author-oriented analysis draws on interviews with Japanese game developers, offering insights into how creative practices, linguistic attitudes, and genre conventions shape the scriptwriting process and the representation of non-human characters. The text-oriented analysis examines a corpus of Japanese-language video games, analysing stylistic features to understand how fictional registers construct identities and reproduce ideologies. The player-oriented analysis consists of a metapragmatic survey of native Japanese speakers, exploring linguistic attitudes toward fictional registers and the stereotypes that inform their interpretation.

This presentation proposes a more robust and methodologically sophisticated framework for analysing fictionalised orality in Japanese. The findings illuminate the complex intertextual and ideological dynamics that structure mediated communication, contributing to a deeper understanding of how linguistic ideologies and fictional identities are constructed, circulated, and recognised within the videogame context.

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Through discourse and quantitative analyses of the Tamahiyo baby-naming guides, I show a shift from a familiar voice emphasizing connections with readers to one emphasizing expert authority. Now also featuring fewer unique names, this shift may impact Tamahiyo’s influence on future naming trends.

Paper long abstract

This study examines how linguistic strategies and name recommendations in the Tamahiyo baby-naming guides reflect shifts in their authoritative status. First published in 2003, the Tamahiyo guide was an innovative newcomer, contributing to the popularity of unique names (Kobayashi, 2009). Today, the Tamahiyo brand has become a ubiquitous presence, with annual updates (Unser-Schutz, 2025). Because such guides must convince readers to follow their advice, Tamahiyo’s changing authoritative status affects what linguistic strategies they use and the names they recommend, especially considering public criticism of unique names and legal constraints on name readings introduced in 2025.

The study compares the original 2003 guide and the 2026-2027 edition, using a discourse analysis of the text and a quantitative analysis of their matched graphic/phonetic names lists. While much is unchanged between editions, with a variety of speech acts of different directness levels typical of Japanese advice (Tanaka, 2015), the newest edition uses a less familiar and intimate voice. Some hedges (e.g., yō ‘seems’), sentence final particles (100 over 515 pages (2003) vs. 59 over 485 pages (2026-2027)) and community-building terms (e.g., sempai mama ‘senior moms’) have decreased in frequency, with the newer edition instead frequently referencing external sources of authority (e.g., dictionaries, laws).

These changes are reflected in the names list. The 2026-2027 edition lists ~32% fewer matched graphic/phonetic forms (8,596 vs. 12,661). Fewer unique phonetic forms are listed (1,578 vs. 5,170), with fewer graphic variants per form (2.45 vs. 5.45). Although both editions emphasize choosing names that are not ordinary, this more limited list suggests that Tamahiyo’s shift in authoritative voice has been accompanied by a conservative shift in its recommendations. With the data suggesting that Tamahiyo increasingly prioritizes authority through expert knowledge over intimate connections, I also consider how these changes may affect Tamahiyo’s influence on future naming trends.

Kobayashi, Y. (2009). Nazuke no sesōshi ‘koseiteki na namae’ o fīrudowāku. Fukyosha.

Tanaka, L. (2015). Advice in Japanese radio phone-in counselling. Pragmatics, 25(2), 251–285.

Unser-Schutz, G. (2025). The role of baby-naming guides in the presentation of gender in names: A case study of the Tamahiyo baby naming guides. Sociolinguistic Studies, 19(1–2), 107–127.

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The paper shows that Japanese linguistics, shaped by European paradigms, was rooted in epistemic violence. It argues that these frameworks enabled internal colonization by constructing kokugo as a national norm while marginalizing Ryūkyūan languages as dialects despite their scientific value.

Paper long abstract

The present paper examines how the advent of modern Japanese linguistics, which was shaped by the transfer, adaptation, and reception of European linguistic paradigms during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is rooted in epistemic violence. Furthermore, it analyzes how these imported epistemologies became embedded in practices of 'colonization within'. Japan's reception of Western linguistic thought is generally depicted as a narrative of modernization. However, this paper contends that the process concurrently engendered forms of epistemic violence that structured the perception, classification and political treatment of non-standard varieties, notably the Ryūkyūan languages.

Drawing on decolonial theory and metapragmatic approaches to language ideology, the paper analyzes how concepts derived from the Junggrammatiker, comparative philology, and nationalist language movements, originally formulated within a European colonial context, were translated into tools for constructing kokugo as both linguistic norm and moral substance of the Japanese nation-state. This epistemic framework did not seek to describe factual linguistic reality but rather actively produced a hierarchical linguistic order by establishing Tōkyō Japanese as the normative center and constructing all other varieties to the status of 'languages of the periphery' and thus 'dialects'.

Within this newly formed epistemic field, the Ryūkyūan languages occupied a paradoxical position: While they were valuable from a scientific perspective in terms of reconstructing historical stages of the Japanese language, they were concurrently classified as dialects in order to support a homogenizing national project. The tension between scientific recognition and political negation illuminates the workings of epistemic violence: the state determining not only what counted as legitimate knowledge but also what was permitted to exist as a 'language'.

The present paper draws on historical documents, early dialect surveys, and metapragmatic discourse to reveal how linguistics in Japan's nation-building reproduced colonial logics internally. The study utilizes an analytical approach to examine the utilization of linguistic categories in the marginalization of the Ryūkyū Islands. This analysis shall offer a decolonial re-reading of Japanese linguistic modernity, emphasizing the persistent influence of these epistemic formations on contemporary discourses concerning the status, revitalization, and cultural legitimacy of the Ryūkyū languages.

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This paper evaluates Ainu language revitalization since Japan’s 1997 Ainu Culture Promotion Act replaced earlier assimilatory legislation. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews in Hokkaido, it examines the sociolinguistic state of Ainu today, assessing policy effectiveness and obstacles to revival.

Paper long abstract

In 1997, Japan enacted the Ainu Culture Promotion Act that replaced the assimilationist 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act. This marked a fundamental shift in state policy toward the Ainu people. For nearly thirty years since, the Japanese state has promoted Ainu language as part of broader cultural revitalization. This paper critically examines the effectiveness of this policy approach and assesses the current sociolinguistic state of the Ainu language.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Ainu communities in Hokkaido since 2018 and semi-structured interviews in 2024–2025 with language learners, teachers, and community members, this study identifies both achievements and challenges in Ainu revitalization. State support has enabled language courses, teaching materials, and public awareness initiatives that culminated in the 2019 Ainu Policy Promotion Act and the establishment of Upopoy (National Ainu Museum and Park). Yet the number of fluent speakers has continued to decline, with no first-language speakers left and only few neospeakers among younger generations.

This paper argues that several structural bottlenecks impede meaningful revitalization. First, the policy framework positions Ainu primarily as cultural heritage rather than a living means of communication. Second, institutional support remains concentrated in formal educational settings, with insufficient resources for community-based, immersion-oriented approaches that have proven effective elsewhere. Third, questions of modern use versus preserving traditional language forms and practices create tensions regarding which forms should be taught and preserved. Finally, the absence of the official language status does not support spreading the language to new domains and normalizing its everyday use.

By situating Ainu within broader frameworks of endangered language revitalization, this paper contributes to discussions on the gap between symbolic official recognition and substantive language rights. It asks whether a cultural promotion approach can ever achieve genuine linguistic vitality, or whether more fundamental policy reforms are necessary. The Ainu case offers important lessons for understanding the limitations of state-led revitalization when it operates within frameworks that prioritize heritage preservation over communicative revitalization.