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Paper short abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research on Kansai dialect, this paper introduces the concept of linguistic post-standardisation to account for the afterlives of standard language ideology and the growing legitimacy of non-standard speech in highly standardised societies, such as contemporary Japan.

Paper long abstract

In recent decades, regional dialects have become increasingly visible and valorised in media, popular culture, tourism, and everyday interaction in Japan. At the same time, the ideological authority of standard Japanese remains firmly entrenched in public and institutional spaces. Drawing on ongoing debates surrounding the ‘Kansai dialect’, a group of dialects often associated with imagined authenticity, this paper develops the concept of linguistic post-standardisation to address the following question: how can we account for the apparent coexistence of enduring linguistic norms and the growing legitimacy of non-standard speech?

The paper theorises linguistic post-standardisation as a sociolinguistic condition in which standard language ideologies continue to structure linguistic evaluation, while no longer monopolising linguistic value and legitimacy. Based on ethnographic research on Kansai dialect, it examines how non-standard forms are selectively revalued, authorised, and circulated across different social domains, without displacing the symbolic centrality of standard Japanese. Rather than treating Kansai dialect as an exceptional or peripheral case, the analysis approaches it as a diagnostic site for examining broader transformations in how linguistic varieties are valued. In particular, it foregrounds how linguistic value and speaker legitimacy are re-evaluated in a highly standardised society. Building on sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological approaches to enregisterment, indexicality, and cultural value, the paper argues that linguistic post-standardisation captures a reconfiguration of linguistic authority, rather than a linear decline or erosion of standardisation. It accounts for the afterlives of standard language ideology in a linguistically homogeneous society undergoing shifts in linguistic value and legitimacy.

By theorising these dynamics from the Japanese context, this paper contributes to debates in Japan Studies on language, culture, and power, while also offering a conceptual framework that may be applicable to other contexts shaped by strong standard language ideologies.