Introduction
Our team for the project was “L”, Linnet Edwards, Jia Suwat and Ying. 

We divided the work as follows:

1. “L” and Linnet: Analyzed Yamai Ren’s feminine words and the context in which she uses them.
2. Ying and Jia: Analyzed the reason for Nakanaka Omoharu’s use of masculine pronouns and sentence enders

Methodology

Our team analyzed two female characters from the manga 「古見さんはコミュ症です」,focusing on how each characters uses gendered language as a form of outward self expression. Furthermore, we elaborated on why each character chooses to use their respective vocabulary, and what their goals are when expressing themselves. 

The story we chose is about Komi, a new student at a private elite highschool who struggles with social anxiety and making friends. Upon arrival at her new school, Komi receives a lot of attention as her classmates all believe her to be beautiful and elegant. Her extreme shyness impedes her from making friends, but when a male classmate of hers discovers this secret the two of them embark on a mission of making 100 friends.

The characters we chose to analyze are Yamai Ren and Nakanaka Omoharu, classmates of Komi’s. 

Yami Ren (山井恋)

Data & Error Analysis:

For our gendered language data we gathered examples between chapters 8-27 where Ren appears most frequently. Speaking a total of 59 sentences; 27 contain female gendered language. Ren uses gendered language roughly 46% of the time but she does not use any male gendered speech. This data does not however, take into account who she is speaking to, nor take into consideration that some japanese sentences do not have a female gendered equivalent/naturally occurring gendered speech. This being said, comparing Ren’s speech style to her actions is very important in comprehending how she expresses herself and how she desires to be seen by others. Understanding her background and her intent is also crucial to analyzing Ren’s character. 

Character description & background:

Yami Ren is a classmate, and stalker, of Komi’s. Showing up uninvited to events and waiting for days one end outside of Komi’s house; Ren can be described as jealous and unstable. She becomes violent when others spend time with Komi and at one point kidnaps a fellow classmate. This side of her is concealed by her family’s wealth and her status as a popular girl in school. Her hair is always well styled with a red ribbon and she adopts girly fashion, spending lots of money on designer clothes and accessories. For this reason the majority of her acquaintances are not aware of her violent side. Rather, she is widely known as loving and gentle. 

Using this information one is able to better understand the results deduced from the gathered data. Ren drastically alters the way she speaks in public as opposed to in private, therefore the data may be misleading ifone views it without context. 

Example Panel 1:

In this panel Ren is talking to Nakanaka (not pictured), her nemesis. The two girls constantly try to outdo one another in proving who is a better friend to Shoku. Nakanaka is known for her delusional beliefs and for her desperate attempts to fit in with others.

Though typically Ren is genuine and kind, her jealous nature and competitiveness take over and are expressed through her sarcastic language. She utilizes feminine speech to emphasize her “innocent and kind” words, putting on a faux look of concern as she verbally attacks Nakanaka’s biggest insecurity: her inability to make friends. For that reason, Nakanaka *shivers in anger* when Ren recommends that she should “definitely make friends”. Ren uses this opportunity to rub in the fact that she has already accomplished what Nakanaka struggles with most.  

The use of 「ないの？」and「いいよ〜つ」give a sing-song feel to Ren’s words; you can almost hear the higher pitch and tone of her voice as you read the speech bubble. The feminine language she chooses to use is what drives her insult. She uses this technique to cut deeper, placing emphasis on the insincerity of her comment.* An English example of this phenomenon could be: “You poor thing”*

Like many females, Ren identifies with feminine speech. She accepts the role of politeness that comes with that speech style but twists it to fit her needs, indirectly belittling Nakanaka. In this way, the interaction comments on the social aspect of gendered language. Ren defies the expectation society has of female politeness. Rather, she puts on a show to flaunt how “truly concerned” she is for Nakanaka. An onlooker who does not know the history between the two characters might take the comment to be sincere. The severity of this insult may stem from the feeling that getting blatantly lied to is more hurtful than a direct offense. Likewise, an onlooker who might agree with Ren would further infuriate Nakanaka, as they would’ve been tricked into thinking Ren has just offered kind advice.

Example Panel 2:

We can see a little deeper into Ren’s evil side in this panel. She whispers into, and through, Hitohito Tadano’s ears a very rude utterance. Calling him 「カス」multiple times, then she proceeds to act like nothing has happened. Ren uses her femenine way of speech to conceal her rude acts. The gentle and happy way she speaks a few seconds later, asking 「そうなの？」makes her appear as a kind person who can do no wrong. Her mean taunts are unbeknownst to the other girls she is speaking with; they are unaware of her evil side because her femenine way of speaking conveys innocence. Ren uses this to her advantage. No one would believe that the sweet person Ren outwardly pretends to be could have such a wicked side. She hides behind gendered language, using it as a veil to camouflage her true emotions. 

Example Panel 3:

This panel is taken from the beginning of the story where Ren is not yet friends with Komi. Ren has attempted to talk to Komi on many occasions but each time she has been interrupted. This panel shows Komi’s friend getting Komi’s attention right before Ren gets to wish Komi a good morning. Ren is visibly frustrated but tries to keep her composure to appear friendly. She suppresses her anger with feminine language and simultaneously uses it to convince Komi, Komi’s friend, and herself that she is truly happy. She does this by saying 「今日も無駄に元気だね！」in a cheerful voice. However, her joy can be proven inauthentic by reading into what she is actually saying. Ren’s words emphasize how happiness is wasted (because she was unable to befriend Komi that day), but the way in which she speaks conveys joy. Ren’s dialogue reveals the power of gendered language. The femenine way in which Ren talks puzzles Komi’s friend as she is are left asking herself 「無駄…？」 This confusion arises because female gendered language is often used to express gentleness and politeness. In this example, Ren is using femenine language in a sarcastic manner to express her frustration “through gritted teeth”. 

Example Panel 4:

These panels show a desperate Ren pressuring her classmate Najimi to introduce her to Komi. Ren’s sole goal is to befriend Komi; she will do anything to accomplish that, even if it means using people. This exploitation of people is seen when Ren asks Najimi, “We are friends aren’t we?”, plotting to get her to do her bidding. Najimi readily agrees to the question as Ren is known for being the wealthy and popular girl in her class. Using femenine language, Ren guilts Najimi into feeling obligated to do as she asks. The smiling, sweet talking Ren, is juxtaposed with dark shadows and Ren’s nails that claw into Najimi’s jacket. These images elicit a feeling of tension, as it is made clear that Ren is using gendered language, and her position as a “friend”, as fuel for manipulation. She uses polite language 「くれる」, alongside with femenine sentence ender「わよね」, as a tactic to sound friendlier. (This can be compared to a person batting their eyes and saying “pretty please”). Though she typically uses femenine language, Ren intentionally chooses to do so in this instance as a way to threaten. Her face hold composure as she thinks *If you refuse, you will be killed*. 

Common Types of Speech Used: 

Data Explained: 

In the first column one can see that Ren commonly uses femenine sentences when she speaks; she does not use any masculine sentence enders. (Neutral enders are omitted from this table because they constitute 100% of the times where gendered speech is not used). 

The second column shows the way Ren refers to people, she only “anata” once, usually opting for the more femenine version “annta”. (This however, does not take into account who is being spoken to, context really determines language usage and for this reason our examples are critical when understanding this character).

This last column titled “Other” includes words/speech style that are only used by people who outwardly express themselves as femenine. In other words, there may not be a male/ neutral equivalent to these words but the speech style allows its user to convey a specific message regarding gender. 

Conclusion: 

From these panels, and from our data collection, we concluded that Ren uses femenine features as a way to get what she wants. She gains power from her speech style, using it as a weapon, a shield, and as a tool of manipulation. Exaggerating her friendliness through her word choice Ren manages to appear genuinely kind and successfully conceals her evil nature. In this way, she outwardly appears to fall into the nonassertive category expected of her by society, when in reality she does so in order to mask her assertive and controlling personality. Using gendered language approximately half of the time, we determined that Ren purposefully chooses to display herself as femenine. 

Omoharu Nakanaka（中々 思春）

We analyzed Omoharu Nakanaka (中々・思春). Even though she plays the supporting role in this manga series, Nakanaka has her own distinct speech style among the female characters by the way she uses the first and third pronouns and sentence structure.

Nakanaka is described to be the only “chuunibyou” character of this manga series. She wants to stand out and to be seen as a demon lord among her classmates since it helps her improve her confidence, as well as making her stand out as an unique individual. When it comes to the idea about demon lord, the first picture that comes to her mind, as well as the readers’, is a strong and male character. As a result, she prefers to use masculine words and speak obscurely. This also causes difficulties for others when they try to understand her.  

Choice of Pronoun: 

In the conversation we analyzed, Nakanaka uses masculine words and neutral words. Unlike many male characters, she uses 「我」instead of 「僕」to be her pronoun. We came up with two theories. First, compared to 「僕」, which is used by most male students, 「我」makes her more outstanding and made others feel the power from this pronoun. Considering those male characters who used 「僕」and 「我」, we can find that people who used 「僕」look and sound more normal and polite, while people who used 「我」always sound strong or powerful. The second reason is that 「我」is less used in today’s conversation. Nakanaka believes herself to be a demon lord, which is not part of reality, so she uses 「我」to express herself. 

Pronoun Usage Examples:

Fun Fact: 

If we used kanji to represent nakanaka, her name could be written as 中中, which is double 中, also we know that 中 can also have the pronunciation of　“ちゅう”. So, 2 of 中 means 中二 (ちゅうに), just like her characteristic.

Character Background:

Nakanaka wears her jacket on her arm, not like a normal person does, rather like many cool characters in other animated series. She uses an eyepatch to cover her left eye and tries to give herself an air of mystery. She is very confident with herself and likes to describe her ability by using strange words, making it sound as if she has magical abilities. 

She wanted to make friends with the main character Komi and called it a blood oath. She likes many things and is good at many games. Even though her character traits made her lonely in the past, she is still proud of herself which she has kept with her. 

Character Conflict: 

Nakanaka is good at music and she was really proud when she wrote the songs for the band. She wanted to be encouraged by her peers. However, Yamai Ren said her names for the songs are out of fashion and made her feel angry. So, she used 貴様 when referring to Yamai. Besides that, she didn’t like Yamai at that time, and used 貴様 also showed she believed Yamai is less status than her. In the following conversation, Nakanaka said 生息地帯にもどれ, this also made people feel that she even didn’t see Yamai as a person at that time.

Nakanaka and Yamai don’t have a good relationship because they both think they are best friends with Komi. So, they have a competitive relationship instead. In the conversation, Yamai helped the band to exercise for the school festival, but she said she can’t come on that day. Nakanaka actually hoped Yamai would participate in the performance but her character decides that she can’t speak like normal students. She used 「ヤツ」 to express Yamai, which also means she saw Yamai as person whose status lower than her. First, she believes she is high level because she is a demon lord, only Komi who has a blood oath with her can have the same status. Secondly, she doesn’t want to show her hope to other people because Yamai and she always have arguments with each other. 「ヤツ」reveals to the reader that Nakanaka didn’t care if Yamai participated in the event or not.

Word Choices, Starters, and Enders:

To understand how chuunibyou Omoharu Nakanaka is, we analyzed specifically how she ends her sentence and how she puts sentences together when she talks with her classmates throughout the series.

In chapter 235, Omoharu points out how happy Ren is when Komi comes to visit the class. She says “一番ゴキゲンなのはアイツだろう.” She ends her sentence with “だろ,” instead of “だよ” or “わよ” like other different feamle character. Also, interestingly, instead of the word “gokigen” spells out “ご機嫌” or “ごきげん,” it was spelled out in katakana 

(“ゴキゲン”). Because this specific native Japanese word was spelled this way, it also helps her as a character to be seen as the outsider or others who came from a different world, in her case it probably means the magical world where demons and other magical creatures exist in the same world.

In chapter 259, Omoharu shows her gratitude and appreciation by saying indirectly and obliquely. If she speaks like other characters, she might directly reply to Komi san that “that’s for me? I like sweets so much.Thank you. I will have it later (私になの！？ありがとう。私、甘いものが好きなんだ。後で、食べるよ).” Instead, she replies that “For myself, is it?…I’m not too fond of sweet things. But if it is something from my sworn friend, then I’ll gladly partake in it (わっ我にか… 甘いものは得意ではないが。盟友の送り物とあれば頂こう)” which sounded strange and vague for her surrounding people and the readers. Furthermore, “頂こう,” which she uses to refer “partake,” is not only the humble word and polite word, it is also used among the higher and ruling class in the society. In the term of Omoharu, it specifically means to be a demon lord.

In chapter 270, Omoharu starts her conversation with “おい” which is commonly used among the male Japanese speakers, instead of starting with the feminine term “ねえ” or “あの.” Also, she ends her sentence with “ぞ” which rarely is used by female Japanese speakers. Because of her starter and ending of this sentence, they help her to be stronger than other female characters or be closer to the picture of a male demon lord.

Table 

In 12 of Nakanaka’s sentences, there are at least 10 gendered features including the sentence enders like “ぞ” or “な”,  the pronouns for people and some sentence structure which totally not use the polite form.

Introduction

In this project, the group members were Linnet Edwards, Steven Shinmachi, Lin, and Elizabeth Chandler.

Within the group, there were two teams of two persons each, Elizabeth and Linnet, who worked on the AGC webpage, and Steven and Lin, who worked on the Pocky webpage. Each group provided screenshots of their respective websites, and each went through the text and organized the Sino-Japanese, Native-Japanese, and Foreign Loan Words into a table, separated by whether they were a verb, adjective, or noun. Grammatical particles are not included, and adverbs have been grouped with the adjectives, while adverbial nouns with the nouns.

We chose to examine two different forms of advertising websites, one for the Japanese manufacturing company AGC, and one for the Japanese snack company Ezaki Glico’s popular product Pocky. 

AGC: https://www.agc.com/news/detail/1201504_2148.html

Pocky: http://cp.pocky.jp/jimoto-pocky/about/

Upon first glance, the ACG page we chose to analyze may appear overwhelming; this is due to the overload of Kango words used in this company’s product promotion. Because Kango is used primarily in formal settings it’s appearance here was expected as this manufacturing company’s main buyers are large corporations. In order to best relay specific information about their product, the company must include many technical terms on their webpage, those of which are written in Kango. 

This specific page, however, is for the promotion for a newly released glass technology; in it, the writer gives specific examples for the product’s application and use. The presentation of real-life examples introduces more Wago to the text. This can be seen when the writer speaks of the natural disasters that occur in Japan. The subject of the paragraph drives the type of language used. Taking a look at the first and third paragraph, one can see the increased use of Garaigo. This can be explained by the topic at hand. When speaking of the product itself, or the features the glassware has, the writer is forced to use katakana to correctly express terminology derived from English. 

Examples of these include:

1. ラミセーフシェルター™
2. ベターリビング

Despite the large Kango presence, the AGC webpage is very straight forward. It contains large blocks of texts detailing the specifications of the product, the situation it was designed for, and safety information. There are only three infographics on the entire page. The first diagrams the glass, it’s thickness, and the company logo. The second displays company contact information, and the last explains the specifications of three different types of glass in this line.

Through this, it is made clear that the target audience for this product is not the general public. Furthermore, due to its highly technical and specialized information, much of the article is written using Sino-Japanese words. Of all the nouns used, 65% are Sino-Japanese. This can be compared to the 27% of Native Japanese and 8% of Foreign Loan Words. Most of these nouns showcased a desire for clear and specific language, which included words involving measurements, product information, etc. 

Most Native-Japanese words were almost exclusively adjectival and adverbial nouns, with a few exceptions. As we learned in class surnames and natural phenomena are written using native Japanese words. We found various examples of this on the AGC webpage. Such as 玉城　和美, the contact name for this product, and words like 下 、屋根、窓, as well as 宮川, the name of the manager. 

Foreign-loan words, on the other hand, appeared to have more nouns. However, those mentioned were mainly related to company and product names, foreign measurement systems, and words relating to the internet of which there are no Japanese equivalents.

For example, the promotional webpage talks about the 「ラミセーフシェルターTM」where ラミ refers to the word, “laminated”. This is one of the various examples Japanese has of foreign language shortening. In this particular case, the front end of the word “laminated” is used to represent the word’s meaning. The abridged “Lami”, is used in conjunction with the words “セーフ”:safe, and “シェルター”: shelter; both of which possess a native Japanese equivalent. This poses the question: Why not use the native Japanese word in this context? 

Notice the trademark symbol at the end of the word. Its presence is not merely to indicate the term has been claimed, rather it helps to distinguish it as the title of the company’s product, differentiating it from a general safe shelter. Furthermore, katakana is used to emphasize words; they stand out for being written in a different writing system. For this reason, katakana is widely used in the advertisement industry and on this webpage.

Though only selling glass, AGC advertises its product as a safe shelter in its entirety. Had this been advertised in English the glass would most likely be marketed as the staple for a safe shelter, rather than the shelter itself. This difference could arise from the way Japanese writing forms contain specific meaning. In other words, many kanji are compounds that hold reading form and meaning. In this example, the katakana phrase is created in such a way that it also contains both pieces of information.

The usage of “stock” and “glass” instead of Native-Japanese equivalent words is another example of this phenomenon. Stock was used as part of the word “housing stock” (i.e. the total number of houses in an area) combining a Sino-Japanese word and a Foreign-Loan word. This appears only because this form of “stock” seems to not have a Japanese equivalent to succinctly express this concept, or the word that was used has simply fallen out of fashion. The same can be said for “glass”. In specific, it is talking about glass in a pane form, not about a glass cup. Again, it seems whatever the Native-Japanese or Sino-Japanese word for this word has fallen into obscurity. This is also not an advertising choice to appear “more foreign”, as many words in Japanese to express different types of glass also use the foreign-loan word, such as colored glass（色ガラス）, broken glass（割れたガラス）, frosted glass（すりガラス）, etc.

When analyzing pure adjectives, we found that their usage is extremely small and limited only to Native-Japanese words. (Note: there are many words in the noun list, specifically the Sino-Japanese list, that can be used as adjectives. However, they were not and were instead used in their noun form, and therefore, are not being counted. Adjectives are only considered “true adjectives” if they were used in the adjectival form.) Three were used in direct appeal to the consumer, such as 良き(い)社会, a good society, or 新たな価値, new value. The only two used in product specification were にくい and 高い, the former relating to the glass’s strong durability, while the latter had to do with its usage as a crime prevention device (高い防犯性能).

Comparatively, we noticed that verbs are more numerous than the adjectives. To our surprise, there are more Native-Japanese verbs than Sino-Japanese. Again though, the foreign loan words are the smallest list. With the foreign loan words, most again have to do with giving the image and feeling that do not have a proper Native-Japanese or Sino-Japanese word equivalency, or the equivalent is no longer used. There is one (シェア) that’s usage is directly tied to its meaning on the internet, as in to share something on Facebook or Twitter. The second list is the Sino-Japanese words, most of which include highly specific verbs that correspond to the formal tone of this text. However, interestingly, there are more Native-Japanese words in comparison, mainly relating to general concepts such as 守る to protect、割れた separated、持つ to hold, etc. where the Native-Japanese word would be more appropriate due to the general nature of word it is modifying, or just in general.

Looking at the Pocky website, we decided to group the websites nouns, adjectives, and verbs to Native Japanese, Sino-Japanese, and Western-Loan. After grouping them, we found many different Native and Sino-Japanese nouns and verbs, with very little adjectives and wetern-loan words overall.  

Throughout the article, the most frequently used words were Sino-Japanese, with Native Japanese and Western-Loan to follow. This makes sense, as the website is targeting mostly Native Japanese people giving them a report of the quality and specialty of the different fruits and foods they use for their product. The high usage of Native and Sino-Japanese also suggests that the website is targeting adults as well. Nouns and verbs were used the most throughout the texts, with very limited number of adjectives. Within the Native and Sino-Japanese words however, we saw that Sino-Japanese words had more verbs than Native. Western-Loan words were very rare, as there were 6 in total. 

The usage of Sino-Japanese is thought to have more names, fancier verbs and content nouns. Compared to Native Japanese words, they contain easy verbs and common situation words. Western-Loan words on the other hand contain words that carry foreign and international concepts. Knowing this, the high usage of Sino-Japanese words made sense because of the professionalism the words show to the intended adult audience. At first, it was surprising to see the lack of Western-Loan words on a Pocky website as they are a globally well-known company. Looking closer into our website however, within the context of our text found in the website, it made sense to not have them because the audience was catered more towards adults to inform them about the background behind some pocky’s flavor; not a website advertising pocky. 

To our surprise, there were no words written in non-standard script. This made sense because the intent of the website was not to seem flashy and cool, but rather to inform the intended audience about their product’s flavor. However, there were words like あまざけ throughout our text which were written both like あまざけ and 甘酒.

After reading and learning about Seaton’s idea of imagery words generate, I realized that this website uses mostly Sino-Japanese to generate a professional-like imagery. Due to the intended audience being adults, this particular part of the pocky website did not need to add any Western-Loan or Native-Japanse words to try and advertise the product. Instead, having the professional imagery allows the website to inform the intended audience clearly and easily with the reading.