Chapter 145Gender, Address, and Speech Conventions
Honorific address, interjections, changing greeting conventions, regional performance roles, and limits of the conversational record.
145.1 Address and the speaker–hearer relationship
Gender can affect the choice of address forms. Nakagawa describes a practice in which women generally use honorific fourth-person forms when speaking to adult men. Men normally use ordinary second-person forms to women; fourth-person address between men is more restricted. His Saru example is a woman speaking to a male acquaintance during recording Nakagawa (2024: 525–526).
‘If you are too tired, grandfather, say as much as you can, stop partway, and record the rest tomorrow.’
Nakagawa 2024: 526; Saru, Example 1210
The fourth-person subject forms address the man. Omare ‘put’ refers to recording here. Nakagawa's following example 1210′ is his hypothetical rewriting for a man addressing a woman.
The forms themselves do not specify a female speaker. Nakagawa relates their frequency in women's speech to these address conventions and to their polite or gentle effect. Ordinary second-person address also occurs between women and between men Nakagawa (2024: 526). In the Ishikari account he quotes from Tamura, second-person plural forms supply an ordinary honorific and fourth-person forms a higher degree of respect Nakagawa (2024: 530, citing Tamura 1988a:22–23).
Conversational address and literary person marking require separate description. Satō leaves open whether Chitose elevated language has a second-person honorific; his literary person table does not settle that question Satō (2008: 261–262).
145.2 Interjections and changing greeting conventions
Nakagawa lists hap as a women's expression of gratitude and Chitose okko as a call used by women to other women. These are particular lexical conventions within a larger inventory of interjections Nakagawa (2024: 290–291).
Ōno describes traditional irankarapte as a polite reunion greeting ordinarily delivered by a man with a gesture of respect. His account also documents a later, gender-neutral use as a general greeting, often without the traditional gesture. The older restriction therefore cannot be assumed for every recent use Ōno (2022: §8.2).
145.3 Performance roles and genre names
Traditional performance roles vary by genre and region. Endō reports adult male performance of prayers and ceremonial negotiation, caranke. Incantations are used by people of either sex and any age. Heroic epics are traditionally associated with men in several regions, but women have also recorded them. Satō's Chitose account distinguishes verse performance from irupaye, a prose telling of heroic material permitted to women Endō (2022: §§2.3, 2.4.3) Satō (2008: 259).
Performer gender, protagonist gender, and genre name need not coincide. Menoko yukar names divine epics in the middle Saru area; it is also used regionally for heroic epics with a female protagonist. The name alone does not identify a single narrative form Endō (2022: §§2.4.2–2.4.3). See Chapter 149 (Oral-Literary Genres and Their Regional Names).
145.4 Limits of the conversational record
Nakagawa stresses the scarcity of everyday conversations, particularly conversations between men and women. He finds it difficult to infer a literary character's gender from the wording of a speech alone. This observation leaves room for the specific address and lexical differences described above Nakagawa (2024: 525–526).
His discussion also quotes Kindaichi's historical impression that voiced pronunciations were more common among men and adults and in less careful speech. This is an attributed auditory observation, without measurements establishing a gender-conditioned sound rule Nakagawa (2024: 525–526, citing Kindaichi 1928:83).