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Article published In: Language, Culture and Society
Vol. 3:1 (2021) ► pp.82–106

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Discourse (re)-framing

Narratives of adulthood in contemporary Japan

 | Arizona State University
Published online: 18 June 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.19017.kro
Abstract
Focusing on the move from gakusei ‘student’ to shakaijin ‘working adult, lit. fully socialized adult’ during a period of continuing economic stagnation and social dislocation, the current study analyzes contemporary Japanese university students’ alignments with respect to ideologies surrounding adulthood including entering the job market and marriage. Data includes naturally occurring conversations with male and female students at a mid-high ranked city university on the outskirts of Yokohama as well as media materials associated with job-hunting practices. Analyzing individuals’ discursive (re)-framing of economic practice, this study demonstrates how individuals convey complex alignments towards future economic and social practices and their attendant ideologies. These complex alignments are analyzed as instances of ‘making do’ (De Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday Life (T. Conley, trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Attending to subtle shifts in discursive (re)-framing, this paper demonstrates how micropolitical alignments are enacted in language at the level of everyday, ordinary practice.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The contemporary Japanese working world
    • 2.1Gendered economic roles
  • 3.Theoretical framework: Stance, indexicality and micropolitics in the unmarked center
  • 4.Data sources and background
  • 5.Narratives of successful job-seeking
    • 5.1Self-examination, self-PR and self-construction
  • 6.(Re)-framing as shift
    • 6.1White-collar jobs
    • 6.2Marriage
  • 7.Discussion and conclusion
  • Note
  • References
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Kroo, Judit
2022. The Cultural Logic of the Ordinary: Interactional Semiosis and the (Re)‐Framing of Daily Life among Japanese Younger Adults. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 32:2 ► pp. 386 ff. DOI logo
Kroo, Judit
2023. Remaking futsuu ‘ordinary’ in the discourse of younger Japanese adults. Language & Communication 88 ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo

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