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Article published In: Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 28:2 (2018) ► pp.215–236

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Where the husbands stand

A comparative analysis of stance-taking in English and Japanese narratives about child rearing

 | University of Tsukuba
Published online: 19 October 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.17003.ide
Abstract
In this paper, I analyse women’s interview narratives from the United States and Japan about their child rearing experiences to examine how stance-taking towards their experiences and their family members manifest itself differently. Paying attention to the narratives regarding their husbands’ role in child rearing, I examine how stance-taking may be perceived through overt and implied references in the use of linguistic resources. With the American English data, I discuss how the shift of personal pronouns combined with the discourse marker but create metaframes of the speakers’ stances, categorized as “abstract/positive” and “concrete/negative.” In contrast, Japanese narratives revealed that women’s stance-taking towards their husbands was marked through the concurrent usage of supportive giving verbs (-te kureru), indexing indebtedness on the side of the women, as well as nominalization forms that categorized their partners as certain types of men based on shared social expectations.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The study
  • English narrative data and analysis
    • Speaking in the plural and the shifting use of personal pronouns
    • The discourse marker but and the creation of metaframes
  • Japanese narrative data and analysis
    • The use of supportive giving verbs
    • Categorizing husbands through nominalization
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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