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In:Identity Perspectives from Peripheries
Edited by Yoshiko Matsumoto and Jan-Ola Östman
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 352] 2025
► pp. 125–144

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Chapter 6
From the peripheries of adulthood

Deconstructing culturally-expected identities of age categories

 | Stanford University
 | University of Melbourne
Published online: 13 June 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.352.06mat
Abstract
This study considers how individuals who are peripheralized from core or dominant social positions perform linguistic stances to indirectly resist the behaviors and attitudes that are expected of them. Focusing on the life-stage peripheries of youth and old age, the study uses discourse analysis of informal conversations among Japanese speakers to demonstrate how individuals from the opposite edges of adult life push back and reframe dominant narratives of life events including death, illness, and marriage and in so doing present alternative discourse of what these events signify. The study ultimately suggests that investigating phenomena on the periphery also provides theoretical and empirical insights into the core, offering more broadly applicable principles of meaning and identity construction. The findings challenge assumed divides in categories and the division between core and periphery itself.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Age categories: Older adults and younger adults
    • 2.1Stereotypical expectations toward older adults and younger adults in their discourse
    • 2.2Older adults’ discourse that defy the age categories
    • 2.3Younger adults’ discourse that defy the age categories
  • 3.Conclusion and implications
  • Notes
  • References
References (28)
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