Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Japanese Gay-Men’s Talk: Omoiyari (Altruistic Sensitivity) is behind the Situation
Soichi Kozai
ABSTRACT:
Japanese are known as reserved people. However, Onee ‘a paritcular type of gay-men’ who mince no words are seen on TV shows every day in Japan. How is this possible in a country of omotenashi ‘a superb hospitality’? This is because their harsh language is studded with linguistic devices associated with omoiyari ‘altruistic sensitivity’ that is peculiar to Japanese culture. Omoiyari is a sensitivity to imagine others’ feelings and personal affairs, including their circumstances (Travis 1998). To convey that, an utterance should sound soft, not arrogant, and most of all, it should be empathic. Kuno (1976) states that empathy is the speaker’s identification with a person described in a sentence. With some lingusitic devices, the speaker can show such empathy toward the discourse participant. One of these lingusitsc tools is the use of a shared information marker. Japanese speakers can draw the addressee linguistically into one’s own group in terms of information conveyed in the discourse. The address will be, therefore, on the same page as you are on. This is the main strategy how Onee speakers with malicious tongues employ to make their harsh comments but the targets are not offended as we might expect them to be. I will linguistically account for this mechanisims Onee speakers manipulate in their language.
keywords: Onee ‘Japanese Gay-Men’, Omoiyari ‘Altruistic Sensitivity’, Empathy