著者

片田(孫) 朝日

出版者

京都大学

雑誌

京都社会学年報 : KJS

巻号頁・発行日

vol.11, pp.73-94, 2003-12-25

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This study explores the characteristic of girls' language uses in their play activities and illuminates the variety of the styles in contexts. Previous studies in Japan have found that girls and boys learn and use gender-appropriate behaviors and linguistic forms. According to these studies, girls and their groups use more polite and collaborative linguistic styles, including more mitigated verb forms, than boys. Among girls "the rule of considerateness" to others (Goffman) earns more attention than among boys. These studies, however, tend to depict children as beings who are one-sidedly socialized to be simply bound by the gender norms. This study tries to show that girls, depending on the contexts, carefully choose various linguistic styles including masculine ones, and make tactical use of the rules of considerateness and of the norms of girls' styles in their play interactions. This study are based on the data obtained through naturalistic observation and videotaped play interaction of girls and boys (of age six to nine) in a child care center in Kyoto City. In this study, the girls who like to play house, drawing and card games, were found to form more exclusive and stable play groups than those of the boys. When the girls want to get other girls to do something, they usually designed directives - speech acts in more mitigated forms. The girls in one of the two groups were willing to show their consideration for younger girls. These girls, on the other hand, reproached other girls' for their behaviors which according to them lacked consideration, using such a term as "Ijiwaru" (mean). They not only conform to the rule of considerateness, but also actively use it for themselves. In addition, the girls change their style in contexts. When boys invaded their plays, they baldly accused the boys and order to go away in imperative forms. The girls in the higher status group, also often teased and denounced a peripheral member in the group. They design directives aimed at her in aggravated forms. But the denounced girl herself challenged the denouncers insisting that an aggressive behavior is not appropriate for girls.