hi. i am a uni student and currently doing an assignment on sociolinguistics. my topic is japanese women language. i am in search of some examples from open sources that show how japanese women use specific honorifics to show politeness, as well as how some honorifics are exclusively used by women. i found from a source online saying anata (あなた) is a way that some japanese women call their husbands. i see that the japanese translation for the movie title ‘me before you’ is 世界一キライなあなたに, google translate says it means ‘to the world’s most hated you’. i was wondering if the ‘anata’ in it has any relation to the husband calling that i mentioned before, as i am looking for examples that show how あなた (anata) is used by women in a dearly way. it would be great if someone that knows can tell me because i have zero knowledge on japanese😭. also if anyone can think of an example from a tv show, names of songs, movies, shows, youtube vids, song lyrics, etc., anything as long as it is an open source, please tell me because it has been really hard to find examples because i don’t know japanese😭. thank you so much 🫰🫶💗💓❤️
8 comments
Anata towards a husband has the connotation of “dear/honey” when compared to English. At the same time you could also say how some men refer to their wives as “mum/mom” even if there children are grown (either out of habit or respect to family roles). Language is language and if you know nothing of the culture or the language you are going to be relying on someone’s interpretation instead of your own understanding.
https://sentencesearch.neocities.org/#%E3%81%82%E3%81%AA%E3%81%9F
Why are you doing a sociolinguistics paper on a language you don’t know?
You’re just going to ask people online for all the answers instead of doing your own research. Because you can’t do your own research, because you don’t know Japanese.
No offense but you should see if you can get the topic of your paper changed to something you can tackle on your own before it’s too late. How about how male and female language differs in *English*?
my partner picked the topic and i thought it was a reasonable topic because i thought it would have a lot of indication on the society part, and i do have some knowledge on japanese culture and asian culture in general, because i live in it. which turns out to be true, the socio part i have no problem with, i’m just really struggling to find examples. sorry if i came off as dumb haha, i think i might be. thank you for the answers though i appreciate it ❤️. luv
Feminine usage of the の particle in the Tokyo dialect could be a place to start (like saying そうなの！ instead of saying そう！). Using this particle functions as a way of sounding cute and feminine.
The わ particle with rising intonation is also a feminine ending (e.g. きれいだわ for きれいだなぁ or 知りませんわ for 知りませんよ), though it’s becoming less common. The わ with falling intonation has become more common among both males and females, but has a different connotation / usage than the rising intonation one.
There are even more feminine manners of speech that come from the Meiji period known as お嬢様言葉, but these are basically only used by fictional characters in this day and age. The goal of this way of speaking was to sound elegant and feminine. The rising intonation わ technically also fits into this category, but I’ve talked to at least one person who uses it, so I don’t believe it’s as dead as the other things in this category like ごきげんよう, わよ, てよ, ですの, ですこと, etc, which would make one sound like a caricature.
There may be some relationship dynamics where one partner speaks in polite speech while the other partner speaks in plain speech based on seniority. It may be more common for women to speak politely to a male partner than the other way around. Could ask natives who have experience with it about that. Every relationship is different and it’s hard to speak universally, however.
I don’t know of any differences for honorifics between males and females. The way married couples call each other is something you could look into.
Sometimes a male boss may use ちゃん instead of さん with female employees at work which can be seen as sexual harassment.
世界一きらいなあなたに sounds like “I hate you the most in the world” or “you are the person I hate the most in the world”.
If it’s “to the worlds most hated you”, it should be “世界一嫌われているあなたに”
In this case the anata is not a romantic way of calling imo. Anata is not always romantic. It is just uncommon to use it as “you” like the western language. You are right that anata can be like wife calling a husband in a sweet way though.
I’ve been studying Japanese for a while, and あなた is one thing I still don’t get. Sometimes it’s a normal casual pronoun. Sometimes it’s so casual that it’s intimate, which is the usage you’re talking about.
I called a Japanese sensei youtuber あなた in a video comment and then went back and deleted it because I wasn’t sure if it sounded creepy or not. I just watched a generic garbage anime, Chillin in my 30’s after Getting Fired from the Demon King’s army, and the wife in that uses it for her husband all the time. It’s like instead of a pet name, they use *you* with emphasis.
I can’t be of much help. But wanted to let you know that I’m studying linguistics as well and I’m
Proud of you for choosing (or maybe just agreeing to) a topic that you don’t know much about and want to learn more! Sorry some of these kids in here feel the need to attack you 😂😂