The Discursive Construction of Hierarchy in Japanese Society

Reviews / Votes

It is well known that Japan is a hierarchically-organised society and that this is reflected in the complex use of, for example, language and space. What is much less well understood is how that sense of hierarchy is constructed, socialised, maintained, resisted and even modified. Zi Wang's fascinating ethnographic account - based around music clubs in two Tokyo secondary schools - explains and analyses the process of this social construction in detail. It also proposes that a system that appears to be so rigid and conservative may actually also have important long-term egalitarian impacts across the society. This book fills an important gap in the literature and should go on the reading list of anyone interested in the anthropological and sociolinguistic examination of language use and socialisation practices in contemporary Japan.

Roger Goodman, Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies, University of Oxford, UK

Zi Wang critically examines how seniority-based hierarchy ( jouge kankei ) in Japanese society is introduced and practiced through extra-curricular club activities ( bukatsudou ) in middle schools. This ethnographic study reveals that seniors socialize juniors into a rigidly hierarchical structure of a club through the use of linguistic and non-linguistic resources such as terms of address, honorifics, and space in routine club activities. It is eye-opening that socialization of junior students into jouge kankei is carried out by senior students who are just a year or two older. Wang convincingly argues that the socialization into jouge kankei in middle schools is the foundation for the adult corporate world in Japan. In sum, this monograph answers the question, "how do carefree young Japanese children grow to become hierarchically oriented adults in Japanese society?" This book is relevant for anthropologists, sociolinguists, and other scholars interested in Japanese language and culture as well as instructors and advanced learners of Japanese.

Haruko M. Cook, Professor of Japanese, University of Hawaii at Manoa