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Investigating the sociolinguistic gender paradox in a multilingual community: A case study from the Republic of Palau

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The focus of this article is the supposed “Gender Paradox,” proposed by Labov(1990,2001), which suggests that women are both sometimes conservative and sometimes innovative in terms of linguistic variation and change. Here we explore the paradox from two perspectives: we in vestigate both its applicability to multilingual as opposed to multidialectal communities as well as question whether the paradox is methodological or real. Although much sociolinguistic research on the paradox has been on macro studies of men versus women in monolingual multidialectal communities, this paper presents quantitative analyses supplemented by in-depth ethnographic observation and data collection in a multilingual Japanese-Palauan community of the Western Pacific. What is more, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the “conservatism” and “innovation” of women in the community under scrutiny is represented by the use of the very same language—Japanese. For older Japanese-Palauan women, the greater use of Japanese represents adherence to their heritage language. Among younger Japanese-Palauan women(most of whom are bilingual in Palauan and English), however, the use of Japanese represents a change to wards a language highly valued in the economy as essential for the promotion of tourism and trade. Since our results demonstrate that the effects of gender on language behavior may appear in differences within sex groupings, we conclude that the paradox is methodological, rather than real, and is a result of the distillling of gender down to binary male-female categories of analysis, rather than investigating the complexity of gender more qualitatively. Our ethnographic analysis of multilingual data from Palau presented here demonstrates that function as well as form are important in understanding seemingly paradoxical examples of language shift, as well as highlighting the need both for further research on the effects of gender in multilingual communities and the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis in studies of language change.
... In addition, the gender differences in language are influenced by the educational background, age, occupation, social status and so on. Likewise, the phenomenon of language shift occurs in Indonesia (Kurniasih, 2006;Musgrave, 2005). Surprisingly, men and women have differences in using language (Wahyuningsih, 2018(Wahyuningsih, , p. 79, 2019. ...
... In addition, those whose level of education is from university may be categorized as high. Kurniasih (2006) asserts that there are differences in using Javanese and Indonesian in the home environment by middle class and working class (low class) children. She emphasized that women have a strong preference in using Indonesian than Javanese in the home environment. ...
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ABSITRACT The language shift may become interesting topic to discuss. In this sense, the phenomenon of language shift may occur in society. This paper reports the phenomenon of language shift from Javanese to Indonesian among the female lecturers at Indonesian Islamic higher education particularly State Islamic Institute of Kudus. It employs a descriptive qualitative approach. Data were drawn from the observation, interview with the four female lecturers at State Islamic Institute of Kudus and focus group discussion to gather data in detail. The findings reveal that female lecturers merely tend to have strong preferences for using Indonesian instead of Javanese though they are Javanese people. The reason of shifting the Javanese language to Indonesian are Indonesian is considerably used in formal education and it is used as a medium to convey information along with the rapid development of technology and social media. In addition, there are some factors influencing the phenomenon of language shift. Those cover the impact of globalization, the increased use of other languages, social changes, modernity and mobility.
... For det eine hevda dei at dei kvantitative forskjellane som blei avdekte mellom menns og kvinners språkbruk, tilslørte intern variasjon kvinner imellom, og menn imellom, jf. Masashino & Britain (2003) og Røyneland (2007). Til det er å seie at her tar dei feil. ...
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Denne artikkelen, som har utgangspunkt i eit plenumsforedrag med same tittel, halde på SONE-konferansen i 2019, er eit oversyn over språk og kjønn-forskinga i Norge, slik denne forskinga spring ut av feminismen og den generelle sosiolingvistikken. Langt på veg speglar den norske forskinga den internasjonale, særleg den angloamerikanske. Såleis har det vore naudsynt å referere til og å gjere greie for ein del internasjonal forsking, først og fremst amerikansk, som viktig bakteppe for norske arbeid.
... In relation to the use of Javanese, Conners, T. J & Klok, J. V. (2016) emphasize the importance of documenting colloquial Javanese due to the various dialects and the endangerment. Regarding the gender phenomenon in sociolinguistic, Matsumoto, K., & Britain, D. (2003) investigate the gender paradox of sociolinguistic in a multilingual community of the Republic of Palau in which older Japanese-Palauan women use more Japanese representing adherence to their heritage language. In addition, younger Japanese-Palauan women tend to use bilingual in Palauan and English indicating that there is a change towards a language in the economy as crucial for promoting tourism and trade. ...
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This study aims at exploring the phenomenon of Javanese language shift among lecturers and staffs at IAIN Kudus and their possible motives. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach and the data were taken from the interview, observation and focus group discussion. The results indicate that the use of Indonesian of male lecturers and male staffs is less striking shift than female ones. Indeed, female lecturers and female staffs tend to have a strong preference for using Indonesian rather than Javanese. This could be caused by the effect of globalization, the increased use of other languages, social changes, mobility, and modernity. The motives of language shift among the female lecturers and female staffs are the language used in a formal education is Indonesian and the increase of technology particularly in relation to social media use Indonesian as a medium to deliver information.
... Rinji Nan'yō Guntō Bōbitai (1922) and Nan'yō-chō (1925, 1927a, 1927b, 1929, 1930a, 1930b, 1932a, 1933a, 1934a, 1934b, 1935, 1936, 1937a, 1938, 1939, 1941a, 1942) 12. See Matsumoto (2013) for detailed dialectal backgrounds of Japanese settlers. Matsumoto and Britain (2003b) for empirical evidence on discontinuity of the use of Japanese amongst Japanese-Palauan families. ...
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