The observation that gender differences in Japanese language use are becoming less prevalent as women increasingly use ‘men's language’ appears in popular media from time to time. Some empirical studies support this view. However, such observations are usually based on the consideration of only one or two linguistic features, especially sentence-final forms and personal pronouns. In contrast, this study analyzes the use of multiple linguistic and paralinguistic features related to gender, regarding them as resources for styling identity. According to our analysis of eight same-gender and mixed-gender dyadic conversations of college students, these speakers’ use of features other than sentence-final forms, which we found to vary little by gender, is normatively gendered to a large extent. The study thus demonstrates that the analysis of multiple and multilevel variables enables us to better understand the complex process of styling through the speaker's negotiation of linguistic gender norms in actual practice.

中文翻译：

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日语会话中的性别规范和风格：多层次分析

随着女性越来越多地使用“男性语言”，日语使用中的性别差异变得不那么普遍的观察结果不时出现在大众媒体上。一些实证研究支持这一观点。然而，此类观察通常仅基于对一两个语言特征的考虑，尤其是句末形式和人称代词。相比之下，本研究分析了与性别相关的多种语言和副语言特征的使用，将它们视为塑造身份的资源。根据我们对大学生的八个同性别和混合性别二元对话的分析，这些说话者对句末形式以外的特征的使用（我们发现这些特征因性别而异很小）在很大程度上是规范性性别化的。