Managing confrontational situations: Japanese male superiors’ interactional styles in directive discourse in the workplace

Abstract

Much of the previous research on directive usage of Japanese individuals in leadership positions at work largely suggests gender differences in language use that are closely related to gender stereotypes. Conversely, Western scholarship on this topic maintains that regardless of gender, superiors in an institutional hierarchy draw on both normatively masculine and feminine interactional styles. This study will further explore this topic, and will contribute to the development of Japanese language and gender scholarship, by focusing on Japanese male superiors’ interactional styles in confrontational situations in directive discourse. Contrary to the outcomes of previous research on Japanese directive use in workplaces, this study reveals that male superiors adopt linguistic resources that are associated with both stereotypical masculine and feminine interactional styles and strategically manipulate them so as to persuade subordinates to achieve institutional objectives, as well as to maintain good workplace relationships. Hence, this study, confirming claims made in Western research on language and gender, suggests that (1) myriad contextual parameters powerfully influence the speaker's choice of language in a given context; the gender of the speaker is not the only component that determines linguistic practices; and therefore, (2) actual practices do not necessarily or exclusively conform to gender stereotypes.