Strategies of discourse (re)-framing as micropolitics among contemporary Japanese university students

This chapter analyzes Japanese university students' everyday conversations and demonstrates how individuals use linguistic tactics that result in discourse (re)-framing. These tactics are understood as forms of micropolitical practice that enable speakers to convey indirect resistance toward dominant ideologies. Using instances of the use of the utterance final pragmatic marker mitai na 'be like' as a case study, the chapter shows how individuals shifting the indexical characteristics of conversation salient discourse via lamination or layering of discourses creates possibilities for discourse (re)-framing. Analysis of such discourse (re)-framings through lamination in the case of mitai na is situated in the broader social frameworks inhabited by contemporary Japanese university students, which are marked by increased socio-economic precarity as once taken for granted practices are becoming more difficult for individuals to achieve. This chapter locates indirect micropolitical resistance in the everyday social and linguistic practices of individuals who appear to be conforming to normative social expectations.