Students, sarariiman (pl.), and seniors: Japanese men's use of 'manly' speech register

This article analyzes seven Japanese all-male friendly conversations, focusing on stereotypically gendered sentence-final particles to ascertain whether and how Japanese men native to the Kansai (western) region of Japan, aged 19-68 years, use these features to create a gendered identity. Quantitative methods are employed to establish the frequency with which such stereotypically gendered forms are used. A close discourse analysis investigates how the men use these forms in particular contexts to index particular identities, which may or may not correspond to traditional notions of Japanese masculinity.