日本語とジェンダー第12号(2012)【 国 際 大 会 2011 in ハ ン ガ リ ー シ ン ポ ジ ウ ム ： ジ ェ ン ダ ー 意 識 の 背 景 に あ る も の要旨】

Culturematters –– Gendermatters
Judit Hidasi
On 16 May 2007, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2008 to be theInternational Year of Languages. As language issues are central to UNESCO’s mandate in education,science, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information, the Organization has
been named the lead agency for this event. The inauguration message from Mr.Koiichi Matsuura, thethen Director-General of UNESCO, on the celebration of the International Year of Languages event
tells:”We must act now as a matter of urgency. How? By encouraging and developing language
policies that enable each linguistic community to use its first language, or mother tongue, as widelyand as often as possible, including in education, while also mastering a national or regiona llanguage
and an international language. Also by encouraging speakers of a dominant language to master
another national or regional language and one or two international languages. Onlyif

multilingualism is fully accepted can all languages find their place in our globalized world.”
The lead logo of the project was Languagesmatter – meaning that all languages are important,
all languages should be respected, all languages should be accessible in education to their natives
peakers and that al llanguages have a role to play in the mental and cultural identity of its speakers.
The same is true for national cultures. Culturesmatter,not only because they are the main
frame of identity to individuals and communities, but also because they provide the best manifestationof diversity in our globalized world. Hence their role as an identity quantifier is crucial in themulticultural contex tthat we are living in. History has proved that efforts to „de-culturalize” nations orcommunities, that is to deprive them from their cultural characteristics, have failed on the long run.
Preservation and maintenance of national cultures, their specifics and their characteristics is the dutyand responsibility of policy-makers and of educational professionals. We have to maintainculture-diversity – similarly to bio-diversity – if we wish to keep our dignity and mental health.
Gender – and for that matter linguistic manifestation of gender – whether morphological,lexical, syntactical or pragmatical – is also part of the national culture, its mentalitiy and the spirit of
its language (Davies-Ikeno 2002; Liddle-Nakajima 2000). Therefore it is of great importance to findthe healthy balance of respect for gender-specificity of a given language, of maintaining politicalcorrectness in expression and of properly allocating social roles in a given society (Hidasi 2003;Hidasi 2005).
The Hungarian language similarly to other languages belonging to the Finno-ugric language
group – does not possess means of linguistic gender. Morphological gender-markers – characteristic inmany Indo-European languages like French or Russian – are missing in its linguistic repertoire. Hencethe third person pronoun is the same ‘ő (singular)/ők (plural)’ in both genders, and in conjugation or54
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日本語とジェンダー第12号(2012)

inflections no distinction is made as for genders. Still, in terms of reference, greetings and in
expressions referring to professions a rich variety of expressions was historically in use to make subtle
distinctions for gender – often reflecting nuances of age and position. This rich vocabulary has made acertain come-back after the early 90-ies – following decades of deliberate universalizing tendencies
during the years of socialism. The renaissance of gender-motivated expressions and terms ishowever not without controversies. On the one hand the younger generation cannot always handle
these expressions in a pragmatically proper sense, on the other the modern-thinking part of the society
with a strong gender-free orientation finds them unnecessary or even discriminatory.
“Sticks and bones will break your bones, but words can never hurt you” – tells an old rhythm,
but is it really true? Words in fact can and do hurt if misused – intentionally or unintentionally. The
latent meaning and connotation of certain words or terms of address might trigger discomfort or evenconflict in communication. Escalating awareness to Political Correctness in the countries of Europeand Asia has affected several domains of language usage in a number ofsocieties. A short historicalover-view and stages of development in this process in an EU framework explain the societal andlegal background that have triggered and influenced changes in this respect.
As for Asia in Japan from the 1970-s on legal steps have been taken to respect politicallycorrect language usage in public discourse, but in reality this policy has not sufficiently penetrated yet
into everyday discourse and into the media (Matsumoto 2002). In China local governments haverecently taken initiatives – often in the form of campaigns as code of

conduct for citizens – to exert

control on educated public behavior, part of which are efforts to raise awareness on politically correctlanguage usage.
Modernization of societies and growing awareness of human rights has led to movements inmany countries of the world that aim to hinder the use of discriminatory words – which in principle issupposed to be the ruling language usage code in social discourse.

In spite of this we can still

witness in language usage many traces of prejudice and disrespect towards the weak andnon-privileged. This is particularly true in language usage referring to females (Sakai 2003). Cases ofimbalance and of misuse in certain languages of the world are an often discussed topic not only inJapan, but also in many countries of Europe – including Hungary. By sharing our mutual experiencesin this field, we try to point out tendencies and reflect on mutually applicable usage patterns.
References
Davies, R. J.& Ikeno O.: （2002）. DanjyoKankei: Male and Female Relationships in Japan, In: id.
(eds. The Japanese Mind. Tuttle, Tokyo, 61-70.
Davies, R. J.& Ikeno O.: （2002）Ryosaikenbo – “Good Wives and Wise Mothers” , In: id.(eds.) TheJapanese Mind. Tuttle, Tokyo, 179-186.
Hidasi, Judit (2003) On the capacity to Communicate in Intercultural Settings: Reflections on
Japanese Communication Strategies, Human Communication Studies, Vol.31. 81-90.
Hidasi, Judit (2005) Gender Role Changes in Japan, In: Eschbach-Szabo, Buck-Albulet,Eifler&Horack(eds.)

AktuelleArbeiten

andVortraegean

FakultaetfuerKulturwissenschaften der UniversitaetTuebingen, Bd.1. pp.79-94.

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Liddle, J. & S. Nakajima (2000): RisingSuns, RisingDaughters – GenderClass and PowerinJapan. ,London:ZedBooks.

Matsumoto, D. (2002). The New Japan – DebunkingSevenCulturalStereotypes. Yarmouth,
ME:Intercultural Press.
SakaiJunko (2003). Makeinu no Tooboe(The Howl of theLoserDogs). Tokyo: Kodansha.

(Judit Hidasi, PhD, Professor of communication, Dean, Budapest Business School)

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