This volume is the first comprehensive survey of the sociolinguistic studies on Japanese. Japanese, like other languages, has developed a highly diverse linguistic system that is realized as variation shaped by interactions of linguistic and social factors. This volume primarily focuses on both classic and current topics of sociolinguistics that were first studied in Western languages, and then subsequently examined in the Japanese language. The topics in this volume cover major issues in sociolinguistics that also characterize sociolinguistic features of Japanese. Such topics as gender, honorifics, and politeness are particularly pertinent to Japanese, as is well-known in general sociolinguistics. At the same time, this volume includes studies on other topics such as social stratification, discourse, contact, and language policy, which have been widely conducted in the Japanese context. In addition, this volume introduces "domestic" approaches to sociolinguistics developed in Japan. They emerged a few decades before the development of the so-called Labovian and Hymesian sociolinguistics in the US, and they have shaped a unique development of sociolinguistic studies in Japan. Chapter titles Part I: OverviewChapter 1: Contributions of Japanese sociolinguisticsYoshiyuki Asahi (NINJAL), Mayumi Usami (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), and Fumio Inoue (NINJAL)Chapter 2: Research methodology Florian Coulmas (German Institute for Japanese Studies)Chapter 3: Interactions between US/Canada/UK and Japanese sociolinguisticsYoshiyuki Asahi (NINJAL) and J.K. Chambers (University of Toronto)Chapter 4: Gengo seikatsuTakehiro Shioda (NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute) Part II: Social Stratification and GenderChapter 5: Style, prestige, and salience in language change in progressFumio Inoue (NINJAL)Chapter 6: Shudango Kazuko Miyake (Toyo University)Chapter 7: Sex differences in JapaneseYoshimitsu Ozaki (Notre Dame Seishin University)Chapter 8 Japanese sociolinguistic approach to genderOrie Endo (Professor Emeritus, Bunkyo University) and Hideko Abe (Colby College) Chapter 9 Japanese language and gender in Western and Japanese contextsReynolds Akiba Katsue (University of Hawaii at Manoa)Chapter 10 Feminist approaches to gender in Japanese sociolinguisticsMomoko Nakamura (Kanto Gakuin University)Part III: Honorifics, Politeness, and DiscourseChapter 11: Japanese honorificsTakashi Nagata (Kinki University) and Yoshimi Miyake (Akita University)Chapter 12: Intersection of traditional Japanese honorific theories and Western politeness theoriesMasato Takiura (Reitaku University)Chapter 13: Intersection of discourse politeness theory and interpersonal communicationMayumi Usami (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)Chapter 14: Subjective expressions in Japanese discourse: Its development in Japanese and impact on general linguisticsYoko Ujiie (Notre Dame Seishin UniversityChapter 15: Variation of Japanese discourse behaviours: Exploring discourse of cultural genres: Light novels and keetai novelsSenko K. Maynard (Rutgers University)Chapter 16: Critical discourse analysisAkira Satoh (Osaka University)Chapter 17: Socio-pragmatics of political discourseShoji Azuma (The University of Utah)Part IV: Language Contact and Language PolicyChapter 18: Contact dialects of JapaneseYoshiyuki Asahi (NINJAL) Chapter 19: Japanese loanword and 'lendword'Frank E. Daulton (Ryukoku University) Chapter 20: Japanese language varieties outside JapanMie Hiramoto (National University of Singapore)Chapter 21: Contact languages in JapanDaniel Long (Tokyo Metropolitan University)Chapter 22: Chinese characters: Variation, policy, and landscapeHiroyuki Sasahara (Waseda University)Chapter 23: Language, economy, and nationKatsumi Shibuya (Osaka University) ukryj opis