Faculty Fellows' Lunch Featuring Yoshiko Matsumoto

Yoshiko Matsumoto: "Identities of older Japanese women in conversational narratives"

While identity is often described in terms of discrete social categories such as gender, ethnicity, age, and roles in organizations, the identities expressed in conversational narratives of older Japanese women seem more fluid and multivalent than categorical descriptions suggest.  Attention to how the characteristics of the Japanese language are exploited by ordinary Japanese women reveals important aspects of lives that may otherwise be overlooked and misunderstood. 

Yoshiko Matsumoto is Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and, by courtesy, of Linguistics.