This mother mentioned that Japanese is a gendered language, in the sense that men and boys are expected to use different speech patterns than women and girls. This family consisted of Mom, Dad, Sister, and Brother, which meant that the boy was home most of the day practicing "polite, gentle" speech with his mom and sister. The mother mentioned that even Dad, when he was at home, used "polite, gentle" speech patterns, I'm assuming because that's how he preferred to communicate with his wife and daughter, and even son.
It can always be challenging for parents to feel they are successfully raising their children to be truly bilingual when they're living abroad. The language spoken by Mom, Dad and family members on Skype is often at a disadvantage to developing speaking and listening skills, compared the language spoken by teachers, peers, community members, television programs, and etc. This is especially so when trips to the home country can't occur often enough.
Language is a multi-faceted treasure of human development, and is made up of vocabulary (semantics), grammar (syntax), and functions (pragmatics). Vocabulary, for example, is learned when speakers have multiple opportunities to practice words in different settings with a variety of speakers. Our knowledge related to all the meanings of each individual word in our lexicon becomes richer with each experience using the word or hearing someone else use it. Likewise, with grammar, children need multiple opportunities to practice a structure before it is truly "mastered"-- think of the irregular past tense in English. Mastery of the range of language functions for each cultural-linguistic group also takes practice, which is why we would accept and even praise a 1-word demand "COOKIE!" from a toddler, but why, as adults this same way of asking for food would sound rude or even absurd. In other words, the appropriate way to use language [to request] evolves to something like "Can I have a cookie, please?" or even less direct with, "Did you bake those yourself?"
Socially, males are an interesting species, and when communicating with other males in their peer group, they often do communicate using rough, abrupt, blunt, and teasing language. With a larger difference in age, respect and politeness come into play. It's definitely a complex process in social education, as related to gender...
Evidently, use of the gendered forms of language can be considered stylistic in Japanese, and is not obligatory. So, a man or woman can choose to use as much or as little of the gendered language as they want, and either way, what they say is still "grammatically-correct." However, a little boy using "gentle" speech patterns with another little boy, during an argument at school over a toy, would be at a disadvantage linguistically. So, this little Japanese boy was lacking in opportunities to practice the "vulgar, rough, abrupt, and blunt" speech style that is so characteristic of the way males speak to members of their peer group.
So, what to do, when living abroad and your child is learning the "mother tongue" in a similar manner to a "second language"? You have to create naturalistic opportunities for the child to practice the language skills that you want him/her to acquire. In the case of this Japanese family, they decided that the most natural way for a little boy to learn "boy speech" would be a nice, long session of rough play with other little boys.
Gives new meaning to the saying "boys will be boys"...
To learn more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_spoken_Japanese
http://www.epochrypha.com/japanese/materials/genderspecific/
http://www.tofugu.com/guides/japanese-gendered-language/
- Written in 2013, Singapore
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