The Movement to Adopt the Colloquial Writing Style (Genbun itchi) and Women's Rights in Meiji-period Japan

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26360045
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Gender
• Research Institution: Nagoya Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Essertier Joseph 名古屋工業大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (70589283)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 言文一致 / 女性の権利 / 民主主義 / 清水紫琴 / 齋藤秀一

Outline of Final Research Achievements

I began this research assuming that gaining full literacy was difficult for many women in Meiji and wondered, "How did colloquialization affect women's rights?" I focused on the most accessible writing style that had appeared by 1891 in fiction, in "A Pioneering Feminist with a Pioneering Writing Style: Shimizu Shikin's 'Broken Ring' (Koware yubiwa, 1891)" (2015). Expanding on this disadvantaged group to think about reform for such groups in general, I applied Abe Yasushi's "universal-design" approach as I considered 1930s Romanization and Esperanto movements in "Dangerous Romanization Movement: The Dream of Saito Hidekatsu Who Promoted the Romanization of Japanese in the 1930s" (2016). And in “Kotoku Shusui and Japanese Linguistic Imperialism” (2017) I found that this early socialist pioneered and advocated the same conservative style as ultranationalists. Shikin, Hidekatsu, and even Taguchi Ukichi pioneered more inclusive writing, closer to the "universal design" ideal of today.

Free Research Field

近代日本文学