Andrew Moody

“Don’t Touch My Moustache”: Language Blending and Code Ambiguation by Two J-Pop Artists

Abstract “Code Ambiguation” is a form of language blending similar to code mixing or code switching, but, unlike these other kinds of blending, it produces an utterance that has potential meaning in both languages. Because code ambiguation purposely attempts to blur the boundary between two languages, it rarely occurs outside of creative writing. Japanese Popular (J-Pop) music uses various types of language blending, including code ambiguation, to combine English with Japanese lyrics, often in a desire to pay tribute to Western musical influences. Two types of code ambiguation are studied. The first is lyrical code ambiguation within the lyrics of the J-Pop band The Southern All Stars. Analysis of the band’s lyrics demonstrates a careful attempt to blur the boundaries between Japanese and English. The second type of code ambiguation is performance ambiguation in which the artist’s Japanese vocal style acquires features of English pronunciation. An analysis of the vocal style of Love Psychedelico demonstrates that the band is trying to Englishize their Japanese pronunciation. It is argued that J-Pop English is an emerging form of bilingual creativity.

Macau English: status, functions and forms

The sociolinguistics of a small community of English users. A journalist for a local Macau English-language newspaper recently wrote to me and several other friends and asked us to describe Macau with one word. Many words came to mind: historic, multicultural, casinos, growth , etc.; but the word I chose to suggest does not necessarily come to mind until one has lived here, small . Indeed, Macau is a very small community. At the end of September 2007, the resident population was 531,400 and the territory occupied 28.6 sq km, although the largest concentration of population lives within the 9.3 sq km area of “Peninsular Macau” (DSEC, Macao, 2008). In terms of both population and land mass, then, Macau is a very small community, and this fact has influenced the status, functions and forms of English within the territory.

The Ideal Speaker of Japanese English as Portrayed in ‘Language Entertainment’ Television

It is somewhat difficult to have a unified response to the presence of English within Japanese popular culture. English is frequently used decoratively, as it is in J-Pop music, to suggest that songs are more internationalized than the audience they are written for. English loanwords might pepper the speech of comedians and celebrities as a joke about a particular style of cosmopolitan Japanese. But nowhere in Japanese popular culture is English more prevalent than within the television genre of ‘language entertainment’ programmes. Presented to viewers as a type of amusement, these programmes portray several characteristics — competence, yuuki ‘courage’, jigyaku ‘self-effacement’ and genki ‘enthusiasm’ — that together may be taken as the characteristics of an ideal speaker of Japanese English. This examination of Japanese television will illustrate and examine how each of these four characteristics of an ideal speaker are actively modelled within Japanese popular culture. In response to the professional and popular view that Japanese speakers are overly anxious about speaking English, the ‘language entertainment’ genre of Japanese television presents alternative images of Japanese speakers who are both highly trained in their professions and highly proficient speakers of English. At the same time, the genre also models yuuki, jigyaku and genki as personality traits that favour the successful use of English.