Gender in Japanese Youth Language

The current study discusses the gender aspect of Japanese Youth Language (abbreviated as "YL" thereafter) and focuses on real-life data. Specifically, it explores how YL is perceived differently between genders from the listener's side. Deriving from a larger project, this paper reports quantitative data collected from an online survey that asks listeners to rate speakers' personalities based on a short conversation. Mixed-effects regression models with gender and YL usage as fixed effects and YL words as a random effect were constructed for ratings of each personality. The results show that 1) regardless of YL usages, the male speaker is perceived to be less interesting, less intelligent, and less lovely than the female speaker; 2) regardless of genders, YL users are perceived to be more competitive; 3) the male users of YL are perceived to be significantly less interesting, less intelligent, with less leadership, and less competitive