I was told that grell has "outbursts of masculine speech" in the manga...whatever that means.
At risk of sounding rude, I hope whoever told you that is not aiming for a JLPT1-certificate…
In the manga, Grell’s speech is not demure or calm (traditionally feminine qualities) in the
slightest. As such, the ‘outbursts’ are one of unconstrained energy, not masculinity.
The femininity in Grell’s speech is very, very consistent throughout the entire manga (after she has dropped her role as the male butler, of course). I could therefore take photographs of the entire manga, but this one text-balloon itself is already a rather perfect sum-up of her speech. I shall go into more detail.
アタシだってアンタみたいなガキよりもっとイイ男としたかったワヨ！
ATASHI datte ANTA mitai na gaki yori motto II otoko to shitakatta WA YO!
I too would have wanted to do this with a much SMEXIER man than YOU, [YOU KNOW]!
As briefly touched upon in this post and this post, in Japanese, language is an exceptionally telling method with which speakers express their identity. While the latter post only discussed ‘formality vs informality’, the same goes for gendered markers.
Many of us are familiar with ‘Watashi - Boku - Ore’. Among the humongous list of 1st person pronouns, Japanese 1st person pronouns also include three hyper feminine ones: ‘atashi’, ‘warawa’ and ‘uchi’. As ‘warawa’ is incredibly old-fashioned and is only used by wives of lords, and ‘uchi’ is rather infantilised, only ‘atashi’ remains as a pronoun that may accurately represent a modern and sophisticated woman.
Similarly, ‘anta’, a feminine-coded version of ‘anata’ (you), is the 2nd person pronoun Grell consistently uses. ‘Anta’ is not used by speakers who wish to express masculinity or gender-neutrality.
Though perhaps less widely known, Japanese is also punctuated with ending particles that helps the speaker express their identity. Among many others, feminine ending particles include ‘wa’, ‘yo’, and ‘wa yo’. Grell ends most of her lines with these ending particles. Other users of these ending particles include Madam Red, Nina Hopkins, Queen Victoria, Lizzie, and Irene Diaz.
Japanese uses three writing systems, Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana. Without going into details about the first two, the last, ‘Katakana’ is used to write 1. loanwords, 2. obscure negative connotations (sometimes ‘pimple’ or ‘brat’ for example are written in Katakana), or 3. to catch the reader’s attention. Number 3 is bit similar to CAPS LOCK. The feminine ending particles used by Grell are always written in ‘Katakana’.
The speech pattern Grell uses is known as ‘Onee Kotoba’, or **‘Tranny Language’, also briefly touched upon in this post. “Tranny/Onee” is of course a slur, but
(trans)gender studies evolved very different in Japanese society, but 10
years ago there was a lack of accurate terminology, hence this
offensive use of term.
The main difference between this so-called ‘Tranny Language’ and ‘feminine speech’ boils down to emphasis. Transwomen are not taken very seriously and still seen as ‘effeminate men’. It is likely that the greater emphasis originated from an attempt to ‘compensate’ for the speaker’s perceived masculinity. Nowadays the language has been more or less coined, and is more of a lingual statement. Hence: Grell’s use of language is to make a statement about her gender identity.
The ‘motto ii otoko’ or ‘SMEXIER’ in Grell’s line above is also an emphasised, very femininely marked use of language.
(Do masculine-presenting English speakers use ‘smexy’ unironically??? Honest question. I am not 100% sure.)
TLN: ‘Smexy’ is not an accurate translation of ‘ii otoko’ (‘a good man’), but the connotation is what is important here.
As we are talking about this topic anyway, I wish to draw attention to Sieglinde.
Boku wa majo da zo, Omae-ra no kangae nado subete omitooshi da
I am a witch, I have seen through all your thoughts.
In this post I mentioned Sieglinde’s use of language that defies gendered expectations. Many of us know that ‘boku’ is a traditionally masculine language marker. On top of using ‘boku’, Sieglinde also uses ending particles such as ‘zo’, or other markers such as ‘omae-ra’ (plr. you), as opposed to the slightly more neutral ‘omae-tachi’ or fully neutral ‘anata-tachi’.
Other markers are ‘tomaran’, as opposed to ‘tomaranai/tomarimasen’ (to stop). More strongly even, ‘iza!!’ (⇈ left), a masculine and almost military way of saying: “Alright!!”, or ‘美味い！‘ (umai・⇊ right), an incredibly ungraceful way of saying ‘delicious’.
How did Sieglinde come to use this speech? Considering how Sieglinde grew up in a village consisting of only women with one notable exception - Wolfram - the only way to explain this is that she learned talking from Wolf ❤🐺 Well, I think it’s cute and a small, meaningful addition to her connection with him (*´▽｀*)ノ
In case anyone is interested in how gendered the use of language is by some of the characters on a scale from feminine-coded to masculine-coded. (I know, I know, gender is not a linear scale, but for lack of a better visual representation, a bar).
andulkaphoto
germansingergirl
dededos
snowghoul
janainaart
yousharknotpass
jbbartram-illu
2087
titsay
