Reexamining Japanese youth language

Abstract This paper investigates Japanese youth language (abbreviated as “YL” thereafter) from a sociolinguistic approach and discusses whether the terminology itself is felicitous in capturing the group of words or the users it claims to be capturing by focusing on YL usage in real life and collected latest data featuring top-ranking YL words in 2018 and 2019. A closer examination of YL reveals that the usage not always matches users’ age, and that the terminology itself suggests an outsider view, creating a misconception that only young people use it. It is thus argued that age is not the correct label to define YL, and that various types of YL words exist under this umbrella notion that are used in different communities for various purposes. This article intends to promote a more comprehensive and objective understanding of YL.