Several scholars have indicated that the female education policy of the governmentand national language education which the government executed based on the languagepolicy had formed Japanese female speech in the pre-war days. But the control over femalespeech has not yet been fully explored. In this paper, I will show another channelwhich controlled female speech in the 1930's-1940's during the total war and analyzeits meaning. The channel is the movement of the National Language Association (NLA) which put language policy into practice. I will focus on the relationship between the NLA and the leaders of the female educators in private colleges and of women activists for equal rights.
First, I will briefly illustrate channels which influenced and controlled female speechand will show the position of the NLA, which supported the language policy of the government and propagated it to educated middle-class people. I will also indicate anexample of the control by the government, which regulated female and male speech anddirected middle school students and the nation to observe it in the Manners book (Reihoyoko) published in 1941.
Second, after I confirm the definition of the language policy, I will explore the movementof the NLA. The NLA was established in 1937. The president was Fumimaro Konoe, who was elected Prime Minister in 1937. The purpose of the NLA was to reformthe national language and protect its tradition and purity. The NLA asked the womenleaders to cooperate and establish the women's division in 1939. It began to propagate‘correct’ female speech through the media and the women leaders supported the NLA.
The ‘correct’ female speech, based on that of middle-class educated women in Tokyo, was the same as that in the Manners book, which directed women to use different pronouns from those used by men and to speak more politely than men. Though theaim of the authority was to subordinate a woman as a good wife and mother to a man, the women leaders accepted the ‘correct’ female speech policy. The women leaders considered the female speech to be the representation of the femininity and were pleasedthat the authority admitted the value of female speech. There fore the relationship between the NLA and the women leaders was interde pendent. The women elite themselve stook part in forming female speech and laid the foundation to educate the public afterthe war.