ABSTRACT
This analysis is based on data consisting of personal letters written by native Japanese speakers during the 5-year period of 1996 to 2000. Linguistic style-markers identified in these letters are of two kinds: variations within a
norm, i.e., language that varies but still conforms to the normative grammar of the language, and deviations from a norm, which are those variations in language considered ungrammatical within the scope of the prescriptive grammar of a language.
