Learning to read and write in Japanese (kokugo and nihongo): a barrier to multilingualism?
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Christian Galan
Abstract
Japan is undergoing an acute demographic crisis, which in coming years will bring an increasingly large number of ‘‘newcomers’’ to this country. The presence in Japan of this new kind of economic immigrants will raise the issue of their integration to greater prominence and will, therefore, lead to a redefinition of citizenship and Japaneseness. This article examines these various topics through various questions relating to the Japanese school system and the Japanese written language. Are Japanese schools ready to welcome a large number of students with limited or no Japanese language ability? What is the main difficulty of written Japanese? How was the current method of teaching reading and writing set up in Japan? Is this method suitable for non-Japanese children? Could learning to read and write in Japanese be a barrier to multilingualism?
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Preface
- Changing language regimes in globalizing environments
- Sociolinguistic perspectives on emerging multilingualism in urban Europe
- Japanese language policy from the point of view of public philosophy
- Labor migration and the language barrier in contemporary Japan: the formation of a domestic language regime of a globalizing state
- Metroethnicity, language, and the principle of Cool
- Signs of multilingualism in Tokyo — a diachronic look at the linguistic landscape
- Politics, the media, and Korean language acquisition in Japan
- Econolinguistic aspects of multilingual signs in Japan
- Japan as a host country: attitudes toward migrants
- Regional dialect and cultural development in Japan and Europe
- Language ideology in JFL textbooks
- Beyond keigo: smooth communication and the expression of respect in Japanese as a Foreign Language
- Learning to read and write in Japanese (kokugo and nihongo): a barrier to multilingualism?
- Japanese language instruction and the question of ‘‘correctness’’
- Interactional expectations and lingusitic knowledge in academic expert discourse (Japanese / German)
- Foreigners and the Japanese in contact situations: evaluation of norm deviations
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Preface
- Changing language regimes in globalizing environments
- Sociolinguistic perspectives on emerging multilingualism in urban Europe
- Japanese language policy from the point of view of public philosophy
- Labor migration and the language barrier in contemporary Japan: the formation of a domestic language regime of a globalizing state
- Metroethnicity, language, and the principle of Cool
- Signs of multilingualism in Tokyo — a diachronic look at the linguistic landscape
- Politics, the media, and Korean language acquisition in Japan
- Econolinguistic aspects of multilingual signs in Japan
- Japan as a host country: attitudes toward migrants
- Regional dialect and cultural development in Japan and Europe
- Language ideology in JFL textbooks
- Beyond keigo: smooth communication and the expression of respect in Japanese as a Foreign Language
- Learning to read and write in Japanese (kokugo and nihongo): a barrier to multilingualism?
- Japanese language instruction and the question of ‘‘correctness’’
- Interactional expectations and lingusitic knowledge in academic expert discourse (Japanese / German)
- Foreigners and the Japanese in contact situations: evaluation of norm deviations
