Volume 2005, Issue 175-176

What are the consequences and concomitants of globalization in the field of language? Answers to this question vary with the languages and the research domains in question. The vantage point of this special issue is the concept of language regimes, loosely defined as sets of habits and attitudes, legal provisions, and ideologies. Japan is at the centre of the discussion, providing as it does a case where the effects of intensifying global interdependence are strongly felt.

Marketization, deregulation and participation are the major developments summarily referred to under the heading of globalization. Increasing interdependence and electronic communications that facilitate the exchange of information among individuals, organizations and societies are vital parts of this process. The spread of English, too, has been described as a causal and concomitant factor of globalization which, however, has many other implications for the world’s languages. In this paper I want to make some suggestions as to how globalization and language interact and, more specifically, how language regimes change under the influence of economic, political and cultural developments.

In this article, sociolinguistic perspectives on the status and use of immigrant minority (henceforward IM) languages are presented. After a general introduction to the theme we focus on multilingualism and European identity, paying special attention to the European discourse on IM groups and integration. Next, we present information on the rationale, design, and core results of large scale home language surveys in six major multicultural cities across Europe. The data were collected and analyzed as part of the Multilingual Cities Project, carried out under the auspices of the European Cultural Foundation, established in Amsterdam. Against this background, we deal with the need for changing language regimes at school as a consequence of processes of migration and minorization across European nation states.

This paper considers Japanese language policy from the point of view of public philosophy. To this end the concept of a ‘‘policy-framework’’ is discussed in terms of the trichotomy of rights, policy, and policy framework. It is designed to balance cultural diversity, on the one hand, and social order, on the other, and it therefore often characterized as endorsing multiculturalism. This paper proposes a policy framework of cultural nationalism that puts more emphasis on social order and integration than on freedom of choice and diversity, while at the same time advocating a balanced policy approach. In a broad sense, it can be subsumed under the label of multiculturalism, and can as such provide a practical basis for a language policy for Japan in the future. It will take some time before a Japanese language policy can be considered and enforced within a policy framework of cultural nationalism. For now, what we need to do is to cultivate a national consciousness of language ethics, and to deal with language problems, not in an emotional or ideological way but in pragmatic terms, paying due attention to financial sustainability.

This article discusses the impact of the increase from the late 1980s in the frequency and number of foreign languages spoken in Japan in the judicial branch of the Japanese state. Particular attention is paid to the language barrier problem in Japan’s criminal justice process, the cause and consequences of the problem, as well as Japan’s response to it. The introduction points out that in the politics of language activated by the arrival of international labor migration, migrant receiving countries today are unable to anticipate that migrant language assimilation will occur, and that those countries — in particular Japan — need to respond to such a situation accordingly. Section 2 puts the language barrier problem into historical context to show that the problem reflects a substantial change in Japan’s international relations, and as such is a force of globalization. Section 3 reports on the legal and political implications of the problem for the contemporary Japanese state, and the immediate consequences of the problem after its revelation, namely that the legality and legitimacy of Japan’s administration of criminal justice to foreign language speakers within its jurisdiction was partially and temporarily constrained. Section 3 also presents Japan’s response to the problem, both by civil society and the state. It is argued that by introducing judicial interpretation into its criminal justice process, the Japanese state managed to recover within about a decade its capability to justify (as far as its interests in maintaining domestic order are concerned) the administration of criminal justice to foreigners in Japanese territory whose first language is not Japanese.

Cultural essentialism and ethnic orthodoxy are out. In Japan, Metroethnicity is in. Cool rules. Metroethnicity is a reconstruction of ethnicity: a hybridized ‘‘street’’ ethnicity deployed by a cross-section of people with ethnic or mainstream backgrounds who are oriented towards cultural hybridity, cultural / ethnic tolerance and a multicultural lifestyle in friendships, music, the arts, eating and dress. Both Japanese and persons with minority background ‘‘play’’ with ethnicity (not necessarily their own) for aesthetic effect. Metroethnicity is skeptical of heroic ethnicity and bored with sentimentalism about ethnic language. It views such narrative as inevitable but logocentric. Metroethnicity hears the cry of minority rights but positions itself in a more distant and cooler place. This place involves cultural crossings, self-definition made up of borrowing and do-it-yourself, a sfumato of blurred ethnic ‘‘identities’’. The operating system is Metroethnicity. Its desktop cultural expression is Cool. The cultural effect examined here involves (ethnic) language as an off-the-shelf, take-it-or-leave it lifestyle accessory that conforms to aesthetic demands rather than ethnolinguistic duty. The criterion for language maintenance and allegiance for the metroethnic then shifts from loyalty to ethnic heritage and political duty to questions of lifestyle emancipation. Is it worthwhile? Is it interesting? Is it funky? Is it a cool thing to do and to have? Cool is the capacity to ignore or minimize the claims of ethnicity. Ethnicity will be deployed — later — for lifestyle purposes when it is deemed cool. Cool is not the same as fashion or popularity. Cool includes a perceived ability to see the flipside or alternative side of things; an ability that multicultural-perspective people or ethnic minorities are uniquely believed to possess. Cool is quirky, innovative and tolerant. Cool is an attitude and a hope. The historic struggle of Japan’s language minorities (Korean, Ainu, new migrant) may be giving way to a new metroethnic generation. Cool has a brittle cultural logic. It is a residual code that has turned itself into an emergent code. Its performative style is based upon and derives simultaneously from the symbols of both disaffiliation and association. Gone are the immutable ciphers of ethnic identity. Here comes Cool.

This article examines multilingual signs in the streets of Tokyo. It focuses on the diachronic development of Tokyo’s linguistic landscape since the early 1990s. Based on data gained in the course of an empirical study in 2003, it will be demonstrated how the coexistence of older and newer types of signs allows for the detection and reconstruction of ongoing changes in language use patterns. Results suggest an increase in linguistic heterogeneity with regard to (1) languages and scripts contained on the signs; (2) amount of multilingual information; (3) foreign language proficiency; and (4) proportion of languages and scripts.

This paper explores the impact that media coverage of current events has on the identity and language maintenance of language minorities by examining recent coverage of two major events related to the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea which were heavily covered by Japanese news media: the joint hosting of the 2002 soccer World Cup by Japan and South Korea during the early summer of 2002, and the admission by Kim Jong Il that North Korea had abducted a number of Japanese during the 1970s and 1980s. A small-scale survey of resident Koreans and interviews with the principals of three Korean schools in Kyoto as well as a teacher at one of these schools focused on the effects media reports of these events had on resident Koreans in Japan and the Korean language schools they maintain. Although the overall response to the survey was rather subdued, when it is considered together with the interviews with the school principals, the results give a glimpse of the strong impact media coverage can have on heritage language maintenance programs.

In this paper recent trends of multilingual usage in Japan will be treated from the standpoint of the economy of language. Four different stages of language use are characterized on the basis of observation. The basic underlying idea is that general attitudes to language use in Japan can be categorized into four main types, if the notation or writing system (kanji, katakana and alphabetic notation) is taken into consideration. These four types can be applied not only to the Japanese notation system, but also to language use and dialect use. Various sociolinguistic phenomena seem to have the same social background. However, because of limitations of space, I will concentrate on the use of kanji, katakana and alphabetic notations in Japanese. The four types are (1) the kanji-dominant type, (2) the katakana-dominant type, (3) the alphabet-dominant type, and (4) the alphabet-plus type. They will be discussed one by one in this order. The kanji dominant type is associated with the cognitive use of British English, the katakana dominant type with the affective use of American English, the alphabet dominant type with the symbolic use of international English, and the alphabet-plus type with the practical use of various indigenous systems of writing. The first three types coincide with three kinds of social attitudes towards dialects in Japan: from ‘‘dialect eradication’’ through ‘‘dialect description’’ to ‘‘dialects for pleasure’’. The basic underlying mechanism of language attitude is probably common to all types. These attitudes can be understood as an integrated process of the modernization of Japanese, as discussed by Neustupný in this issue.

Over the past decade, foreign residents in Japan increased by a factor of 2.5. How does this influx of non-Japanese nationals affect Japanese society? This article investigates the influence of recent immigration on community attitudes toward foreigners as well as Japanese notions of identity. The results of an empirical questionnaire study are reported. Special attention is paid to the role of re-migrants, that is, South Americans of Japanese descent, the so-called Nikkeijin, who ‘‘returned’’ to Japan. It is shown that attitude research instruments can be fruitfully applied to the analysis of Japan’s changing linguistic composition and self-understanding.

Linguistic revitalization is not confined to minority languages or endangered languages alone but includes regional dialects. This paper examines the case of Japan, starting with the experiences of the Ryūkyū archipelago and then that of other regions in mainland Japan. Following this discussion, the case of Jersey in the Channel Islands will be discussed for the sake of comparison. It is argued that dialectal revitalization movements are cultural phenomena of developed countries. Language revitalization movements are analyzed mainly from a sociological point of view. In particular, the relationship of the private sector and public authorities, involvement of local intellectuals and activists, intergenerational problems, cultural linkage, traditional festivals and cultural and economic effects on local populations are investigated. As a representative example, the dialect movement of Okinawa Island is discussed in greater detail here. Okinawan movements must be considered threshold cases between minority language and dialect revitalization movements. The Amami island group furthermore provides us with a comparative case to Jersey. Although dialect revitalization movements draw less attention than those concerning minority languages, they are also affected by changing language regimes. We can, therefore, expect that these movements will continue to influence language attitudes toward regional dialects as well as toward standard languages.

This study analyzes language ideology as it surfaces in Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) teaching materials. The perspective presented in selected materials is examined with respect to how the target language is portrayed. Furthermore, portrayals of foreign language learners and their relationship with Japanese are studied. It is argued that teaching materials propagate and thereby legitimize socially accepted knowledge, which has its origin in the educated middle class of urban centers. It is to their standards that the foreign language learner is expected to aspire. This ambitious learning objective, driven by ideological notions of what Japanese ought to be, is responsible for a strict focus on educated middle class views, activities and language use. At the same time, the learning objective reaffirms the domination of the native speaker over the language learner. The study concludes that foreign language education which aims at native-like proficiency inevitably results in unequal power relations between native speakers of Japanese and learners of Japanese as a foreign language.

For foreign learners of Japanese, keigo (honorific language) is one of the most difficult aspects of the language. However, since the early 1990s, sociolinguistic research placing keigo in a much broader context of politeness and respect has been incorporated in writings on honorific language produced by official bodies such as the National Language Research Institute and the National Language Deliberative Council. The new approach takes a much broader idea of ‘‘expressions of respect’’, and emphasizes the role played by respect in ensuring that ‘‘communication progresses smoothly / harmoniously’’ ( komyūnikeeshon ga enkatsu ni susumu ), while deemphasizing hierarchy, relative status and power as determining factors in keigo usage. Recent research in this area has also investigated changes in honorific language usage linked to social changes. JFL teaching needs to take account of these shifts. This paper examines the treatment of honorific language in some English-language JFL textbooks against this background, and makes some suggestions for dealing with politeness and respect in JFL teaching.

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?

All Japanese language instructors experience the fact that their own language use in the classrooms differs significantly from their regular way of speaking, and attribute the differences to the fact that they use more ‘‘correct’’ Japanese in the classrooms. The concept of ‘‘correctness’’ which is based on Standard Japanese ( Hyōjungo ), however, often leads the instructor not only to overcorrect the Japanese usage of their students but also to overlook the fact that their own usage includes forms they do not tolerate in their students’ speech. This apparent contradiction gives us an opportunity to reconsider the very concept of ‘‘correctness’’ instead of just assigning high priority to correctness at the expense of ignoring normal speech performance. By presenting a number of examples of Japanese constructions that are treated as mistakes in the classroom but observed relatively frequently among native speakers including myself, the notion of ‘‘correctness’’ is critically examined with regard to its significance for Japanese language instruction. The relationship between Hyōjungo and correctness as well as that of the codified norms and language change are discussed, special attention being given to the effects of the written norm on speech. On the basis of these considerations, this article argues for an awareness change toward a new notion of correctness with latitude. Some concrete didactic strategies are put forth to introduce this notion into the JFL classroom.

This article deals with the relation of linguistic knowledge and interactional expectations in spoken professional discourse, more specifically, academic expert presentations in Japanese and German, L1 and L2. It argues that crucial pragmatic differences between L1 Japanese and L1 German corpus data concern linguistic means which process interactional expectations on the part of the hearer in language specific manners. Because of differing discourse procedures in Japanese and German, as hearers, German and Japanese L1 speakers hold differing expectations toward what a speaker is doing and how s/he is going about it. The significance of these ‘interactional expectations’ is in that they facilitate processes of understanding on the part of the hearer (H) by enabling H to anticipate illocutionary and / or propositional relations between utterances in discourse. After a short discussion of the concept of ‘‘interactional expectations’’ in section 1, the data and research context are described section 2. Drawing on corpus data, some of the characteristics and distinct language specific constructions in L1 Japanese academic expert presentations are outlined and contrasted with L1 German in section 3; in section 4 a comparison of an L1 Japanese example with L2 German by an L1 Japanese speaker reveals ‘‘pragmatic transfer’’ based on differences in the pragmatic patterns of L1 Japanese and L1 German discourses, specifically discussed with regard to aspects of social deixis/politeness. In section 5 supplementary evidence of a general difference between (inter-)actional and propositional organization in Japanese and German academic expert presentations is discussed with regard to fillers / speaker’s exotheses and prefatory actions, and in section 6 modals and connectives as linguistic means organizing discourse structures. In section 7, a conclusion is drawn focusing on the need to reflect on interactional expectations in multilingual settings, in order to enable L1 interactants to link non-L1 like linguistic realizations to actually shared discourse purposes in multlilingual constellations.

A considerable number of deviations from norms held by participants occur in intercultural contact situations. In the case of foreign (non-J) participants in Japan the number is currently increasing as more speakers join Japanese networks. The present paper examines the process through which deviations are evaluated. The paper accepts the importance of the principle of cultural relativism, but emphasis is placed on evaluation through ‘‘contact norms’’ (norms specific to contact situations), ‘‘shared norms’’ (norms of non-J participants shared by at least a part of the J population) and ‘‘universal norms’’, though the establishment of the last category is not easy.