Studies in Japanese Bilingualism
400
Studies in Japanese Bilingualism
400Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781853594892 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Multilingual Matters Ltd. |
| Publication date: | 11/28/2000 |
| Series: | Bilingual Education & Bilingualism , #22 |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.15(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.85(d) |
About the Author
Sandra S. Fotos is a Professor of English at Senshu University, Tokyo, Japan. Her research interests include bilingualism and the effects of formal instruction on second language acquisition. She has published in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Language Learning, ELT-Journal and TESOL Quarterly. She is editor of the JALT Journal, published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: The Crumbling of a Myth
MARY GOEBEL NOGUCHI
This collection of papers addresses bilingualism in Japan. To many, the juxtaposition of the terms 'Japanese' and 'bilingualism' may seem like an oxymoron. Both inside and outside of the country, Japan has often been presented as a monolith and its people as highly homogeneous. In the seventies, the term 'Japan Inc' symbolised the Western perception of a government, business, educational system and workforce that operated as a single entity. With the curriculum and textbooks used in Japanese public education tightly controlled by the Ministry of Education, the orthography for writing the Japanese language prescribed by government regulations, and the accent used by television and radio announcers standardised by the public broadcasting network NHK (Nippon hoso kyokai), the language and culture of Japan appeared to be unequivocably uniform. In fact, so many books attempting to explain the unique nature of 'the Japanese' were published by Japanese and Western scholars that these works came to be considered a separate genre: Nihonjinron (theories about the Japanese). So pervasive was this image of homogeneity that in 1986, the prime minister (Nakasone Yasuhiro) actually denied there were any minorities in Japan. What is more, the domestic press did not challenge him on this pronouncement.
The last decade, however, has seen a marked breakdown of this image. Minority groups have increasingly asserted their identity and demanded rights. A number of scholars have pointed out that language contact has been common throughout Japanese history and that several linguistic minorities are firmly established in this country. Moreover, an economic boom has led to increasing movement across the nation's borders, with millions of Japanese travelling abroad for business, education and pleasure, and hundreds of thousands of people from other countries coming to Japan to work and study.
Meanwhile, the world has seen remarkable growth in research on bilingualism in the past two decades, with a wealth of studies on bilingual and immersion education programmes in Canada and the United States, as well as on societal bilingualism and codeswitching in multilingual communities around the world. Until recently, the bulk of this work focused on European languages and Western settings. However, scholars from other parts of the world have gradually begun adding to the research in this field, testing hypotheses and theories generated in North America and Europe on other language combinations to see if they can be applied universally or if other theories need to be developed.
It is hoped that Studies in Japanese Bilingualism will contribute to this growing body of research, adding greater depth to the understanding of some of the previously recognised minorities in this country, while also introducing new groups that have begun enriching the linguistic and cultural landscape of the nation in the eighties and nineties.
It must be emphasised that as this field of research has developed, the definition of the term 'bilingualism' has gradually been expanded and refined. Early researchers focused on fluency alone, following Bloomfield's (1933) lead in defining bilingualism to be the 'native-like control of two languages'. As research accumulated, however, linguists began to see that bilingualism is multi-faceted and complex. The Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education specifies five issues that have been identified as creating difficulties in determining whether or not an individual is bilingual: (1) differences between measured language ability and actual language use (i.e. some people may be highly proficient in a language but rarely use it, while others may daily use a language that they are not highly proficient in), (2) variation in an individual's language proficiency in different skill areas, (3) dominance of one language, (4) separation of languages by function that may lead to competence lower than monolingual native speakers in both languages, and (5) variation in an individual's language proficiency over time (Baker and Jones, 1998). Such difficulties in determining the absolute minimum proficiency needed to label an individual 'bilingual' may have given rise to Haugen's minimalist definition:
'Bilingualism ... begin[s] at the point where the speaker of one language can produce complete, meaningful utterances in the other language'. (Haugen, 1969, as exerpted in Grosjean, 1982: 232)
Subsequent researchers, while accepting Haugen's notion of a continuum of fluency, have tended to take one of two tacts: (1) refining tests to measure skills in both languages and thereby isolate 'balanced bilinguals', or (2) stressing regular use of two languages as the defining feature of bilingualism (Grosjean, 1982). In Studies in Japanese Bilingualism, we have adopted the latter approach, embracing an extended view of bilingualism that encompasses a wide range of skill levels and focusing on language use rather than linguistic proficiency as we look at the way the presence of two languages in the environment affects the individual's identity and behaviour.
A Brief History of Language Contact in Japan
A great deal of the writing about Japan focuses on its geographical isolation and the fact that the Tokugawa Shogunate forcibly cut Japan off from the rest of the world for more than two centuries during the middle ages (approximately 1615 to 1854). However, recent scholarship (e.g. Katayama, 1996; Maher, 1996; Loveday, 1996) has shown that interaction between different languages and cultures played an important role in the formation of Japanese culture and that 'Japanese society has been involved in the processes of language contact since its earliest emergence' (Loveday, 1996:26).
Some linguists surmise that the Japanese language evolved as a result of contact between the two main groups of in-migrants that inhabited the archipelago in prehistoric times. According to Maher (1996), the earliest inhabitants probably came from the south and spoke Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) languages. Later, Altaic-speaking groups migrated from the Korean peninsula and Sakhalin in the north. As the Austronesian- and Altaic-speaking peoples communicated with each other, their languages went through pidgin and creole stages in the process of being transformed into ancient Japanese (Maher, 1996; Loveday, 1996).
Ties with China, which appear to have begun in prehistoric times (Katayama, 1996), blossomed during the fourth and fifth centuries AD, when wholesale adoption of the more advanced Chinese systems of agriculture, technology and government led to rapid development of the Late Stone Age Japanese civilisation (Loveday, 1996:26). The Chinese influence was further intensified by the official adoption of Chinese Buddhism in 594 AD (Loveday, 1996:29). The medium for this transfer of technology and culture was the Chinese language (Loveday, 1996:27). Since the Japanese had not yet developed a system of transcribing their own language, they also adopted the Chinese writing system, eventually adapting it for use in writing Japanese as well. Loveday (1996) categorises the language contact of the Nara Period (710–794) as a diglossic bilingual setting in which the high language, Chinese, was taught by native Chinese and Korean immigrants for use in documentation, religious writing and high literature, while Japanese served as the low language for everyday communication. The Chinese cultural influence lasted into the 12th Century and probably resulted in the greatest historical impact on the Japanese language.
Nonetheless, Loveday (1996) explains that language contact in Japan was not limited to this early period. Portuguese, Spanish and Latin words came into Japanese in the late 16th to early 17th Century with the arrival of Portuguese and Spanish missionaries and traders. The Dutch traders who were allowed access to Japan during its period of self-imposed isolation between the 17th and 19th Centuries introduced a wealth of scientific terms to Japan. Then after the country was opened up in the late 19th Century, English, German and French words, especially technological terms, were borrowed as Japan frantically tried to catch up with the West. And today Japan is undergoing another major period of language contact characterised by pervasive borrowing of English words, not all of which are adopted because Japanese equivalents are lacking (see Honna, 1995; Maher, 1991; Loveday, 1996). Loveday (1996: 77) points out that the largest European loan-word dictionary has 27,000 entries, and one study found that 82% of the new words in Japanese in 1975 were derived from European languages — mainly English.
In addition to the impact of foreign languages, Japan also has a history of internal language contact, for the nation itself was not culturally homogeneous. The Ainu people, who once occupied northern parts of the island of Honshu as well as Hokkaido (DeChicchis, 1995; Siddle, 1997), had their own culture and language which flourished until ethnic Japanese conquered all of the Ainu lands and established a policy of assimilation in the late 19th Century.
Similarly, the islands in what is now the southern prefecture of Okinawa were once united in a separate kingdom with its own culture and languages, which although they probably shared the same origins as the Japanese language, were different enough from it and from each other to be mutually unintelligible (Matsumori, 1995:25). Even after the Ryukyu Kingdom was conquered by the Satsuma Clan of Kyushu (the southernmost main island of Japan) in 1609, the peoples of Okinawa remained ethnically distinct and continued to speak their own languages. It was not until the Meiji Period (1868–1912), when the Japanese government enforced an assimilation policy and insisted on the use of Japanese in educational institutions, that language shift took place (Matsumori, 1995:33). Even today, many older Okinawans are bilingual, having a good command of both Japanese and one of the Ryukyuan languages.
Even excluding these indigenous minorities, the Japanese were not fully linguistically united until the early twentieth century. Pronunciations of certain sounds, overall intonation, syntax and grammar, a wide range of lexical items, and verb endings differed markedly around the country. In fact, regional dialects were so divergent that in some cases, communication was impossible. As late as 1960, a Japanese linguist noted that the dialects spoken in Kagoshima (in the southwest) and Sendai (in the northeast) were mutually unintelligible (reported in Twine, 1991: 208). Even today, Tokyoites and Osakans cannot always understand people from the Tohoku (northeast) region or from Kyushu (in the southwest).
The Origins of Japan's Monolithic Image
Given the diverse cultural and linguistic influences which have shaped contemporary Japanese society, one must ask why Japan is perceived to be a cultural and linguistic monolith.
A number of scholars trace the roots of this image to the nation-building policies of the Meiji government. (See, for example, Maher, 1995:9, Weiner, 1997, and Twine, 1991.) In 1854, when America forced Japan to open its doors to trade after centuries of self-imposed isolation, many Japanese realised that their country was in a very weak position compared to the technologically advanced nations of the West. The feudal government was quickly overthrown and the nation's new leaders rushed to create a modern state strong enough to resist the type of subjugation that China and other Asian countries were experiencing. The goal of the government of the Meiji Period (1868–1912) was to create a unified, wealthy nation.
In Language and the Modern State: The Reform of Written Japanese, Nanette Twine (1991) explains how Japanese returning from study trips to Europe reported the benefits of Western systems of universal education and standardised written language. A national system of education was therefore established in 1872 and within a few years, enrollment was very near 100% (Benjamin 1997). The following year, the Ministry of Education published kotobazukai (language usage) glossaries and phrase sheets for use in teaching school children 'standard Japanese' so that they would not be inconvenienced by dialectal fragmentation (Twine, 1991:213). According to Twine, the following decade saw a lively debate on whether Japanese should be standardised and its complex system of writing, which at that time was mastered only by the highly educated elite, should be simplified and written in a colloquial style. By 1886, however, a general consensus had been reached that to facilitate modern communication and universal education, the written language would have to be simplified, and before that could be done, the spoken language would have to be standardised (Twine: 216) so that people throughout the country could comprehend and produce texts based on a commonly understood lexicon, syntax and grammar.
Although there was initially some controversy about how to go about standardisation, it was soon generally accepted that the dialect of Tokyo would be the best choice as the standard language (Twine: 216). This dialect was already understood thoughout the country thanks to feudal systems that involved a great deal of travel between Edo (the city that was later renamed Tokyo) and the provinces. Moreover, as the language of the capital, the Tokyo dialect already had considerable prestige. Thus when the Ministry of Education published a reader in 1887, its introductory volume was written almost entirely in a colloquial style based on this dialect (Twine: 216). In this way, the government sought to familiarise young people all over the country with the syntax and grammar, terms and verb endings used in what was to become known as 'standard Japanese'.
Twine suggests that after the Japanese won the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the concept of a national language took on significance as a unifying force and source of national pride. It was at this time that the Japanese language began to be referred to as 'kokugo' — the national language (p. 218). The tool that the government used to implement the adoption of a standard national language was the Ministry of Education, which set forth a detailed curriculum that was to be followed in all public schools throughout the country — a system that continues to this day. In 1900, the Ministry of Education instructed teachers to include lessons in 'standard Japanese' in their language classes; in 1901, the Ministry announced that the Japanese to be taught in schools was to be the language used by middle- and upper-class Tokyoites (Twine, 1991:222). The next year, the National Language Research Council (Kokugo chosa iinkai) was appointed, and one of the four areas it identified as a major problem in language reform was standardisation of both spoken and written Japanese (p. 220).
This standardisation of language and education created a sense of national unity at the expense of previously strong regional identities. Increasing emphasis was placed on the ideology of a single Japanese ethnic group (minzoku) which shared a common ancestry, history and culture (Weiner, 1997). Ancient myths which traced the Japanese imperial line back to gods who descended from heaven were used not only to create a feeling of consanguinity, but also to argue the superiority of the Japanese people and culture. This ideology was used as grounds for the assimilation of other ethnic groups — from the indigenous Ainu and Ryukyuans to the Koreans and Chinese who came under Japanese colonial control. Under the pretext that they were subjects of the god-Emperor, these peoples were deprived of their own languages and cultures (Nakano, 1995). Their very existence was often ignored as the myth of Japanese homogeneity was promulgated.
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