Language vitality and endangerment in the Ryukyus. Rouji wo motsu oya no kai (Ed.), Education for the deaf people and the language right (pp. Gengogaku kara mita Nihonshuwa (Japanese sign language in the aspect of linguistics), In Z. Macdonald (Eds.), Diversity in Japanese culture and language (pp. The deaf and their language: progress toward equality. English in Japanese society: Language within language. Shimoji (Eds.), Handbook of the Ryukyuan languages: History, structure, and use (pp. The making of monolingual Japan: Language ideology and Japanese modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. London and Sydney: Kegan Paul International.

Kanji politics: Language policy and Japanese script. The changing perception and status of Japan’s returnee children (kikokushijo). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, International Christian University, Tokyo. The story of Young Jae: A sociolinguistic study of a Korean school age sojourner and bilingualism in education in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Avon: Multilingual Matters.įujita-Round, S. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.ĭeChicchis, J. Eades (Eds.), Transnational Migration in East Asia Senri Ethnological Reports (pp. The increasing presence of Chinese migrants in Japan. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, International Christian University, Tokyo.Ĭhen, T. The overseas Chinese in the Tokyo-Yokohama region: Language situation and community. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japanese, 23, (Suppl).Ĭhen, P-C. Essay in aid of a grammar and dictionary of the Luchuan language. Richmond/Surrey: Curzon Press.Ĭhamberlain, B. Language planning and language change in Japan: East Asian perspectives. Language and cultural hybridity, nonessentialism, and “metroethnicization” are emerging sociolinguistic themes.

Popular culture is crucial to the validity and pedagogy of Japanese language teaching. The steady increase in the number of foreign students enrolled in educational institutions impacts the growing field of the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language. Brazilian language maintenance schools have been established. Deaf sign language (JSL) activity has intensified in recent years. Ryukyuan plays no official role in public education in the Okinawan education system, and its use has traditionally been discouraged in schools. Language revitalization is driven by the tension between heritage Ainu and benign authorities who wish to “protect” and “preserve” Ainu culture in accord with the legal requirements. Korean as a foreign language is the fastest-growing foreign language of study in Japan, and there are Chinese ethnic bilingual schools.

English classes are currently offered once a week in the final 2 years of elementary school, and there are government plans to teach from grade 3 and make English a formal subject by the year 2020. These factors led to a call to “internationalize the Japanese people.” There is concern that foreign language education is becoming subsumed under a quasi-nationalistic and ideological policy of the central government of “globalization.” There are concerns about a growing insularity among young Japanese and to improve their communication and problem-solving skills. The economic successes from the 1970s enabled families to spend more on education in a globalizing world. There are minority languages and Indigenous languages. The growth of non-Japanese nationalities is an emerging demography. In national language policy, the Japanese government adopted a standard language ( hyojungo). Japan’s government sees new social factors emerging in the twenty-first century: an aging population, cultural diversification, and the continuing modernist trope of Japan as a “monolingual” and “monocultural” nation.

Japan monolingual country