2 Japan’s Language Policy and the “Lost Decade”

Abstract

For Japan, the last 10 years of the 20th century were the "Lost Decade." The chapter presents how Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) is positioned in Japanese society and how the government has approached the promotion of TEFL in its policy documents since the Lost Decade when Japan was desperately seeking solutions to overcome a national crisis. Japan's notion of internationalization is a form of resistance to the cultural homogenization brought about by globalization and the linguistic domination brought about by the spread of English. The Japanese term for the Lost Decade, "ushinawareta jyuu nen", appears to be a literal translation from English. The status of English was raised from merely a foreign language to an international lingua franca premised on confining the use of English as a tool. Publications and announcements of the National Diet and government organs should be published in English as well as Japanese as a matter of course.

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