Linguistic Minorities and Education in Japan

Abstract

The increasing visibility and assertiveness of language minorities in Japan now pose a serious issue for government policy which has hitherto been committed to the historical ideology of a monoracial and monolingual state. Language education policy in Japan is currently predicated upon the need for ‘internationalisation but nowhere does internationalisation include support, or at least encouragement, for community and indigenous languages, or regional dialects. Nowhere is there official acknowledgment that in the public school system, there are languages and language varieties other than standard Japanese, nor that schools might benefit from recognition of ‘Other’ languages. It is well‐known that the idea of a diverse Japan has been systematically avoided by the so‐called Nihonjinron theories, an ethnocentrist body of writings which purports to value cultural difference whilst emphasising the uniqueness of ‘being Japanese’. This ideology is becoming increasingly challenged as many local communities, urban and rural, re‐evaluate their changing composition in the light of cultural diversity. Community languages may include Korean, Ainu, new immigrant languages, Japanese Sign Language and others. However, the notion of contemporary Japan as somehow ‘multilingual’ still remains radically controversial and contested in descriptions such as Government white papers and approved school textbooks. There is a need for a new paradigm regarding the languages of Japan and there are signs that a new and progressive one is emerging.

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