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Despite its monolingual self-image, Japan is multilingual and growing more so due to indigenous minority language revitalization and as an effect of migration. Besides Japan's autochthonous languages such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan languages, there are more than 75,000 immigrant children in the Japanese public education system alone who came to Japan in the 1980s and who speak more than a hundred different languages. Added to this growing linguistic diversity, the importance of English as the language of international communication in business and science especially is hotly debated. This book analyses how this linguistic diversity, and indeed recognition of this phenomenon, presents a wide range of sociolinguistic challenges and opportunities in fundamental institutions such as schools, in cultural patterns and in social behaviours and attitudes. This topic is an important one as Japan fights to re-establish itself in the new world order and will be of interest to all those who are concerned language change, language versus dialect, the effect of modern technology on language usage, and the way national and social problems are always reflected through the prism of language.
This book analyses how linguistic diversity in Japan, and indeed recognition of this phenomenon, presents a wide range of sociolinguistic challenges and opportunities in fundamental institutions such as schools, in cultural patterns and in social behaviours and attitudes.
Language and Society in Japan deals with issues important to an understanding of language in Japan today, among them multilingualism, language and nationalism, and literacy and reading habits. It is organised around the theme of language and identity, in particular how language is used to construct national, international and personal identities. Contrary to popular stereotypes, Japanese is far from the only language used in Japan, and does not function in a vacuum, but comes with its own particular cultural implications. Language has played an important role in Japan's cultural and foreign policies, and language issues are intimately connected both with technological advance and with minority group experiences. Nanette Gottlieb is a leading authority in this field. Her book builds on and develops her previous work, and promises to be essential reading for students, scholars, and all those wishing to understand the role played by language in Japanese society.
In The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900) Christopher Joby offers the first book-length account of the knowledge and use of the Dutch language in Tokugawa and early Meiji Japan, which had a profound effect on Japan’s language, society and culture.
Feminist critics have long considered language a primary vehicle for the transmission of sexist values in a society. This much-needed sociolinguistic critique examines the representation of women in traditional Japanese language and society. Derogatory and highly-sexualized terms are placed in historical context, and the progress of nonsexist language reform is reviewed. Central to this work are the individual voices of Japanese women who took part in a survey, expressing their candid thoughts and concerns regarding biased gender representations. In their own words, they give voice to the reality of being female within the constraints of a traditional--and sometimes misogynistic--language.
Over the last thirty years, two social developments have occurred that have led to a need for change in language policy in Japan. One is the increase in the number of migrants needing opportunities to learn Japanese as a second language, the other is the influence of electronic technologies on the way Japanese is written. This book looks at the impact of these developments on linguistic behaviour and language management and policy, and at the role of language ideology in the way they have been addressed. Immigration-induced demographic changes confront long cherished notions of national monolingualism and technological advances in electronic text production have led to textual practices with ramifications for script use and for literacy in general. The book will be welcomed by researchers and professionals in language policy and management and by those working in Japanese Studies.
This fascinating book—part ethnography, part memoir—traces Japan’s vibrant café society over one hundred and thirty years. Merry White traces Japan’s coffee craze from the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day, as uniquely Japanese ways with coffee surface in Europe and America. White’s book takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. She shows how coffee and coffee spaces have been central to the formation of Japanese notions about the uses of public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. White describes how the café in Japan, from its start in 1888, has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality , dress, and taste. It is where a person can be socially, artistically, or philosophically engaged or politically vocal. It is also, importantly, an urban oasis, where one can be private in public.
Japan is regarded as a model case of successful language modernization. It is also often erroneously believed to be linguistically homogenous. This book explores the debates relating to language modernization from a language ideology perspective, and in doing so reveals the mechanisms by which language ideology undermines linguistic diversity.
"Inoue has accomplished an extraordinary task, which is without precedent in the East Asian Fields. To my knowledge, no author has ever demonstrated as persuasively as she does that the issues concerning women's Japanese can be explored in such an innovative, engaging way. Vicarious Language brilliantly displays how effectively Foucauldian archaeology can be introduced to the study of gender and language, and undermines any of the previous studies in English of what is erroneously referred to as the unique feature of the Japanese language. This is a superb model of engaged scholarship."—Naoki Sakai, author of Voices of the Past: The Status of Language in Eighteenth-Century Japanese Discourse "Miyako Inoue's Vicarious Language is a work of scholarly distinction and cultural insight. She explores the texture of Japanese modernity, its national rituals and social practices, by way of a sustained, semiotic analysis of womens' language—the language of self-expression that women use in intimate and institutional contexts, and the language used to define the gendered roles assigned to women within the powers of patriarchy. Her sources range widely from scholarly studies to the 'popular opinion' fostered by newspapers and advertisements; her excellent ethnography investigates the strategies of institutions and organisations, while inquiring into the politics and poetics of everyday life; her analytic method is, at once, conceptually sophisticated and textually intensive. This is a work that allows you to participate in the lifeworld of the Japanese language, at the illuminating moment when gender relations are writ large in the social syntax of national life. This is a book that will make a lasting impression on a range of disciplines."—Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F.Rothenberg Professor, Harvard University
This book examines language teacher efficacy beliefs, focusing on the individual and collective beliefs of Japanese high school teachers. It discusses personal and collective dimensions of language teacher efficacy related to personal second language (L2) capability, instructional L2 efficacy and collective capability towards collaboration. The book provides a detailed discussion about the ways in which these beliefs develop and situates the findings within the wider field of teacher efficacy research. It helps further understanding of factors that may influence teacher self-efficacy and suggests new directions for research to explore in future studies. It will appeal to postgraduates and researchers with an interest in language teacher cognition, the psychology of language teaching and those in the wider fields of self-efficacy, teacher efficacy and teacher agency. It is also of use to those with an interest in the high school English education system in Japan, as well as researchers investigating similar contexts.