Language Policy and Education in Japan

Abstract

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. In national language policy, the Japanese government adopted a standard language (hyojungo). The growth of non-Japanese nationalities is an emerging demography. There are minority languages and Indigenous languages. The economic successes from the 1970s enabled families to spend more on education in a globalizing world. 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. 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. Korean as a foreign language is the fastest-growing foreign language of study in Japan, and there are Chinese ethnic bilingual 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. Ryukyuan plays no official role in public education in the Okinawan education system, and its use has traditionally been discouraged in schools. Deaf sign language (JSL) activity has intensified in recent 1 years. Brazilian language maintenance schools have been established. 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. Popular culture is crucial to the validity and pedagogy of Japanese language teaching. Language and cultural hybridity, nonessentialism, and "metroethni-cization" are emerging sociolinguistic themes.