Ideological discourses about learning Chinese in pro‐English Japan

Abstract

Identifying magazine articles whose titles, subtitles and texts contain ‘Chinese language’ the present study explores how Japanese business magazines talk about Chinese language study. The findings suggest that ideological discourses about Chinese study (1) position Chinese on par with English as the two global languages, (2) reassure that learning a language of Chinese characters would be less taxing than English for many businessmen with lackadaisical attitudes toward language study, and (3) are rather independent of the growing political Japan‐Sino tension. The study provides new insight into masculine ideological discourses about businessmen's studying not only English but also the dominant language of the world's second economy for merit‐based business purposes rather than school‐led intercultural understandings.