Language Ideology and Its Manifestations: Exploring Implications for Japanese Language Teaching

Mahua Bhattacharya

doi:10.5195/jll.2020.137

Abstract

Language teaching is often seen as an ideologically neutral activity. Linguists have traditionally believed that what people say about language use or structure does not represent ‘real’ linguistic data (Schieffelin, et al, 1998:11). However, it is precisely this dismissal that modern linguistic anthropologists hope to dispel. This paper attempts to lay bare the workings of language ideology and how it impacts language teaching in general and Japanese language pedagogy in particular.The ideological orientation of what constitutes ‘standard’ Japanese language involves inclusion of certain components that are motivated by Nihonjinron discourses of ‘identity, aesthetics, morality and epistemology’ and processes of exclusion that ‘erase’ deviations from the ‘norm’ (Schieffelin, et al, 1998:3). Ideas about ‘native speaker’ understanding, selection of language materials, inclusion and exclusion of syntactical, lexical, and pragmatic forms in teaching manuals, etc., are all affected by these perspectives, some of which this paper will hope to enumerate. With concrete examples it will be demonstrated how flawed these processes are and how a critical pedagogical approach may help solve these issues.

Highlights

A recent roundtable discussion sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Japanese took as its starting point the results of an online survey of over 350 Japanese-language educators regarding their perspectives on Japanese language and its culture and teaching (Mori, Hasegawa, Park, and Suzuki, this volume)
In the context of Japanese language education, it is important to note that since the “native speaker of Japanese”’ is defined by the discourse of nihonjinron discussed above, only those who conform to the concept of a native speaker defined by this ideological norm are hired by departments promoting the study of Japanese
Gottlieb (2005) and Heinrich (2005) along with Kubota (2003) and Matsumoto and Okamoto (2003) give an excellent description of what this nihonjinron ideology entails in discourses that explain what Japanese language is and how Japanese people use it

Summary

Introduction

A recent roundtable discussion sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Japanese took as its starting point the results of an online survey of over 350 Japanese-language educators regarding their perspectives on Japanese language and its culture and teaching (Mori, Hasegawa, Park, and Suzuki, this volume). Kokugo literally means “language of our country,” a term used by Japanese people to refer to the language they speak, which is different from nihongo, the variety of Japanese that foreigners speak.

Results

Conclusion