Linguistic Means of Constructing the Image of Japan in Pedagogical Discourse

Abstract

The current globalization means that countries have to use different channels in order to build a positive national image. This article describes linguistic means that shape the image of Japan in the corpus of academic and methodological texts for learners of the Japanese language. It focuses on the impact of pedagogical discourse and foreign language textbooks as a channel for linguistic construction of a positive national image. The analysis involved such methods as linguo-imagological analysis, content analysis, lexico-semantic and morpho-semantic analyses. The study owes its scientific novelty to the fact that the Japanese textbooks for foreigners were described for the first time not from the perspective of cultural studies or Japanese language teaching methodology, but as a key genre of pedagogical discourse that transmits knowledge and attitudes reflecting the interests of the most influential social groups and institutions. The textbooks demonstrated a variety of linguistic means of Japan’s image at different linguistic levels. The directions of country image-making are set by texts related to linguistic and cultural studies. Intertextual inclusions, visuals, and grammatical constructions have an ancillary character in this process. Japan’s image has a complex nature, which includes positive and negative aspects. Lexical units with negative connotations are used to "ground" the image, presenting Japan as a country which has problems that should be corrected. The conclusions and observations on the process of country image formation obtained in the study are of practical significance for teaching such university courses as Cultural Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and Discourse Analysis. The research will be useful for specialists in the Japanese language, linguistic imagology, and pedagogical linguistics.