The Role of Language and the Significance of Primordialism in Nationalistic Rhetoric

Elisa Vitali

doi:10.23963/cnp.2019.4.3.13

Abstract

Nihonjinron, the particularistic discourse on Japanese national identity, successfully dominates the Japanese panorama even now, thanks to the influence of academic and popular literature, mass media, Japan’s powerful cultural industry, politics, and a widespread, genuine interest in “Japaneseness” among the Japanese themselves. The works of professor Watanabe Shōichi represent an outstanding example of Nihonjinron literature and of its temporal continuity. From the second half of the 1970s until well into the 2000s, Watanabe has been surprisingly prolific in the nihonjinron field, enthusiastically propagating the establishment’s ideology. In this respect, his essays provide a significant insight into three main aspects of the Nihonjinron: the role of language as the highest expression of national identity; the existence of a widespread set of peculiar Japanese expressions conveying its ideological framework; its deep-rooted primordialist core. In the construction of a lexical and conceptual dichotomy between the stratum of the supposed “native lexicon” and that of “foreign loans” which compose the Japanese language and in the emphasis on the uniqueness of the Japanese language as a vehicle of Japanese primeval spirit, Watanabe shows the primordialist system of beliefs surrounding the concept of the “Japanese nation” (naturalness, organicity, continuity, timelessness, mythical-ness, sameness, perennial-ness) which firmly underlines the entire Japanese identity discourse.

Highlights

In 1990, the well-known historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote: “The owl of Minerva which brings wisdom, said Hegel, flies out at dusk
Far from this legitimate expectation and desire, today’s world seems, in some aspects, similar to the international scenario after the end of World War I, being characterised by a strong opposition against supranationalism, multinationalism, multiculturalism and especially globalism, and facing, on the contrary, the resilience, if not resurgence, of nationalism. This is clearly evident by the rise of right wing political parties all over the world, especially in Europe, and the pre-eminence and emphasis given to nationalistic rhetoric in everyday political discourse
As the leading figure of nationalism studies Umut Özkırımlı points out, nationalism is still alive in the contemporary panorama as the fundamental organising principle of interstate order and as the ultimate source of political legitimacy, and as a natural, taken-for-granted context of everyday life and as a significant cognitive and discursive frame (Özkırımlı 2017, 5)

Summary

Introduction

In 1990, the well-known historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote: “The owl of Minerva which brings wisdom, said Hegel, flies out at dusk. It will be claimed that primordialism is precisely the core of nationalistic discourse In this sense, a broad and comparative perspective which should encompass various fields of research and exemplary, particular case studies in different contexts is all the more imperative in today’s fragmented, splintered and tattered world: by inquiring the “universal” – socially perceived existence of nationalism – through the “particular” – the plethora of forms of nationalistic narratives – reserving special attention to the primordial element, it might be possible to grasp the scope of this persistent and recurrent phenomenon. Roy Andrew Miller analysed the myths and the ideology underlying nihongoron, a set of theories presented in the form of academic and/or populariser essays intended to demonstrate Japanese language’s uniqueness, which are of special relevance in Japanese national identity discourse (Miller 1977a, 1977b, 1982) and which help to shed light on the nature of the “primordialist element”, considered here to be the core feature shaping the nationalistic rhetoric of nihonjinron

Case study

Conclusions