Language, Ideology and Japanese History Textbooks

Language, Ideology and Japanese History Textbooks

Author: Christopher Barnard

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-03-01

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1134429274

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The Japanese history textbook debate is one that keeps making the news, particularly with reference to claims that Japan has never 'apologised properly' for its actions between 1931 and 1945, and that it is one of the few liberal, democratic countries in which textbooks are controlled and authorised by the central government. There are frequent protests, both from within Japan and from overseas, that a biased, nationalistic history is taught in Japanese schools. This is the first time that all the authorised textbooks currently in use have been analysed using a critical discourse that is anchored firmly in the theory of 'language within society', elucidating the meanings and associated ideologies created by the language of the textbooks.


The Making of Monolingual Japan

The Making of Monolingual Japan

Author: Patrick Heinrich

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1847696562

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Japan is regarded as a model case of successful language modernization. It is also often erroneously believed to be linguistically homogenous. This book explores the debates relating to language modernization from a language ideology perspective, and in doing so reveals the mechanisms by which language ideology undermines linguistic diversity.


Colonizing Language

Colonizing Language

Author: Christina Yi

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-03-06

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0231545363

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With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Japan embarked on a policy of territorial expansion that would claim Taiwan and Korea, among others. Assimilation policies led to a significant body of literature written in Japanese by colonial writers by the 1930s. After its unconditional surrender in 1945, Japan abruptly receded to a nation-state, establishing its present-day borders. Following Korea’s liberation, Korean was labeled the national language of the Korean people, and Japanese-language texts were purged from the Korean literary canon. At the same time, these texts were also excluded from the Japanese literary canon, which was reconfigured along national, rather than imperial, borders. In Colonizing Language, Christina Yi investigates how linguistic nationalism and national identity intersect in the formation of modern literary canons through an examination of Japanese-language cultural production by Korean and Japanese writers from the 1930s through the 1950s, analyzing how key texts were produced, received, and circulated during the rise and fall of the Japanese empire. She considers a range of Japanese-language writings by Korean colonial subjects published in the 1930s and early 1940s and then traces how postwar reconstructions of ethnolinguistic nationality contributed to the creation of new literary canons in Japan and Korea, with a particular focus on writers from the Korean diasporic community in Japan. Drawing upon fiction, essays, film, literary criticism, and more, Yi challenges conventional understandings of national literature by showing how Japanese language ideology shaped colonial histories and the postcolonial present in East Asia. A Center for Korean Research Book


Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology

Japanese Language, Gender, and Ideology

Author: Shigeko Okamoto

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-10-28

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0195347293

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Japanese Language, Gender and Ideology is a collection of previously unpublished articles by established as well as promising young scholars in Japanese language and gender studies. The contributors to this edited volume argue that traditional views of language in Japan are cultural constructs created by policy makers and linguists, and that Japanese society in general, and language use in particular, are much more diverse and heterogeneous than previously understood. This volume brings together studies that substantially advance our understanding of the relationship between Japanese language and gender, with particular focus on examining local linguistic practices in relation to dominant ideologies. Topics studies include gender and politeness, the history of language policy, language and Japanese romance novels and fashion magazines, bar talk, dictionary definitions, and the use of first-person pronouns. The volume will substantially advance the agenda of this field, and will be of interest to sociolinguists, anthropologists, sociologists, and scholars of Japan and Japanese.


The Ideology of Kokugo

The Ideology of Kokugo

Author: Yeounsuk Lee

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2009-09-21

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0824837614

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Available for the first time in English, The Ideology of Kokugo: Nationalizing Language in Modern Japan (1996) is Lee Yeounsuk’s award-winning look at the history and ideology behind the construction of kokugo (national language). Prior to the Meiji Period (1868–1912), the idea of a single, unified Japanese language did not exist. Only as Japan was establishing itself as a modern nation-state and an empire with expanding colonies did there arise the need for a national language to construct and sustain its national identity. Re-examining debates and controversies over genbun itchi (unification of written and spoken languages) and other language reform movements, Lee discusses the contributions of Ueda Kazutoshi (1867–1937) and Hoshina Koichi (1872–1955) in the creation of kokugo and moves us one step closer to understanding how the ideology of kokugo cast a spell over linguistic identity in modern Japan. She examines the notion of the unshakable homogeneity of the Japanese language—a belief born of the political climate of early-twentieth-century Japan and its colonization of other East Asian countries—urging us to pay attention to the linguistic consciousness that underlies "scientific" scholarship and language policies. Her critical discussion of the construction of kokugo uncovers a strain of cultural nationalism that has been long nurtured in Japan’s education system and academic traditions. The ideology of kokugo, argues Lee, must be recognized both as an academic apparatus and a political concept. The Ideology of Kokugo was the first work to explore Japan’s linguistic consciousness at the dawn of its modernization. It will therefore be of interest to not only linguists, but also historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and scholars in the fields of education and cultural studies.


North Koreans in Japan

North Koreans in Japan

Author: Sonia Ryang

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-08-28

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 9780367317058

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This fascinating ethnography provides unique insights into the history, politics, ideology, and daily life of North Koreans living in Japan. Because Sonia Ryang was raised in this community, she was able to gain unprecedented access and to bring her personal knowledge to bear on this closed society. In addition to providing a valuable view of the e


Postwar History Education in Japan and the Germanys

Postwar History Education in Japan and the Germanys

Author: Julian Beatus Dierkes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1135193649

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How did East and West Germany and Japan reconstitute national identity after World War II? Did all three experience parallel reactions to national trauma and reconstruction?History education shaped how these nations reconceived their national identities. Because the content of history education was controlled by different actors, history education materials framed national identity in very different ways. In Japan, where the curriculum was controlled by bureaucrats bent on maintaining their purported neutrality, materials focused on the empirical building blocks of history (wh.


A History of UNESCO

A History of UNESCO

Author: Poul Duedahl

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-12

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1137581204

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The mission UNESCO, as defined just after the end of World War II, is to build 'the defenses of peace in the minds of men'. In this book, historians trace the routes of selected UNESCO mental engineering initiatives from its headquarters in Paris to the member states, to assess UNESCO's global impact.


Changing Histories

Changing Histories

Author: Ryôta Nishino

Publisher: V&R unipress GmbH

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 389971816X

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The teaching of history in South African and Japanese schools has attracted sustained criticism for the alleged attempts to conceal the controversial aspects of their countries' past and to inculcate ideologies favourable to the ruling regimes. This book is the first attempt to systematically compare the ways in which education bureaucracy in both nations dealt with opposition and critics in the period from ca. 1945 to 1995, when both countries were dominated by single-party governments for most of the fifty years. The author argues that both South African and Japanese education bureaucracy did not overtly express its intentions in the curriculum documents or in the textbooks, but found ways to enhance its authority through a range of often subtle measures. A total of eight themes in 60 officially approved Standard 6 South African and Japanese middle-school history textbooks have been selected to demonstrate the changes and continuity. This work hopes to contribute to the existing literature of comparative history by drawing lessons that would probably not have emerged from the study of either country by itself.


The Decade of the Great War

The Decade of the Great War

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-05-15

Total Pages: 566

ISBN-13: 9004274278

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Consisting of twenty-three essays, The Decade of the Great War examines the 1910s as a pivotal period with deep connections both to the imperialist heyday of the 1880s‒1890s, and to the vibrant global politics, commercial expansion, and social movements of the 1920s. It critically reviews Japan’s diplomatic and military relations, offering both a reexamination of some of the issues addressed in the earlier scholarship on the war years and a needed sense of the breadth of Japan’s new international relations. It highlights the importance of transnational approaches to the study of Japan’s domestic, intra-imperial, and foreign affairs. Together, the essays in this volume provide a wide-range of perspectives on relations within Asia and between Asian, European, and North American states. Contributors are: Isao Chiba, Yuehtsen Juliette Chung, Evan Dawley, Martin Dusinberre, Bert Edström, Selçuk Esenbel, Rustin B. Gates, Tze-ki Hon, Masato Kimura, Chaisung Lim, John D. Meehan, SJ, Tosh Minohara, Hiromi Mizuno, Tadashi Nakatani, Sochi Naraoka, Yoshiko Okamoto, Sumiko Otsubo, Ewa Pałasz-Rutkowska, Caroline Rose, J. Charles Schencking, Chika Shinohara, Shusuke Takahara, and Sue C. Townsend.