Language and Ethnicity in Modern Japan
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
The present article attempts to sketch how language in national studies in 20th Century Japan was connected with the theory of ethnicity, and how these studies about language dealt with the various languages of several ethnicities during the period of Japan’s imperialist expansion. It concludes that it was a failure because Japan read ethnicity excessively into language and this led to an ungraceful lack of imagination about other ethnicities and gave it a sense of superiority over others. Explicitly and implicitly Imperial Japan expounded on the combination of ethnicity and language, and applied that combination only to the ruling language. Even when Japan confronted varieties of other languages it attempted to manage these varieties by appointing the Japanese language as the leader of the alliance. Imperialist Japan attempted to control “East Asia” and the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” using the hierarchical status of language led by the Japanese language. If we take this fact as a lesson in disguise, we would conclude that in the “East Asian Studies” of the 21st Century a hierarchical concept of language is not necessary and that the study of languages should reflect the multi-farious and multi-ethnic “East Asia” as it is.
Abstract
The present article attempts to sketch how language in national studies in 20th Century Japan was connected with the theory of ethnicity, and how these studies about language dealt with the various languages of several ethnicities during the period of Japan’s imperialist expansion. It concludes that it was a failure because Japan read ethnicity excessively into language and this led to an ungraceful lack of imagination about other ethnicities and gave it a sense of superiority over others. Explicitly and implicitly Imperial Japan expounded on the combination of ethnicity and language, and applied that combination only to the ruling language. Even when Japan confronted varieties of other languages it attempted to manage these varieties by appointing the Japanese language as the leader of the alliance. Imperialist Japan attempted to control “East Asia” and the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” using the hierarchical status of language led by the Japanese language. If we take this fact as a lesson in disguise, we would conclude that in the “East Asian Studies” of the 21st Century a hierarchical concept of language is not necessary and that the study of languages should reflect the multi-farious and multi-ethnic “East Asia” as it is.