TheMaking of Monolingual Japan : : Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity / / Patrick Heinrich.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter MultiLingual Matters Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Heinrich, Patrick,
• Place / Publishing House: Bristol ;, Blue Ridge Summit : : Multilingual Matters, , [2012]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Multilingual Matters
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.)

Japan is widely regarded as a model case of successful language modernization, and it is often erroneously believed to be linguistically homogenous. There is a connection between these two views. As the first ever non-Western language to be modernized, Japanese language modernizers needed to convince the West that Japanese was just as good a language as the national languages of the West. The result was a fervent desire for linguistic uniformity. Today the legacy of modernist language ideology poses many problems to an internationalizing Japan. All indigenous minority languages are heading towards extinction, and this purposefully created homogeneity also affects the integration of immigrants and their languages. This book examines these issues from the perspective of language ideology, and in doing so the mechanisms by which language ideology undermines linguistic diversity are revealed.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Language Ideology as a Field of Enquiry -- 2. The Call of Mori Arinori to Replace Japanese -- 3. The Creation of a Modern Voice -- 4. The Unifi cation of Japanese -- 5. The Linguistic Assimilation of Ryukyuans and Ainu -- 6. The Most Beautiful Language in the World -- 7. Language Ideology as Self-FulfillingProphecy -- 8. Current Challenges to Modernist Language Ideology -- 9. Language Ideology in 21st-century Japan -- References -- Index