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Survey of Language and Society 1
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Course Objective:
Japanese society, like all nominally designated national societies, is inherently multilingual. In fact, it is precisely because of the fundamental multilingual nature of society that claims concerning the exceptional nature of singular national languages - and attempts to interpret them as extensions of the territory in which their speakers live - become possible in the first place.
This course aims to address the synchronic and diachronic diversity of the languages spoken in modern and contemporary Japan. Through studying their historical transition, regional diversity, as well as differences in linguistic characteristics according to gender and the workplace, this course will enable students to gain an understanding of language in Japan as a radically plural phenomenon.
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At the beginning of the semester students will form study groups that will work together in class on the assigned texts throughout the course. The course will be split into two parts. In part one we will read and discuss the Japanese writer Mizumura Minae’s 2008 bestseller, The Fall of the Japanese Language in the Age of English. From this reading we will discuss the challenges facing the Japanese language in the contemporary world, with a particular emphasis on language education. In part two of the course we will examine the following topics: loan words, hybrid languages, dialect language and the media, language and ideology, translation, Korean, the Ainu language, and gender.
Course Format: One session per week, including seminars, group worksheets, mini-lectures and film presentations. Preparation and participation in group and seminar discussions is compulsory.
Core Texts: A wide variety of sources will be drawn upon. The core text will be:
水村美苗『日本語が亡びるとき』筑摩書房、2008年。
**文庫版、ちくま文庫、2015年。
Minae Mizumura, The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Columbia University Press, 2015.
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Course Schedule:
1. Organizational Meeting
2. The Fall of Language in an Age of English: Japan Echo Activity
3. The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Chapter 1
4. The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Chapter 2
5. The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Chapter 3
6. The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Chapter 4
7. The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Chapter 5
8. The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Chapter 6
9. The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Chapter 7
10. Loan Words: Takako Tomoda ‘The impact of loan words on modern Japanese’ Japan Forum, 2007.
11. Dialects: Debra J. Occhi ‘Dialect speakers on dialect speech’
12. Korean: Sonia Ryang ‘The performative and its effects’
13. Ainu: Tamura Suzuko ‘Ainu language: features and relationships,’ Nakagawa Hiroshi ‘Ainu language: present and future’
14. Gender: Keiko Nakamura ‘Gender and language in Japanese preschool children,’ Research on Language and Social Interaction, 2010.
15. Final Exam
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** Submission of essays will be on the final class of the semester. Ensure that your name and student number appear on the first page.
*** Always make a back-up copy of your essays
Assessment: Essay (25%); group worksheets (25%) class participation (25%) and final exam (25%).
Essay: (25%) is a research paper and should be 2000 words in length. It must contain endnotes and a bibliography. The Harvard referencing system is preferred – notes appear in the text, as in, Mizumura 2008: 22, with full bibliographical citation at the end of the paper. (Example: Minae Mizumura (2015), The Fall of Language in an Age of English, Columbia University Press.). Choice of topic is broad, but must directly relate to core issues raised during the course.
Final Exam: (25%) The final exam will be held on the day of the last class and consists of 15 multiple choice questions that have appeared in the weekly group worksheets during the course.
. All students are expected to have read the seminar materials in advance: preparation is an essential prerequisite.
* All titles must be approved by the course instructor.
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