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LANGUAGE LIFE IN JAPAN: Transformations and Prospects. Routledge Contemporary Japan Series; 34. Edited by Patrick Heinrich and Christian Galan. London and New York: Routledge, 2011. xviii, 252 pp. (Tables, figures.) US$140.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-415-58722-8.
This 13-chapter volume illustrates, from a variety of perspectives, a multifarious and complex language life in Japan undergoing further transformations. As Heinrich and Galan state, "Japan is, and always has been, multilingual, and the image of a monolingual society it presents both to its own people and the rest of the world is purely a modernist fabrication." (2) They maintain that modernity attempted to bring order to the "chaotic" language life in Japan by imposing "standard Japanese" and the idea of imagined linguistic homogeneity for the purpose of security (but at the expense of freedom). Under the influence of modernist ideologies, Japan is experiencing a loss of diversity, as the minority, autochthonous languages of Japan are now critically endangered or virtually extinct (for example, Ainu). At the same time, mobility and globalization have brought new diversifications.
Significant transformations are being observed in societal recognition of diversity, largely due to estheticism and entertainment, and in attitudes towards security and freedom. Many of the studies suggest an ongoing shifttowards more freedom of language choice albeit persistent modernist ideologies. A...