Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T09:25:33.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language nationalism? Kanji on the Internet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

Nanette Gottlieb
Nanette Gottlieb*
Affiliation:
Department of Asian Languages and Studies, University of Queensland QLD 4072, AUSTRALIA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As of August 1998, the Japanese language was the second most widely used language other than English on the Internet. It has from time to time been argued that the way in which the Japanese view their language contributes to a kind of language nationalism which functions to emphasise the separateness of the Japanese people from others in the affective as well as linguistic sense. In an extension of this debate, some have suggested that the continued use of the Japanese writing system in the computer age acts to reinforce a barrier between Japan and the rest of the world. This paper examines the issues involved in the language nationalism view of the Japanese script and argues that the use of characters on the Internet should be seen as nothing more than the continuation of an existing infrastructure.

Type
Part II. Contemporary Perspectives
Information
South Pacific Journal of Psychology , Volume 10 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Asia-Pacific Language Research , 1999 , pp. 39 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © University of Papua New Guinea and the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Territory University, Australia 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Befu, H. (1983). Internationalization of Japan and nihon bunkaron. In Mannari, H. & Befu, H. (Eds.), The Challenge of Japan's Internationalization: Organization and Culture (pp.232–266). Nishinomiya, Japan: Kwansei Gakuin University and Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Brown, R.A. (1986). Orthography in Contemporary Japan: Reality and Illusion. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Buell, F. (1994). National Culture and the New Global System. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, J. (1918). Japan at First Hand. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.Google Scholar
Clifford, J. (1988). The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Mass. And London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dale, P. (1986). The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. London and Sydney: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Global Internet Statistics (by Language). (1998). http://www.euromktg.com/globstats/index.html Google Scholar
Gottlieb, N. (1995a). Kanji Politics: Language Policy and Japanese Script. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, N. (1998). Keeping up with the Tanakas: the social construction of word processing technology in Japan, 1982-1995. Japanese Studies, 18, 153–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, N. (1995b). Technology and language policy: word processing in Japan. Asian Studies Review, 18, 58–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, N. (1993) Written Japanese and the word processor. Japan Forum, 5, 115–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannas, W.C. (1997). Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Japan Foundation. (1995). Survey Report on Japanese Language Education Abroad 1993. Tokyo: The Japan Foundation.Google Scholar
King, F. (Ed.). (1984). Lafcadio Hearn: Writings from Japan. Middlesex, England: Penguin.Google Scholar
Maher, J. and Macdonald, G. (Eds.). (1995). Diversity in Japanese Culture and Language. London and New York: Kegan Paul International.Google Scholar
Maher, J. and Yashiro, K. (Eds.). (1995). Multilingual Japan. Avon, England: Multilingual Matters Ltd.Google Scholar
Manabe, K., et al. (1989). An empirical investigation of Nihonjinron; the degree of exposure of Japanese to Nihonjinron propositions and the functions these propositions serve. Kwansei Gakuin University Annual Studies, 38, 35–62.Google Scholar
Miller, R.A. (Ed.). (1969). Bernard Bloch on Japanese. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, R.A. (1982). Japan's Modern Myth. New York: Weatherhill.Google Scholar
Mouer, T. and Sugimoto, Y. (Eds.). (1989). Constructs for Understanding Japan. London and New York: Kegan Paul International.Google Scholar
Mouer, R. and Sugimoto, Y. (1983). Internationalization as an ideology in Japanese society. In Mannari, H. & Befu, H. (Eds.). The Challenge of Japan's Internationalization: Organization and Culture (pp.267–297). Nishinomiya, Japan: Kwansei Gakuin University and Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Network Wizards. (1998). http://www.nw.com. Google Scholar
Passin, H. (1983). Overview: the internationalization of Japan – some reflections. In Mannari, H. & Befu, H. (Eds.). The Challenge of Japan's Internationalization: Organization and Culture (pp. 15–30). Nishinomiya, Japan: Kwansei Gakuin University and Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Reed, S. (1993). Making Common Sense of Japan. Pittsburgh and London: University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Rudofsky, B. (1974). The Kimono Mind. Tokyo: Tuttle.Google Scholar
Suzuki, T. (1987). Language barriers between Japan and the countries of Asia. In Reflections on Japanese Language and Culture (pp. 107–118), Tokyo: Keio University Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies.Google Scholar
Tsunoda, T. (1985). The Japanese Brain: Uniqueness and Universality. Tokyo: Taishuukan Shoten.Google Scholar
Twine, N. (1991). Language and the Modern State: The Reform of Written Japanese. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Unger, J.M. (1987). The Fifth Generation Fallacy: Why Japan is Betting its Future on Artificial Intelligence. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Waters, M. (1995). Globalization. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, E. (1991). Japan Versus the West: Image and Reality. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Yamada, H. (1989). Wapuro to kokuji mondai (3). Kana no Hikari, 808, 1207–1210.Google Scholar
Yamada, H. (1994). Ousugiru kanji/kango ni dou kotaeru ka. Gakujutsu Jouhou Sentaa Kiyou, 4, 261–318.Google Scholar
Yoshino, K. (1992). Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar