multilingualism in japanese public space -reading the signs

Multilingualism in Japanese Public Space - Reading the Signs

PETER BACKHAUS, Waseda University, Japan

This paper looks at multilingual signs and what these signs have to cell us about muln1ingualism

i11 Japan i11 general. Working with a larger sample of signs collected in central Tokyo, it is

shOWII how these signs can be read to reflect larger transformations in Japanese society a11d its

linguistic make-up at large. Four interrelated factors are identified as indicative of these

transformations: (I) favourable altitudes toward foreign languages, (2) official internatio11a

lisatio11 policies, (3) growing ethnicisation in some areas, and (4) a recent interest in Korean

culmre and language.

Introduction

Presently, Japanese shopping streets are most eagerly producing an exotic

aanosphere. They don't leave it at merely importing American and European

style architecture, but even write their shop names in foreign style and

increasingly with Roman letters.

Thus complained Japanese geographer Masai Yasuo in his 1972 book Tokyo no seikatsU

chizu. 1 A foreigner seeing the situation in Shinjuku, he continued, might be tempted to

think that either the place was full of other foreigners or the country in total had been

colonised. Masai in his book supplied evidence for this somewhat daring statement by a

cicyscape photo captioned 'Different languages messing up Shinjuku'. Looking at this

photo some 40 or so years later, one cannot help wonder what exactly Masai was

complaining about. Apan from some very few katakana words such as komeuo (comet)

and hon"i kurabu (honey club), the photo is completely dominated by kanji writing. The

only sign in Roman alphabet can be spotted outside a shop called 'TEA FOR 1WO',

which also provides the intended reading of the term in - somewhat old-fashioned -

katakana transliteration: ii ho tsii.

Times change. Walking through the streets of Shinjuku these days, the linguistic picture

that presents itself to the reader's eye is an entirely different one. Roman letters are

virtually omnipresent, at times to the point of oumumbering signs in Japanese script. In

addition, many other languages and their scripts line the streets, including, and most

prominently, Chinese characters and Korean hangul. What has happened since Masai's

account ofShinjuku a few decades ago? And how can these transformations be explained?

The main point to be made in this paper is that the fundamental changes observable

in Shinjuku, as in Japanese public spaces in general, are indicative of larger social

I Masai, T6k:y6 no ,eikatsu chizu, 154.

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LANGUAGE IN PUBLIC SPACES IN JAPAN

changes the country has been going through in the last couple of decades, and

particularly the last couple of years. It will be held that the growing linguistic

heterogeneity that is visible on signs in the streets of Japanese cities reflects both

demographic and ideological shifts within Japanese society and its linguistic makeup.

The argument is guided by data from a large-scale empirical study of multilingual signs

conducted in central Tokyo.

After a brief account of the linguistic situation in Japan, I introduce the research

object examined in this study, language on signs, and formulate the three main research

questions to be addressed. That section also provides an outline of the empirical study

and its basic findings. The three subsequent sections each discuss one of the research

questions. Focusing on the providing end of multilingual signs, I first take a closer look

at the differe.nce between official and nonofficial signs and their geographic distribution

throughout the city, and then identify two basic types of multilingual formats on signs

that allow some conclusions about the sign readers. Thirdly, focusing on the coexistence

of older and newer versions of a given type of sign, I analyse the overall development of

Tokyo's linguistic landscape in the past few years. The conclusion summarises the main findings of the survey and reflects on Japan's new multilingualism as observable from the

point of view of written language in public space.

Multilingualism in Japan

In both domestic and international contexts Japan has long stressed its ethnic and

linguistic homogeneity. This monolithic self-image is a by-product of the nation

building process that started in the second half of the nineteenth century. Taking European nations as a model, the spread of a standard language in order to promote a

sense of national allegiance was considered a key factor in the country's modernisation.

Linguistic homogeneity was seen as a source of national power and social stability. As a

consequence, the use of regional varieties and minority languages, including Ainu and

Ryukyuan, was actively discouraged and discriminated against. 2

While national language policies and monolingual ideology in the past two centuries

may have succeeded in eliminating much of the archipelago's linguistic heterogeneity, recent years have seen the advent of new linguistic diversification. This has

been brought about by the growing presence of people with non-Japanese backgrounds.

Those with the longest migration history are Chinese and Korean residents. Commonly

referred to as orudo kamii (old-comers), they came before and during the Pacific War

and have been living in Japan for several generations.3 Today, Chinese and Korean

communities arc characteristic of most larger cities, including Nagasaki, Kobe,

Yokohama, Osaka, and Tokyo. Many of the younger generations speak Japanese as

their first language. 4

The country's economic boom in the second half of the twentieth century attracted

people from various other parts of the world, particularly Southeast Asia and South

American countries. The number of non-Japanese nationals resident in Japan almost

doubled from 0.78 million in 1980 to 1.68 million in 2000. Most recent figures by the

2E.g., Carroll, Language Planninlf", Lee, Kokugo 10 iu shislJ. 3For an extended analysis of the role of (and response 10) Chinese in metropolitan Japan and colonial Korea from the 1860s to 1945, sec Tsu, 'Japan's "Yellow Peril"'. 4Maher, 'The Kakyo'; Maher and Kawanishi, 'On Being There'.

38


Ministry of Justice give a total number of 2,217,426 foreign residents, which is around 1. 7% of the population. 5 The majority of Japan's foreign population come from Asian

countries, particularly China (29.6%), North and South Korea (26.6%), and the

Philippines (9.5%). Foreign residents from Brazil (14.1%), Peru (2.7%) and other

South American countries are a second major group. Many of them arc nikkeijin, the

offspring of]apanese nationals who emigrated at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Though the share of]apan's foreign population still appears small in comparison with

most Western countries, migration is likely to become an increasingly important issue in

Japan's near future. Most relevant to this development is the demographic transition of

the country into an ageing society with low birth rates. According to a much quoted

model calculation by the UN, Japan would have to admit some 600,000 labour migrants

per year if it were to keep its workforce at the level of 1995, and an astronomical 10

million annually in order to maintain the ratio between working and non-working

population. 6 Unrealistic as these figures may be, they strongly suggest that Japan's

foreign population in the long run is going to be on the rise. The issue has been

controversially debated in public and political discourse in recent years. 7

The number of Japanese expats has been steadily increasing, too. According to the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more than 1.1 million J apanesc nationals in 2008 were living

outside Japan for more than three months.8 Many children grow up in non-Japanese

environments and receive formal education in languages other than Japanese. Back

home, these 'returnees' constitute a linguistic minority group in their own right, whose

situation has received increasing attention in recent years. 9

To a society where being Japanese used to be tantamount to speaking Japanese, such

developments are a novel experience. In the long run they are likely to break up the

strong ties between nation, culture and language that have been taken for granted since the foundation of modem Japan. Recent years have seen a 'substantial shift ofmindsec• 10

that has paved the way for new perspectives on 'multiethnic Japan', 11 'multicultural

Japan', 12 and 'multilingual Japan'. 13 Japanese society at the beginning of the twenty-first

century thus finds itself in a period of transition. Not only is it facing demographic shifts

that will have dramatic impacts on its population make-up, but, concomitantly, its very

identity as a monolingual nation has come to be questioned.

Methodology; Research Questions and Basic Results

The aim of this paper is to get a better understanding of Japan's new linguistic diversity

by taking a look at multilingualism's most visible harbinger: language on signs in the

streets of Tokyo. The study of language on signs is a relatively new sociolinguistic

subfield referred to as 'linguistic landscape'. Previous linguistic landscape studies have

5Ministry of Justice, Gaikokujin rlJrokusha. 6Unitcd Nations Department of Economic and Social Afl'ain, Replacement Migration. 7Robcru, 'Immigration Policy'. 8Ministry of Foreign AJTain, Kaigai zairyu hlJjinsu. 9E.g., Kanno, Negoriaa'ng Bilingual and Biadtural Identities. 10Gottlieb, Language and Society in Japan, 54. 111.ic, Mu/rurhnic Japan. 12Denoon ct al., Mu/ricu/tural Japan; also Douglass and Robens, Japan and Global Migration. "Maher and Yashiro, Mu/rilingual Japan; also Coulmas and Heinrich, Changing Language Regimes, and Goebel Noguchi and Fotos, Srudus in Japanese Bilingualism.

39


been conducted in various urban regions around the world, also including Japan. 14

Borrowing from these studies, three basic questions have been identified to serve as a frame for my research in Tokyo. They refer to the sign writers, the sign readers, and the dynamics of the language contact situation as a whole:

(1) Linguistic landscaping by whom?(2) Linguistic landscaping for whom?(3) Linguistic landscape quo vadis?

Data were collected in central Tokyo. The stations of the Yamanote Line served as basic orientation markers, from which a total of 28 survey areas were determined. Each area was part of a street between two consecutive traffic lights in close proximity to the stations. 15 All signs situated in the survey areas were considered relevant survey items. A sign was defined to be any piece of written text within a spatially definable frame. This definition is rather broad, including anything from lettered doormats and inscribed litter boxes to huge commercial billboards and traffic guidance signage. Irrespective of its size, each sign was counted as a single item. When signs identical in format appeared more than once, each item was counted separately.

All countable signs were categorised as either mono- or multilingual. The latter were recorded by digital camera for subsequent analysis, while the former were not taken into further consideration. A multilingual sign was determined to be a sign (as defined above) containing at least one language in addition to, or instead of, Japanese. This

. means that signs with only one language could also be considered multilingual provided that language was a language other than Japanese. It was considered appropriate to do so owing to the fact that signs do not function independently but have to be seen in context. A monolingual English sign, for instance, in Japanese public space must be read against the backdrop of a predominantly Japanese linguistic landscape. Thus, the term 'multilingual sign' hereafter is used for the sake of terminological ease rather than with strict correspondence to a multiplicity of languages contained.

In total, the 28 survey areas yielded 11,834 countable items. 2,321 of them were categorised as multilingual in the sense just defined. This is a ratio of 19.6%. A total of 14 languages other than Japanese could be identified on these 2,321 items. The predominant language was English, contained on 97.6% of all multilingual signs. The visibility of English is so salient that one may say multilingualism in Tokyo's linguistic landscape is for the most part Japanese-English bilingualism. Other foreign languages make up a minor part of the sample. Chinese (2.7%) and Korean (1.7%) alone have ratios higher than 1 %. Most other languages appear on less than 10 signs of the sample.

Linguistic Landscaping By Whom?

Who is responsible for the visibility of languages and scripts other than Japanese on almost 20% of the signs in central Tokyo? One first basic distinction to make here is between official and nonofficial signs. The former were defined to include signs set up

14Sec Backhaus, Linguisni: Landscapes, chapter 3, for an overview. More recent approaches to language on signs arc contained in Shohamy and Gortcr's Linguis� Landscapt. Studies on the linguistic landscape of Japan arc collected in Shoji, Backhaus and Coulmas, Nihon no gengo keikan.

15For a full account sec Backhaus, Linguistic Landscapes.

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by the ward administrations, the metropolitan government, and agencies of the national government, as well as signs related to public transport facilities. All other signs were counted as nonofficial signs.

Of the 2,321 survey items, almost three quarters (74.6%) were nonofficial signs. This shows that the multilingualism in Tokyo's linguistic landscape is produced more by private than by public actors. On the other hand, the fact that around 25% of the signs are erected by an official agency reveals that these agencies have their share in the city's multilingual outward appearance, too. Thus we see how the multilingualism in Tokyo's linguistic landscape is, to some extent at least, the result of conscious language management by central and local administrations. Indeed, as an analysis of administrative guidelines shows, government agencies since the late 1980s have been implementing substantial changes to their share of the linguistic landscape. 16 The most recent direction, issued by the metropolitan government in 2003, states that

In view of the number of registered foreign residents and foreign travellers in Tokyo, four languages are used preferentially: Japanese, romaji (English), Chinese (short-type), and hangul.17

Another important variable with regard to the visibility of foreign languages in Tokyo is the geographic distribution of multilingual signs. What trends can be observed here? While it appears difficult to recognise any tendencies for omnipresent English, the occurrence of Chinese and Korean dcies exhibit certain regularities. There are three survey areas with a ratio of more than 10% multilingual signs containing one of these two languages: Sugamo (10.9%' Chinese), Mejiro (46.5% Chinese), and Shin-Okubo (25.4% Korean).

The three areas arc situated in the west-northwestern parts of the Yamanote loop, in Toshima ward (Sugamo and Mejiro) and Shinjuku ward (Shin-Okubo). As official data show, these are two of the wards in which the share of foreign residents from Asian countries is especially large. 18 In particular, people who have only recently come to Japan are known to settle in this part of the city.19 This suggests that these so-called 'newcomers' leave a stronger impact on the linguistic landscape than their established and linguistically well assimilated 'old-comer' compatriots. The same tendency has been observed by Kim in a recent linguistic landscape study in Osaka. 20

A closer look at the Chinese and Korean signs in the three areas reveals some interesting differences between official and nonofficial sign writing. The Chinese signs in Sugamo and Mejiro are actually the same sign erected at frequent intervals: a warning by Toshima ward administration to not leave bicycles around the area. The same sign is used throughout Toshima ward and was also found several times in the survey area in Ikebukuro. The sign is trilingual, in Japanese, English, and Chinese. The English version reads as follows:

16Scc Backhaus, 'Nihon no gcngo kcikan'. 17Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Gaikokujin ni 1110 wakariyasui 111ach1� 9. The somewhat puzzling terminological mixture of languages Gapancsc, English, Chinese) and scripts (romaji, hangul) is quoted verbatim from the original. 18-rokyo Metropolitan Government, Gaikokujin toroku jinko.

19Tanaka, 'Tokyo no kokusai scisaku', 18; Yonehara, 'Tokyo-to', 140. 20Kim, 'Gcngo kcikan kara mita Nihon no taminzokuka'.

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This area is designated as a Bicycle & Motorbike NO Parking Area. Any bicycle left here will be impound in accordance with TOSIMA CITY Ordinance. To retrieve your bicycle, You must pay a removal fee of ¥3,000 (bicycle) or ¥5,000 (Motorbike).

NOTE: Chains may be cut if necessary.21

The Korean signs in Shin-Okubo are of a completely different nature. Most have been set up by the local shopkeepers rather than administrative agencies. Thus we see Korean signs to indicate telephone shops, internet cafes, games centres, hairdressers and beauty parlours, opticians, second-hand shops, and various other businesses. Even handwritten messages offering jobs and services to the Korean community were found. In contrast to Chinese in Sugamo and Mejiro, only a very few of the Korean signs in Shin-Okubo were official signs. Another difference between Korean in Shin-Okubo and Chinese in Sugamo and Mejiro can be seen in the way the two languages are combined with other languages. In contrast to the trilingual parking prohibition for bicycles in Toshima ward, Korean in Shin-Okubo frequently occurs without any other language. In total, there were no less than eight Korean-only signs within the 175 metres of the Shin-Okubo area, plus another seven English-Korean signs without Japanese text.

The absence of Japanese on Korean signs in Shin-Okubo deserves special attention. In a way, these signs mark the territory as belonging to the local Korean community. What we are witnessing, then, are first instances of a non-Japanese population taking over parts of Tokyo's linguistic landscape. A most telling example for this development was a series of prefabricated Japanese sign boards papered over by handwritten Korean text to serve the shopkeeper's more immediate needs. The original version of the sign, nonnally used by film processing agents, is given in Figure 1. Figure 2 shows the ShinOkubo version.

Linguistic Landscaping for Whom?

It is no big news that a foreign language on a sign is not necessarily indicative of a foreign

target group. Previous linguistic landscape research has shown that signs containing foreign languages in many cases are used primarily to attract the attention of domestic readers. This is particularly salient with regard to the cosmopolitan flair and chic of English, not only in Japan. The journal English Today has recently published a series of smaller linguistic landscape studies that demonstrate the growing prominence of English in non-English speaking locations across the globe. Though these studies do not deny the utility of English as a language of international communication, their main tenor is that English signs for the most part address a non-foreign population. 22 Researchers in Tokyo have made similar observations.23

21In this paper all English texts taken from signs ore quoted verbatim, upper and lower case as well as missing space retained. 22E.g., Griffin, 'Presence of Written English', and McArthur, 'lnteranto'. 23MacGrcgor, 'Language of Shop Signs'; Obata Reiman, 'Hyokilto kara kansatsu suru'; Sato, 'Kanban no moji'; Someya, 'Kanban no moji hyOki. Sec also Haarman, Symbolic Valius, and Inoue, Nihongo no

nu.Ian.

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FIGURE 1. Ordinary photo shop sign.

FIGURE 2. Photo shop sign papered over with Korean text.

The basic problem is how to make such judgments on a verifiable basis rather than rely on subjective ad hoc appraisals. A helpful strategy to deal with this problem is looking at the functional relationship of the languages included on a sign. The chief variable is availability or non-availability of translation. In most simple tenns, there arc two basic options: either the two or more languages on a sign are translations of each other, or they are not. The fonner case, according to Reh, who first developed this methodology, is indicative of a linguistically heterogeneous readership made up of monolingual individuals. The latter presupposes a certain degree of multilingualism on the individual level (as well as within the society more broadly), if the message on the sign is intended to be understood in full. 24

Though Reh's methodology derives from the somewhat different local context of an African city, it can be a helpful tool to identify the target group of English texts in Tokyo's linguistic landscape too. An example of each of the two types of sign is given in Figures 3 and 4. The two liner boxes have in common that both display JapaneseEnglish texts. With regard to the functional relationship between the two languages, however, they fundamentally differ. On the liner box in Figure 3, the same infonnation

24Rch, 'Multilingual Writing'.

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FIGURE 3. Liner box with supplementary English text.

FIGURE 4. Liner box with complementary English text.

is given in both Japanese and English: that this is a litter box reserved for combustible garbage. The two texts are mutual translations. On the liner box in Figure 4, by contrast, information about the type of garbage is available only in Japanese. The content of the English slogan, 'SAVE THE EARTH', is unrelated to the Japanese message and, important as it may be, without much immediate information value.

The two signs illustrate in a nutshell the two basic functions that English texts in Tokyo's linguistic landscape can fulfil. English· is supplementary when providing a translation of a co-appearing Japanese message, as in the example in Figure 3. It is complementary when conveying content unrelated to the Japanese text it accompanies, as

44


in Figure 4. With regard to the question of the target group, the following assumption can be made: When English is used in a supplementary way, it is intended to serve people without proficiency in Japanese; when used complementarily, it addresses the Japanese population. A basic rule of thumb then is that English on signs providing a translation of Japanese text is mainly intended for the foreign population, while English on signs not providing a translation is for the Japanese reader. Let's have a closer look at the latter.

English signs that do not have a corresponding Japanese text fall into two subgroups: (1) signs with at least one language in addition to English, in most cases JapaneseEnglish signs; and (2) English-only signs. A closer analysis of these signs reveals somecharacteristic patterns underlying the use of English in Tokyo's linguistic landscape.The most frequent pattern on the Japanese-English signs is a brief English slogan or catchphrase that comes in combination with less spectacular information in Japanese. Prototypical examples of this division of labour between the two languages are cigarette advertisements with �nglish slogans like 'SLOW DOWN. PLEASURE UP' or 'Cometo where the flavor is' with a small-print health warning in Japanese. The text on the liner box in Figure 4 is another good example of this �ctional discrimination between global (English) and local Oapanese) contents.

English-only signs are for the most part signs with very short text. In many-cases, only a single word is displayed, such as 'SAl.E', 'Open', or 'WELCOME'. Another frequent type of messages on English-only signs is slogans and catchphrases, for instance 'Security & Safety' or 'We make a difference in quality and freshness'. A third characteristic type is signs announcing shops and other businesses. Some examples are 'SHOES HAGIMOTO', 'Textile Boutique TAKATOMI', and 'FACTORY NAGATA'.

In quantitative terms, about 41 % of the signs containing English do not provide a translation, either because the Japanese and the English texts function complementarily or because they are English-only signs. On the remaining 59%, however, the contents of the English text do at least partially coincide with a co-occurring Japanese text. Coming back to the above rule of thumb, it becomes clear that both types of English signs are well represented in Tokyo.

Though there are various exceptions that cannot be dealt with here, 25 the analysis demonstrates that English texts in Tokyo's linguistic landscape address both a foreign

and a Japanese readership. To the former, English is used to provide supplementary information that otherwise would be available in Japanese only. To the latter, it frequently has a mainly decorative function. However, the fact that English texts without a corresponding Japanese counterpart in many cases provide quite substantial information shows that English to the Japanese sign reader is more than a mere embellishment. Rather, it appears that a minimal degree of proficiency in English has become a basic requirement in order to understand a sign in Japan these days. 26

Linguistic Landscape Quo Vadis?

Our third question addresses the diachronic development of Tokyo's linguistic landscape. Generally speaking, two approaches are applicable when examining language in time. Ideally, one would conduct two or more successive surveys at different points in time and directly compare the results. An alternative way of examining diachronic

"See Backhaus, Linguistic Landscapu, 90-103. 26See also Stanlaw, Japanu• English.

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FIGURE 5. Older and newer information board about garbage collection.

changes in the linguistic landscape when data from only one point in time are available is to concentrate on the coexistence of older and newer editions of a given sign. Borrowing a term from Scollan and Scallon, I have referred to this phenomenon as 'layering' .27

Instances of layering are easiest to observe with regard to an increase in the number of languages used, particularly on official signs. Administrative authorities usually replace older signs only when in need of restoration or repair. In some cases, the newer version is simply attached next to the older one. Consequently, a great number of multilingual signs in the survey areas were found to coexist with older Japanese-only counterparts: area maps, street block signs, information plates on traffic lights, and subway signs about train departures, among others. In most cases, the newer editions were Japanese-English signs. Occasionally, the latest version of a sign also included Chinese and Korean text.

An illustrative example of this development is information boards about garbage collection. In Tokyo, where three types of garbage are regularly collected by the local disposal agencies, these boards indicate the designated collection points and days of the week for putting out each type of garbage. The text on the boards was for a long time monolingual Japanese. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the' first Japanese-English versions were made available in the early 1990s. Signs with additional texts in Korean and Chinese came into use around the end of the century. 28

27Scollon and Scollon, Discor,r,es in Place. See Backhaus, 'Signs of Multilingualism'. 28See Backhaus, 'Nihon no gcngo keikan'.

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FIGURE 6. Most recent information board about garbage collection.

A closer look at this type of sign reveals that the increase in the number of languages is paralleled by an increase in amount of information these languages convey. Figure 5 shows two consecutive versions of the sign at once: the monolingual Japanese edition in the background and the newer Japanese-English edition that was attached to it but has slightly come loose, providing a brief glimpse at Tokyo's more monolingual past.

An example of the sign with additional texts in Korean and Chinese is given in Figure 6. The high density of text on the sign shows that considerable effort must have been made to provide as much information as possible in all of the four languages. Even contents available on the bilingual version of the sign in Japanese only are now translated into English, Korean and Chinese; for instance, the appeal to cooperate in recycling, the text about the disposal of 'Large-Sized Waste', and the request to put out garbage on the morning of the collection day. In addition, it is interesting to observe that the days of the week are given in all four languages, too. As discussed elsewhere, 29 this piece of information was available only in Japanese and Eng(ish on an earlier version of the quatrilingual sign. The Japanese-English-Korean-Chinese format is even maintained where from a purely functional point of view it would be wholly unnecessary. This can be seen in the left bottom part of the sign, which identifies the originator of the sign as

29Backhaus, Linguistic Landscapts, 133-136.

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TABLE I. Factors Shaping Tokyo's Multilingual Landscape.

Factor

Positive arcitudes towards English Internationalisation policies Local ethnicisation Korean boom

By whom?

Japanese Japanese Foreigners Foreigners

For whom?

Japanese Foreigners Foreigners Japanese

Since when?

1970s or earlier 1980s 1990s Recently

'SHINJUKU City'. Though the Chinese version in fourth position is identical to the Japanese text on top, it has not been omitted. The three types of information boards thus exemplify both an increase in languages on public signs and an increase in functional scope assigned to these languages. The successive adoption of the three types of signs exposes how a growing number of languages other than Japanese have come to operate in Tokyo's linguistic landscape.

Conclusions

In order to summarise the main findings of this study, we will now come back to the three research questions about the producers of multilingual signs, their assumed readership, and the diachronic development as a whole. Starting with the third question, the study has demonstrated that linguistic diversity in Tokyo has been on the rise. We see that various sorts of monolingual signs are being exchanged for Japanese-English ones and, in some cases, even for signs additionally including Chinese and Korean text. Particularly this latter development deserves special attention in that these are the languages of Japan's two largest linguistic minorities. In contrast to texts written in English, these texts do not address some anonymous 'international' readership, but a clearly defined group of non-Japanese residents in Japan.

With regard to the first two questions, there are four main factors that can be identified to account for the visibility of languages and scripts other than Japanese in the streets of Tokyo. In chronological order, the earliest one is a longstanding inclination towards Western signs and symbols, particularly English, on the part of the Japanese host population. This is what Masai was complaining about already in the 1970s, and the trend has continued to the present day. 30 The result is foreign language signs whose provider and target audience alike are first and foremost Japanese. A second factor is official language policies that have aimed at an 'internationalisation' of Tokyo. This development started in the 1980s, when the first ward offices began preparing signs in English and romanised Japanese for their foreign citizens. Since the middle of the 1990s, Chinese and Korean have also increasingly been included on such signs. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 2003 formulated some clear directions in this respect. The main target group of these signs is the city's growing foreign residents.

The third factor most likely dates back to no earlier than the 1990s, when the growing ethnicisation of some parts of the city began to make itself felt in most visible terms. One remarkable example of this development is Shin-Okubo, where Korean residents have started to set up signs predominantly by and for themselves. Unlike their official counterparts, many of these do not contain a Japanese translation and are therefore

30Masai, T6ky6 no seikatsu chizu, as quoted in the introduction. Sec also Inoue, 'Keizai gcngogaku'.

48


unintelligible to the better part of the Japanese population. What was the latter's reaction, one may wonder, to this unreadable communication in the middle of their city?

· Interestingly, nothing has been reported about protest movements or other public outcry so far.

This brings us to the fourth factor, which is a most interesting combination of factors one and three: the Japanese population's recent 'interest in things Korean'.31 The socalled hamyu (Korean wave) boom that set in around the beginning of the new century could most likely have facilitated the growing visibility of hangul in Shin-Okubo and other places in Tokyo as well as other cities. This would complete the pattern of possible combinations of sign writers and readers by giving us signs with a foreign provider and a Japanese target audience. Table 1 summarises the four factors in order of appearance.

The totality of Tokyo's linguistic landscape reflects ongoing changes in the Japanese 'language regime'.32 It can be seen that the country's still monolingual self-image is about to lose relevance in a globalising world. The uncontested role of Japanese as thenational language and its ideological underpinning as the essence of being Japanese now increasingly face pressure, both from outside and within. On the one hand, Japan's monolingual worldview is challenged by the power of English as the default language forall sorts of international communication as well as its standing as the most prestigious foreign language domestically. On the other hand, a look at Tokyo's linguistic landscape also demonstrates that a growing number of people with non-Japanese backgrounds have started making their languages heard and seen in public space. And that, most remarkably, Japanese let them.

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50

Language in Public Spaces in Japan

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Nanette Gottlieb

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