Loanwords and Japanese Identity 1032054263, 9781032054261

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Loanwords and Japanese Identity

Loanwords and Japanese Identity: Inundating or Absorbed? provides an indepth examination of public discussions on lexical borrowing in the Japanese language. The main objective of this book is to explore the relationship between language and identity through an analysis of public attitudes towards foreign loanwords in contemporary Japanese society. In particular, the book uncovers the process by which language is conceived of as a symbol of national identity by examining an animated newspaper controversy over the use of foreign loanwords. The book concludes that the fierce debate over the use of loanwords can be understood as a particular manifestation of the ongoing (re-)negotiation ­­ ​­ ­ of Japanese national identity. This book will appeal to scholars and students in sociolinguistics, translation studies, and discourse analysis, while its cultural and geographic focus will attract readers in Japanese studies and East Asian studies. Naoko Hosokawa is a postdoctoral fellow at Tokyo College, University of Tokyo. After obtaining a doctoral degree from the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, she worked at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), the European University Institute, as well as the University of Strasbourg, and took the current position in 2020. Her research focuses on the relationship between language and identity through the examination of media discourse. Her recent publications include “From reality to discourse: Analysis of the ‘refugee’ metaphor in the Japanese news media” in Journal of Multicultural Discourses as well as “The New Wild: Thinking Linguistic Globalization through the Ecology of Species” in The Manifold Nature of Bilingual Education.

Routledge Studies in East Asian Translation Series Editors: Jieun Kiaer, University of Oxford, UK Amy Xiaofan Li, University College London, UK

Routledge Studies in East Asian Translation aims to discuss issues and challenges involved in translation between Chinese, Japanese and Korean as well as from these languages into European languages with an eye to comparing the cultures of translation within East Asia and tracking some of their complex interrelationships. Most translation theories are built on translation between European languages, with only few exceptions. However, this Eurocentric view on language and translation can be seriously limited in explaining the translation of non-European literature and scholarship, especially when it comes to translating languages outside the Indo-European family that have radically different script forms and grammatical categories, and may also be embedded in very different writing traditions and cultures. This series considers possible paradigm shifts in translation theory, arguing that translation theory and practice need to go beyond European languages and encompass a wider range of literature and scholarship. Korean Wave in World Englishes The Linguistic Impact of Korea’s Popular Culture Brittany Khedun-Burgoine and Jieun Kiaer Pragmatics in Korean and Japanese Translation Jieun Kiaer and Ben Cagan A Linguistic Image of Womanhood in South Korea Jieun Kiaer and Jiyoung Shin Loanwords and Japanese Identity Inundating or Absorbed? Naoko Hosokawa For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ ­languages/series/RSEAT ­ ­

Loanwords and Japanese Identity Inundating or Absorbed?

Naoko Hosokawa

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Naoko Hosokawa The right of Naoko Hosokawa to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library ­Cataloguing-in-Publication Data ­​­­ ​­ A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: ­978-1-032-05426-1 ­​­­ ­​­­ ­​­­ ​­ (hbk) ­ ISBN: ­978-1-032-05430-8 ­​­­ ­​­­ ­​­­ ​­ (pbk) ­ ISBN: 978-1-003-19752-2 ­ ­​­­ ­​­­ ­​­­ ​­ (ebk) ­ DOI: 10.4324/9781003197522 ­ Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

1 Loanwords in Japan 1 1.1  Western Loanwords and Japan Today  1 1.2  What are Gairaigo and Katakanago? 2 1.3  Gairaigo Controversies  4 1.4  Key Questions and Focal Points  7

2 For or Against?

11

2.1  Language and Identity  11 2.2 Public Opinions 13 2.3  Advantages and Disadvantages  15 2.4  Why the Polemic?  19 2.5  Gairaigo and Nihongo Dichotomy  21 2.6  Nihongo and Kokugo 24

3 Inundating or Absorbed? 29 3.1 Textual Data 29 3.2 Time Frame 31 3.3  Method of Analysis  34 3.4 Recurrent Verbs 36 3.5 Implications 62

4 Japanese or Foreign? 66 4.1  Nihongo, the Japanese Language, and Gairaigo, Loanwords  66 4.2 Analysis 67 4.3 Summary 111

5 What Kind of Loanwords? 119 5.1  Loanwords as ‘­O utside Within’  119 5.2 Metaphors 122 5.3 Contrasts 128 5.4  Evolution of Japanese Identities  151

vi

Contents

6 Loanwords and Identity in the Age of Diversity 171 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4

French Discourse on Loanwords 171 Comparative Observations 177 Japanese Loanwords Abroad 183 From the ‘Outside Within’ to the ‘New Wild’ 187

Index

193

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Loanwords in Japan

1.1 Western Loanwords and Japan Today In May 2020, the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun published the results of a readers’ opinion survey on the recent heavy use of Western ­loanwords – ​­also known as gairaigo or katakanago in Japanese. Of 1,723 respondents, 72 percent believed such language was unacceptable, while just 28 percent thought it acceptable. The survey went on to seek opinions on the many English- derived terms used in the media reporting of the Covid-19 pandemic. Readers spanning ages thirteen to eighty-nine expressed their points of view, criticising and defending such words. One argued that responsible authorities should use easier words that everyone can understand to obtain wider cooperation  – this was, after all, they reasoned, a global health emergency. Another insisted that loanwords were a practical way to convey the sense of crisis in a concise and precise manner (The Asahi Shimbun, 2 May 2020). With no easy consensus, such discussions on loanwords have become extremely common in contemporary Japanese society. On one hand, there are many who express concern about the prevalence of Western loanwords. It is generally considered that attitudes toward loanwords are primarily generational, and that elderly persons tend to criticise their use because they are less familiar with them. However, in reality, this apprehension is shared across generations. Yet, at the same time as these critiques mount up, there are many who see advantages in using loanwords, albeit they are apparently fewer in number. There are also many who maintain more nuanced ideas about loanwords, accepting those fully assimilated into Japanese, while feeling anxious to see the rapid increase of new loanwords. A wide variety of opinions on loanwords are thus currently circulating in Japanese society. However, it seems that two frequently recurring metaphorical expressions are often used to encapsulate views for and against: the first is that ‘loanwords are inundating’ the Japanese language  – a figure used to express concerns regarding the overuse of loanwords; the second takes the form of ‘loanwords are absorbed’, and is used to convey the belief that loanwords contribute to linguistic enrichment. At a glance, the debate seems

DOI: 10.4324/9781003197522-1

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Loanwords in Japan

to be bifurcated into a simple opposition between these two views. Yet, in reality, the debates mirror the fundamental process through which language is conceived of as a symbol of national identity, reflecting dominant values in the society at each moment of time. This book analyses the popular discussion of loanwords in order to explore precisely this relationship between language and identity.

1.2 What are Gairaigo and Katakanago? The term gairaigo (外来語) literally means ‘words that come from outside’. It is used mainly to refer to loanwords of Western origin, the majority of which today are English- derived. In terms of the lexical classification, gairaigo constitutes one of the three main groups of the Japanese lexicon: wago, also known as yamatokotoba, (Japanese native vocabulary); kango (Sino-Japanese ­­ ​­ loans); and gairaigo. In modern Japanese, written gairaigo are visually distinguishable, as they are in most cases written in katakana, the angular syllabary, whereas the rest of the Japanese vocabulary is written in kanji, Chinese characters, and hiragana, the cursive syllabary. Thus, gairaigo are often synonymously referred to using the term katakanago (カタカナ語), which literally means ‘words that are written in katakana’. According to the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (hereafter referred to as NINJAL), the proportions of the three vocabulary groups (excluding proper nouns and special symbols) contained in the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese – which compiles written texts published between 1976 and 2005 – were 32.6 percent, 49.0 percent, and 13.6 percent, respectively (Ogura et al., 2008: 936). Historically, the first use of Western loanwords in Japan dates back at least to the sixteenth century when some Portuguese words entered Japanese with the arrival of Christian missionaries from Portugal. Portuguese loanwords that are still in use today include kappa [< capa, raincoat], tabako [< tabaco, tobacco], botan [< botão, button], pan [< pão, bread], karuta [< carta, Japanese playing cards], and kompētō [< confeito, sugar candy]. Subsequently, a selection of Dutch words entered Japanese through commercial relationships with Dutch merchants during the Japanese isolation period, which extended from the early seventeenth to the late-n ineteenth ­ ­ century. These loans include dontaku [< zondag, festival/holiday (‘Sunday’ in Dutch)], orugōru [< orgel, music box], garasu [< glas, glass], and gomu [< gom, rubber]. As the isolation period came to an end, and trade treaties were made between Japan and Western countries, Japanese society went through a period of rapid and substantial transformation, adopting various aspects of Western culture in the Meiji period (1868–1912). As a result, a large number of European words entered Japanese from the late-nineteenth to the early-twentieth ­ ​­ century, such as karute [< Karte, medical record], gāze [< Gaze, gauze], and enerugī [< Energie, energy] from German; mētoru

Loanwords in Japan  3 [< mètre, metre], rittoru [< litre, litre], and pīman [< piment, bell pepper] from French; sonata [< sonata], opera [< opera], and supagetti [< spaghetti] from Italian; as well as ikura [< икра, salmon roe] and wokka [< водка, vodka] from Russian (Sanseido Dual Dictionary). English- derived words were also imported en masse during this period, including macchi [< match], hoteru [< hotel], and tēburu [< table] (Fukuzawa, 2007 [1899]). It was during this Westernisation period in 1895 that the term gairaigo was first used by a German- educated linguist, Kazutoshi Ueda (Frellesvig, 2010: 404). Since the end of the Second World War, during which the use of Western words was avoided, perceived to be the language of enemies, the use of Western loanwords has increased ever more rapidly. According to a study carried out by the Japan Association of Libraries in 1980, over half of the 25,000 loanwords in the Kadokawa Loanword Dictionary entered Japanese after the war (Kay, 1995: 68). Another survey conducted by NINJAL shows that the composition ratio (based on the number of different words) of gairaigo in magazines (from 90 magazines sampled in 1956 and 70 magazines in 1994) increased from 9.2 percent in 1956 to 24.7 percent in 1994, reaching nearly as high as those of Sino-Japanese loans (35.2 percent) and Japanese native words (27.0 percent) (NINJAL, 2007: 12). The percentage of loanwords used in magazines is believed to have grown further today. The rapid pace of this increase has, perhaps inevitably, led to the normative question as to whether the use of loanwords is either appropriate or desirable. Especially since 1991, which marked the end of linguistic reforms and language-related regulation making with the establishment of rule of loanwords orthography, the use of gairaigo has been actively discussed by a wide variety of Japanese speakers, not only by specialists and stakeholders, such as politicians, linguists, and journalists but also by members of the general public, from teenagers to elderly people. It should be emphasised that despite its literal meaning ‘words that come from outside’, the classification of gairaigo is not always based on a word’s et­ ymological origin. As described above, Sino-Japanese loans (kango) are considered to constitute a separate vocabulary group and in most cases are not included in gairaigo, despite their foreign origins. Similarly, at the beginning of the Meiji period, many Western terms entered Japanese as loan trans­ lations using Sino-Japanese morphemes, such as tetsugaku (philosophy), ­ keizai (economy), kagaku (science), and so on. These words are referred ­ ­ ​­ ­­ ​­ ­Sino-​ to as shinkango (new Sino-Japanese) or wasei kango (Japanese-made Japanese), and they are generally not treated as gairaigo either, regardless of their origins in the West. Some older and well-assimilated Western loanwords are written in hiragana or even kanji  – such as the loanword from Portuguese, tabako [< tabaco, tobacco], meaning ‘smoking grass’ (煙草), and the word kappa [< capa, raincoat], meaning ‘fitting feather’ (合羽), both of which are often written in kanji (Vance, 1987: 3). These loans are technically gairaigo but are not always recognised as such by the general public. On the contrary, there are a large number of words, mainly compounds, which were coined in Japan using elements derived from English. These

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Loanwords in Japan

terms are referred to as wasei eigo (Japanese-made English) and are often included in or grouped together with gairaigo. Examples of wasei eigo include maikā [< ‘my car’, one’s own car], naitā [< ‘nighter’, a night game] and gasorin sutando [< ‘gasoline stand’, petrol station]. Some gairaigo are also made by clipping existing English words, such as terebi [< television], pasokon [< personal computer] and sekuhara [< sexual harassment], as a result of which the words become substantially different from the original forms. Thus, there is a great diversity among what is called gairaigo in terms of origin, level of assimilation to the Japanese language and recognition by the general public. However, in public discussions, the enveloping term gairaigo is commonly used and it seems to be perceived as clearly distinct from the rest of the Japanese vocabulary.

1.3 Gairaigo Controversies Newspapers constitute one of the more popular arenas in which the public discussion of language takes place in Japan. Table 1.1 shows the number of contents, including articles, editorials, contributions, and readers’ letters, that contain the term gairaigo or katakanago in Japan’s two largest daily newspapers, The Asahi Shimbun and The Yomiuri Shimbun, between 1991 and 2020. The table shows that there are some years in which the number of mentions was particularly high, and this can, to a large degree, be explained by key socio-political events in each of these years. In 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake caused severe destruction in West Japan. Though it might seem unlikely that a natural disaster would prompt a debate on national language, the use of Western loanwords in disaster management guidelines – including hazādo mappu [< hazard map] and raifu rain [< lifeline] – contemporaneously fuelled opinion that important information related to public health and safety should be given using terminologies that are accessible to all. Having witnessed this public mood, in 1997 Jun’ichirō Koizumi, then Minister of Welfare, reorganised the Terminology Rectification Committee, which he had established in 1989, and instructed those working in the Ministry to avoid loanwords in official documents where possible. Words to be avoided included purojekuto chīmu [< project team], forō appu [< follow up], gaidorain [< guideline], manyuaru [< manual], nīzu [< needs] as well as konseputo [< concept]. In 2000, Koizumi became Prime Minister, and again he proposed to reduce the use of gairaigo in publications by government offices. In the same year, the Japanese Language Council published a report on Japanese in the internationalising world, and this too included a discussion of the increasing use of gairaigo. In 2002, Koizumi once again underlined that gairaigo, used in official documents, were difficult for lay people to understand, and in response to this the Gairaigo Committee was established within the NINJAL.

Loanwords in Japan  5 ­ Table 1.1   Number of contents that contain gairaigo or katakanago Year

Asahi

Yomiuri

Total

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Total

29 21 33 26 29 37 63 40 53 79 50 61 96 58 35 55 42 63 70 71 35 32 33 26 23 27 26 20 16 46 1,295

31 11 26 16 22 27 32 29 31 37 43 117 171 88 75 65 54 45 18 28 19 15 23 11 16 16 24 18 12 35 1,155

60 32 59 42 51 64 95 69 84 116 93 178 267 146 110 120 96 108 88 99 54 47 56 37 39 43 50 38 28 81 2,450

The Gairaigo Committee conducted opinion surveys in 2003 and 2004 about the use of gairaigo, targeting 4,500 Japanese speakers in Japan above 15 years old. The survey revealed that 77.7 percent of respondents, either often or sometimes, encountered a problem because of a gairaigo they did not understand, and 89.5 percent would like those gairaigo to be replaced by easier words in one or more field(s) – including those related to politics and economics, medicine and welfare, and computer issues (NINJAL, 2006: 14– 16). Based on the survey results, the NINJAL compiled a list of easier words with which to replace gairaigo in 2006. The NINJAL opinion survey and the replacement list animated discussion of loanwords to an unprecedented level. When in 2006 Shinzō Abe replaced Koizumi at the head of the government, his frequent use of gairaigo – exemplified by the expressions inobēshon [< innovation], kantorī aidentitī [< country identity], and Ajia gētowei [< Asia gateway]  – provoked the opposition to critique the lack of clarity in such

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Loanwords in Japan

words. Backed by public opinion, it argued that Abe’s use of loanwords went against his patriotic slogan ‘utsukushii ­ kuni’ (beautiful country/nation), as also used in the title of his 2006 book, Towards a Beautiful Nation. The debate saw another turning point in 2011 with the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which brought back questions on the use of loanwords in disaster management. In this context, there was a legal case in 2013 in which a viewer sued the national broadcasting company Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) for using too many loanwords and thus obscuring the meaning of broadcast content. He claimed such obfuscation was unacceptable for a national media company with a remit to serve the nation as a whole. Even though the viewer’s claim was rejected by the court due to the freedom of expression guaranteed to NHK as a media outlet, the case provoked further debate on media policy around the use of loanwords. In 2016, Yuriko Koike was elected the first female governor of Tokyo. She is well known for her use of loanwords to create catchy slogans in her speeches. When serving as the Minister of Environment, she made the expression ‘cool biz’ internationally famous, selecting the phrase by public vote as a slogan for the campaign to save energy by dressing light in summer. In March 2020, however, following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, her frequent use of English-derived loanwords such as kurasutā [< cluster], ōbāshūto [< overshoot], and rokkudaun [< lockdown] was criticised by the Minister for Administrative Reform and Regulatory Reform Tarō Kōno, who was later nominated to head the anti-Covid vaccination programme. Kōno’s Twitter post questioning the use of loanwords in communications related to the pandemic was ‘liked’ by more than 240,000 people. As a result, the public attitude toward loanwords has become more critical, as can be observed in the survey result from May 2020 discussed at the beginning of this chapter. It is also important to note that the frequent debates on loanwords have been accompanied by mounting interest in the Japanese language itself – or nihongo in Japanese – and the years since 2000 have been often characterised as evidencing an unprecedented nihongo boom. This is exemplified by the popularity of Takashi Saitō’s book Japanese One Wants to Read Out Loud (koe ni dashite yomitai nihongo), which was published in 2001 and became a best-seller with more than 2.5 million copies sold to date. There has also been a new dimension added to the discussion of nihongo by the growing internationalisation of Japanese society, and Japanese has increasingly become a language to be studied and spoken not only by the Japanese, but also by non-native speakers. In 2010, to commemorate fifteen years after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, a group of linguists compiled the Yasashii Nihongo (easy/kind Japanese) guideline to facilitate better communication between municipal governments and foreign residents. Since the mid-2010s, the idea of plain language has become a particularly popular topic, both in the context of internationalisation and of the ageing society, with communication beyond generational and cultural boundaries now considered an

Loanwords in Japan  7 essential part of Japanese society. From the point of view of this debate, the use of loanwords is typically discussed as a possible obstacle in communication. Thus, gairaigo has been widely discussed over the last thirty years, with the intensity of debate ebbing and flowing in relation to major national events. This suggests that a further investigation of these debates can reveal important insights into the roles of language in society, particularly in terms of how the general public conceptualises language in defining national identity.

1.4 Key Questions and Focal Points This investigation starts with some key questions regarding the perception of language in Japan. Why does gairaigo, as one vocabulary group within the Japanese language, attract so much public attention and provoke such animated discussion? What is represented by the idea of gairaigo in popular discourse on language, in which there is a psychological demarcation between gairaigo and the other groups of Japanese vocabulary? By criticising or defending the use of loanwords, what values are promoted by participants in the discussion? The working hypothesis of this book is that the Japanese language is conceptualised as a source of national identity and that debates on the use of loanwords can be understood as a particular manifestation of the on-going (re)negotiation of national identity. Thus, in contemporary discourse on the Japanese language, gairaigo is conceptualised as ‘Other’ in contrast to a Japanese ‘Self’, the identity of which is neither autonomous nor clearly delineated. The popularity and the intensity of the debates on loanwords can thus be explained by the recurrent quest for Japanese identity in the face of turning points and challenges in Japanese society. For the construction of identity, the presence of the Other is essential. Studying discourses on Japanese identity, Nanette Gottlieb (2006: 4) discusses the role of minority populations as the ‘outsiders within’. She argues that discourses on minority groups are constructed so as to bolster visions of ‘mainstream’ Japanese, because “by defining others as what we are not, we emphasise what it is that we think we are, at both the personal and social level, often without actually spelling it out”. When considering discourses involving language and identity, it seems possible to draw an analogy between the role of minority populations and that of loanwords, both of which are seen as external while remaining internal. Since neither the notion of ‘mainstream’ Japanese nor that of the Japanese language are clearly defined concepts, these notions tend to be delineated mainly through discussion about the Other. Gairaigo can therefore be a possible ‘internal other’ or ‘outside within’ the Japanese language, understood as a symbol of otherness and a counterpart to the constructed idea of the Japanese language, created by changes and challenges to the Japanese society at each point of history. In order to examine this hypothesis, the book will examine public opinions on the use of loanwords and present the textual analysis of 2,450 newspaper

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Loanwords in Japan

extracts issued in the two largest newspapers in Japan between 1991 and 2020. The main focus of the analysis is on recurrent wordings employed to describe the linguistic situation, the key framework of which is discussed in Chapter 2. Subsequently, as the first step of the analysis, eighteen recurrent verbs will be identified, including the above-mentioned verbs, ‘to inundate’ and ‘to absorb’ (Chapter  3). As the second step, each verb is analysed in terms of qualities associated with loanwords and the Japanese language (Chapter 4). As the third step, the loanword debate is examined in terms of commonly used metaphors as well as contrasting values. Both metaphors, ­ ‘inundation by gairaigo’ and ‘absorption of gairaigo’ are often used to refer to an action that requires two mutually exclusive entities: ‘inundation of B by A’, such as in the expression ‘the inundation of the city by floodwaters’, and ‘absorption of A by B’, as in the expression ‘the absorption of water by plant root’. What are the two entities imagined in these metaphors when used in popular language debates? What values are associated with each entity? Grappling with these questions, key notions in the discussion of language will be identified and deconstructed. As the last step, common discursive patterns will be listed for each moment in recent history at which the gairaigo debates became particularly animated, with the aim of tracing the evolution of Japanese identity over the past thirty years (Chapter 5). Finally, the implications of the findings of the analysis are examined from the viewpoint of the growing diversity both at the domestic and international levels (Chapter 6). ­­ This study is largely concerned with non-specialist discourses on language, also known as folk linguistics. To understand the role of language in a society, it is equally important to study discussions by lay people as by specialists, as the general public is one of the most influential agents in sociolinguistics. It is also a study of the language that is used to discuss language, and is therefore a work of metalinguistics. The examination of metalanguage is considered essential to understanding the relation between language and identity, as “meta language reveals shared norms and beliefs about language in a given society” (Niedzielski and Preston, 2000). In studying folk linguistics and metalinguistics, it is important to note that the discourses can be largely normative, not necessarily based on the actual usage of language. There is, as pointed out by Ishiwata (1985: 178), a gap between the intense debates over the use of gairaigo and the natural process of influx and elimination of gairaigo. The loanword and alphabet abbreviation dictionary, published by Imidas Editorial Department in 2006, listed 29,000 loanwords and 8,000 alphabet abbreviations in contemporary use (Imidas Editorial Department, 2006), and the usage of loanwords seems to increase year-on-year. Loanwords have permeated the Japanese language to such a degree that even those who criticise them cannot entirely avoid the use of well-assimilated loanwords such as terebi [< television], rajio [< radio], and annaunsā [< announcer, newsreader]. However, according to the results of the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ annual

Loanwords in Japan  9 opinion survey on the Japanese language, the proportion of respondents who feel that the use of gairaigo is ‘rather undesirable’ has not changed significantly in the past couple of decades, totalling 35.6 percent in 2017, 35.3 percent in 2012, 39.8 percent in 2007, 36.6 percent in 2002, and 35.5 percent in 1999 (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2018). This suggests that the relation between the number of loanwords in use and public opinions about them is neither proportional nor inversely proportional. On that basis, this book focuses on collective and normative discussions of loanwords with some representative loanwords commonly mentioned as examples, rather than on individual opinions or the actual usage of loanwords. The debate on loanwords has thus far typically been studied within a dualistic framework that is organised around value judgements of ‘for’ and ‘against’. The present study will move away from this to discuss the debates as a social phenomenon that reflects the particular Japanese conception of language and identity. In doing so, it will shed light on the common perceptual structure held by both critics and defenders of loanwords, in which loanwords can be seen as a symbol of otherness felt within Japanese language and society. Environments both inside and outside Japan have been changing rapidly, constantly fuelling debates over national identity and selfconfidence. This study proposes that there is a close link between the constant search for identity and the recurrent debate on the Japanese language. The discussion of gairaigo reflects how the Japanese identity is (re)negotiated in a rapidly changing world that presents a constant and complexifying stream of new challenges and goals – ones that since 1991 have included the loss of economic confidence, the search for new values in a globalised society, the fear of natural disasters and pandemics, and a growing aspiration for equality and diversity. The gairaigo discussion is therefore a valuable tool to understand Japanese society by revealing the oscillating values and identities within it. The ultimate goal of this book is to show how to interpret the popular discussion on loanwords in relation to that flux.

References Agency for Cultural Affairs (2018) Heisei 29nendo kokugo ni kansuru Ishiki chōsa kekka no gaiyō. Available at: https://www.bunka.go.jp/tokei_hakusho_shuppan/ tokeichosa/kokugo_yoronchosa/pdf/r1393038_01.pdf ­ ­ ­ (accessed ­ 26 May 2021). Frellesvig, Bjarke (2010) A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fukuzawa, Yukichi (1969 [1872]) An Encouragement of Learning. Trans. Dilworth, David. A. Tokyo: Sophia University Press. Gottlieb, Nanette (2006) Linguistic Stereotyping and Minority Groups in Japan. London: Routledge. Imidas Editorial Department (2006) Imidas Gendaijin no katakanago obunryakugo jiten. Tokyo: Shūeisha. Ishiwata, Toshio (1985) Nihongo no naka no gaikokugo. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Kay, Gillian (1995) ‘English loanwords in Japanese’. World Englishes 14/1, ­ pp. 67–77. ­ ­ ​­

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National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2006) Gairaigo: Iikae tebiki. Tokyo: Gyōsei. National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2007) ‘Nihongo no naka no gairaigo to gaikokugo’, Kotoba Forum, 30, pp. 1–19. ­ ­ ​­ Available at: https://www2. ­ ninjal.ac.jp/past-events/kotoba_forum/31/haihu_31.pdf ­­ ​­ ­ ­ ­ (accessed ­ 26 May 2021). Niedzielski, Nancy A. and Dennis R. Preston (2000) Folk Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Ogura, H, Ogiso, T, Hara, H, Koiso, H, & Fujiike Y. (2008) ‘Keitaisokaisekiyō jisho UniDic e no goshujōhō no jissō to seifu kankō hakusho no goshuhiritsu no bunseki’. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Conference of Language Processing, ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ pp.  935−938. Available at: https://www.anlp.jp/proceedings/annual_meeting/ ­ ­­ ​­ ­ 2008/pdf_dir/PC3-2.pdf (accessed 26 May 2021). Saitō, Takashi (2001) Koe ni dashite yomitai nihongo. Tokyo: Sōshisha. Sanseido Dual Dictionary(2021)Availableat:http://daijirin.dual-d.net/extra/gairaigo. ­ ­ ­ ​­ ­ ­ html (accessed 26 May 2021). The Asahi Shimbun Kikuzo (2022) Available at: http://database.asahi.com/ library2e/ (accessed 20 May 2022). Vance, Timothy J. (1987) An Introduction to Japanese Phonology. New York: State University of New York Press.

2

For or Against?

2.1 Language and Identity Language has always been an important source of identity. It not only helps us communicate with each other but also gives us a feeling of belonging. Therefore, the debates over the use of loanwords must also be examined in relation to identity. In particular, this book places a main focus on the implications of the debates for the formation of national identity. Joseph (2004: 94) has rightly argued that “the existence of a national language is the primary foundation upon which national identity is constructed”. Language has played this role since the beginning of modernity. Giddens (1991: 14–15) raises three changes that expanded the role of language in the process of modernisation: (1) the standardisation of vernacular languages, (2) increased interactions across geographical and temporal distances, and (3) ­ the emergence of nation-states. ­ ​­ First of all, as a result of the advancement of printing technologies, books no longer belonged only to the privileged classes with knowledge of Latin or other religious and scholarly languages, but also to members of the broader public. Large volumes of writing became available in vernacular languages through printed newspapers and periodicals in the nineteenth century. To this end, Conboy (2007: 5) argues that the emergence of newspapers marked “a departure from the tradition which had seen important communications channelled through the sacred language of Latin and thus restricted to an elite”. The vernacular languages used for printing thus spread to a wider geographical area, gradually diminishing differences among local vernacular languages. This trend led to language standardisation with conscious institutionalised efforts. While such efforts to standardise language created a new gap between privileged standard languages and underprivileged nonstandard languages, the possession of a common standardised language became a source of a shared sense of belonging. Second, thanks to the printed media and language standardisation, social interaction across larger geographical distance was made possible. Industrialisation and the development of capitalism accelerated the physical relocation of people and commodities, increasing the need for

DOI: 10.4324/9781003197522-2

12

For or Against?

communication across greater distances. The development of common standardised languages was, of course, crucial to this. Printed language also made information-sharing easier beyond temporal boundaries, making it possible to read documents written in the past and record information for the future. Thus, geographical proximity and simultaneity became less important for communal unity (Giddens, 1991: 16). As a result, the source of collective identity shifted from geo-social boundaries to symbolic boundaries (Jenkins, 1996: 109). Anderson (2006: 6) has described the form of community based on such symbolic boundaries as ‘imagined communities’, the members of which never know or meet most other members, but nonetheless share “the image of their communion”. In imagined communities, a shared language plays a particularly important role, both facilitating communication within the community across geographical and temporal distance and serving as a symbol of the community. Third, with the emergence of nation-states, languages became associated with specific nations and were standardised within a national framework. The establishment of the first language academy dates back to 1583 and the founding of the Accademia della Crusca (the ‘bran’ academy) in Tuscany, Italy, which led to the formation of the famous Académie française in 1635. The birth of these early language academies coincided with the period in which the early structure of nation-states came into being and language was thus ‘planned’ to reinforce the unity of a nation-state. From this point of view, the process of language planning is akin to that of the symbolic construction of national identity and for this reason Fishman (1974: 89) called language planning ‘nationality planning’. This crucial link between language and identity is the very reason language is so ardently discussed by language specialists and members of the general public alike. Many people are interested in the question of what kind of language should be spoken, because in it they find a representation of their cultures, values, norms, and ways of thinking. By seeking to define their language, a speaker negotiates their identity. In this process, boundaries are drawn between the two key concepts, Self and Other. To this end, discussing what he describes as the ‘symbolic construction of community’, Cohen (1985: 58) insists on the importance of the existence of ‘other communities’, in relation to which the identity of a given community is defined. We draw boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Cohen explains that individuals, self- conscious cultures, and communities all “define themselves by reference to a ‘significant other’” (ibid.: 115). Similarly, Jenkins (1996: 20–21) argues ­ that identity is based on “the internal- external dialectic” for which the eyes of others are essential. This constant process of defining Self and Other is thus the central part of identity negotiation. As an important element in one’s identity, language is discussed within this binary structure between Self and Other, or between ‘our language’ and ‘their language’. In the national framework, the dichotomy is strengthened under the labels of ‘national language’ and ‘foreign language’. The

For or Against?  13 debates over loanwords use can be seen as part of such efforts to define Self and Other in language. Questions related to loanwords are particularly important, because loanwords are the result of language contact, blurring boundaries between ‘our language’ and ‘their language’. As is the case with cultures more broadly, languages are in constant contact with one another, and words are continually borrowed from neighbouring or culturally influential languages. In some cases, speakers are no longer aware of the fact of borrowing after a certain period of integration. However, in other cases, some borrowed words are labelled foreign even after a long process of assimilation. On this point, Haugen (1954: 387) points out that “often, too, the criteria which satisfy the linguist that a borrowed word has been integrated will not disguise it to the consciousness of bilingual speakers, who will continue to call an English loanword English in spite of its adapted shape”. The perception as to whether a certain word is thus ‘national’ or ‘foreign’ is highly subjective, making discourses on loanwords ideal material through which to examine the negotiation process in which national-foreign and boundaries are drawn. ­Self-Other ​­

2.2 Public Opinions In Japanese public opinion, negative views on the use of loanwords outweigh positive. We know this in part thanks to the various opinion surveys conducted by governmental agencies since the 1970s. The Cabinet Office of the Japanese government carried out an opinion survey on the Japanese language, targeting 10,000 respondents aged 20 and above in 1977, and 3,000 respondents in 1992. Following up on its findings, the Agency for Cultural Affairs – a special body within the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology – has conducted an annual opinion survey on the Japanese language each year since 1996, targeting around 3,500 respondents aged 16 and above. While a different set of questions is used each year, some questions are used multiple times, and these can be used to track the evolution of the public perception of language. Questions related to loanwords were asked in the survey in 1977 (Cabinet Office) as well as in 2000, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The result of these surveys, together with the result of the NINJAL surveys on the use of loanwords in 2003 and 2004, are useful barometers of public attitudes toward loanwords. In these surveys, three questions have been repeatedly asked with regard to loanwords: “Have you ever been troubled not understanding loanwords?”, “What do you feel about the use of loanwords?”, and “Why do you feel loanwords are undesirable?”. First, to the question “Have you ever been troubled not understanding loanwords?”, in 2018, 83.5 percent of respondents answered ‘Yes’  – either often (23.8 percent) or sometimes (59.7 percent), while only 15.4 percent answered ‘No’. The same question was asked in 2013 and of the 78.5 percent of respondents who answered that

14

For or Against?

­ Table 2.1   Have you ever been troubled not understanding loanwords?

Yes No I don’t know

2018

2013

2003 (NINJAL) ­

83.5% 15.4%  1.0%

78.5% 20.9%  0.6%

77.7% 21.2%  1.2%

they had been troubled, 21.0 percent found this to be the case often and 57.5 percent sometimes, while 20.9 percent answered that they had never been troubled by loanwords (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2018: 9). The same question was used in the opinion survey on loanwords carried out by NINJAL in 2003, which targeted 4,500 respondents aged fifteen and above. In that survey, 77.7 percent of respondents answered that they had been troubled by loanwords – 24.4 percent of them often and 53.3 percent sometimes (NINJAL, 2006: 14–15). The results are summarised in Table 2.1 and suggest that an increasing number of people are having trouble understanding certain loanwords, even though the rate of increase is slow. Second, to the question “How do you feel about the use of loanwords?”, in 2018, 35.6 percent of respondents answered, “rather undesirable”, while 13.7 percent answered, “rather desirable”. 49.2 percent answered, “I don’t feel anything”, and 1.5 percent “I don’t know”. Over preceding years, in 2013 the results were 35.3 percent for “rather undesirable” and 9.3 percent for “rather desirable”; in 2008, 39.8 percent for “rather undesirable” and 14.5 percent for “rather desirable”; in 2003, 36.6 percent for “rather undesirable” and 16.2 percent for “rather desirable”; in 2000, 35.5 percent for “rather undesirable” and 13.3 percent for “rather desirable” (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2018: 9); and, in 1977, 33.6 percent for “desirable” and 9.8 percent for “undesirable” (Cabinet Office, 1977). The responses to this question are summarised in Table 2.2. As was mentioned in Chapter 1, it can be deduced that the proportions of negative and positive views on the use of loanwords have not significantly changed in this time, with around 35 to 40 percent seeing it as undesirable, while around 10 to 15 percent see it as desirable. Third, those who answered that the use of loanwords is “rather undesirable” were asked the follow-up question “Why do you feel loanwords are undesirable?” and given a series of multiple- choice options to answer from. The dominant reason given was “because they are difficult to understand”, selected by 62.6 percent of respondents in 2018, 52.0 percent in 2013, 55.5 percent in 2008, 49.4 percent in 2003, and 64.2 percent in 2000. The next most popular answer was “because the Japanese language would lose its pristine values” – an option selected by 39.4 percent in 2018, 50.4 percent in 2013, 55.6 percent in 2008 (in this year the order of the most and second most dominant reasons was reversed), 53.5 percent in 2003, and 49.9 percent in 2000. Over the past twenty years, these two reasons have consistently remained the most dominant. Even in 1977, in fact, the results were similar,

For or Against?  15 ­Table 2.2  How do you feel about the use of loanwords?

Rather desirable Rather undesirable I don’t feel anything I don’t know

2018

2013

2008

2003

2000

1977

13.7% 35.6% 49.2% 1.5%

9.3% 35.3% 54.0% 1.4%

14.5% 39.8% 43.7% 2.0%

16.2% 36.6% 45.1% 2.0%

13.3% 35.5% 48.8% 2.4%

9.8% 33.6% 48.8% 7.0%

­Table 2.3  Why do you think the use of loanwords is undesirable?

Because loanwords are difficult to understand Because the Japanese language would lose its pristine values Because loanwords only seek to be ­good-looking ​­ Because language would be in disarray and the Japanese culture would decay with loanwords Because I dislike loanwords With no reason

2018

2013

2008

2003

2000

1977

62.6%

52.0%

55.5%

49.4%

64.2%

37.3%

39.4%

50.4%

55.6%

53.5%

49.9%

37.3%

27.2%

28.0%

27.6%

34.1%

28.6%

20.3%

23.5%

31.3%

35.0%

32.6%

30.2%

13.2%

5.6% 8.5%

5.1% 9.3%

3.2% 2.2%

8.2% 2.6%

7.6% 2.8%

4.6% 5.9%

with 37.3 percent respectively choosing “because the Japanese language would lose its pristine values with katakanago” and “because I don’t have good knowledge of loanwords and foreign languages”. The survey results summarised in Table 2.3 suggest that there are thus two main criteria that the general public use in judging the use of language: (1) whether it is easy to understand, and (2) whether it has pristine values. It is worth noting that the proportions of the two reasons remained close until the 2013 survey, while in the 2018 survey, a significantly larger number of respondents chose “because loanwords are difficult to understand” over “because of the Japanese language would lose its pristine values”, showing the growing importance of the first criterion.

2.3 Advantages and Disadvantages On this subject of the use of loanwords, a large proportion of linguists take the view that vocabulary borrowing is part of the natural evolution of language, and should not be normatively judged. Haugen (1972: 162), who has examined language contact from the perspective of an ecology of language, has expressed doubts about puristic attitudes toward language, pointing out that the ‘purity’ of language is “scarcely any more observable than a ‘pure

16

For or Against?

race’ in ethnology”. Ishiwata (1985: 213) argues that the use of loanwords is a natural phenomenon and therefore does not have to be regulated, although using too many can lead to problems. Similarly, Maher (1995: 96) warns that the endeavour to maintain the ‘purity’ of language may undermine the recognition of “multilingual, societal diversity”. From a similar viewpoint, Loveday (1996: 12) suggests that the use of loanwords should be studied in a framework of language contact that does not imply any normative judgement with regard to “the purity or legitimacy of the consequences of contact”, nor “any degree of integration into a language during or after contact”, as is the case with terms like ‘mixing’ or ‘borrowing’. Originally developed by Uriel Weinreich (1968), language contact is defined as “the use of more than one language in the same place at the same time,” including the use of English in traditionally non-anglophone countries (Thomason, 2001: 1–2). This perspective entails a neutral point of view on the phenomenon. Similarly, on the theme of language policy, there have been concerns among linguists about coercive control of the use of language. Having studied linguistic purification projects in various countries, including Japan, France, and Korea, Ishiwata (1985: 179–193) points out that efforts to purify language rarely succeed. He believes instead that it is best to leave the use of loanwords to establish natural patterns of increase and elimination. Thody (1995), who examines the French state’s legal efforts to eliminate English loanwords from public domains, shares this view that loanwords should not be artificially eliminated. Likewise, Yamaguchi (2007: 218) argues that such usage should be left unregulated, as necessary words will naturally be accepted into the language while others will be eliminated over time. From a practical point of view, however, the use of loanwords can have various effects in communication, both positive and negative. Ishiwata (1985: 154–162) analyses their impacts on the Japanese language from this more nuanced perspective. According to his analysis, loanwords can be desirable, on the one hand, because: (1) they enrich the variety of the Japanese vocabulary; (2) they internationalise the Japanese language; and (3) they enrich the phonological structure of the Japanese language, adding elements that otherwise do not exist in modern standard Japanese, including [ti], [tu], [di], and [du]. On the other hand, he argues, loanwords can be undesirable because: (1) they destroy the structure of the Japanese vocabulary, since they do not follow traditional patterns of word creation in Japanese; (2) from the viewpoint of the source language, they are often used in an incorrect manner, both in pronunciation and meaning, and thus can mislead Japanese learners of foreign languages; and (3) they can create obstacles to communication, excluding those who do not understand them. Study of the linguistic advantages of loanwords has been further elaborated from a variety of perspectives. Morrow (1987) argues that loanwords in Japanese are used in order to serve imaginative and innovative functions, and that the depth of their use is limitless. Similarly, Stanlaw (2005: 34) challenges the conventional perspective on loanwords, in which there is a sender

For or Against?  17 and a receiver, or a donor language and a recipient language. Instead, he looks at loanword issues in Japan from the perspective of World Englishes, believing that the use of English- derived loanwords in Japanese is a creative means of expression. In reference particularly to Japanese-made English words (wasei ­ eigo), Ishino (1983: 182), Tomoda (1999: 251), and Daulton (2008) are among those who argue that these words are created in Japan for Japanese use, in order to enrich the Japanese vocabulary, and therefore the creativity of such practices should be evaluated positively. Furthermore, Jinnouchi (2007: 152) argues that loanwords in Japanese can function as an ‘interlanguage’. The interlanguage theory was developed by Larry Selinker (1972) and it refers to a linguistic structure in second language acquisition that intermediates the learner’s mother tongue and the target language. According to Jinnouchi (2007: 152), therefore, the use of English- derived loanwords serves as an interlanguage for the Japanese in learning English as a second language, thus helping facilitate the learning process. On the other hand, several linguistic disadvantages of loanwords have also been discussed. With regard to the method of borrowing foreign vocabulary, some scholars point to the irregularity of the manner in which words are adopted into Japanese, which sometimes takes place through loan translation using Sino-Japanese components and sometimes through direct loans using katakana (Ishino, 1983: 65). Suzuki (1975) has insisted that loan translation is a better way to adopt foreign vocabulary, since it provides semantic clues  – he takes the example of the Japanese word jinruigaku (anthropology) of which the first character jin stands for a word meaning ‘man’, the second character rui for ‘category’ and the last character gaku for ‘study’. In terms of possible interference in communication, Ōno et al. (2001: 77–79) argue that the use of loanwords leads to ‘digitalisation of language’ through which words become less meaningful and the system of comprehensive understanding of language is destroyed. Tomoda (1999: 233) also points to concerns expressed by linguists over the increasing use of loanwords, suggesting the use of confusing and vague loanwords impedes communication and creates social division. Besides these practical advantages and disadvantages, loanwords provoke certain images and symbolic values, and this is another factor used to evaluate whether loanwords are preferred or avoided, praised or criticised. For example, loanwords are often employed in fields related to mass consumption, such as product names, advertisements, and pop culture. This suggests that loanwords provoke positive images in target consumers. An extensive body of research has been conducted into the use of loanwords and foreign words in the field of advertising. Haarmann (1989) researches the use of foreign words in Japanese television commercials. He argues that loanwords in advertisements are selected based on ethnic stereotypes. For example, car manufacturers give their cars an English name to evoke quality, reliability, and practicality (such as Skyline and Lancer), a French name to evoke an image of elegance, taste, sophistication, or charm (such as Mirage), and an

18  For or Against? Italian name to evoke an image of speed (such as Leone). Admitting that most target audiences do not know the meaning of the foreign words used in such advertisements, he arrives at the conclusion that loanwords are employed strategically to help evoke certain desired images in the products or companies being advertised, rather than to convey practical information (ibid.). ­ Similarly, having studied approximately 500 television commercials and 400 print advertisements, Takashi (1990: 327–330) argues that English words are heavily used in advertisements to convey “modern and sophisticated” and “new and cosmopolitan” images of the advertised product or service. This point is backed by Bell (1991: 136) who highlights the international tendency for French or English names and words to be used in product names abroad “in order to associate a product with values such as elegance or progress”, even while the target audience sometimes does not understand the precise meanings. In a similar way, scholars such as Loveday (1996: 132–133), Stanlaw (2005), Moody (2000, 2001, 2006), and Jinnouchi (2007) study English loanwords used in Japanese pop song lyrics to serve “poetic and exotic purposes” (Stanlaw 2005: 125). Taking a proximate point of view, Seargeant (2009) examines the role of English in Japanese society as a communication tool, pointing to the phenomenon of English ornamentalism with reference to English words and phrases used on Japanese clothes, adverts, and signs. These studies show that loanwords are employed in Japanese mass communication largely based on the positive images of sophistication, prestige, modernity, and novelty such words evoke in an audience without necessarily transmitting any particular meaning. However, having witnessed the frequent use of loanwords, some scholars discern a possible menace to the Japanese language. Tsuda (1997: 23) discusses problems caused by the hegemonic power of English, such as communicative inequality in international communication, cultural domination, and the colonisation of the mind. He believes that as English gains more prestige and power, the position of other languages is undermined, making Western popular and consumer culture more influential, resulting in the stigmatisation of one’s own language. On this point, a newscaster Tamotsu Koike (in Inoue et al., 1999: 121) describes the fear of mental colonisation as ‘yōkon ­ yōsai’ (Western spirit and Western science). This is a pointed contrast to the slogan used at the time of Japanese modernisation in the Meiji period, ‘wakon yōsai’ (Japanese spirit and Western science), which refers ­ to the Japanese ways of importing wisdom from abroad while maintaining the ‘Japanese way’. Furthermore, Ōno et al. (2001: 194) point out that the overuse of English loanwords can make Japan a mental colony. Thus, while provoking positive images, the use of loanwords also evokes a fear of foreign languages and cultures that are perceived to undermine Japanese language and culture. Such symbolic implications of loanwords should therefore be considered in examining the public debates over the use of this contentious lexical group.

For or Against?  19

2.4 Why the Polemic? While these scholarly interventions have dealt with the impact of loanwords themselves in the Japanese language, others have been more interested in accounting for the divisions in public opinion over loanwords often through survey-based studies. Based on his observation of media controversies on the subject as well as various survey results, Ishiwata (1985: 62) argues that differences in opinions over the use of loanwords are largely attributable to the social profile of the respondents, including their generation, occupational type, level of education, interests, and lifestyle. Loveday (1996: 176–188) has analysed the data from a questionnaire answered by 461 informants. According to the results of the questionnaire, “informants with higher educational backgrounds and higher occupations, and those aged between 18 and 29” indicate a stronger tendency to accept and adopt English-based language innovations. Based on a comparison of the results with those of other surveys, he concludes that the degree of support for loanwords differs mainly depending on the social characteristics of respondents, including age, educational level, and occupational type. Tomoda (1999: 251) emphasises the importance of social class as a factor, explaining the controversy based on the opposition between elites – who employ a large amount of new and unfamiliar jargon – and the general public, who find it difficult to keep up with the increase in new loanwords. According to Tomoda, the current use of loanwords is based on a long-term tradition in which the Japanese language has adopted words from foreign languages, whether Chinese or Western, with elites drawing upon resources in foreign languages in order to preserve their status. Stanlaw (2005: 300) also raises “age, gender, education, occupation, social status, class, and personal feelings” as important factors in determining one’s perspective on, and level of usage of, English loanwords. Similarly, Jinnouchi (2007: 95–100) lists age, gender, and occupational type as the main factors affecting difference in opinion, drawing on the results of surveys conducted by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 1995, 1996, 1998, and 1999, NHK, and The Yomiuri Shimbun in 1999, as well as his own research (Jinnouchi, 1998, 1999). In this work, he argues that the level of exposure to and understanding of loanwords peaks among cohorts in their twenties and thirties and decreases incrementally in older generations. Regarding occupational type, the level of exposure and understanding is lowest among those who work in agricultural, forestry and fishing industries, and highest among those employed in managerial and technical industries. Regarding gender, the level of exposure and understanding was lowest among women in their thirties and above (Jinnouchi, 2007: 95–100). Indeed, the results of the NINJAL surveys, summarised in Table 2.4, reveal that loanwords are harder to understand for older generations than younger, and that the level of understanding is lower among women than among men (NINJAL, 2006: 15). This confirms that the experience of loanwords differs depending on the social characteristics of respondents, especially in terms of age and gender.

20

For or Against?

­Table 2.4  Have you been troubled not understanding loanwords either often or sometimes? Age group

10s

20s

30s

40s

50s

60s+

Male Female

54.6% 65.4%

64.5% 72.7%

69.4% 79.7%

75.0% 83.6%

81.5% 87.5%

79.0% 79.1%

These observations suggest that the debate over loanwords can be understood as a form of social conflict between those who understand loanwords better and those who have difficulty understanding them. This view also explains the heated polemic regarding the overuse of loanwords, as it can form a communication barrier between different social groups. In terms of more psychological factors, Ishino (1983: 218–223) interprets the debates as an opposition between those who see the Japanese language as an idealised concept and those who see it as a communication tool. According to Ishino, the idealised concept of the Japanese language is the codified national standard language, which in reality is not spoken by anybody. On the other hand, the Japanese language as a communication tool is the conglomeration of individual versions of language actually in use. Thus, for those who see language as an idealised concept, the Japanese language is always ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ and using loanwords is a form of corruption. Meanwhile, for those who see language as a communication tool, loanwords are a practical part of the Japanese language and their use means flexibly adapting to changes in the language. Similarly, Jinnouchi (2007: 117) explains the differing degrees of acceptance of loanwords based on a difference in perspective between ‘language culture’ (gengo ­ bunka) and ‘language life’ (gengo ­ seikatsu). The former deals with the question of the impact of loanwords on culture, while the latter deals with the question of their impact on communication. While his view on ‘language culture’ is similar to Ishino’s ‘language as an idealised concept’ and his view on ‘language life’ is comparable to Ishino’s ‘language as a communication tool’, Jinnouchi suggests that those who focus on language culture may have a positive view of loanwords that are associated with Japan’s global and international identity, while those who focus on language life may have a negative view of loanwords, as they hinder communication when particular loanwords are not consistently understood (ibid.). ­ Therefore, occupying one of these two perspectives does not immediately determine a person’s opinion on loanwords. However, these two major viewpoints are important to keep in mind when examining general discussions on language. For example, the two major reasons for criticising loanwords observed in the opinion surveys above are ‘because Japanese language will lose its pristine values’ and ‘because loanwords are difficult to understand’. These reasons correspond clearly with each of Jinnouchi’s two perspectives,

For or Against?  21 language for cultural preservation and language for practical life, based on the symbolic and practical values placed on language. Yasuda (2007: 12–14) argues that two such competing views on language value have long existed. Providing an overview of language-related debates in Japan, particularly with regards the national language, he defines two points of view: (1) the national language as a reservoir of historical and cultural heritage for the nation, which he calls the ‘history-focused’ view, and (2) the national language as a communication tool through which people can widely understand each other within the nation. He calls this the ‘presentfocused’ view. Examining the history of Japanese language reforms, Yasuda argues that language-related controversies have always stood upon these two views. He explains, for example, that the debates over the vernacularisation of the written language (gembun itchi) movement during the ­ Meiji period were divided on the opposition of the h istory-focused group, which supported traditional Chinese style kambun writing, and the presentfocused group, which supported reform (ibid.). ­ The loanwords debate has thus been analysed in terms of the difference in the discussants’ social profile characteristics and viewpoints on the role of language. Based on the opinion survey results and the sociolinguistic interpretations offered thus far, there is a clear correlation between respondents’ social profile and their opinion on loanwords. It is also clear that there are two key roles of language recognised by the general public, seeing it as a form of cultural heritage and as a communication tool. Based on such insights into the survey-based quantitative data, this study aims to further understanding of the loanwords debate through the analysis of everyday discourse on loanwords. Since the majority of opinions in public discussions of this area of language use are much more nuanced than the simplistic dichotomy between ‘for’ and ‘against’ seen in existing quantitative data, the focus of this study is highly qualitative, taking the approach of media textual analysis. It seeks to explore common perspectives on language shared by participants across the debate, regardless of their opinion on the use of loanwords.

2.5 Gairaigo and Nihongo Dichotomy In order to identify these common perspectives, two keywords are proposed, nihongo (the Japanese language) and gairaigo (or ­ katakanago). In popular loanword-related discussions, the two words are often contrasted despite the fact that gairaigo constitutes one of the vocabulary groups in the Japanese language, nihongo. This seemingly illogical dualism between nihongo and gairaigo is at the heart of the analysis presented in this book. It is suggested that the dichotomy between nihongo and gairaigo is an overarching perspective that transcends the opposing views of those who are in favour and those who are critical of the use of loanwords.

22

For or Against?

Here, it must be underscored that historically loanwords have been an integral part of the Japanese vocabulary. Many scholars have pointed to the language’s relative receptivity to foreign loanwords. For example, Miller (1967: 236–237) believes that “it would be difficult to find another language in the world – excepting perhaps English during the first few centuries after the Norman invasion  – which has been as hospitable to loanwords as has Japanese”. Similarly, Ishiwata (1985: 28–30) points out that Japanese and English have more loanwords than French, Chinese, Russian and many other languages. Thomas (1991: 206) also argues that Japanese, alongside Turkish and Persian, is one of the “counterexamples of languages which have not seriously attempted to resist Europeanisation”. Stanlaw (2005: 36– 37) makes sense of the adoption of loanwords into the Japanese language as an example of a broader history in which “foreign elements were rapidly incorporated in Japanese life and customs and became nativised within Japanese culture”. From this point of view, the frequent use of loanwords is, in fact, a manifestation of Japanese culture. Loanwords are to be distinguished from foreign words, because they are ‘nativised’ through various levels of orthographic, phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic shifts as well as assimilation in various forms, including truncation, compounds, acronyms, abbreviation, blends and affixation (Ishiwata, 1985: 128–137; Shibatani, 1990: 142–144; Ito and Mester, 2001; Stanlaw, 2005: 73– 82; Torikai, 2007). Kay (1995: 70–73) argues that loanwords go through a particularly extensive nativisation process in Japanese, which he explains as a reflection of the desire by the Japanese people to maintain their traditional concepts and culture, even with a high degree of contact with Western culture. He gives some examples in which English words are adopted into the Japanese language through significant phonetic or semantic modifications. The word ‘accelerator’, for instance, has become a loanword ‘akuseru’ in Japanese by omitting the second half ­ of the word. The word ‘Viking’ has become a loanword ‘baikingu’, which ­ means a buffet meal in Japanese (ibid.). There are also cases in which the ­ meaning of a loanword becomes narrower than that of the original word, such as the loanword ridyūsu, which derives from the English word ‘reduce’ but refers specifically to the reduction of waste as a means of environmental protection rather than the reduction of quantity in general (NINJAL, 2006: 20). Similarly, the loanword ‘reshipiento’ refers specifically to recipients ­ of organ transplantation, while it derives from the broader English word ‘recipient’, meaning a person who receives something. Another example is the loanword ‘arubaito’ which refers specifically to a part-time job for young ­ people rather than to work in general, which is the meaning of ‘Arbeit’, the ­ original word in German. Having observed such examples, NINJAL insists that once used in Japanese, a gairaigo is no longer equivalent to the foreign word from which it derives and thus does not give the ‘translation’ in foreign languages in its list of gairaigo replacements (ibid.). ­

For or Against?  23 While the difference between nativised loanwords (gairaigo) ­ and nonassimilated foreign words (gaikokugo) ­ is important, the boundaries between the two are not always clearly defined. Thus, the Cabinet Office and the Agency for Cultural Affairs include both gairaigo and gaikokugo in their opinion surveys, using the expressions ‘gairaigo ­ and gaikokugo’ (Cabinet ­ Office) and ‘katakanago such as gairaigo and gaikokugo’ (Agency for Cultural Affairs), whereas NINJAL uses only the word ‘gairaigo’ ­ throughout its survey. Indeed, many loanwords are in the process of assimilation. Ishino (1983: 11, 21) points out that the judgement on which vocabulary group a word belongs to is often based on subjective perception, because there is no written agreement on how far back the word’s etymology should be traced and when gaikokugo is assimilated into Japanese and becomes gairaigo. Tomoda (1999: 234) similarly argues that “the distinction between a word which is foreign and one which has become naturalised in the Japanese language is by no means clear and any criteria adopted must contain an element of subjectivity”. Frellesvig (2010: 411– 412) confirms this point by stating that “it is today difficult to distinguish between integrated loanwords from English and occasional use of phonologically more or less adapted English words”, because “different speakers have different repertoires of integrated loanwords”. For this reason, the majority of the general public see the three terms, gairaigo, katakanago, and gaikokugo as interchangeable synonyms. This creates a perceived distance between loanwords and other types of Japanese vocabulary. Indeed, it has been pointed out that there is a clear mental demarcation between gairaigo and the rest of the Japanese vocabulary, wago and kango (Loveday, 1996: 48). Regarding the difference in the treatment of ­Sino-Japanese ​­ loans (kango) ­ and Western loans (gairaigo), ­ Park (1987: ­ ­1–2) ​­ explains that kango are seen as less foreign because of “their quantity and their remarkable integration into the Japanese language” even with a larger ­ proportion than Japanese native words (wago). Tomoda (1999: 232) suggests that kango is seen as Japanese because a large proportion of kango are coined in Japan using Chinese- derived elements. Furthermore, as pointed out by Loveday (1996: 48), written gairaigo tend to visually stand out, as they are mostly transcribed using katakana, which is in large part reserved only for the transcription of loanwords in modern Japanese. The rest of Japanese text is made up of kanji, Chinese characters, and hiragana, the cursive syllabary. In this regard, Maher (2008: 122) explains kango is “not strictly considered gairaigo” and points out that the treatment of gairaigo is “heavily dependent upon how it occurs as a written item or written form”. In order to examine the psychological division between gairaigo and the Japanese language (nihongo), it is worth shedding light on the term ‘gairaigo’ ­ ­ itself. As was mentioned in Chapter 1, the term literally means ‘words that come from outside’, which underscores the foreignness of such words. However, it is more important to observe the usage of the two constituent

24

For or Against?

morphemes ‘gairai’ and ‘go’. First, the Sino-Japanese morpheme ‘gairai’ is ­ ­ ­ used for other compounds in Japanese such as ‘gairaishu’ (literally ­ ‘species ­ ­ that come from outside’) for invasive species, or ‘gairaikanja’ ­ (literally ­ ‘patients that come from outside’) for outpatients. The morpheme ‘gairai’ ­ thus is often used to mark distinctions between exogenous and endogenous origins. For example, the term ‘gairaishu’ ­ is contrasted to ‘zairaishu’ ­ (literally ­ ‘species that continue to exist’) which refers to native species, while the term ‘gairaikanja’ ­ is contrasted to ‘nyūinkanja’ ­ (literally ‘hospitalised patients’) ­ which refers to inpatients. It can be said that the morpheme ‘gairai’ and its opposite counterparts delineate a dichotomy between ‘something or someone that comes from outside’ and ‘something or someone that resides inside’. It is therefore considered that nihongo is often juxtaposed to gairaigo as a contrasting counterpart in order to complete the mental dichotomy that ­ the morpheme ‘gairai’ implies. Second, the ambivalent use of the word end­ ing ‘go’ (語) contributes to the ossifying of the perceived division between ­ gairaigo and nihongo. ‘Go’ is used for the vocabulary groups, such as in wago, kango, and gairaigo. It is also used to refer to an individual word such as in ‘ruigo’ ­ (synonym) or ‘taigo’ ­ (antonym). However, ‘go’ ­ can also be used to refer to an entire language, as in ‘nihongo’ ­ (the Japanese language), ‘chūgokugo’ ­ (the Chinese language), or ‘furansugo’ ­ (the French language). For this reason, both gairaigo and nihongo have the same ending ‘go’, ­ leading to a mistaken perception that the two words represent comparable categories. Thus, the word gairaigo is often juxtaposed with nihongo, creating a false impression that loanwords are not part of the Japanese language. It is worth noting in this regard that the term nihongo is contrasted to the terms gairaigo and katakanago more readily than to the term gaikokugo (foreign language), which might be one reason for the fierceness of the controversy over the use of loanwords, since the contrast misleads speakers to believe that they need to choose between gairaigo/katakanago ­ or nihongo, making them feel as if they abandon the Japanese language by choosing to use loanwords.

2.6 Nihongo and Kokugo The term nihongo also comes with its own implications that are useful to discuss. In Japanese, there are generally two words that refer to the Japanese language, nihongo and kokugo. The two words have different connotations, and their use is clearly separated. The term nihongo (literally ­ ‘Japan’ ­ + ‘language’) is used to refer to the Japanese language as seen from the perspective of non-native speakers, or foreigners in an international context. Meanwhile, the term kokugo (literally ‘country’ + ‘language’) is used to refer to the ‘national language’ as seen from the perspective of native speakers or Japanese nationals in a domestic context. Yasuda (2007: 177) describes the connotation of the term kokugo as being ‘our language spoken in our country’. Thus, a class taken in Japanese as a foreign language is a ‘nihongo’ ­ class, whereas a class in Japanese at a school for Japanese children

For or Against?  25 is called a ‘kokugo’ ­ class. Similarly, the opinion surveys carried out by the Cabinet Office and the Agency for Cultural Affairs use the term kokugo in the title (kokugo ni kansuru yoron chōsa) as they target Japanese respondents, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan’s recent guidelines on simple Japanese (yahashii ­ nihongo) for foreign residents uses nihongo in the title (Immigration Services Agency, 2020). The choice between the two terms can also be influenced by context. In the series of language reforms carried out from the late nineteenth century to ‘modernise’ the Japanese language – mainly through vernacularisation of the written language and orthographic standardisation – it was the term ‘kokugo’ ­ that was used in almost all situations. In 1902, Kokugo Chōsa Iinkai (the National Language Research Council) was established, which is considered to be the beginning of language policy in Japan (Gottlieb, 1995: 54), and the term kokugo was used throughout the reform process until 1991 when the review cycle was completed. The reforms suggested by Kokugo Chōsa Iinkai were countered by a group of conservatives that formed Kokugokai (the National Language Association) in 1905. While the National Language Research Council was based on the Western-inspired language policy, the National Language Association consisted of former feudal lords and elites from the preceding Edo period (1603–1868) who believed linguistic reforms would disturb the language and could even influence the nation’s future. However, both reformers and conservatives used the term kokugo to name their organisations. This means that whether for or against the reforms, participants in debates on linguistic reform had equally accepted the premise that there must be a single unified national language, which represents the Japanese nation, corresponding with the newly imported idea of the modern nation-state. In this national context, the focus was on the Japanese language spoken and shared by the Japanese population, with the term kokugo representing the idea of the Japanese language of the time. On the other hand, when the Japanese language is implicitly or explicitly compared to other languages, the term nihongo is preferred, even when discussed by native Japanese speakers in a domestic context. For example, as mentioned in Chapter  1, the public interest in ‘nihongo’ ­ grew dramatically with the remarkable success of the book Japanese One Wants to Read Out Loud (koe ni dashite yomitai nihongo). This so-called ­ ​­ ‘nihongo ­ boom’ was based on the implicit objective to rediscover the value of the Japanese language in the contemporary context, seen as all the more pressing in a Japanese society that is increasingly internationalised. In other words, it implies that when referring to the term nihongo, Japanese speakers are aware of the fact that there are eyes of the Other, whether non-native speakers within Japan, or foreigners abroad. Yasuda (2007: 175) explains that the term nihongo tends to appear in public discussion more often at times of “oscillation of national identity”. He further points out that since the early 1990s, there has been a growing awareness that the Japanese language does not only belong to the Japanese, but is also spoken by non-Japanese people,

26

For or Against?

giving rise to discussions on nihongo. However, he also points to the ironic quality of this development by arguing that, while the Japanese are increasingly aware of the diversity among Japanese language speakers, the demarcation between nihongo and kokugo denotes a thickening of the symbolic wall between native Japanese speakers and Japanese second language learners (ibid.: ­ ­176–183). ​­ The term nihongo garners public attention with growing awareness of diversity in the context of rapid globalisation and internationalisation, and likewise the more introspective notion of kokugo gathers public attention in reaction, with the confirmed importance of the use of the Japanese language within Japan. It can therefore be said that the concepts of nihongo and kokugo have a complementary relationship in Japanese society. In the loanword debate, the Japanese language is almost always referred to as nihongo, creating a commonly found contrast between nihongo and gairaigo. As discussed above, the term nihongo implies the Japanese language in relative terms, thus requiring a counterpart that represents visible or invisible eyes of the Other. Similarly, the term gairaigo also requires a counterpart that ‘remains inside’ to complement the foreignness or outsi­ deness entailed in the morpheme ‘gairai’. As a result, the two terms nihongo and gairaigo fit well in the dichotomous structure of inside and outside, as well as Self and Other. Through the contrast between the two words, therefore, nihongo is perceived as something that remains inside, while gairaigo is perceived as the Other which relativises the Japanese language. By discussing the relationship between nihongo and gairaigo, whether through praise or criticism of loanwords, the image of kokugo, ‘our language’, is also negotiated as an alter ego of nihongo, while the term kokugo is almost never mentioned in the discussion itself. Thus, this study deconstructs the dichotomy between ‘for’ and ‘against’ in the loanwords debate and seeks to identify ways in which the concept of gairaigo is related to that of nihongo in various discursive strategies. To this end, the nihongo-gairaigo ​­ dualism is defined as the basis of the textual analysis presented in this book.

References Agency for Cultural Affairs (2018) Summary of the Results of the Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language. Available at: https://www.bunka.go.jp/tokei_ hakusho_ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ shuppan/tokeichosa/kokugo_yoronchosa/pdf/r1393038_01.pdf (accessed 20 May 2022). Anderson, Benedict (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York, NY: Verso. Bell, Allan (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government (1977) Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language. Available at: https://survey.gov-online.go.jp/s52/S52-08-52-09.html ­ ­ ​­ ­ ­­ ­​­­ ­​­­ ​­ (accessed: 20 May 2022). Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government (1992) Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language. Available at: https://survey.gov-online.go.jp/h04/H04-06-04-04.html ­ ­ ​­ ­ ­­ ­​­­ ­​­­ ​­ (accessed 20 May 2022).

For or Against?  27 Cohen, Anthony Paul (1985) The Symbolic Construction of Community. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Conboy, Martin (2007) The Language of the News. London: Routledge. Daulton, Frank E. (2008) Japan’s ­Built-In ​­ Lexicon of ­English-Based ​­ Loanwords. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fishman, Joshua A. (1974) ‘Language Modernization and Planning in Comparison with Other Types of National Modernization and Planning’. Language in Society 2, pp. 23–43. ­ ­ ​­ Frellesvig, Bjarke (2010) A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giddens, Anthony (1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gottlieb, Nanette (1995) Kanji Politics: Language Policy and Japanese Script. London: Kegan Paul International. Haarmann, Harald (1989) Symbolic Values of Foreign Language Use: From the Japanese Case to a General Sociological Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer. Haugen, Einar (1954) ‘Review of Uriel Weinreich’s Language in Contact: Findings and Problems’. Language 30/3, ­ pp. 380–388. ­ ­ ​­ Haugen, Einar (1972) Studies by Einar Haugen: Presented on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, April 19, 1971. The Hague: Mouton. Immigration Services Agency of Japan (2020) Zairyu shien no tameno yasashii nihongo gaidorain. Available at: http://www.moj.go.jp/isa/support/portal/plainjapanese_ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ guideline.html (accessed 30 June 2021). Inoue, Hisashi, Jugaku, Akiko, Inoue, Fumio, Amano, Yūkichi, Tawara, Machi, Masui, Hajime, and Koike, Tamotsu (1999) Nihongo yo doko e iku. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ishino, Hiroshi (1983) Gendai gairaigokō. Tokyo: Taishūkan Shoten. Ishiwata, Toshio (1985) Nihongo no naka no gaikokugo. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Itō, Junko and Mester, Armin (1999) ‘The Phonological Lexicon’, in Natsuko Tsujimura (ed.) The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 62–100. ­ ­ ­ ​­ Jenkins, Richard (1996) Social Identity. London: Routledge. Jinnouchi, Masataka (1998) Gyōsei to katakanago: zenkoku yakusho kotoba chōsa. Submitted to the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture for Grants­­in-Aid ​­ for Scientific Research. Jinnouchi, Masataka (1999) Yakusho katakanago ishiki chōsa: yakusho, shimbunsha, kōreisha, rōjin fukushi, nihongo kyōiku kankeisha. Submitted to the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture for Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research. Jinnouchi, Masataka (2007) Gairaigo no shakaigengogaku: Nihongo no gurōkaruna kangaekata. Tokyo: Sekaishisōsha. Joseph, John (2004) Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Kay, Gillian (1995) ‘English loanwords in Japanese’. World Englishes 14/1, ­ pp. 67–77. ­ ­ ​­ Loveday, Leo (1996) Language Contact in Japan. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Maher, John C. (1995) ‘The Right Stuff: Towards an Environmental Linguistics’, in John C. Maher and Gaynor Macdonald (eds.) ­ Diversity in Japanese Culture and Language. London: Kegan Paul International, pp. 95–117. Maher, John C. (2008) ‘Multilingual Japan and the Borrowers of the Chuo Line’. Intercultural Communication Studies 7/4, ­ pp. 115–124. ­ ­ ​­ Miller, Roy Andrew (1967) The Japanese Language. Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Company.

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Moody, Andrew J. (2000) ­ ‘Beyond ­ “shooby-dooby-doo-wah”: ­­ ­​­­ ­​­­ ​­ An Examination of English Lyrics in Japanese Pop Music’. Gengo Bunka 8, pp. 1–8. ­ ­ ​­ Moody, Andrew J. (2001) ‘J-pop English: or How to Write a Japanese Pop Song’. Gengo Komyunikeeshon Kenkyū 1, pp. 96–107. ­ ­ ​­ Moody, Andrew J. (2006) ‘English in Japanese Popular Culture and J-Pop Music’. World Englishes 25/2, ­ pp. 209–222. ­ ­ ​­ Morrow, Philip R. (1987) ‘The Users and Uses of English in Japan’. World Englishes 6/1, ­ pp. 49–62. ­ ­ ​­ National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2006) Gairaigo: Iikae tebiki. Tokyo: Gyōsei. Ōno, Susumu, Tetsuro Morimoto, and Takao Suzuki (2001) Nihon, nihongo, nihonjin. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. Park, Whaja (1987) Western ­Loan-Words ​­ in Japanese. Stockholm: Magazine AB. Seargeant, Philip (2011) ‘English in Japan in the Era of Globalization’, in Philip English in Japan in the Era of Globalization. London: Palgrave Seargeant (ed.) ­ Macmillan, pp. 1–12. ­ ­ ​­ Selinker, Larry (1972) ‘Interlanguage’. International Review of Applied Linguistics 10, pp. 209–241. ­ ­ ​­ Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990) The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stanlaw, James (2005) Japanese English: Language and Culture Contact. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Suzuki, Takao (1975) ‘On the Twofold Phonetic Realization of Basic Concepts: In Defense of Chinese Characters in Japanese’, in Fred C. C. Peng (ed.) Language in Japanese Society: Current Issues in Sociolinguistics. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, pp. 175–192. ­ ­ ​­ Takashi, Kyoko (1990) ‘A Sociolinguistic Analysis of English Borrowings in Japanese Advertising Texts’. World Englishes 9/3, ­ pp. 327–341. ­ ­ ​­ Thody, Philip (1995) Le Franglais: Forbidden English, Forbidden American, Law, Politics and Language in Contemporary France: A study in Loan Words and National Identity. London: Athlone. Thomas, George (1991) Linguistic Purism. London: Longman. Thomason, Sarah G. (2001) Language Contact: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Tomoda, Takako (1999) ‘The Impact of Loan-Words on Modern Japanese’. Japan Forum 11/2, ­ pp. 231–253. ­ ­ ​­ Torikai, Kumiko (2007) ‘Katakanago ni miru imi no zure’. Gengo 36(6), ­ pp. 52–59. ­ ­ ​­ Tsuda, Yukio (1997) ‘Hegemony of English vs. Ecology of Language: Building Equality in International Communication’, in Larry Smith and Michael Forman (eds.) ­ World Englishes 200014. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i East-West Center, pp. 21–31. ­ ­ ​­ Weinreich, Uriel (1968) Languages in Contact. The Hague: Mouton & Co. Yamaguchi, Nakami (2007) Nihongo no rekishi. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Yasuda, Toshiaki (2007) Kokugo Shingikai. Tokyo: Kōdansha.

3

Inundating or Absorbed?

3.1 Textual Data This study uses textual data extracted from newspapers published between 1 January 1991 and 31 December 2020 to analyse mass discourse on loanwords over the past thirty years. Using two nationwide newspaper archives – ­​­The Yomiuri Shimbun and The Asahi Shimbun – 2,450 ​­​­​­ entries referencing the term gairaigo or katakanago were extracted. These are the main materials for the analysis. Newspapers are particularly useful for this purpose, due to both the impact they can have in a society and the trust they earn from their audience. News media, in this much, are an important arena through which public discourse reproduces itself, as they are often seen as a reflection of reality, even though this is not straightforwardly the case. The language used in news media is thus influential in orienting how the public view reality. As Giddens reminds us, news media also has a function to allow individuals to ‘virtually’ experience reported events (Giddens, 1991: 26). Thus, through news coverage, an issue or event can be recognised as a common concern for all readers, regardless of which part of the country they are situated in, with the effect that solidarity is strengthened in their cohort. The news media is thereby intimately connected to processes of construction and negotiation of collective identity. This means that texts in nationwide newspapers can be expected to reveal embedded shared perceptions. While, of course, newspapers are not the only mediation of reality available, and have gradually yielded their role to the internet and mobile telecommunications, the newspaper nevertheless still maintains its status as a trusted form of news media and the format of record for these kinds of debates. In Japanese society, in particular, newspapers remain one of the most commonly used sources of information. According to a 2016 opinion survey on the Japanese language by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, 67.7 percent of respondents stated they obtain their daily information from newspapers. This was second only to television (85.9 percent), and exceeded mobile phones and smartphones (41.9 percent), computers (28.5 percent), radio (15.8 percent), advertisements (10.6 percent), magazines (10.3 percent), tablet devices (6.9 percent), and books and dictionaries (6.6 percent). Furthermore,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003197522-3

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Inundating or Absorbed?

43.7 percent of respondents answered that newspapers are the media that exert the second greatest influence on language use after television (86.6 percent), and ahead of mobile phones and smartphones (34.3 percent), computers (20.2 percent), radio (21.6 percent), magazines (13.8 percent), books and dictionaries (8.8 percent), tablet devices (5.0 percent), and advertisements (3.5 percent) (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2016). According to the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association (2021), the number of newspaper copies published per 1,000 adults in the population is higher in Japan than in any other of 38 countries in five world regions studied ( North America, South America, Asia, Oceania, and Europe). At 381.4 copies per 1,000 adults, Japan significantly surpassed its closest competitors: Finland with 245.7 copies, and Germany with 201.5 copies. This suggests that in terms of the written media, newspapers remain the most important source of information in Japan and constitute a credible source for the analysis of public discourse. The two newspapers used in the present study are the largest national newspapers in Japan. Their combined daily circulation is nearly 18 million copies, with The Yomiuri Shimbun issuing approximately 10.26 million (8.1 million morning paper copies and 2.16 million evening paper copies) and The Asahi Shimbun approximately 7.28 million (5.56 million morning paper copies and 1.72 million evening paper copies). Both titles significantly outperform the third largest paper, Mainichi Shimbun, whose circulation is approximately 2.41 million daily copies (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 2020). Using articles from these two newspapers is thus sufficient to reliably survey the major arguments regarding the Japanese use of loanwords. Of course, it is possible that the ratio of positive to negative opinions would differ in other newspaper sources, and in media outlets such as television, radio, magazines or the internet, and that this might differ depending on the composition of audiences’ social profiles – an important factor in determining attitudes towards loanwords. Oshima (2004: 91) suggests that newspapers are “usually conservative about using loanwords because they must be understandable to the public”. Likewise, Jinnouchi (2007: 107) concludes that newspaper journalists tend be more critical of the use of loanwords than people in other professions, including those who work in government offices, nursing care for elderly people, and Japanese language education. It therefore seems safe to say that the proportion of each type of argument observable in newspaper entries may not reflect those of the Japanese population as a whole. However, the purpose of this research is not to make a quantitative survey of the proportion of arguments for and against loanwords. It aims to reveal the discursive underpinnings of arguments employed by both sides, and the values shared by all participants in the discussion. Newspaper entries therefore offer a conducive source for analysis, presenting the widely read discourses of the major print media. In terms of the selection of textual materials for analysis, all categories of entry have been included, from news stories and editorials to letters to

Inundating or Absorbed?  31 the editor. These opinions are expressed with varying degrees of explicitness, often depending on the type of content involved. However, rather than measuring the explicitness of opinions, this study aims to identify recurrent expressions used consciously or unconsciously in news media and beyond, as they reflect common perceptions of loanwords and of the Japanese language. Given a newspaper has a certain authoritative power to represent and influence public perceptions, all forms of newspaper entries have been included in the analysis. The social profile of the author of each analysis has not been considered, unless it is directly related to the content of their argument. While debates between opponents and proponents of the use of loanwords can be partly explained by social profile, the structure of arguments on both sides of the debate tends to share much in common, regardless of social positioning. Both types of arguments are found across a wide generational bracket, from teens to nonagenarians, and a wide variety of professions, from junior high school students, company employees, and doctors to teachers and housewives. In terms of linguistic competence, both groups of authors include individuals with substantial knowledge of foreign languages, who have lived abroad, worked as translators, or were non-Japanese nationals living in Japan, and others who claimed to have no command of foreign languages at all. Despite this diversity of participants, however, there are certain expressions that recur repeatedly and are used by many across the board. This is the centre of the analysis presented in this study.

3.2 Time Frame The temporal parameters of the study cover the period between 1991 and 2020. The analysis starts in the early 1990s, as this marked a particularly important turning point in both Japanese identity in general and in Japanese language policy. First of all, at an international and domestic level, the early 1990s created a new arena for the negotiation of Japanese identity. In 1991, the end of the Cold War had changed the overall character of inter​­​­​­ national relations, with significant implications for Japan. ­­Morris-Suzuki (1998: 177) argues that the dissolution of Cold War tensions made it “easier to cross national boundaries” and enabled Japan to establish new links to neighbouring nations, such as China and Russia. Simultaneous to this, the end of the Cold War changed attitudes toward Americanisms worldwide, and this consequently led to consequently renewed perceptions of American and other foreign influences in Japan. The growing internationalisation of this period, with its increased connections between nations, also saw the expansion of integrated global systems. As a result, various countries, including Japan, started to negotiate increasingly ‘international’ or ‘globalised’ images of their selves, with a significant impact on the way Japanese society envisaged itself. On this point, ­­Morris-Suzuki ​­​­​­ (ibid.: ­­ 174) argues that the wave of globalisation in the 1990s led to “a new upsurge of identity debates in Japan”. The Japanese government’s attitude toward immigration

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Inundating or Absorbed?

perhaps expectedly changed during this period. A revision was made to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act in 1990, allowing third-generation Japanese living abroad to come and work in Japan. Subsequently, in 1991, the Special Act on the Immigration Control of, Inter Alia, Those Who Have Lost Japanese Nationality Pursuant to the Treaty of Peace with Japan was enforced, issuing a special permanent resident certificate to those who once had Japanese nationality, or had parents with Japanese nationality during the Japanese colonial and war periods. Furthermore, in the same year, the previous Alien Registration Law and alien registration certificate were abolished. One outcome of these intersecting factors was that the internal diversity of Japanese society started to grow in the early 1990s, albeit slowly and at a superficial level relative to more diversified nations. Simultaneous to this, the period around 1990 marked the end of Japan’s booming economy, challenging the nation’s unifying vision of rapid postwar economic growth. With this loss of economic confidence came a search for other narratives to retrieve national confidence in Japan. Likewise, the collapse of the bubble economy coincided with the end of the Shōwa period, following the death of Emperor Hirohito in January 1989, and this marked another psychological rupture in Japanese society. Thus, lacking a strong national narrative for the first time in recent history, the post-1990 period has been described by Bouissou (2002: 247) as “the end of the ‘Japanese model’”. There has been no hegemonic slogan or agenda under which to unite Japan, as there was with modernisation in Meiji Japan, military nationalism in wartime Japan, or the democratisation and rapid economic growth of postwar Japan. Rather, this new phase of Japanese history opened up a period characterised by the restless search for identity, embodied in two competing aspirations: on one hand, Japan demonstrated a growing desire to be an international, diverse, and multicultural country; on the other hand, it sought out a new form of ‘Japaneseness’ with which to resist the onslaught of external influences. Faced with these two competing agendas, the question of Japanese identity has become one involving the general public, filtered through a powerful media. Giddens (1991) has referred to the early 1990s as the beginning of a ‘late’ or ‘high’ modern period characterised by rapidly advancing communication technologies and enhanced mobility of information. In this period, the media came to have an increasingly strong influence on identity, building shared value frameworks in societies and providing a foundational pillar for collective identity formation. Naturally, this coincided with a renewed interest in the idea of identity globally. The number of English language books published with the word ‘identity’ in the title has increased from around 2,000 in the 1990s to around 10,000 in the 2010s (Coulmas, 2019: 2). In this much, the thirty years since the early 1990s can be seen as a particularly fertile period through which to scrutinise public media discourse on identity. No less settled than this, was Japan’s language policy. The late 1980s and early 1990s have been described as “the end of the revision cycle of the

Inundating or Absorbed?  33 immediate post-war language reforms and the beginning of a broadening of focus to looking at the language as a whole, rather than concentrating on just the script” (Carroll, 2001: 1). And by the time of the eighteenth National Language Council in 1989, there had been considerable reform. A large part of the standardisation and regularisation of the Japanese language, which started in the modernisation period and continued apace in the post-war period, was now complete. This included: (1) limited use of kanji (Chinese ­­ characters) through the list of characters of general use (Tōyō ­­ Kanji List) in 1946, and the list of characters of regular use (Jōyō ­­ Kanji List) in 1981; (2) the replacement of historical kana orthography by a system based on the pronunciation of modern Japanese; (3) limited readings for each character; (4) simplification of the characters by reducing the number of strokes; and (5) unification of the usage of okurigana (kana ­ that accompanies kanji stems) and the manner in which foreign loanwords are written (Gottlieb, 1995: 157– 158; Yasuda, 2007: 139). This turning point in Japanese language policy resulted in orthography- c entred discussions being displaced by a new type of discussion. ­­language-related ​­​­​­ Following the establishment of the nineteenth Language Council in 1991, the Agency for Cultural Affairs (1993) defined the objective of Japanese language policy as now being to discuss the use of language, digitalisation, internationalisation, linguistic research, and education, in addition to existing questions of orthography. As characteristics of language planning changed in the ­­post-1990 ​­​­​­ period, Carroll (2001: ­­ 74–75) ­­ ​­​­​­ suggests membership of the Language Council expanded to take in members “from journalism, business, broadcasting, and the literary world”. The focus shifted as well to wider issues related to language, and so emerged the idea that the notion of ‘midare’ ­­ (disarray, confusion) in the language had become a public concern, evidencing the normative view on language prevalent in the post-1990 period. Similar changes in language-related discussions are also highlighted by Yasuda (2007: 139), who believes that the discussion of script and orthographic standards has been replaced by value-laden debates on the use of foreign loanwords, and on the role of the Japanese language in international society. In tune with these broader shifts, discussions on loanwords became more prominent in the early 1990s. On 28 June 1991, the Japanese Cabinet Office issued a cabinet order on ‘the notation of loanwords’, which marked a turning point in the public discussion of loanwords from those on regulatory questions, which tended to focus on orthography, to more normative questions. The below newspaper extract from the 1980s represents this earlier tendency in the discussion: The National Language Council of the Ministry of Education has decided to loosen the ‘norm’ over the orthography of loanwords for which the orthographic convention in katakana has not been fixed. The majority of the Council members supported the approval of the writing with ‘v’. ­­ (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 12 December 1988)

34

Inundating or Absorbed?

Since the early 1990s, however, discussions on whether or how loanwords ‘should’ be used have become more animated. Becoming a part of the larger debate on the ‘ideal’ form of the Japanese language, the loanwords debate is now one of values, profoundly linked to a Japanese identity in transition. Throughout subsequent shifts, the debate has continued to reflect the changing values in Japanese society.

3.3 Method of Analysis The viewpoints presented in newspapers regarding the use of loanwords are generally divided into two groups: ‘negative’ views criticising heavy use of loanwords, which see the phenomenon as a sign of the corruption of a pure Japanese language and culture, and ‘positive’ views which accept or praise the increased use of loanwords and see this as a sign of the enrichment of Japanese language and culture. The two groups disagree on the question of whether loanwords should be encouraged or avoided. Though critical narratives seem to far outweigh their opposite, this study seeks to move beyond such dichotomies and analysis of the debate’s numerical distribution. Instead, it aims to unveil the common grounds upon which all opinions in the debate are structured. In qualitative analysis of such value-laden texts, it is impossible to classify all comments into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, or indeed into the idea of ‘supportive’ and ‘critical’. Many opinions are highly nuanced and participants are sometimes even unaware of the assumptions that are embedded in their language use. Therefore, in approaching the textual data used in this research, it is deemed more meaningful to scrutinise how certain implicit assumptions about language, culture and identity can be seen to be embedded, shared, and spread through recurrent expressions. For this purpose, textual analysis is employed as the main methodological approach in this study. Following Sapir’s account of language as presenting “on its inner face the mould of thought” (1921: 21), I take the perspective that language is a tool to conceptualise reality, and that conceptualised reality, in turn, is expressed through language. Therefore, language is both a conceptual tool and an expressive one. Language, in this much, can be seen to embed a certain idea, opinion, or point of view on reality in so implicit a manner that it is typically taken for granted. For this reason, Fowler (1991: 1) has called language “a highly constructive mediation”. In news media, ideas are often embedded in an implicit way, placing the reality into given categories, or in the words of Fowler (ibid.: ­­ 17) “a socially constructed mental pigeonhole”. This not only creates a psychological categorisation, but also reflects existing values in society. Bell (1991: 2) is right in pointing out that “news is determined by values, and the kind of language in which that news is told references and expresses those values”. Similarly, Fowler (1991: 222) argues that what the news media reports “reflects, and in return shapes, the prevailing values of society”. The embedded ideas in the contents of news media are perhaps best analysed from a discursive point of view. Scholars of

Inundating or Absorbed?  35 discourse analysis, including Fairclough (1989; 1995; 2015), Wodak (2008), and Wodak and Meyer (2015), thus call for the critical understanding of the socially constructed meaning of language. The analysis of comments about the use of language, also known as metalanguage, is, moreover, particularly pertinent to this research, as it offers folk linguistic data that reveal shared norms and beliefs about language in society (Niedzielski and Preston, 2010; Preston, 2012). Among various forms of textual analysis, the present research is oriented by the idea that wording and expressions are particularly meaningful, and focuses on the metaphorical expressions, contrasts and parallels recurrently used in public discourse. Fowler (1986: 19) asserts that, “vocabulary is the part of language which most obviously sorts experience into concepts and systems of concepts”. For Halliday (in Fowler, 1986: 80) as well, “vocabulary or lexis is a major determinant of ideational structure”. Similarly, Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 95) argue that “sometimes, indeed quite often, words can be put together in a text with the intention of putting forward a particular point of view, of trying to persuade a reader or listener that this is the point of view”. Conboy (2007: 37) agrees on the important role played by vocabulary (lexical mapping), stating that, “[t]he nouns, adjectives and verbs used in conjunction with the main protagonists and themes of the day play a significant part in reinforcing the initial classification and structuring of the news and direct it towards a clear idea of audience”. The choice of vocabulary, whether used as a metaphor or to draw a contrast or a parallel, can thus be considered to be one of the most important reflections of thoughts. In this much, in order to reveal the processes involved in the construction of mental categorisation in the news media, it is important to pay particular attention to recurrent wordings and expressions, as they are considered to have been drawn from repertoires that evoke powerful associations among the general public, while simultaneously also reinforcing those associations. In the foregoing analysis, eighteen recurrent expressions that represent an action are identified from the textual data. In this chapter, the selected expressions are examined in terms of their implications via examples in which each expression is used in a variety of contexts, mainly those not related to loanwords. Subsequently, Chapter  4 discusses how the implications of the recurrent expressions are applied to the discussion of loanwords. The analysis identifies both agents and patients of action, as well as the relation between the two drawn both explicitly and implicitly by each expression. In order to evaluate the chronological evolution of the loanwords debate and its relation to Japanese identity, Chapter 5 discusses the qualities and values associated with loanwords with reference to various turning points in Japanese society, taking account of domestic economic conditions, changes of government, natural disasters, increasing social diversity, and the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since many of the recurrent expressions are metaphorical, the implication of the metaphor is also examined based on the principle of the conceptual metaphor discussed by Lakoff and Johnson

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Inundating or Absorbed?

(1980). The analysis is thus designed to explore and delimit the conceptual map surrounding loanwords in Japanese and reveal the role the loanwords discourse has played in the construction of Japanese identity.

3.4 Recurrent Verbs In order to extract relevant materials for the analysis, all 2,450 extracts (1,295 ­­ from The Asahi Shimbun and 1,155 from The Yomiuri Shimbun) that used the terms gairaigo or katakanago were collected from the newspaper archives. This was used as the sample from which the most relevant extracts were manually and carefully selected. The selected extracts have been subsequently examined qualitatively in terms of the recurrence of expressions and the conceptual associations related to loanwords and the Japanese lan­­ ​­​­​­ guage. Among recurrent verbs and verb-based expressions, eighteen have been selected for analysis. These are listed in Table 3.1 alongside the total number of extracts in which they are employed. In order to identify the explicit and implicit implications of these expressions, the following information is provided for each: A

Format in which the expression is used with the term gairaigo or katakanago B Dictionary definition C Dictionary examples D Newspaper examples E Other associated terms F Main ideas Section A shows the most commonly seen format in which the expression is employed in the discussion of loanwords. It is a short and simplified phrase based on real extracts from newspapers, which will be introduced in Chapter 4. With regard to B and C, the dictionary definition and examples are taken directly from Kenkyusha’s New ­­Japanese-English ​­​­​­ Dictionary Fifth Edition (Kenkyusha, ­­ 2003) – ​­​­​­one of the most comprehensive ­­Japanese-​­​­​ English dictionaries currently available in Japan, with 480,000 entries (130,000 indexes, 100,000 compounds, and 250,000 examples). In order to examine both implicit and explicit connotations and nuances conveyed by each expression, D shows sample newspaper extracts issued in the examined period (1991–2020) ­­­­ ​­​­​­ that include the same expression but on themes other than loanwords. In order to further scrutinise images associated with the expression, a list of words recurrently used in combination with the expression is provided in E. On the basis of the information provided in A to E, the main ideas communicated through each expression are summarised in F. It should be noted that the English translation of Japanese newspaper extracts used in this study is done by the author. While the translation is

Inundating or Absorbed?  37 ­Table 3.1  Recurrent ­­verb-based ​­​­​­ expressions Expression

Translation

Asahi

Yomiuri

Total

1. Iikaeru 言い換える 2. Teichakusuru 定着する 3. Hanransuru 氾濫する 4. Toriireru 取り入れる・採り入れる 5. Afureru 溢れる 6. Ran’yōsuru 乱用する・濫用する 7. Okikaeru 置き換える 8. Shintōsuru 浸透する 9. Ukeireru 受け入れる・受け容れる 10. Ryūnyūsuru 流入する 11. Tsuihōsuru 追放する 12. Kyūshūsuru 吸収する 13. Hadome o kakeru 歯止めをかける 14. Haijosuru 排除する 15. Haisekisuru 排斥する 16. Rampatsusuru 乱発する 17. Oshiyoseru 押し寄せる 18. Ōkōsuru 横行する

to rephrase

176

188

364

to take hold

116

111

227

to inundate

99

88

187

to adopt

52

43

95

to overflow

41

52

93

to abuse

45

31

76

to replace

35

34

69

to permeate

21

23

44

to accept

21

19

40

to flow in

7

25

32

to expel

15

10

25

to absorb

13

11

24

5

16

21

to eliminate

11

5

16

to boycott

10

6

16

to overissue

8

2

10

to surge

1

9

10

to be rampant

5

4

9

to put a brake

made to render the English text as natural as possible, the key elements for the analysis are intentionally kept in ­­word-by-word ­​­­­​­­​­­­ ​­​­​­ translation, which may result in a somewhat unnatural expression in English in some cases. The textual data constitutes a collection of short extracts of newspaper entries. They are extracted purely on the basis of the recurrent use of certain words and expressions and do not represent opinions of the newspaper.

38

Inundating or Absorbed?

3.4.1 Iikaeru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A rephrases B in C’ is typically structured as ‘(A wa) B o C ni/to ­­ iikaeru’. The verb iikaeru is often used without the agent of action (A), which is implicit. A

Common format: They rephrased difficult loanwords in Japanese. わかりにくい外来語を日本語で言い換えた。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 112): – iikae (noun) ­­ saying in different words; saying in a different way – iIkaeru (verb) ­­ 1 say in different words 2 say something else [different]; change what one said before C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 1 The Edo period can also be called the period of the Tokugawa Shogunate. 2 He said “Itabashi”, but then corrected himself, saying “Iidabashi”. D Newspaper examples: 3 Crisis is in other words a turning point. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 30 ­­ October 1997) 4 Some prefectures rephrase the word ‘request’ with ‘suggestion’ based on the idea of the decentralisation of power under which the national government and the municipal government are on equal terms. (The Asahi Shimbun, 19 December 2001) ­­ 5 The word ‘sustainable’ means in easier words ‘to be comfortable at ­­ any point in time’. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 15 March 2007) ­­ E Other associated terms (change from/to): ­­ ­­ – jargon/plain words ­­ – dialect/standard language ­­ – statistics/interpretation ­­ – foreign word or expression/Japanese translation – difficult word or expression/easier explanation – negative word or expression/positive word or expression F Main ideas: The expression iikareu is often used in the phrases iikaeruto and iikaerunara (‘in other words’, ‘that is to say’) to offer a verbal interpretation of a given statement or numerical data. In this format, the verb iikaeru is a synonym ‘to interpret’ or ‘to understand’, referring to an action to evaluate certain information from one’s own perspective. In example (1), ‘the period of Tokugawa Shogunate’ is an interpretation given to the more common name ‘the Edo period’ (1603–1868). In other ­­ ­­­­ ​­​­​­ cases, a word or an expression to be rephrased and the outcome of the rephrasing generally form a contrast in quality, such as ‘difficult’ versus

Inundating or Absorbed?  39 ‘easy’, ­­ ‘foreign’ ­­ versus ‘native’, ­­ ‘regional ­­ dialect’ versus ‘standard ­­ language’, and ‘negative’ versus ‘positive’. In such examples, it is often the case that the original word or expression is expected to be improved after rephrasing. Thus, in the above list of word sets, the quality before rephrasing is generally less desirable than the quality after rephrasing. In example (3), both terms, ‘crisis’ and ‘a turning point’ refer to the same situation but from different points of view. While the word ‘crisis’ describes the situation from a pessimistic perspective focusing on the existing problem, the phrase ‘turning point’ describes the same situation from a more optimistic and ­­forward-looking ​­​­​­ perspective focused on possible changes that may result. In example (4), both ‘request’ and ‘suggestion’ are used to refer to the same statement, but with different interpretations of the relationship between the national government and municipal governments. On one hand, the term ‘request’ depicts a hierarchical relation in which the national government is above municipal governments. Thus, a municipal government submits a ‘request’ to the national government that has the authority to either accept or decline the request. On the other hand, the term ‘suggestion’ depicts an equal relation between the two institutions in which national and municipal governments give suggestions to each other through dialogues. In the text, the latter is described as a more desirable expression from the viewpoint of the decentralisation of power. In example (5), the word ‘sustainable’ is a word that has become so ubiquitous to be highly malleable, but is defined in plain language as ‘to be comfortable at any point in time’, which is one way to interpret the word. Finally, the expression can be used also as a synonym of the verb ‘to correct’, in which case the original word or expression represents an error while the result of rephrasing is the correction which is the case in example (2). 3.4.2 Teichakusuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A takes hold in B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B ni teichakusuru’. In some cases, B is implicit. A B

Common format: Loanwords that have taken hold can be used as they are. 定着した外来語はそのまま使ってもいい。 Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 1770): – teichaku (noun) ­­ fixing; fastening; sticking; adherence: fixation; immobilisation; (for creatures) colonisation; ecesis – teichakusuru (verb) ­­ take hold; get attached; get fixed; get established; anchor oneself [itself]; establish oneself [itself]; settle; fix; (for plants) take[strike]

40

Inundating or Absorbed?

root; (for new systems or customs) take hold; take root; come to stay; (for transplanted internal organs) take root; establish itself; (to a certain status) establish oneself; become part of (a team) C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 6 Democracy has established itself firmly in the country. 7 It has become firmly established for both husband and wife to go out to work. D Newspaper examples: 8 Recycling shops have become commonplace in the past ten years. ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 27 September 2004) (The 9 The number of non-smoking taxis has increased rapidly in the last several years, and they are becoming common. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 2 June 2009) 10 It is worth observing whether the internet auction will take hold as a new retail outlet. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 25 May 2020) E Other associated terms (what takes hold): – system – habit – lifestyle – customs – practice – event – political measure – knowledge – way of thinking – product F Main ideas: The expression teichakusuru implies that something becomes part of a larger structure, generally in a gradual manner. The verb teichakusuru has a spatial connotation in which something is placed somewhere and gradually becomes stable at that point in space. In other words, the verb also refers to a change in quality for the agent of action from dynamic to static, something unfamiliar or uncommon to familiar or common. Example (6) can be interpreted as saying that democracy has now been accepted as the political system of the country, and the situation is stable. Similarly, example (7) implies that the family structure of the country has stabilised, as dual career families have become the norm. In examples (8), ­­ (9), ­­ and (10), ­­ recycling shops, ­­non-smoking ​­​­​­ taxis, and internet auctions were once newly introduced, and uncommon concepts, but the situation has changed: they are becoming accepted as a stable part of society. Thus, the expression teichakusuru sets up a dichotomy between a new or unfamiliar element that becomes part of a larger entity and the old and familiar structure which receives the new element. The verb teichakusuru has the added connotation that what takes hold is beneficial to where it takes root.

Inundating or Absorbed?  41 3.4.3 Hanransuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A inundates B’ is typically structured as ‘A ga (B ­­ ni) hanransuru’. The verb hanransuru is often used without a patient of action, which is in many cases implicit. When the word is used as a noun, ‘the inundation by A’ is expressed as ‘A no hanran’, in which case the patient of action is almost always implicit. A

Common format: Loanwords are inundating. 外来語が氾濫している。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 2161): – hanran (noun) ­­ 1 flooding; (an) inundation; a deluge; a flood 2 a flood; (an) over-supply; a plethora ­­ ­­ ​­​­​­ – hanransuru (verb) ­­ 1 overflow; flood; flow [run] over (the banks); inundate (a district) 2 flood (the country); inundate (the market) C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 11 The river inundated the whole village. 12 The city is inundated with pornographic magazines./There are dirty magazines wherever you go in the city. 13 The street was flooded with all the colours of the rainbow. 14 We have to pick and choose from the flood of information. D Newspaper examples: 15 Concerns are growing about the situation in which law-evading ­­ ​­​­​­ drugs are inundating [patient of action implicit]. (The Yomiuri Shim­­ bun, 22 August 2012) 16 Information inundates on the internet. (The Asahi Shimbun, 5 Feb­­ ruary 2014) 17 The world is struggling as false information inundates, such as fake Yomiuri Shimbun, 27 June 2019) news on the internet. (The ­­ E Other associated terms (what inundates): – counterfeit products – pornography – illegal copies – illegal drugs – waste – arms and weapons – unhealthy food – smartphones – information – false information – fake news – discriminatory language

42

F

Inundating or Absorbed? – advertisement – colours – images – sounds Main ideas: In its literal meaning, the verb hanransuru is used to describe the inundation of a river or a flood of water. The inundation of a river happens when the level of water increases to the point that the banks of the river can no longer hold the water inside. Similarly, a flood of water occurs when water flows in such large volumes or momentum that a container, be it a dam or pool, is no longer able to contain it. The verb is used with its literal meaning in example (11) in which the agent of action is ‘the river’ and the patient of action is ‘the whole village’. Therefore, the general picture drawn by this expression is a threat of a fluid and dynamic entity over a solid and static base or frame. Based on this picture, the verb hanransuru is often used in its metaphorical sense – this is the case in examples (12) through (17). In examples (12) and (13), the agents for these examples are pornographic magazines (12) and colours (13), which continue to increase, communicating the idea of movement in number and thus of dynamism. The patients of action are the city (12), and the street (13). These are both spatial references that are considered static. In examples (14) and (15), the agents of action are respectively ‘information’ ­­ and ‘law-evading ­­­­ ​­​­​­ drugs’. The patient of action is not specified but in these examples it can be presumed to be society in general. In examples (16) and (17), the agents of action are ‘information’ and ‘false information such as fake news’. In this much, the verb hanransuru has been used particularly frequently with the term jōhō (information) ­­ in newspaper examples, and with the recent development of information technology, information has become a symbol of dynamism. In example (17), the patient of action is implicit and can be interpreted as ‘the world’, an abstract but generally understood spatial concept. When the expression hanransuru is used, that which is said to be inundating is generally something negative that should be eradicated, but its eradication is seen as difficult due to its volume and the rapid pace of increase, as with fake news, illegal drugs, and counterfeit products. However, the thing depicted as inundating can also be something that may be tolerated or celebrated if controlled to an appropriate level, while an excessive increase may cause confusion or disorder. This is the case with information, colours, images, sounds, and advertisements.

3.4.4 Toriireru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A adopt B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B o ­ while sometimes the agent is implicit, often interpreted as an imtoriireru’ personal ‘one’ ­­ or collective ‘we’. ­­

Inundating or Absorbed?  43 A

Common format: The Japanese language has adopted many loanwords. 日本語はたくさんの外来語を取り入れてきた。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 1906): – toriire (noun) ­­ 1 taking in; ingathering 2 harvest; harvesting – toriireru (verb) ­­ 1 take in; gather in; ingather 2 harvest; reap (a harvest); gather (in); take in a crop; gather [take] in crop 3 accept; adopt; introduce; borrow (from-) ­­­­ ​­​­​­ C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 18 The farmers were engaged in the summer harvest of vegetables. 19 adopt his idea 20 accept advice 21 take in new knowledge 22 adopt advanced technology D Newspaper examples: 23 A meal that adopts the concept of Chinese medicine is said to help us get into better physical condition through a good combination of ingredients. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 10 October 2012) ­­ 24 It is important to adopt health maintenance as a daily habit. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 18 September 2017) 25 It is important to take on board opinions that are different from one’s own. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 6 February 2018) ­­ E Other associated words (what is adopted): – way of thinking – points of view – opinions – methods – food ingredients – technologies – culture – trends F Main ideas: In its literal meaning, the verb toriireru is used for harvesting, as can be seen in example (18). Based on the idea of harvesting, whereby the thing being gathered is a crop, such as ‘vegetables’, ‘wheat’, and ‘rice’, it conveys a positive sense of abundance and fertility. The verb’s metaphorical meaning extends this idea, and so toriireru is used to refer to improvement or enrichment based on a voluntary action taken by the agent. Furthermore, the verb toriireru often has a patient of action that represents diversity, such as opinions, points of view, methods, knowledge, technology, and different forms of culture. That which is taken in

44

Inundating or Absorbed? can be an ‘idea’ ­­ (19), ­­ ‘advice’ ­­ (20), ­­ ‘knowledge’ ­­ (21), ­­ ‘technology’ ­­ (22), ­­ and opinions (25). These things all exist in great variety, and are generally treated with respect. Thus, an action to take in a new variety is generally considered to represent a form of enrichment. One can generally work better with more ideas (19), more advice (20), knowledge (21), and more technologies (22). In other cases, the expression toriireru implies that the agent of action enriches itself by taking in something beneficial. In example (23), the action of taking in a new concept in cooking results in an improvement to a meal. Similarly, one’s life can be improved as a result of the action of taking in the idea of health maintenance (24). Therefore, in many cases, the verb toriireru can also be translated as ‘to learn from’.

3.4.5 Afureru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A overflows B’ is typically structured as ‘(B ga) A de afureru’. It is notable that in Japanese, the agent of action is B. The literal translation of the phrase ‘(B ga) A de afureru’ is thus ‘B is overflown with A’. A

Common format: The Japanese language is overflown by loanwords recently. 最近の日本語には外来語が溢れている。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 73–74): ­­ ­­ ​­​­​­ – afureru (verb) ­­ overflow (its banks); run [flow] over (the brim); spill over; brim over (with…); teem [swarm] (with…) ­­ ­­ C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 26 a market brimming with vitality 27 He has an abundance of talent. 28 The heavy rain caused the river to overflow its banks. 29 I let the bath overflow. 30 Everywhere you go there are hordes of people. 31 The living room was flooded with early-morning sunlight. ­­ ​­​­​­ 32 The market is glutted with commodities. 33 Various types of narcotic drugs are already available in abundance all around us. D Newspaper examples: 34 Various information overflows on the internet. (The Yomiuri Shim­­ bun, 16 October 2014) 35 Plastic waste overflows everywhere in Japan. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, ­­ 2 July 2019) E Other associated terms (what overflows): – information – false information – news – fake news

Inundating or Absorbed?  45

F

– people – colours – waste – merchandise – joy – smile – happy faces – charm – affection – confidence – talent – hope Main ideas: Being more literally an expression used for liquid flooding or spilling over, as in examples (28) and (29), the metaphorical expression afureru has a similar connotation to that of hanransuru. While the expression hanransuru conveys an impression of a threatening flood of water, the expression afureru can also be used to express abundance and therefore used with desirable, undesirable, or neutral agents. Desirable agents include ‘vitality’ ­­ (26), ­­ ‘talent’ ­­ (27), ­­ and ‘early-morning ­­­­ ​­​­​­ sunlight’ (31), ­­ while undesirable agents include ‘narcotic drugs’ (33) and ‘plastic waste’ (35). Neutral agents include ‘people’ ­­ (30), ­­ ‘commodities’ ­­ (32), ­­ and ‘various ­­ information’ (34). As is the case with the verb hanransuru, ‘information’ was one of the most frequent words with which the verb afureru was used in recent examples. With desirable agents, the expression is often used to emphasise the positive quality of the patient of action, such as a market full of vitality or a person with a lot of talent. However, with a neutral agent, it often implies that the quantity and the pace of increase has exceeded its equilibrium, resulting in a negative outcome, such as overcrowdedness or confusion. Thus, with an undesirable or neutral agent, the expression afureru can be rephrased as ‘there are too many of’. Another characteristic shared by the expression afureru is that the patient of action often refers to a spatial concept, such as ‘a market’ (26), ‘the living room’ (31) and ‘the market’ (32). Spatial concepts are often considered static. Therefore, as was the case with hanransuru, the expression afureru sets up a contrast between something fluid and dynamic and something solid and static.

3.4.6 Ran’yōsuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A abuses B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B o ran’yōsuru’, while sometimes the agent remains implicit. A

Common format: Loanwords are abused. カタカナ語が乱用されている。

46 B

Inundating or Absorbed?

Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 2706): – ran’yō (noun) ­­ abuse; misuse; misappropriation; an improper use (of ­­­­ -)​­​­​­ – ran’yōsuru (verb) ­­ abuse; misuse; make an improper use of -; m isapply; misappropriate; use improperly (unlawfully); use to excess C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 36 abuse one’s power 37 squander government money 38 an abuse of one’s rights D Newspaper examples: 39 Cannabis is addictive and, when one abuses it, it can cause mental ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 12 April 2018) illness. (The 40 According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, if one abuses MDMA, it causes hallucinations and mental disturbance. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 26 December 2019) 41 The three powers of administration, legislation, and judicature should be independent of each other in order to prevent the abuse of authority. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 4 September 2020) E Other associated terms (what is abused): – drugs – rights – power – authority – social status – legal systems – budget – natural resources – technology F Main ideas: The patient of action ran’yōsuru is not necessarily undesirable on its own. While the verb is predominantly used in terms related to illegal drugs, as in examples (39) and (40), drugs in themselves can also be essential to cure illness or save lives. Other patients of action often used with the expression, be it power (36), government money (37), rights (38), or authority (41), all refer to something powerful that can be beneficial if used in an appropriate manner. However, when the expression ran’yōsuru is used, it also gives the impression that serious problems will result if misused. Thus, the expression ran’yōsuru implies that the object is not being used in an appropriate manner, and there are potential threats to something important as a result. Thus, phrases using this expression often contain references to that which is at stake. In examples (36), (37), (38) and (41), it is the healthy management of the corporate or governmental body. In examples (39) and (40), it is

Inundating or Absorbed?  47 health and wellbeing. The expression ran’yōsuru also implies that there is a malicious intent, which strengthens its negative and threatening connotation. 3.4.7 Okikaeru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A replaces B with C’ is typically structured as ‘(A wa) B o C ni okikaeru’. The verb okikaeru is often used in the passive voice and therefore the agent of action (A) is implicit, which in many cases is an implicitly impersonal ‘one’ or collective ‘we’. A

Common format: We should replace difficult loanwords by Japanese words. 難しい外来語は日本語に置き換えるべきだ。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 371): – okikae (noun) ­­ replacement (of A by [with] B); rearrangement [switching] (of A and B); transposition (of A and B; substitution (of B for A) – okikaeru (verb) ­­ replace (A with [by] B); exchange [switch, change] (A and B, A for B); swap (A for B); substitute (A for B); move (seats) around; change the position (of the desks); transpose (the letters in a word); change [swap] (the chairs) around; rearrange; redistribute; move [shift] (something from … to …). C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 42 In this sentence the word ‘become’ can’t be replaced by ‘get’. ­­ 43 replace the English by Japanese 44 I changed the red vase for a blue one. 45 She rearranged the goods on the display shelves to make them easier to see. 46 We moved the umbrella stand outside the door because it was in the way. D Newspaper examples: 47 Japanese modern novels often converted the relation between the Western culture and Japan into the relation between a man and a woman. (The Asahi Shimbun, 24 December 1996) ­­ 48 There should be the choice to replace domestic old nuclear power plants with safe new plants. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 13 March 2012) ­­ 49 Simple labour is increasingly replaced with machinery. (The Asahi ­­ Shimbun, 24 July 2018) E Other associated terms (change from/to): ­­ ­­ – old system/new system ­­ – negative word/positive word ­­ – difficult expression/easy expression ­­

48

F

Inundating or Absorbed? – something unfamiliar/something ­­ familiar – natural thing/artificial ­­ thing – impossible/possible ­­ – reality/metaphor ­­ – foreign language/native ­­ language Main ideas: The literal idea of the action okikaeru is an exchange between two or more things, typically in the same category but with different qualities. In example (42), the verb ‘become’ and ‘get’ often have similar meanings, but there is some difference in their grammatical functions, which in this context makes them unexchangeable. In example (43), English and Japanese both belong to the category of language, but they are two different languages. Similarly, in example (44), both a red vase and a blue vase have the same function as a vase, but their colours, red and blue, can make different impressions as interior decoration. With a similar nature to the verb iikaeru, the verb okikaeru often has a connotation of improvement or advancement. As is the case with the expression iikaeru, the quality before replacing is generally less desirable than quality after replacing. It can be a change from old to new, from negative to positive, or from less efficient to more efficient. In example (45), the result of the replacement is a better display of goods. In example (46), the result is a better use of space. The expression okikaeru is also sometimes used in a technological or medial context in which an old technology is replaced by a newer technology, as is in example (48) or (49). Furthermore, the expression can be used in the context of mentality. For example, it can be used to refer to the situation in which a pessimistic wording is replaced with an optimistic wording to present a ‘better’ mindset. Therefore, when the verb okikaeru is employed, it often involves a set of two opposing qualities, one undesirable and the other desirable, to depict a situation before and after the action okikaeru  –​­​­​ even though this contrast is sometimes implicit. Finally, okikaeru can be used as a metaphor, in which one thing is compared to another to interpret a situation, as in example (47).

3.4.8 Shintōsuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A permeates B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B ni shintōsuru’. The patient of action (B) is often implicit. A B

Common format: There are loanwords that have permeated the Japanese language. 日本語に浸透している外来語もある。 Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 1356): – shintō (noun) ­­ Permeation; infiltration; penetration; percolation; spread; spreading

Inundating or Absorbed?  49 shintōsuru (verb) ­­ Permeate; infiltrate; penetrate; percolate; spread (into [through]) C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 50 Water slowly percolates down through the soil. 51 New ways of thinking began to spread. 52 (a) ­­ permeation of Western culture (into a country) D Newspaper examples: 53 The comedy boom led by young comedians has taken root and widely permeated. (The Asahi Shimbun, 17 December 2004) 54 Dairy products have become common in Japan since the Meiji Period in which the Western culture permeated. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 30 September 2008) 55 They say that it has become highly probable for service robots to dramatically permeate daily lives. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 January 2015) E Other associated terms (what permeates): – new system – new technology – new idea – new way of thinking – new product – foreign culture – products from abroad – effect of something – political thought – policy measure F Main ideas: In its literal meaning, the expression shintōsuru refers to the process in which a liquid entity becomes part of a solid entity, as with example (50) in which water becomes part of the soil. When the verb is used metaphorically, there is often a reference to something new, unfamiliar, or uncommon – be it a system, technology, idea, or product that becomes progressively familiar and common in a given place. In example (51), ‘new ways of thinking’ gradually become part of people’s minds, while in example (54) ‘Western culture’ becomes part of Japanese society. Similarly, example (53) implies the comedy boom is a new trend that was uncommon before, while example (55) implies that a service robot is a new technology that is not yet very common in our lives. The expression shintōsuru is thus often employed in relation to something new that has come from abroad or has been made using the latest ideas and technologies. In the context of an election, the verb shintōsuru is used to mark assent – e.g. ‘to gain popularity’ or ‘to be widely accepted in an election’. It is also important to point out that the expression shintōsuru is another verb, like hanransuru and afureru, and is often used met­­liquid-related ​­​­​­ aphorically. Thus, as with those earlier examples, there is a connotation –

50

Inundating or Absorbed? that the agent of action is something fluid or dynamic, while the patient of action is something solid or static. ‘Ways of thinking’ (51), ‘trend’ (53), and ‘culture’ (54) are all considered to be something dynamic that continues to change, move, appear and disappear, while ‘people’s minds’ (51), ‘(Japanese) society’ (54), and ‘daily life’ (55) are all considered to be something that is constant and thus static. However, unlike the cases of hanransuru and afureru, the expression shintōsuru implies that the situation is under control, while hanransuru and afureru imply the situation is out of control.

3.4.9 Ukeireru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A accepts B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B o ukeireru’. The verb is sometimes used in the passive voice, in which the agent of action (A) is implicit. A

Common format: The Japanese language has accepted foreign words. 日本語は外国の言葉を受け入れてきた。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 255 noun 256 verb): – ukeire (noun) ­­ receiving; reception; acceptance; admission; admittance – ukeireru (verb) ­­ accept; receive; enroll; enter; register; accession (a book); agree [assent, consent] to…; grant; listen to…; comply with…; entertain (a proposal); buy [swallow] (a new theory); admit; accept; approve; host (a­­ convention) C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 56 reception of refugees 57 acceptance of overseas students 58 Local residents found the plan difficult to accept. 59 accept another culture 60 accept the unpleasant facts 61 This theory has not yet been accepted among experts. 62 He is open to new ideas. 63 He took his friends’ advice without objecting. D Newspaper examples: 64 When the penalty shoot-out decided the winner of the match, players accepted the result quietly. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 10 July 2014) ­­ 65 There is no better way for society to improve than each one of us learning to accept opinions of a variety of people. (The Yomiuri ­­ Shimbun, 19 October 2018) 66 Italy has requested that other European nations accept more immigrants, which is intensifying the opposition between Italy and its neighbours. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 1 July 2019) ­­

Inundating or Absorbed?  51 E

F

Other associated terms (what is accepted): – proposals or suggestions – immigrants – refugees – foreign students – employees – patients – foreign culture – diversity – differences – opinions – unsatisfying reality Main ideas: The verb ukeireru implies that the patient of action is accepted based on the voluntary decision of the agent of action. Thus, there is often a hierarchical relationship, in which the agent of action is more powerful than the patient of action. In the above examples, the government has the authority to decide whether or not to accept refugees or immigrants (56) (66), while the school has the authority to decide whether or not to accept students (57). These decisions are based on a judgement whether the action of acceptance is beneficial for the agent of action. If the patient of action is seen to be harmful, disadvantageous or unconvincing, the acceptance can be rejected, as in examples (58), and (61). In other cases, the verb ukeireru refers to a process of enrichment through the action of accepting something new, as in examples (59), (62), and (63). In this sense, the expression ukeireru is similar to the expression toriireru, in which the patient of action is something that exists in variety. Cultures (59), ideas (62), advice (63) and opinions (65) all exist like this in a variety of forms, and accepting them generally equates with enrichment, improvement, or flexibility. Finally, the expression ukeireru can also imply voluntary concession, such as the acceptance of unpleasant facts (60), or a loss in sport (64).

3.4.10 Ryūnyūsuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A flows into B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B ni ryūnyūsuru’. The patient of action (B) is often implicit. A B

Common format: After the war, many loanwords flew in. 戦後、多くの外来語が流入した。 Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 2723): – ryūnyū (noun) ­­ (an) inflow; (an) influx; incoming ­­ ­­ – ryūnyūsuru (verb) ­­ flow [come, stream] in [into…]

52

Inundating or Absorbed?

C

Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 67 gold influx 68 an influx of refugees 69 the influx of settlers D Newspaper examples: 70 A large number of immigrants have flown into Europe in the past twenty years. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 9 October 2001) 71 Funds flow in not only from Japan, the U.S. and Europe but also ­­ from Southeast Asia. (The Asahi Shimbun, 23 November 2005) 72 The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries expects cheap ­­ Asahi Shimrice to flow in after the abolition of custom duties. (The bun, 11 December 2012) E Other associated terms (what flows in): – immigrants – foreign merchandise – foreign currencies – gold – funds – people – crimes – arms – commodities – people F Main ideas: The expression ryūnyūsuru is another ­­water-related verb, which in ​­​­​­ its literal sense refers to the movement of something fluid. Therefore, in its metaphorical use, the agent of action is also generally something that is considered highly fluid. It is often used in the context of finance or trades, as with an influx of commodities such as gold (67), foreign capital (71) and rice (72). Similarly, the expression is often used in the context of the movement of people, as in an influx of refugees (68), settlers (69), and immigrants (70). In the case of ryūnyūsuru, there is no positive or negative connotation in the verb itself, therefore the agent of action (that which flows in) can be either desirable or undesirable. However, there is a connotation that the movement is rapid, and that it is difficult to stop or control its momentum, as it is often motivated by a strong force or line of reasoning. For example, funds or commodities flow into certain markets motivated by strong financial interests (67) (71) (72). Refugees flow into another country in order to escape intolerable danger or violence (68), while settlers flow into another country on the pretext of colonisation or development (69). 3.4.11 Tsuihōsuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A expels B from C’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B o C kara tsuihōsuru’. The agent of action (A) is sometimes implicit.

Inundating or Absorbed?  53 A

Common format: We should expel incomprehensible loanwords. 意味不明の外来語は追放するべきだ。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 1714): – tsuihō (noun) ­­ 1 eviction; ejection; banishment; expatriation; deportation; condemnation to exile; transportation 2 (noun) purge; expulsion ­­ 3 (noun) removal; elimination; liquidation – tsuihōsuru (verb) ­­ 1 banish, exile; deport; evict; expel; expatriate; condemn (something) to exile; send[force] (something) into exile; proscribe; rout[force] out; taboo; ostracise 2 purge; ban; expel; oust; evict 3 remove; eliminate; liquidate; banish C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 73 exile somebody from the country 74 purge somebody from public office 75 expel somebody from the teaching profession 76 (the) expulsion (of somebody) from the political world ­­ 77 banishment of violence D Newspaper examples: 78 It is important to be careful about your own diet, possibly in consultation with your doctor, in order to expel obesity. (The Asahi ­­ Shimbun, 11 September 2004) 79 We have the courage to expel bullying and discrimination. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 4 September 2012) 80 The no smoking policy is the most important objective. We must be ready to expel cigarettes. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 27 August 2017) ­­ E Other associated terms (what is expelled): – violence – discrimination – bullying – drinking – smoking – illegal immigrants – illegal activities – political corruption – counterfeit media – health problems F Main ideas: As the list of associated terms demonstrates, the patient of the action tsuihōsuru is generally something undesirable. It is neither its quantity nor its degree that is problematic, but the existence of the thing in and of itself. In most cases, it is something either deemed morally wrong, such as violence (77) or bullying and discrimination (79), bad for one’s health,

54

Inundating or Absorbed? as in obesity (78) and cigarettes (80), or illegal, such as illegal activities, counterfeit goods or political corruption. By contrast, the place from which something undesirable is expelled often refers to something that is important to a great mass of people  – for instance, a country (73), public office (74), the teaching profession (75), or the political world (76). They are either a place or a status which is seen to have a great impact on, or importance to, the life of many people, and to wield significant power and authority. While tsuihōsuru is a strong expression that refers to a complete expulsion of someone, or the eradication of something, the term is often used as part of a slogan or pledge to eradicate something that is consensually seen as harmful, as in examples (78), (79), and (80).

3.4.12 Kyūshūsuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A absorbs B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B o kyūshūsuru’. A

Common format: The Japanese language has absorbed many loanwords since ancient times. 日本語は昔から多くの外来語を吸収してきた。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 721): – kyūshū (noun) ­­ absorption; assimilation – kyūshūsuru (verb) ­­ absorb; assimilate C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 81 a ­­shock-absorbing mat ​­​­​­ 82 A sponge absorbs water. 83 absorb foreign business 84 absorb knowledge 85 absorption of nourishment 86 Japan was busily engaged in assimilating Western civilisation. D Newspaper examples: 87 He absorbs and digests techniques at a surprisingly fast rate and within a short time. (The Asahi Shimbun, 28 February 2014) ­­ 88 Students were absorbing different ways of thinking by having discussions with young people in the same generation from various countries. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 6 September 2019) ­­ E Other associated word (what is absorbed): – knowledge – technology – wisdom – advice – foreign culture

Inundating or Absorbed?  55

F

– way of thinking – company – business – country – financial loss – nutrition – shock – noise – odour – ultraviolet or CO2 Main ideas: The verb kyūshūsuru in its literal sense refers to the process through which a liquid or some other substance is taken in or soaked up, as seen in examples (81) and (82). In its metaphorical sense, the patient of the action kyūshūsuru can be either something desirable, such as wisdom, knowledge (84), nutrition (85), civilisation (86), new techniques (87), or different ways of thinking (88); something undesirable, such as a financial loss; or something neutral, such as a company, business (83), or country (in the case of acquisition or unification). When the patient of action is something desirable, the action kyūshūsuru implies enrichment or improvement. However, when the patient of action is undesirable, the action implies the mitigation, offset, or reduction of negative impacts. Therefore, the expression kyūshūsuru is often employed metaphorically to describe a desirable situation, whether or not the patient of action is something deemed desirable. Further to this, in some cases where used in its metaphorical sense, the expression implies a hierarchical relationship between the agent and the patient of action, in which the thing doing the absorbing is generally more powerful, and larger than that which is being absorbed – for instance, in the case of a company acquisition or the unification of a country. Finally, as with various other expressions above, kyūshūsuru is a water-related expression and the patient of action is generally associated with characteristics that are fluid and dynamic.

3.4.13 Hadome o kakeru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A puts a brake on B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B ni hadome o kakeru’. A B

Common format: We should put a brake on the increase of loanwords. 外来語の増加に歯止めをかけるべきだ。 Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 2121): – hadome (noun) ­­ 1 a drag; a pallet; a click; a pawl 2 a brake; a slipper; a skidpan; a skid

56

Inundating or Absorbed? 3

a brake (on rampant inflation); an imposed limit (on spending); a check (on corrupt practices) – hadome o kakeru (verb) ­­ (Related to the meaning 2) brake; skid; apply [put on] the brakes (Related to meaning 3) put the brake on C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 89 There needs to be a check imposed on the deployment of the Self­Defense Force. 90 stem the decline in the birth rate 91 We must put an end to that vicious cycle. D Newspaper examples: 92 There are more than a few lessons that we can learn from the wisdom of our ancestors in putting the brakes on the deforestation in Asia. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 10 October 2008) 93 We must put the brakes on population decline. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 3 February 2014) 94 It is not possible to put the brakes on the declining number of book readers among university students. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 19 March 2018) E Other associated words (what is stopped): – declining population – ageing society – falling stock prices – declining economy – spread of virus infection – widening social gaps – deteriorating scholarly achievement – declining reading patterns – rising unemployment rate F Main ideas: In its literal sense, hadome refers to a wheel chock. In its metaphorical use, the expression hadome o kakeru tends to be employed when discussing an ongoing phenomenon which can cause an undesirable outcome if it ­continues – ​­​­​­for instance, the deployment of the ­­Self-Defense ​­​­​­ Force (89), a decline in the birth rate (90), a vicious cycle (91), deforestation (92), population decline (93), and declining numbers of book readers (94). The expression implies that the situation is rapidly deteriorating and therefore requires immediate action. The agent of action for this expression is often a governmental or administrative body, or a regulation that has an authority in the public realm. 3.4.14 Haijosuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A eliminates B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B o haijosuru’.

Inundating or Absorbed?  57 A

Common format: There is no need to eliminate loanwords. 外来語を排除する必要はない。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 2077): – haijo (noun) ­­ exclusion; removal; elimination; abatement – haijosuru (verb) ­­ exclude; remove; eliminate; do away with…; put out of the way; foreclose C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 95 remove ­­sit-in ​­​­​­ strikers 96 a personnel change intended to remove discontent D Newspaper examples: 97 The top priority is to eliminate local armed groups. (The Yomiuri ­­ Shimbun, 15 May 2014) 98 Smoking may weaken the immunity that eliminates virus. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 17 February 2016) 99 Internet mail order companies eliminate illegal goods. (The Asahi ­­ Shimbun, 17 December 2020) E Other associated terms (what is eliminated): – violence – risks – prejudice – discrimination – viruses and diseases – unnecessary components – activities that disturb others – illegal products and business – armed groups and gangs F Main ideas: The patient of the action haijosuru is often something that interferes with the equilibrium of a group or entity. For example, sit-in strikers (95), or those who display discontent (96), are dissatisfied with the current conditions in their given group context, be it a nation, organisation, or company. While that dissatisfaction may, of course, be justified, the expression implies a disharmony that is problematic. Similarly, armed groups (97) disrupt the peaceful state of the local community, a virus (98) disrupts the healthy state of an organism, and illegal goods (99) disrupt the healthy management of commerce. As with tsuihōsuru, the action haijosuru connotes a strong action involving force. Thus, the agent of action is often an individual or an organisation that is seen to have a certain degree of social or political authority. The action haijosuru therefore implies that the source of disharmony is removed in order to ameliorate the situation or to restore equilibrium.

58

Inundating or Absorbed?

3.4.15 Haisekisuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A boycotts B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B o haisekisuru’. A

Common format: During the war, there was a movement to boycott loanwords. 戦中に外来語を排斥する運動があった。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 2078): – haiseki (noun) ­­ rejection; expulsion; exclusion; ostracism – haisekisuru (verb) ­­ keep out; drive out; reject; exclude; expel; eject; proscribe; boycott C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 100 boycott foreign goods D Newspaper examples: 101 People tend to stay with those who are like themselves and reject Asahi Shimbun, 17 June 2020) those who are different from them. (The ­­ 102 By focusing too much on the smooth operation of parliament, there is a risk of rejecting diverse opinions. (The Asahi Shimbun, 22 Sep­­ tember 2007) 103 There was already a movement to reject Buddhism in ancient China. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 20 March 2018) ­­ E Other associated terms (what is boycotted): – opinion – theory – religion – foreign country – foreign culture – foreign language – other people – statement – difference – foreigner – immigrant – refugee F Main ideas: The patient of the action haisekisuru often represents something that is deemed to be outside the mainstream, majority, or socially conventional. It is often used in relation to something that has arrived from abroad, but has not yet been fully accepted or understood locally, as in examples (100) and (103). It can also be used with reference to the introduction of different characteristics, ideas or ways of thinking, as in examples (101) and (102). The expression implies that the agent of action rejects the patient of action with strong determination, and so it is often

Inundating or Absorbed?  59 used in relation to political or social movements imposing boycotts. Because of its strong and quasi-violent connotation, the action is sometimes, although not always, seen negatively as a manifestation of purism or conformism that negates diversity or flexibility, as in example (102). 3.4.16 Rampatsusuru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A overshoots/overissues B’ (while used metaphorically in this context, the verb rampatsusuru has two meanings, 1) to excessively shoot a gun, and 2) to excessively issue financial bills. Although the dictionary places the metaphorical use only under the second meaning quoted below, both meanings seem to be reflected in the metaphor) is typically structured as ‘A wa B o rapatsusuru’. A

Common format: One should not overissue difficult loanwords. 難しい外来語を乱発するべきではない。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 2705): – rampatsu (noun) ­­ an excessive [a reckless] issue (of bank notes); an overissue – rampatsusuru (verb) ­­ issue excessively[recklessly]; overissue C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 104 an overissue of banknotes D Newspaper examples: 105 If evacuation advisories are excessively issued while there is no danger, they will not catch the attention of people when really necessary. (The Asahi Shimbun, 19 October 2013) ­­ 106 It is important to support the business and everyday life of local people rather than overissuing ­­large-scale development projects. ​­​­​­ (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 9 December 2014) ­­ 107 It requires inventive ideas, as overissuing information can cause lisYomiuri Shimbun, 17 January 2017) teners to stop thinking. (The ­­ E Other associated terms (what is overissued): – information – policy measures – political action – loans – bills – banknotes – currencies – terrorism – warning – tickets

60

Inundating or Absorbed?



F

Main ideas: The patient of the action rampatsusuru is not necessarily something undesirable. As the above list of associated terms suggest, it is often something necessary and important  ­ – for ​­​­​­ instance, information, political measures, or currencies  – although it can likewise be used for something undesirable, such as terrorism. However, the expression implies that the patient of action is produced excessively without sufficient consideration of consequences. For example, the government of a country issues too many banknotes without considering that inflation might arise as a result (104). Similarly, if a municipal government issues too many evacuation advisories, it may cause a situation where residents ig­­ ​­​­​­ nore them (105). If there are too many ­­large-scale development projects, the lives of local residents may be disrupted (106), and too much information may cause confusion (107). Therefore, the action rampatsusuru implies that the action should not be taken excessively, as it could lead to an undesirable outcome.

3.4.17 Oshiyoseru In Japanese, a sentence ‘A advances on B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B ni oshiyoseru’. The patient of action (B) is often implicit. A

Common format: Loanwords flood one after another. 外来語は次から次へ押し寄せる。 B Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 392): – oshiyoseru (verb) ­­ advance [close in, march] on (a castle); descend [bear down] on (the enemy); make [rush] for (the door); inundate; flood (into a market); move [sweep rush, hasten] toward…; descend on (the shore) C Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 108 As soon as people saw the water descending on them. 109 The newly opened theme park was inundated with tourists. / Enormous numbers of tourists descended on the newly opened theme park. 110 Enemy forces are advancing on the frontier. 111 Many difficult problems are forcing themselves on the Prime Minister’s attention. 112 The wave of computerisation overwhelmed society in a flash. D Newspaper examples: 113 The wave of development is advancing on the thick forest where orangutans live. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 23 February 2004) ­­ 114 She has been feeling the ageing society advancing on the morning market. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 18 June 2012) 115 Shoppers descended on the store as soon as it opened. (The Asahi ­­ Shimbun, 14 April 2019)

Inundating or Absorbed?  61 E

F

Other associated terms (what surges): – changes – restructuring – trend – impact – ageing society – uncertainty – people – natural disaster Main ideas: The verb oshiyoseru is often used for waves or other flows of water, as seen in example (108). In its more metaphorical meanings, the agent of action is sometimes a source of fear or threat that continues to approach – an enemy, as in (110), and a problem (111). In other cases, the expression is employed to emphasise that the patient of action is numerous, and converging on a given place vigorously, as in the image of waves – for instance, tourists or shoppers collectively rushing respectively to a theme park or a store, as in examples (109) and (115). Finally, the agent of action of the expression oshiyoseru can be an on-going ­­ ​­​­​­ social or political phenomenon, such as computerisation (112), development (113), or an ageing population (114). It implies that the phenomenon is happening at a fast pace with a momentum that is not easy to stop.

3.4.18 Ōkōsuru In Japanese, the sentence ‘A is rampant in B’ is typically structured as ‘A wa B de ōkōsuru. B is often implicit. A B

C

Common format: Loanwords are rampant on TV and radio. テレビやラジオで外来語が横行している。 Dictionary definition (Kenkyusha, 2003: 346): – ōkō (noun) ­­ 1 walking sideways [sidewise]; a sidling movement 2 rampancy; prevalence – ōkōsuru (verb) ­­ 1 go [walk, move] sideways [sidewise]; sidle 2 walk around doing what one pleases 3 be common ( place); be rampant [rife, widespread, prevalent] Dictionary examples (ibid.): ­­ 116 a part of town where violence is rife 117 Picking pockets, robbery, and kidnapping are commonplace in this place. 118 Several different pernicious sales methods targeting the elderly are rampant.

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D Newspaper examples: 119 Everyone knows that counterfeit products are rife in all markets and creating a problem. (The Asahi Shimbun, 1 April 2005) ­­ 120 Crimes that use the anonymity and diffuseness of the internet are rampant. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 April 2016) ­­ 121 Discriminatory hate speech is still rampant. (The Asahi Shimbun, 1 ­­ December 2016) E Other associated terms (what is rampant): – counterfeit money and products – crimes – terrorism – discrimination – hate speech – misinformation – illegal activities – exploitation – political corruption – animal abuse F Main ideas: The verb ōkōsuru is often used for an action motivated by the malicious intent to take advantage of the weak or to deceive someone. Violence is an intentional abuse of force, as in example (116) and hate speech is an intentional expression of hatred (121), while crimes are committed by intentionally breaking laws, as in example (117). Fake or counterfeit products are manufactured with intent to deceive consumers who are unable to distinguish fake branded goods from real ones, and intentionally violate the intellectual property rights of legitimate In example (118), pernicious sales meth­manufacturers – ​­​­​­example (119). ­­ ­­ ods take advantage of the elderly, while in example (120), criminals take advantage of the anonymity and the diffuseness of the internet. In all of these kinds of actions, people suffer consequences wherever the agent of action is rampant (B). In the example of violence, people are hurt, and when counterfeit products are sold consumers and the owners of intellectual property rights suffer losses. The expression ōkōsuru also implies that despite malicious intent and the involvement of victims, the action has been taken relatively easily without there being an effective means to stop it.

3.5 Implications The examination of these eighteen verbs provides important hints to understanding the discussion of loanwords. First and most obviously, it gives an insight into opinions about the use of loanwords. The verbs can be divided into three groups based on the evaluation of the situation:

Inundating or Absorbed?  63

64

Inundating or Absorbed? Other, as well as inside and outside. These are the two elements essential to understanding one’s individual or collective identity, following the idea that identity grows “out of a distinction between one’s true inner self and an outer world” (Fukuyama, 2018: 9). Another important observation is that six verbs out of the eighteen included in this study are based on metaphors related to water or liquid: – hanransuru – afureru – shintōsuru – ryūnyūsuru – kyūshūsuru – oshiyoseru As metaphors are great indicators of our perception, these metaphorical expressions need to be examined in depth in line with the theory of conceptual metaphor. In the image of the flow of water depicted in these metaphors, it is important to identify not only what is compared to the idea of water, but also what is compared to the idea of solidity used in contrast to that fluidity. Answers to these questions are the keys to understanding how the Japanese language is perceived as part of national identity.

References Agency for Cultural Affairs (1993) Minutes of the Twentieth National Language Council. Available at: https://www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/sisaku/joho/ ­­ ­­ ­­ ­­ ­­joho/kakuki/20/sokai001/04.html ­­ ­­ ­­ ­­ (accessed ­­ 5 October 2021). Agency for Cultural Affairs (2016) Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language FY2015. ­­ ­­ ­­ ­ Available  at:  https://www.bunka.go.jp/tokei_hakusho_shuppan/tokeichosa/ (accessed 5 October 2021). ­kokugo_yoronchosa/pdf/h27_chosa_kekka.pdf ­­ ­­ ­­ Bell, Allan (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ­­ Bouissou, ­­Jean-Marie ​­​­​­ (2002) ­­ Japan: The Burden of Success. London: Hurst  & Company. Carroll, Tessa (2001) ­­ Language Planning and Language Change in Japan. Surrey: Curzon. Cohen, Anthony Paul (1985) The Symbolic Construction of Community. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Conboy, Martin (2007) ­­ The Language of the News. London: Routledge. Coulmas, Florian (2019) ­­ Identity: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ­­ Fairclough, Norman (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman. Fairclough, Norman (1995) ­­ Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman. ­­ ­­ ­­Dialectical-Relational ​­​­​­ Fairclough, Norman (2015) ‘A Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis in Social Research’, in Wodak, Ruth and Meyer, Michael (eds.) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: SAGE, pp. 86–108. ­ ­­ ​­​­​­ Fowler, Roger (1986) ­­ Linguistic Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fowler, Roger (1991) ­­ Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.

Inundating or Absorbed?  65 Fukuyama, Francis (2018) ­­ Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Giddens, Anthony (1991) Modernity and ­­Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late ­­ ​­​­​­ Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gottlieb, Nanette (1995) ­­ Kanji Politics: Language Policy and Japanese Script. London: Kegan Paul International. Ishiwata, Toshio (1985) ­­ Nihongo no naka no gaikokugo. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association (2021) Newspaper Circulation by Country. Available: https://www.pressnet.or.jp/data/circulation/circulation04. ­­ ­­ ­­ ­­ html (accessed 5 October 2021). ­­ Jinnouchi, Masataka (2007) Gairaigo no shakaigengogaku: Nihongo no gurōkaruna kangaekata. Tokyo: Sekaishisōsha. Kenkyusha’s New ­­Japanese-English ​­​­​­ Dictionary (2003) Fifth Edition. Tokyo: Kenkyusha. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Loveday, Leo (1996) Language Contact in Japan. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ­­ Morris-Suzuki, Tessa (1998) Japan: Time Space Nation. New York, ­­ ​­​­​­ ­­ ­­Re-Inventing ​­​­​­ NY: M.E. Sharpe. Niedzielski, Nancy A. and Preston, Dennis R. (2010) Folk Linguistics. New York, NY: De Gruyter Mouton. Oshima, Kimie (2004) ‘The Movement of Gairaigo Usage: The Case of the Asahi Newspaper from 1952 to 1997’. Bunkyo Gakuin Daigaku Gaikokugo Gakubu Bunkyo Daigaku Tankidaigaku Kio 3, pp. 91–102. ­ ­­ ​­​­​­ Preston, Dennis R. (2012) ‘Folk metalanguage’, in Jaworski, A, Coupland Nikolas, and Galasinski Dariusz (eds.) Metalanguage: Social and Ideological Perspectives. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 75–102. ­ ­­ ​­​­​­ Sapir, Edward (1921) Language: An Introduction of the Study of Speech. New York, ­­ NY: Harcourt, Brace and Company. The Asahi Shimbun Kikuzo (2021) ­­ Available at: http://database.asahi.com/library2e/ ­­ ­­ (accessed 5 October 2021). The Yomiuri Shimbun (2020) Media Data. Available at: https://adv.yomiuri.co.jp/ ­­ ­­download/PDF/mediakit/general/mediadata2020/prefectures.pdf ­­ ­­ ­­ ­­ ­­   (accessed ­­  5 October 2021). ­­ ­­ The Yomiuri Shimbun Yomidasu Rekishikan (2021) Available at: https://database.yomiuri.co.jp/rekishikan/ ­­ (accessed ­­ 5 October 2021). Wodak, Ruth (2008) ­­ ‘Introduction: ­­ Discourse Studies­­ ​­​­​­ Important Concepts and Terms’, in Ruth Wodak and Michal Krzyzanowski (eds.) Qualitative Discourse ­ ­­ ​­​­​­ Analysis in the Social Sciences. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–29. Wodak, Ruth and Meyer, Michael (2015) ‘Critical discourse studies: history, agenda, theory and methodology’, in Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (eds.) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: SAGE, pp. 1–22. ­ ­­ ​­​­​­ Yasuda Toshiaki (2007) ­­ Kokugo shingikai. Tokyo: Kōdansha.

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4.1 Nihongo, the Japanese Language, and Gairaigo, Loanwords In order to discuss the relationship between debates on loanwords and the question of Japanese identity, it is important to identify how notions of Self and Other are constructed. Indeed, the process of identity formation is essentially the process of identifying Self and Other and attaching to them specific qualities and values. Language thus can be seen to play an essential role in the formation of national identity, and vice versa. This is what Joseph (2004: 224) alluded to when he argued that identities are constructed through language, and that languages are constructed through identities. By this logic, it is unsurprising that in Japan the notion of the Japanese language is profoundly bound to the Japanese national identity as a form of imaged Self. Yet, that is only half the picture. Self-identification is not possible without identification of the Other. Jenkins (1996: 12) emphasises the intimate relationship between the identification of ­Self – ​­​­​­who we think we are – ­ and ​­​­​­ that of Other – ­ who ​­​­​­ we think others are. Fukuyama (2018: ­­ ­­ ​­​­​­ similarly argues 9–10) that identity grows out of a distinction between Self, which he describes as “one’s true inner self” and Other, which he describes “an outer world of social rules and norms”. Based on this idea, this chapter seeks to identify the contrasting notions of Self and Other embedded in the Japanese discourse on loanwords by examining rhetorical and discursive strategies recurrently used in the textual data obtained from the newspaper archives. Its working hypothesis is that in the loanword debate, the notion of Self is represented by the idea of the Japanese language, expressed by the term nihongo in Japanese, while the notion of Other is represented by the idea of loanwords, expressed by the terms gairaigo or katakanago, forming a perceptual contrast between the two. As discussed in Chapter  2, the hypothetical contrast between nihongo and gairaigo seems erroneously convincing when written in Japanese, as both words share the same ending ‘-go’, which can mean both ‘word’ and ‘language’. However, when we follow the lexicological explanation, gairaigo

DOI: 10.4324/9781003197522-4

Japanese or Foreign?  67 constitutes one of the main vocabulary groups in the Japanese language and thus gairaigo is a part of nihongo. If there is indeed a perceptual contrast between the two, it would suggest that in the Japanese popular discourse there is an invented category of nihongo from which loanwords are excluded. ​­​­​­ This hypothesis on the gairaigo-nihongo contrast is examined using sample extracts containing the eighteen recurrent verbs and verbal expressions identified in Chapter 3. In doing so, the relation between the two notions, nihongo and gairaigo, is scrutinised in terms of three elements: word association, adjectives and adjectival expressions, and the relationship between the two notions.

4.2 Analysis Each verb or verbal expression is listed with the following information: A B C D E F

Sample extracts Word associations for loanwords Word associations for Japanese Qualities associated with loanwords Qualities associated with Japanese Analysis of use

Section A presents sample extracts from the examined textual data. Sections B and C list words that are used in parallel with gairaigo and nihongo, either through juxtaposition of the situations or through recurrent association. In other words, they are lists of the things that are conceptually linked with the respective notions of the Japanese language and loanwords. Sections D and E identify adjectives and adjectival expressions that are often employed to describe those notions. Subsequently, section F discusses the implications of the verb or verbal expression in the context of the use of loanwords, referring to example usages and implications of each verb that were detailed in Chapter 3. A particular focus is placed on the relationship between the Japanese language and loanwords delineated by each verb or verbal expression. After the examination of each verb or verbal expression, the final part of this chapter discusses the recurrent structures of the narratives in the loanwords discussion, both in terms of the contrast between nihongo and gairaigo, as well as different types of narratives that support various opinions in the debate. 4.2.1 Iikaeru (to ­­ rephrase) A

Sample extracts: 1 The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, which works on the easy rephrasing of loanwords, released the

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final list of ­­forty-seven ​­​­​­ words last month. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 18 December 2003) 2 It seems that loanwords that are difficult to understand are being rephrased into Japanese. I truly hope that they will be made into the splendid Japanese language again. (reader’s letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 20 February 2004) 3 It [the broadcasting manual] has advised that an explanation should be added to difficult foreign words and loanwords or that they are ­­ rephrased in Japanese. (The Asahi Shimbun, 30 August 2013) B Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – English ­­ – Western language (yokomoji) – specialist jargon – bureaucratic jargon ­­ – medicine/Welfare ­­ – newspapers/TV – computer C Word associations for Japanese: ­­ – citizens/people – people in the neighbourhood association – readers – elderly people – foreigners – patients – wago/yamatokotoba ­­ – kango – kanji – honorifics – Meiji period – translation – tradition – efforts – Japan/the Japanese ­­ D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult – difficult to understand – incomprehensible – ambiguous – unfamiliar E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – easy – simple – appropriate

Japanese or Foreign?  69

F

– correct – familiar – splendid Analysis of use Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb iikaeru can be summarised as follows: 1 It often refers to rephrasing based on a change in point of view. 2 There is often a contrast between two opposing qualities. 3 The rephrasing is often considered an improvement or correction.

The verb iikaeru recurs frequently in the discussion of loanwords. The idea of ‘rephrasing’ loanwords was actively promoted by the then Health Minister Jun’ichirō Koizumi in 1997, which led to the frequent use of iikaeru. Subsequently, in 2000, the National Language Council released its recommendations on the treatment of loanwords, dividing them into three categories: (1) words that are in wide usage and considered established among Japanese citizens, (2) words that are not sufficiently established and are more easily understood when rephrased into Japanese, and (3) words that are not sufficiently established and have no easy Japanese substitute. The first group of loanwords was to remain in usage, the second to be rephrased, and the third was to be accompanied by annotation or explanation (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 9 December 2000). These categories have since become a model for many municipal governments in creating their guidelines for the use of loanwords. In large part, this has become the basis for the loanword debate and the two verbs used in the recommendation, iikaeru (to ­­ rephrase) and teichakusuru (to take hold), have become de facto official terms. The use of the verb iikaeru peaked in 2003 and 2004, when NINJAL carried out nationwide surveys to measure the level of understanding of loanwords in frequent usage around public services. Its objective was to rephrase difficult loanwords in order to make communications more comprehensible. The initiative resulted in the release of a manual listing substitutes for loanwords identified as ‘difficult to understand’. By this time, two contrasting adjectives had attached themselves to the bifurcated terms of the debate: ‘difficult’ for loanwords and ‘easy’ for Japanese. The verb iikaeru has subsequently entered frequent usage in the loanwords debate due to its use by official authorities, such as the Health Ministry, the National Language Council, and NINJAL, and its subsequent widespread quotation among the news media and their audience. The typical associations for loanwords can be divided into two groups: (1) specialist jargons, and (2) foreign language. Specialist jargons include those used in the bureaucratic language, as well as terms related to medicine, welfare and computer science. The association with the notion of foreign language is sometimes made by more specific terms such as ‘eigo’ (English) ­­ ­­ or ‘yokomoji’. Yokomoji is literally translated as ‘horizontal letters’ (yoko ­­ ­­ = horizontal + moji = letter) and is an expression used to refer to Western

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languages or Western derived loanwords. It plays on the fact that Western texts are written horizontally, while texts in Japanese and other Sinosphere languages were traditionally written vertically. Although Japanese texts are also written horizontally today, the term yokomoji is still frequently used in discussions of loanwords. At the same time, the typical associations for the Japanese language can be divided into five groups: (1) the general public, (2) particular groups of the general public, (3) other linguistic elements in Japanese, (4) Japan or the Japanese people in general, and (5) tradition and history, particularly relating to the Meiji period. The idea of the general public is expressed using various words that refer to residents or citizens of different levels of administration – ­​­ instance, ‘kokumin’ ­­ ­­ for (citizens of the country), ‘kenmin’ (citizens of the pre­­ ­­ ­­ fecture), or ‘shimin/kumin’ (citizens of the city). The expression ‘chōnaikai no hito tachi’ ( people in the neighbourhood association) is one that Koizumi used as an example of a group of people who were struggling to understand loanwords. Specific groups of the general public cited in this context include the elderly, foreigners, or hospital patients, all of whom are considered disadvantaged in given situations by their presumed inability to understand specialist jargons. ­­ Other linguistic elements in Japanese include, wago (Japanese native ­­­­ ​­​­​­ words), and kanji (Chinese characters). The words), kango (Sino-Japanese use of loanwords is often further contrasted with the historic practice of creating loan translations in the Meiji period. During that era, many ­­Japanese-made ​­​­​­ ­­Sino-Japanese ​­​­​­ style words (wasei ­­ kango) were introduced as equivalents for newly imported Western words. The idea of translation is often discussed as an action to turn ‘unfamiliar’ words into ‘familiar’ words. Based on this, the contrast between nihongo and gairaigo is associated with two kinds of conceptual division: (1) between specialists and non-specialists, ­­ ​­​­​­ and (2) ­­ between foreign and domestic. In the narratives that surround the verb iikaeru, these divisions lead to a problem in communication. Thus, the verb is generally used in the discourse opposing the use of loanwords, with rephrasing offered as a solution to the problem. The main opposing qualities associated with these divisions are: (1) ‘difficult’ and ‘easy’, and (2) and ‘familiar’. ­­ ­­ ‘unfamiliar’ ­­ ­­ Extract (1) exemplifies newspaper coverage of the NINJAL initiative. It serves to underscore that in the official wording of NINJAL there exists no contrast between gairaigo and nihongo. Instead, contrast is between ‘difficult words’ and ‘easy words’. This reveals that initiative is based on the democratic view that information related to public services should be comprehensible to a broad cross-section of the population. Therein, the use of difficult words by bureaucratic elites should be modified. This idea corresponds with the general implication of the verb iikaeru, as it refers to a shift from an elitist to a democratic view of language that is reflected in the two contrasting qualities: ‘difficult’ and ‘easy’. The rephrasing from the former to the latter is considered an improvement based on this core value of democracy. In

Japanese or Foreign?  71 this much, the discourse is hung on a division between specialists and nonspecialists based on their respective access to cultural capital. However, as extracts (2) and (3) show, this official contrast is often reinterpreted as being between gairaigo and nihongo. The wording ‘to rephrase loanwords in Japanese’ (gairaigo o nihongo ni iikaeru) has here become common. This shift between the NINJAL original and its subsequent reinterpretation, has changed the implications of the discourse into a second division between ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’. With this shift, the adjectives used for Japanese also sometimes change from ‘easy’ or ‘familiar’ to more subjective adjectives that describe desirable qualities, such as rippana (magnificent), as seen in extract (2). Thus, the improvement implied by the verb iikaeru becomes not only a shift from ‘difficult’ to ‘easy’, but also from ‘undesirable’ to ‘desirable’. In this regard, the verb iikaeru comes to depict two kinds of imagined improvement that are not distinguished from one another: (1) from difficult to easy, closing the gap between specialists and non-specialists, ­­ ​­​­​­ and (2) ­­ from undesirable to desirable by replacing foreign words with Japanese words. 4.2.2 Teichakusuru (to take hold) A

B

C

Sample extracts: 4 The people in this country are skilful at Japanising foreign words and quickly have them take hold as loanwords that have unique meanings. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 23 March 1996) 5 I think new loanwords should be avoided as much as possible, except for those that cannot be expressed in Japanese and those that have taken hold in daily life. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 22 May 2012) 6 The prefectural government decided to use Japanese rephrasing or add an explanation for loanwords that have not generally taken ­­ hold. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 23 December 2016) Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – English – Western language – kango – kanji – Meiji period – internationalisation – new concepts – changes – mass media – Internet – politics Word associations for Japanese: – the Japanese

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– Japan – mother tongue – elderly people – citizens D Qualities associated with loanwords: – new – unfamiliar – difficult to understand – thoughtless – inevitable E Qualities associated with Japanese: – original – familiar – easy to understand – easy – appropriate – splendid – magnificent F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb teichakusuru can be summarised as follows: 1 It depicts a spatial relationship between a new, dynamic entity and a larger, static entity, in which that larger entity is not fundamentally altered by the encounter with the new entity, but benefits from it. The new entity, meanwhile, undergoes a significant process of change as a result. 2 It refers to a change in quality of the agent from dynamic to stable and from unfamiliar to familiar. 3 It implies that the action teichakusuru brings about a positive impact on the place where the action occurs. As with iikaeru, the verb teichakusuru has been employed in the language­­ ​­​­​ related policy of various public organisations, including the Cabinet Office, the National Language Council, and NINJAL, as well as by various levels of municipal office. It has been used frequently in the news media as a result. Following its use in the categorisation of loanwords released by the National Language Council (see 4.2.1), the verb teichakusuru has been typically used as a condition for certain loanwords to be used without rephrasing, as seen in extract (5). In many other cases, the verb is used in the negative form teichakushiteinai (not taken hold) and used as a reason to support rephrasing, as seen in extract (6). When the verb is used in its negative form, the contrast created through association with the Japanese language and loanwords is between specialists and non-specialists – ­­ ­​­­​­­​­­ ​­​­​­often this is represented by the government, which uses loanwords, and the citizens of Japan or the elderly, who do not understand them. Thus, the contrast created between the

Japanese or Foreign?  73 Japanese language and loanwords is between ‘easy’ and ‘difficult’, as well as ‘familiar’ and ‘unfamiliar’. This contrast is similar to that created by the verb iikaeru. When used in its affirmative form, on the other hand, the verb teichakusuru typically describes ­­well-assimilated ​­​­​­ loanwords. These include words that have been in use since at least the pre-war period, such as pan [< pão, bread (Portuguese)], ­­ kōhī [< koffie, coffee (Dutch)], ­­ garasu [< glas, glass (Dutch)], ­­ terebi [< television], and rajio [< radio]. There is also a frequent reference to the Sino-Japanese words created by Japanese intellectuals during the Meiji period – ­ ​­​­​­e.g. enzetsu (speech) ­­ and tetsugaku (philosophy). ­­ These are often described as part of Japanese. Sometimes, kanji is similarly used as an example of foreign linguistic elements that have become part of the Japanese language. Based on the reference to such earlier forms of foreign linguistic influence, it is possible to identify two types of arguments. In the first, a comparison is made between earlier ­­well-assimilated ​­​­​­ loanwords and recent loanwords that have not become assimilated. The use of the latter is criticised, while the former is described as necessary, accepted, or inevitable, as seen in extract (5). In this narrative, recent loanwords are described as unfamiliar and difficult to understand. In the second type, recent loanwords are juxtaposed with earlier loanwords that have assimilated into Japanese – the suggestion being that it is the tradition of the Japanese language to enrich itself by borrowing new words, as in extract (4). In this type of argument, the Japanese language is often associated with a view of Japan and its people as always learning new things from abroad and internalising them. Loanwords are similarly associated with recent changes in the nature of Japanese society, including internationalisation and informatisation. In this context, the adjective ‘new’ is often used for loanwords, while the nature of the Japanese language itself is described as ‘original’. In this line of argument, recent loanwords are discussed as a means to introduce new concepts into Japanese society, bringing positive change. Such examples include jendā [< gender] and mesena [< mécénat, patronage (French)] (see Section 4.2.8). The use of these loanwords is seen to be desirable as they are believed to promote new concepts or to be a symbol of new ways of thinking that enrich Japanese society, as did earlier loanwords in Japan’s history. The agent of the action teichakusuru in the above extracts is the concept of loanword usage and the place of the action teichakusuru can be deduced variously as the Japanese language, Japanese society, or everyday life – although in most cases this is implicit. Therefore, the verb teichakusuru describes the process of internalisation, the change of characteristics of words from external to internal, from unfamiliar to familiar, from foreign to domestic. As teichakusuru generally implies, loanwords are depicted as a new, dynamic entity while the Japanese language is depicted as a larger, static entity. The process of teichakusuru thus does not alter the fundamental nature of the Japanese language, but the agent of the verb, loanwords, goes through fundamental changes in quality to be internalised and hence Japanised. Therefore,

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as a result of the action teichakusuru of loanwords, there is a potential benefit for the Japanese language, as it is considered to result in enrichment, while Japanese society enriches itself with the new concepts the loans describe. Another specific use of the verb teichakusuru is that it is used for Japanesederived loanwords that are used in other languages. Examples of such Japanese loanwords include ‘tsunami’, ­­ ‘harakiri’, ­­ ‘yakuza’, ­­ ‘kamikaze’, ­­ ‘manga’, ­­ ‘karaoke’, ­­ and ‘sushi’, ­­ which have become widely used in English and a variety of other languages. In the articles examined in this research, the use of Japanese loanwords in other languages is generally discussed as being a desirable phenomenon. This point is discussed further in Chapter 6. ­­ inundate) 4.2.3 Hanransuru (to A

B

C

Sample extracts; 7 In our days when loanwords and newly coined words are inundating, I would like to consider kanji as part of the Japanese culture. (reader’s ­­ letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 23 November 1996) 8 Although recently loanwords have been inundating, I would like to properly use correct Japanese. (reader’s letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 6 December 2000) 9 There is a tendency for Japanese traditions and culture to be undervalued today. Beautiful Japanese is increasingly in disarray because of the inundation of loanwords. (reader’s letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 April 2006) 10 I lament the current situation in which loanwords inundate and the good old Japanese native words are disappearing. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 18 March 2012) Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – English – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – ­­Japanese-made ​­​­​­ English – mass media – bureaucratic jargon – contemporary era – disarray – trendy words – newly coined words – katakana – internationalisation – globalisation – information technology (IT) ­­ – change Word associations for Japanese: – the Japanese

Japanese or Foreign?  75 – elderly people – foreigners – tradition – Meiji period – kanji – hiragana – native Japanese vocabulary – translation – efforts D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult to understand – difficult – disturbing – ambiguous – thoughtless – new E Qualities associated with Japanese: – beautiful – correct – rich – appropriate – sophisticated – standard – good old F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb hanransuru can be summarised as follows: 1 There is an excessive increase of something that is potentially harmful, or there exists an appropriate level to the quantity or flow of something (e.g. information or sounds), which is envisaged in relation to the banks of a river, and that quantity is being exceeded. 2 As a result of the action, there is a feeling of threat to something important or beneficial. 3 As with the image of the inundation of a river, the relation between the agent and the patient of hanransuru is metaphorically understood as something fluid versus something solid, or something dynamic versus something static, even if the patient remains implicit. The verb hanransuru is probably the most symbolically rich expression in the discussion of loanwords in Japan. Although the use of hanransuru is less frequent compared to that of the verbs iikaeru and teichakusuru – ​­​­​­both of which have been used in official documents and guidelines on loanwords – hanransuru is used widely and is particularly popular in readers’ letters expressing personal opinions on loanwords. As is also pointed out by Irwin (2011: 193), the expression hanransuru (to inundate) or hanran (inundation) has ­­

76  Japanese or Foreign? likewise long been used to represent public feeling on the subject. According to an article in The Yomiuri Shimbun (28 November 2002), a loanword dictionary published in 1930 proposed that “an era of inundation by loanwords has now come. It seems as if the sun does not rise without loanwords in all fields of everyday life including sports, release of imported films, department stores, on the street, food, clothing, and shelter, medicine, etc.”. Similarly, the first example the ­­Japanese-English ​­​­​­ Dictionary (Kenkyusha, ­­ 2003: 2161) gives for hanransuru (to inundate) refers to loanwords: “there was a hanran (flood) ­­ by gairaigo (loanwords) in the second half of the 20th century”. Finally, the committee for the study of loanwords at NINJAL (NINJAL, 2006: 12) has admitted that many Japanese people today share the impression that there exists a gairaigo no hanran (inundation by loanwords). Thus, the expression ‘inundation by loanwords’ has now become a common expression in the everyday speech of Japan. Unlike the two most recurrent verbs iikaeru and teichakusuru, which are neutral and can be used to express both favourable and unfavourable opinions about loanwords, the verb hanransuru is employed principally to express critical opinions and personal feelings of being besieged by loanwords. Based on the previous chapter’s analysis, the verb implies that the use of loanwords has been increasing at a rate that is excessive and may potentially be harmful to the Japanese language. It also, however, suggests that there is a tolerable level of loanword use, often under the condition of assimilation into Japanese (note: this frequently is accompanied by the verb teichakusuru), but that level is presently being exceeded. There is thus a sense of threat, danger, or crisis that implicitly underlines the need for immediate action to stop or slow the phenomenon. In this type of narrative, loanwords are associated with a generalised foreignness of language  – though most typically their origins are in Western languages, primarily English. There are also references to other linguistic elements such as newly coined words, trendy words, and the language of youth, and to Japanese-made English words (wasei eigo) and katakana as a script type. Loanwords are thus linked ­­ to the phenomenon of internationalisation and globalisation, and to the idea of change in general. With the sense of uncertainty of witnessing such change, the ‘inundating’ loanwords are often described with the expression midare (disorder, disarray) in the Japanese language, as in extract (9) – and this is a phrase that recurs throughout the loanword debate. Finally, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the uncertainty and crisis provoked by the unknown virus was compared with the incomprehensible nature of loanwords through the verb hanransuru (see Chapter 5). ­­ ­ What is at stake in this inundation is the Japanese language itself, which is often described with the adjectives tadashii (correct) (as in extract 8), utsukushii (beautiful) ­­ (extract ­­ 9), and furuki yoki (good old) (extract 10). The Japanese language is associated with other linguistic elements such as kanji, hiragana, Sino-Japanese ­­ ​­​­​­ words (kango), ­­ and native Japanese words (wago, ­­ yamatokotoba), as can be seen in extracts (7) and (10). The Japanese language is also often associated with the notion of Japanese tradition and

Japanese or Foreign?  77 culture, as in extract (9). The reference to the Meiji period in which the practice of loan translation was a common way to adopt foreign vocabulary is typical of this. The ideas of ‘translation’ and ‘effort’ are often linked to the Japanese language in contrast to loanwords, which are sometimes associated with thoughtlessness and laziness. The verb hanransuru tends to focus on sentimental and aesthetic contrasts between threatened (Japanese) and threatening (loanwords), beauty (Japanese) and disarray (loanwords), while the use of loanwords is frequently discussed as an autonomous phenomenon without an explicit reference to who uses them. This can be compared to the most recurrent verb iikaeru, which often creates a contrast between the difficult (loanwords) and easy (Japanese) modes of language used by contrasting agents: for instance, the government and the general public, specialists and non-specialists, ­­ ​­​­​­ or young people and the elderly. Sino-Japanese ­­ ​­​­​­ elements, Sino-Japanese ­­ ​­​­​­ words (kango) ­­ and Chinese characters (kanji), ­­ are often described as a coherent part of the Japanese language. This is in line with the conceptual mapping between wago and kango as Japanese and gairaigo as foreign, discussed by Loveday (1996: 48). Chinese linguistic influence over Japanese has, in fact, been criticised by nativist (kokugaku) ­­ scholars of the Edo period, who saw it as a symbol of Japan’s cultural and intellectual dependency on Chinese civilisation. Today, however, the use of kango or kanji is rarely criticised. According to scholars including Miller (1982: ­­ 92–94) ­­ ​­​­​­ and Gottlieb (1995: ­­ ­­26–27), ​­​­​­ wartime discourse changed the fundamental view on ­­Sino-Japanese ​­​­​­ linguistic elements, which now could be envisaged as part of a common identity in the East Asian CoProsperity ­ Sphere. This prompted the redefinition of Sino-Japanese ­­ ​­​­​­ linguistic elements as ‘Japanese’ and they were subsequently incorporated into the Japanese linguistic identity (see Chapter 5). It is also important to highlight that hanransuru is one of many water­­ ​­​­​ related metaphors employed in the gairaigo discourse. In the inundation metaphor, loanwords, as the agent of action, are imagined as something fluid and dynamic that continues advancing, like the current of a river. The Japanese language, as the patient of action, is imagined to be solid and static; something that does not or should not move, like the banks of a river. In other words, the metaphor of inundation draws a symbolic boundary between change and stability. On one hand, there is an image of dynamism symbolised by new linguistic elements including loanwords, neologisms, and trendy words. On the other hand, there is an image of unchanged stability symbolised by the Japanese language and its older linguistic elements, including wago and kango, as well as hiragana and kanji. 4.2.4 Toriireru (to ­­ adopt) A

Sample extracts: 11 The Japanese have a history in which they have adopted foreign culture and ideas through loanwords. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 17 December 2002)

78  Japanese or Foreign? 12 Since the time of Man’yōshu, the Japanese have been enriching their language by skilfully adopting loanwords into native words. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 12 January 2016) 13 It is good to skilfully adopt loanwords in order to respond to changes in the world such as the advancement of technology, lifestyle changes, and internationalisation of information. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 2 May 2020) B Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – English – foreign culture – Western civilisation – kanji – kango – Chinese studies – new words – katakana – new concepts – informatisation – change C Word associations for Japanese: – the Japanese – Japan – Japanese society – wago/yamatokotoba ­­ – hiragana – translation D Qualities associated with loanwords – new – fresh – convenient – Japanised E Qualities associated with Japanese – skilful – rich – vigorous – flexible F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb toriireru can be summarised as follows: 1 It refers to a voluntary action of improvement or enrichment. 2 The patient of action exists in many varieties. 3 There is a certain sense of respect toward the patient of action, from which the agent of action can learn a lesson.

Japanese or Foreign?  79 The verb toriireru is generally employed in positive evaluations of loanwords. The agent of action is the Japanese language, the Japanese, or Japan, while the patient of action can be loanwords, foreign culture, or new ideas. The action of toriireru is thus often associated with the general idea of change. More precisely, the verb depicts an image of growth or enrichment of the Japanese language through the successful intake of foreign words. This notion of enrichment is extended to Japanese culture and society, which is envisaged as having enriched itself by importing new things from abroad. With this verb, there is a frequent reference to Japan’s history. Once again, this notably includes the Meiji period during which Japan rapidly modernised itself via occidentalisation on a European model. Also often cited is the post-war period in which Japan achieved a remarkable national reconstruction and rapid economic growth while absorbing a U.S.- derived model of democracy and capitalism. There is sometimes likewise reference to the Chinese influence in the pre-modern period as a successful example through which Japan developed its own unique culture on the basis of ideas learnt from abroad. In such cases, kango (Sino-Japanese words), kanji ­­­­ ​­​­​­ (Chinese characters), and kangaku (Chinese studies) are described in paral­­ lel to loanwords, whereas in examples of the verb hanransuru Chinese linguistic elements are often perceived in contrast to loanwords. For example, extract (12) refers to the time of the poetry collection Man’yōshū, which was compiled during the Nara period (710–794) using Man’yōgana  – ​­​­​­the ­­­­ ​­​­​­ Japanese phonetic orthographic system rendered with the use of Chinese logographic characters. Extract (11) more generally associates the use of loanwords with a Japanese history in which foreign culture and ideas were imported through loanwords. What is learnt in these foreign exchanges is described as something that becomes fully integrated into Japanese culture, sometimes using the adjective ‘Japanised’. Thus, these foreign adaptations are seen as a constitutive part of Japanese identity. The verb toriireru further implies that what is adopted exists in great variety, implicitly representing the value of flexibility – a quality therein perceived to be a key characteristic of Japanese society. Finally, the verb toriireru underlines the autonomy of Japan, the Japanese, and the Japanese language as a condition of the acceptance of loanwords. There is a strong emphasis on the fact that the action is taken based on a voluntary decision. In extract (11), the values of loanwords are directly described as new ideas and concepts, which were imported in the interest of Japanese society. The use of loanwords here is considered to be an active choice of vocabulary on the part of Japanese society rather than an imposition through external pressure. Reflecting this, the verb is often accompanied by adverbs such as dondon (vigorously), umaku (skilfully) don’yokuni ­­ ­­ (greedily), or mizukara (voluntarily), while Japan, in absorbing these new ­­ elements, is described as yutakana (rich), katsuryoku ni afureta (vigorous), ­­ ­­ or jūnanna (flexible). At the same time, loanwords are often described as

80  Japanese or Foreign? atarashii (new), ­­ shinsenna (fresh) ­­ and benrina (convenient). In the contemporary context, the action toriireru is associated with successful adaptation to broader social changes, such as internationalisation and informatisation (extract 13). This is perceived as a desirable situation that is representative of forward-thinking ­­ ​­​­​­ flexibility. 4.2.5 Afureru (to ­­ overflow) A

Sample extracts: 14 It is important for the citizens of a country across generations to understand the language, but once loanwords overflow this much, it is difficult. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 7 May 2003) 15 It seems loanwords are overflowing and Japanese traditional culture has become insignificant. (reader’s letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 8 December 2003) 16 Loanwords are overflowing in our daily life with words that could be in Japanese. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 3 July 2013) B Word associations for loanwords: – English – ­­Japanese-made ​­​­​­ English – specialist jargon – politicians’ statements – katakana – newspapers – TV – ­­Covid-19 ​­​­​­ pandemic C Word associations for Japanese: – citizens – elderly people – kanji – traditional culture – cultural diversity D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult to understand – ambiguous – thoughtless – unfamiliar E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – excellent – appropriate – poor and weak F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb afureru can be summarised as follows:

Japanese or Foreign?  81 1 2 3

With a metaphor of water spilling over a container, there is a reference to a contrast between something fluid and dynamic and something solid and static. The amount or degree of something exceeds a particular norm or the average. Unless the expression is used to emphasise a desirable quality of the patient of action, there are potential risks of a harmful outcome by result of the excess described.

Based on the above summary, several things can be observed regarding the use of loanwords. First, when the verb afureru is used, there is a contrast in nature between the agent of action, loanwords, and the patient of action. This is either implicitly the Japanese language or the environment that surrounds ­us  – ​­​­​­‘our ­­ daily life’ (extract ­­ 16), town, ­society  – ​­​­​­or media outlets, including TV, radio, and newspapers. Loanwords, in these examples, are described as something dynamic that continues flowing, while the Japanese language and daily life are described as something static that is exposed to the danger posed by this overflow. In many cases, loanwords are juxtaposed with what is observable in society at a given moment  – politicians’ statements, the ­­Covid-19 ​­​­​­ pandemic, key news stories, and so ­on  – ​­​­​­and convey a concomitant sense of insecurity and uncertainty about change. In other words, the idea of loanwords is associated with the current of time and the present moment. The Japanese language, by contrast, is often associated with a deeper historic register with elderly people, history, and tradition. The contrast between loanwords and the Japanese language can therefore be interpreted as the contrast between dynamism and stillness, and between present and past. Second, the verb conveys the impression that loanwords are in use to a greater extent than might be deemed normal and therefore threatens the identity of the Japanese language. Although less emblematic and sensational than the verb hanransuru, afureru also draws a metaphorical picture of water spilling over, implying that loanword usage is not under control. Thus compared with the edge of a container, there is an implied limit at which the use of loanwords can be tolerated by the Japanese language. This level of tolerance is often described with the verb teichakusuru with examples of ­­well-assimilated ​­​­​­ ​­​­​­ ­­ and ­­long-standing loanwords such as terebi (TV) and rajio (radio) – this itself is slightly ironic, as TV and radio are often described as sources of an intolerable use of loanwords. While hanransuru provokes a sense of crisis in its allusion to an overflowing river, with the Japanese language as a whole implicitly at risk, afureru draws a somewhat more discreet sense of danger in which the traditional and historic part of the Japanese language is being hindered; its flow better compared to the idea of water overflowing a glass. In some cases, the contrast drawn by the verb afureru is between that which is seen to be ‘traditional’ of Japaneseness and the novel incursion of loanwords, as in extract (15). In other cases, loanwords are

82  Japanese or Foreign? directly contrasted with the Japanese language – an argument exemplified by extract (16). To this end, the common line of argument that ‘loanwords are used for what can be said in Japanese’ betrays the widespread idea that loanwords and Japanese are two separate entities. Finally, it is worth highlighting that the verb afureru is also often used metaphorically for information. As identified in the previous chapter, afureru is not only used for an undesirable agent, it also can be used for something neutral, such as information, colours, and sounds, or for something desirable, such as hope, a smile, or happiness. When used like this with a desirable agent, the verb can thus describe a situation where abundance is seen to be positive. However, when used with a neutral agent, the verb may provoke a sense of confusion – a typical example of which is ‘information’. When information overflows, it becomes difficult to negotiate meaning and routes to desired outcomes, with the result that a decision making process can be clouded. Similarly, when loanwords overflow, it becomes difficult to seize the precise meaning, which hinders appropriate communication, as in extract (14). The problem of communication is said to be particularly acute between people with different social profiles – between politicians and the general public, doctors and patients, the young and the elderly, Japanese and non-Japanese, and so on. The difference between these groups can here be explained as a gap in the amount of information they have in a given field. From this perspective, an overflow of loanwords can be interpreted as an overflow of information, and the fear and uncertainty expressed in the loanword discussion can be interpreted as a stand-in for the fear and uncertainty of this ongoing flow of information. 4.2.6 Ran’yōsuru (to ­­ abuse) A

Sample extracts: 17 What we should really worry about is the disarray of the Japanese language without the regularity of conventions, as we see with the abuse of loanwords. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 2 November 1992) 18 The language of governmental offices that used to be synonymous with ‘a fixed formula’ is now characterised by a striking abuse of loanwords, and it is now synonymous with incomprehensible loanwords. This is because more words are directly borrowed to refer to Western ways of thinking and systems. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 28 January 2003) 19 Loanwords are a convenient way to express new things or ideas that did not previously exist in Japan. Yet, if they are abused, they can be a barrier to communication and bring disarray to the Japanese language. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 9 October 2004) 20 It has been a while since the disarray of the Japanese language has been pointed out, which I think is partly due to the abuse of loanwords and abbreviated words. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 3 March 2009)

Japanese or Foreign?  83 B

Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – English – mass media – government – politicians – disarray – new ideas and knowledge – current of time – neologisms – abbreviated words – language of youth C Word associations for Japanese: – Japanese culture – the Japanese – hiragana – kanji – Meiji period – efforts – care D Qualities associated with loanwords: – new – unfamiliar – irregular – difficult to understand – incomprehensible – good looking – convenient E Qualities associated with Japanese – easy to understand – beautiful – splendid – familiar F Analysis of use Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb ran’yōsuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The patient of action is something powerful and potentially important for our lives and society. 2 The patient of action can be a threat to something when not used in an appropriate manner. 3 There is often a reference to something that is at stake if the action ran’yōsuru is taken. The verb ran’yōsuru is frequently used in the headlines of newspaper articles or in the titles of readers’ letters. This can partly be explained by the fact

84  Japanese or Foreign? that it is a sensational expression commonly associated with the abuse of illegal drugs. In addition to political discussions surrounding the frequent use of loanwords in bureaucratic documents, the verb was also frequently employed after a ­­seventy-two-year-old ­​­­­​­­​­­­ ­​­­­​­­​­­­ ​­​­​­ man in Gifu prefecture sued national broadcaster NHK in 2013 for ‘abusing foreign words’ in its programmes – a phenomenon he claimed had caused him enormous psychological pain. Despite NHK’s victory in the case, the event spurred on the loanwords debate, provoking questions over use in public institutions. In this particular case, the agent of the action ran’yōsuru is NHK, and the agent of the verb is often a similar national body, governmental agency, public administration ­­ office, or, either collectively or individually, ­politicians  – ​­​­​­see extract (18). These are figures of authority on which the general public are dependent. The information they release therefore constitutes highly valuable information that is of real influence on the lives of citizens. Therefore, through the use of the verb ran’yōsuru, a contrast is drawn between those who have access to important information, and those who do not. It is, in this respect, a contrast between society’s powerful and its weak. This implication becomes even clearer when we compare this with the general use of the verb ran’yōsuru discussed in Chapter 3. The verb is often used with power of authority as the patient of action. Moreover, the verb ran’yōsuru implies that the action is taken intentionally, as is the case with an abuse of power. Thus, by discussing the abuse of loanwords by authority figures, what is really being discussed is the abuse of power by those who have important information, and who have the capacity to obscure it when that is expedient by using loanwords that are difficult to understand. As a result of abuse thus conceived, there is a threat to the general public, who will not be able to obtain the information they need. Indeed, the expression keishō o narasu (to ­­ give warning) is often used in the same context, conveying a message that some measures need to be taken urgently to avoid serious consequences. As observed in Chapter  3, while the verb ran’yōsuru often implies that the action is taken with malicious intent, the patient of the verb – whether (legal) drugs, rights, authority, or power  – can be beneficial if used in an appropriate manner. Therefore, as is evident in extract (19), loanwords are not described as unambiguously displeasing, but as something that can be beneficial when employed in an appropriate manner, whatever the connotation of current misuse. The potential benefit of loanwords is described with the adjective benrina (convenient) while the result of their abuse is a perceived barrier to communication with loanwords described as wakarinikui (difficult ­­ to understand). Another important point is that the verb ran’yōsuru is often associated with the idea of midare (disorder, disarray), as in extracts (17), (19) and (20). When written in Japanese, ran’yōsuru (乱用す ­­ る) and midare (乱れ) ­­ share the same character 乱, whose principal meaning is ‘disarray’. Thus, the term ran’yō (the nominal form of the verb ran’yōsuru, as suru (to do) functions as a verb maker) can be literally translated as ‘disordered use’. Therefore,

Japanese or Foreign?  85 with the verb ran’yōsuru, the use of loanwords is often associated with the commonly seen expression nihongo no midare (disarray in the Japanese language). This idea is also communicated in extract (17) with the contrast between the abuse of loanwords and the regularity of language. Similarly, extract (18) describes the evolution of the language of governmental offices from ‘a fixed formula’, as if copied and pasted each time, to ‘abuse of incomprehensible loanwords’. While both ‘a fixed formula’ and ‘abuse of loanwords’ serve as criticisms of the language used by governmental offices, the former can be seen as a symbol of excessive regularity, while the latter can be seen as a symbol of irregularity. With the verb ran’yōsuru, loanwords are, moreover, sometimes modified by the expression ‘imifumei ­­ no’ (incomprehensible). This is often used in news media to describe the speech of a drug addict, alcoholic, or criminal suspect who is described needing to go through psychiatric screening. Thus, the combination of the verb ran’yōsuru and the expression imifumei creates a connotation that something is beyond the accepted norm, juxtaposed with other recent linguistic phenomena, such as neologisms, abbreviated words, and language of youth, which are also described as being difficult to understand or incomprehensible. In this context, loanwords are often contrasted with the Japanese language, its culture, and people, as well as with other linguistic elements such as hiragana, and kanji – ​­​­​­elements that are described as not only easy and familiar to understand, but also beautiful and splendid. In this regard, the excessive use of loanwords expressed through the verb ran’yōsuru is also contrasted with the practice of loan translation during the Meiji period, and with the internationalising efforts of intellectuals in that era. 4.2.7 Okikaeru (to ­­ replace) A

B

Sample extracts: 21 I hear that the National Language Council is having a discussion to replace difficult loanwords with kanji. (reader’s ­­ letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 15 November 2000) 22 Indeed, there are many words that are generally used as loanwords as it would be impossible to express the original connotations of the word if replaced with Japanese. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 6 February 2007) 23 I think it is unnatural to replace what is easier to understand in Japanese with loanwords. (reader’s letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 19 December 2017) Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – English – Western language/yomokoji ­­ – European language

86  Japanese or Foreign? – European culture – new ideas and concepts – specialist jargon – bureaucratic jargon – IT jargon – newspaper – mass media – internationalisation – young people – disarray – change – neologisms – katakana C Word associations for Japanese: – translation – elderly people – citizens/people ­­ – kanji – kango – Meiji period – tradition – effort – care D Qualities associated with loanwords: – new – difficult – difficult to understand – incomprehensible – good looking – unfamiliar – thoughtless E Qualities associated with Japanese – easy to understand – easy – familiar – appropriate – splendid – beautiful – correct F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb okikaeru can be summarised as follows: 1 It often refers to a change in quality, interpretation, or perspective. 2 There is a connotation of improvement or advancement in a situation.

Japanese or Foreign?  87 3

There is often an implicit or explicit reference to a set of contrasting qualities, such as old and new, positive and negative.

The verb okikaeru is employed in a manner comparable to the verb iikaeru, although there are both similarities and differences between the two. First of all, both verbs share the fact that neither is inherently charged with a negative or positive connotation regarding loanwords  – though both can be used to express an opinion that falls into either camp. However, the verb okikaeru departs from iikaeru in its linguistic connotations. On one hand, okikaeru tends to communicate a simpler shift or transformation, while iikaeru communicates the idea of rephrasing based on one’s interpretation or reflection. Therefore, the action of okikaeru can be either praised or criticised according to its context. In this much, it can be positively evaluated as a means of facilitating communication, but it can also be negatively evaluated as a superficial transformation. As in extract (22), the verb okikaeru is often used in the expression ‘gairaigo ­­ o nihongo ni okikaeru’, which is literally translated as ‘to replace loanwords with Japanese’. The verb can also be used in the opposite direction with the expression ‘nihongo o gairaigo ni okikaeru’, which translates as ‘to replace Japanese with loanwords’, as in the usage in extract (23). The Japanese language and loanwords are thus explicitly treated as two different but replaceable entities. In some cases, as in extract (21), loanwords can be contrasted with other linguistic elements in Japanese such as kanji through the expression ‘gairaigo o kanji ni okikaeru’ – ​­​­​­literally ‘to ­­ replace loanwords with kanji’. Other common expressions include ‘gaikokugo o wago ni okikaeru’, which means ‘to replace native Japanese words with a foreign language’. These commonly used expressions show that the ideas of language, word, and script are often conflated in the loanwords debate. The conflation of the ideas of language and word has already been traced to their common use of ­­ the ending ‘go’ in Chapter 2. With the analysis of the verb okikaeru, it has also become clear that the notion of loanwords can be conflated with the idea of katakana, while the idea of the Japanese language can be conflated with the ideas of hiragana and kanji. Therefore, on the premise that the verb okikaeru can be used to draw a contrast between something doing a replacing and the thing being replaced, we can identify three types of contrasts: (1) between vocabulary and language, (2) between vocabulary and script, and (3) between script and language. The above contrasts are seemingly illogical, because in general, contrasts are made between two entities that belong to the same category. Loanwords as a vocabulary type are therefore to be contrasted with Japanese native words or Sino-Japanese words. However, through the verb okikaeru, ­­ ​­​­​­ and many other expressions used in the loanwords debate, loanwords are contrasted not only with wago (Japanese native words) and kango (Sino­­­­ ​­​­​ Japanese words), but also with nihongo (the Japanese language), and with

88  Japanese or Foreign? hiragana or kanji as a script type. Similarly, loanwords are also juxtaposed with foreign languages in general, and with katakana as a script type. It seems that in the discussion of loanwords, the three conflated concepts  – language, vocabulary type, and script type – are combined and divided into a larger division between ‘Japanese’ and ‘foreign’. The former category encapsulates the concepts of the Japanese language, wago, kango, hiragana, and kanji, while the latter encapsulates the concepts of foreign languages, loanwords, and katakana as well as the Western alphabet. Furthermore, the Japanese language is often associated with Japan, the Japanese, and Japanese culture, while loanwords are often associated with foreign or Western languages, cultures and civilisations. Therefore, concepts of language, culture, people, and country are often discussed in the same framework, making debates on language often also debates on cultural and national identity. ­­ permeate) 4.2.8 Shintōsuru (to A

B

C

Sample extracts: 24 It seems that the way of thinking [of the term mesena [< mécénat, patronage (French)] has been gradually permeating the language. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 1 April 1991) 25 The understanding of the term ‘borantia’ ­­ [< volunteer] was enhanced thanks to the great work of the volunteers at the time of the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995, rapidly making the term permeate the language. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 16 December 2002) 26 They [the terms sasutenaburu [< sustainable] and sasutenabiriti [< sustainability] have permeated the language and they have been used by important officials in the Q&A session of the metropolitan government of Tokyo. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 3 August 2017) Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – English – Portuguese – Dutch – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – abbreviated words – informatisation – government offices – medicine – mass media – young people – current of time – information Word associations for Japanese: – elderly people – citizens

Japanese or Foreign?  89 – patient – welfare – care – kanji D Qualities associated with loanwords: – incomprehensible – difficult to understand – new – fresh looking – ambiguous E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – easy – ­­true-born ​­​­​­ – charming – vulgar F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb shintōsuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The agent of action is often something new to the given context. 2 The agent of action represents something fluid or dynamic, while the patient of action represents something solid or static. 3 The outcome of the action shintōsuru is often desirable, as it depicts the situation under control, in which the agent of action is smoothly assimilated into the patient of action. When used in the affirmative form, the verb shintōsuru is often used to make a positive evaluation of loanwords that have been well assimilated into the Japanese language. The action of permeation can also be a condition for the acceptance of loanwords. Yet, when used in the negative form, the verb also can be used to make a criticism of loanwords that are perceived to have been insufficiently assimilated. The agent of action is a notional loanword that is associated with something new and dynamic. The patient of action is often implicit, but is generally understood as the Japanese language, society, and everyday life, and thus is associated with a stabilised routine. With the metaphorical implication of liquid permeating a solid material, the verb delineates the situation in which there is a profound understanding of loanwords. The verb is typically used in the contexts of politics and public administration to discuss new systems and concepts. One of the particularities of the verb shintōsuru is that it is often used with a reference to a specific loanword as the agent of action, as seen in extracts (24) through (26). In many cases, they are recent concepts or values that are seen to have positive impacts for Japanese society, such as ‘mesena’ [< mécénat, patronage (French)] in extract ­­ (24), ‘borantia’ [< volunteer] in extract (25), ‘sasutenaburu’ [< sustainable], and ­­ ­­ ­­ ‘sasutenabiriti’ [< sustainability] in extract (26). The term mesena symbolises ­­

90  Japanese or Foreign? the new value for private enterprises to contribute to the promotion of art and cultural activities. The term was initially included in the NINJAL list of difficult loanwords to replace. However, during the process of editing the list in 2002 and 2003, there was strong opposition from the Association for Corporate Support of the Arts, which argued its replacement would slow down the permeation of the concept. Based on this opinion, and the lack of an obvious equivalent, the word was excluded from the list of replacements in 2004. The word borantia symbolises the concept of charitable activities in which one can take part to help others, or to contribute to society based on one’s own will without sense of obligation. Similarly, sasuteinaburu and sasuteinabiritī are terms newly introduced to Japanese society. The term ­­ ­­ was previously rephrased in Japanese as ‘jizokukanōna’ (sustainable) and ­­ ‘jizokukanōsei’ (sustainability). However, the loanwords have recently become more common with the recent promotion of the SDGs (sustainable development goals) set up in 2015. These words are typically mentioned as successful examples of loanwords bringing about positive changes in Japanese society. From this point of view, the discussion of loanwords can also represent the discussion of new concepts. These examples show that by discussing the permeation of new terms, what is really being discussed is the permeation of new ways of thinking – and this is explicitly stated in extract (24). Thus, the praising or criticising of a particular loanword can at once be understood as the acceptance or refusal of a new concept or value that is in the process of being introduced from another part of the world. 4.2.9 Ukeireru (to ­­ accept) A

B

C

Sample extracts: 27 The Japanese language has a characteristic that it easily accepts loanwords, and some see the number of loanwords as representing the vitality of its citizens. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 8 January 2003) 28 The Japanese language is originally a language that was established by flexibly accepting foreign words. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 21 August 2003) 29 Isn’t it the true internationalisation to accept foreign languages and cultures while cherishing one’s mother tongue? (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 18 March 2012) Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – foreign culture – international society – internationalisation – information technology (IT) ­­ – current of time Word associations for Japanese: – Japan

Japanese or Foreign?  91 – Japanese culture – vitality of the citizens – mother tongue D Qualities associated with loanwords – easy to understand – trendy – lively – explicit E Qualities associated with Japanese – flexible – excellent – good old F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb ukeireru can be summarised as follows: 1 The agent of the action ukeireru has the autonomy to take decisions regarding whether or not to accept the patient of action. 2 In some cases, the patient of action represents diversity, be that of ideas, opinions, or culture – in which case, the action of ukeireru represents flexibility and enrichment. 3 In other cases, the expression ukeireru can also be used for concession, to accept something one does not want to, albeit voluntarily. The verb ukeireru is generally used to positively evaluate the use of loanwords. The agent of action is often the Japanese language, as in extracts (27) ­­ and (28), ­­ or implicitly the ­­first-person ​­​­​­ pronouns ‘I’ ­­ or ‘we’, ­­ as in extract (29). The patient of action can be loanwords, foreign words, foreign language or foreign culture. As the agent and patient of action, there is an implicit boundary between the Japanese language and loanwords, which are envisaged as two separate entities. In extracts (27) and (28), the Japanese language is associated with vitality and flexibility as the agent of the action ukeireru that voluntarily and vigorously accepts loanwords. Thus, the action is presented as improvement. The two extracts both emphasise that it is the nature of the Japanese language to accept loanwords. They imply that the frequent use of loanwords observed in the present is only part of a greater intergenerational Japanese tradition. In extract (27), this tendency in the Japanese language is linked to the vitality of Japanese citizens, bringing together the values of the language and those of the Japanese people more generally. In extract (29), the acceptance of loanwords is associated with ‘true internationalisation’, in which both one’s mother tongue, foreign languages, and foreign cultures are described as essential constituents. Since internationalisation, particularly when modified by the adjective ‘true’, is an expression with positive connotations, the use of loanwords is described as a positive evolution of Japanese language and culture. Thus, the verb ukeireru suggests the use of loanwords is the autonomous

92  Japanese or Foreign? and voluntary decision of the Japanese to enrich their national culture with newly borrowed words. In this context, loanwords symbolise desirable values of the Japanese language, such as flexibility and vitality, and desirable outcomes, such as enrichment, internationalisation, and diversification. The verb also gives the impression that the patient of action (whether loanwords or foreign culture) is under control and thus something that does not pose a threat to the agent of action (the Japanese language and culture), which is described as something powerful and full of vigour. It is also notable that in extracts using the verb ukeireru, there are fewer instances that refer to politics, public administration, medicine, and welfare – typically the main sectors mentioned in the loanwords debate. With ukeireru, reference to culture is more frequently observed, and loanwords are often expressed as ‘foreign words and cultures’. Therefore, the evaluation of the use of loanwords, in this context, can be understood as the evaluation of Japan’s relationship to foreign cultures in general. There are also some cases in which the verb ukeireru is employed ­­ ­­ with regard to Japanese words, such as ‘sushi’ and ‘bento’, which have been accepted as loanwords in other languages. 4.2.10 Ryūnyūsuru (to flow in) A

B

Sample extracts: 30 Even during the Edo period under the self-imposed closure policy, Dutch words related to modern science flew in such as ‘kompasu’ ­­ [< kompas, compass] and ‘mesu’ ­­ [< mes, scalpel]. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 11 February 2005) 31 Since the Meiji period, loanwords flew into the Japanese language. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 15 July 2015) 32 Furthermore, after the Second World War, Western objects and concepts flew in in an explosive manner, many of which have spread as loanwords rather than kanji. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 17 May 2014) Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – English – Portuguese – Dutch – French – Western culture – foreign countries – kango – katakana – informatisation – internationalisation – Meiji period

Japanese or Foreign?  93 – ­­post-war ​­​­​­ period – change C Word associations for Japanese: – language of own country – kanji – kango – hiragana – wago/yamatokotoba ­­ – Asia – translation – Meiji period D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult to understand – difficult – new – ambiguous – ­­half-cooked ​­​­​­ – thoughtless – unfamiliar – good looking – convenient E Qualities associated with Japanese: – ­­true-born ​­​­​­ – rich – profound – precise – appropriate – unique F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb ryūnyūsuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The agent of the action ryūnyūsuru is considered to be something highly dynamic and fluid. 2 The outcome of the action can be either desirable or undesirable, as the agent of action might be deemed beneficial (e.g. funds or commodities), harmful (e.g. crime or arms), or neutral (e.g. people). 3 There is often a strong motivation behind the influx and thus it is difficult to control the momentum. The verb ryūnyūsuru has the connotation that the momentum of a given flow is forceful and consistent. While other water-related metaphors, such as hanransuru or afureru, evoke a perceived boundary – the banks of a river, or the edge of a container – which is in danger of being exceeded, the verb ryūnyūsuru has no connotation of boundedness or excess. There is no sense, in this much, of a tolerable level being surpassed. The verb ryūnyūsuru is

94  Japanese or Foreign? typically employed with two kinds of reference. First, it tends to be employed when mentioning the linguistic situation of the past – often the Meiji period, as in extract (31), or the post-war period, during which Western culture is described as having flown into Japan, as in extract (32). In some cases, there is a reference to other moments in Japanese history that experienced a significant influence from foreign culture, such as the Edo period when Japan was putatively under ­­self-imposed ​­​­​­ closure (sakoku), ­­ yet Dutch words continued to flow in regardless  – see extract (30). Another example is the classical period, during which Chinese words and characters were imported en masse. Second, the verb is often employed when discussing the linguistic situation of another country experiencing an influx of foreign words, also ­­ described as ‘gairaigo’. There are many examples in the newspaper extracts analysed in this study: for instance, Hungary, Iran, China, Russia, Thailand, France, Iceland, South Korea, and Vietnam. While some of these countries were discussed due to a rapid inflow of loanwords, which resulted variously from the end of the Cold War, informatisation, or international tourism, sometimes they were described simply introducing a more arbitrary policy to control loanwords. However, the verb ryūnyūsuru is primarily used in a historical register in the context of Japan, and is rarely used to describe contemporary Japan. The ‘inflow’ alluded to in ryūnyūsuru tends to have a certain psychological distance or impartiality, due to a temporal or geographic separation. The current linguistic situation in Japan, by contrast, is typically perceived in more emotive terms. It is seen as having an imagined limit to the influx of loanwords, which is better described by hanransuru and afureru. It is also worth noting that the term gairaigo is used more widely with the verb ryūnyūsuru. In such contexts, gairaigo is sometimes used to refer to the past influx of Sino-Japanese loans, though that vocabulary, now seen as thoroughly absorbed into Japanese, would not be typically described this way in its present usage. Thus, the implications of loanwords can be seen to change according to historical setting. This suggests that gairaigo is associated not only with Western languages, but also with the idea of novelty itself. Similarly, when the verb ryūnyūsuru is used, the term gairaigo can be used to describe loanwords in other countries, wherever that country may be: Asia, the Middle East or Europe. In some cases, the expression yokomoji is even employed to describe the situation in another country, such as Iran. As discussed in Section 4.2.1, this expression is used in the Japanese context to emphasise the difference between Western languages, which are written horizontally, and Japanese, which is traditionally written vertically. However, in Iran the national language is Farsi, which is written horizontally, and so it shares its directionality with Western languages. However, in this context the expression is used to emphasise a cultural difference. Thus, the expression yokomoji has evolved from describing a visual/textual difference to a cultural one, and has come to symbolise a general conceptual opposition between the Occident and the Orient including the Middle East.

Japanese or Foreign?  95 It is important to note, however, that there is no explicit evaluative dimension to the expression ryūnyūsuru. For example, in extract (35), the influx of loanwords is associated with modern science, usually seen as bringing positive developments. Similarly, in extract (36), loanwords are associated with the idea of modernity, due to the Meiji period’s associations with modernisation. In extract (37), loanwords are implicitly linked to the idea of desirable social change through democratisation after the end of the war. The verb ryūnyūsuru, moreover, generally implies that there is a particular motivation behind the influx. For the influx of loanwords, that motivation can be internationalisation, modernisation, democratisation, or the development of international tourism. In such situations, that influx is accompanied by an influx of foreign objects, ideas, and technologies, which can contribute to the positive development of society. Yet, the verb at once can describe an undesirable situation where the influx of loanwords is becoming unstoppable or uncontrollable. In these cases, the idea of influx is contrasted to the idea of translation, which is perceived as a wellmanaged means to digest foreign words. When looking at adjectives associated with loanwords, some describe desirable qualities such as being ‘new’ or ‘convenient’ while others relate to less expedient qualities, such as being ‘difficult’ or ‘ambiguous’. The verb ryūnyūsuru is therefore used to describe ­­ ­­ a strong influx of loanwords, either desirable or undesirable, but in the context of a situation that is seen as being somewhat distanced from the ‘here and now’. 4.2.11 Tsuihōsuru (to ­­ expel) A

B

C

Sample extracts: 33 “Let’s call it ‘higaeri kaigo’ instead of ‘dei sābisu’ [< day service]”, ­­ ­­ the Health Minister Koizumi instructs the expulsion of loanwords ­­ (headline, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 10 June 1997) 34 The other day, there was an article reporting that the Ministry of Health started working on ‘the expulsion of loanwords’ and issued ‘a guideline of use’ under the instruction of the Minister ‘not to use words that are not understood by elderly people in bureaucratic documents’. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 29 September 1997) 35 Efforts to expel difficult loanwords and make it easier to understand (headline, ­­ The Yomiuri Shimbun, 10 January 2003) Word associations for loanwords – bureaucratic jargon – cabinet members – governmental offices Word associations for Japanese – elderly people – people in the neighbourhood association – administrative reform

96  Japanese or Foreign? D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult to understand – difficult – incomprehensible – thoughtless E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – beautiful – precise – preferable F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb tsuihōsuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The patient of action is generally something seen as undesirable when the action tsuihōsuru is recommended. 2 The place from which something undesirable is expelled is often something important which greatly impacts the life of the general public. 3 The expression is often used within a slogan for the eradication of an undesirable phenomenon. The verb tsuihōsuru is often used in a headline, as in extracts (33) and (35), due to its sensational association with illegal entrants or criminals expelled from the country. The agent of action is often a powerful authority, such as the government or the police. The patient, in these examples, is the presence of loanwords in society. The entity from which loanwords are described as being expelled, moreover, often takes the form of official documents released by governmental offices, or, more generally, the Japanese language – although this entity is frequently implicit. The verb thus creates an image that loanwords are expelled from the Japanese language as if illegal entrants to a country. In this much, the verb tsuihōsuru conveys the impression that the action of expulsion is a national project to protect the integrity of the country. Its use suggests that loanwords are inherently undesirable. Based on the problem of governmental documents with terminologies that are too difficult to understand for the general public, loanwords are often associated with adjectives such as ‘difficult’ and ‘incomprehensible’ while the Japanese language is associated with adjectives like ‘easy to understand’, the contrast of which is observed in extract (35). The verb tsuihōsuru is typically used to refer to a call by the then Health Minister Jun’ichirō Koizumi in 1997 to reduce the use of loanwords in documents published by the Ministry of Health – see extracts (33) and (34). His call was followed by many municipal governments and governmental agencies deciding to revise their policies on the use of loanwords in official documents. The verb is used particularly often in the context of welfare services for elderly care, symbolised by the loanword ‘dei ­­ sābisu’ [< day service], as

Japanese or Foreign?  97 seen in extract (33). This exemplifies a perceived gap in knowledge between bureaucratic elites and the general public – described by Koizumi as ‘people in the neighbourhood association’ – and between young people and elderly people. Even though decades after was first discussed in 1997, ‘dei ­­ sābisu’ has become a widely used and understood word, loanwords continue to symbolise this knowledge gap between people with different social profiles. The action of expulsion remains a popular linguistic image to describe closing that gap through some totalising means. The action is associated with ­improvement – ​­​­​­for instance, an ‘administrative ­­ reform’ – and ​­​­​­ evokes the idea of democracy, despite the perhaps authoritarian impression the term gives. Following Koizumi’s call in 1997, the Ministry of Health issued a notice entitled ‘on the optimisation of the use of loanwords in documents prepared by the Ministry of Health’, creating the Terminology Optimisation Committee. In this instance, the term ‘optimisation’ creates the image that the current use of loanwords is not optimal, and should be corrected and regulated through the creation of official guidelines. The verb tsuihōsuru is thus used in the context of political discourses on the use of loanwords that focus on the undesirable impact of loanwords on the lives of the general public. 4.2.12 Kyūshūsuru (to ­­ absorb) A

B

Sample extracts: 36 The Japanese have made good use of loanwords through the distinction between hiragana and katakana in order to understand the cultures and civilisations of the world. Nowadays, we often absorb new knowledge from loanwords that we see in a newspaper, etc. (reader’s ­­ letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 25 July 1991) 37 Japan during the Meiji period modernised itself by greedily absorbing English. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 13 November 2002) 38 Since the opening of the country in the Meiji period, Japan has absorbed foreign languages receptively in order to catch up and compete with Western technology and culture. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 8 October 2007) 39 Since ancient times, the Japanese have vigorously absorbed foreign systems and concepts, by turning them into kango and loanwords. I think the language was enriched because it was in the periphery of the civilisation, not in the centre. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 9 September 2015) Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – foreign thoughts – new knowledge – English – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – Western thoughts

98  Japanese or Foreign? – Western technologies – Western culture – Western civilisation – horizontal writing (yokogaki) ­­ – katakana – kango – translation – Meiji period C Word associations for Japanese: – the Japanese – Japan – Japanese culture – hiragana – kanji – tradition – vitality – energy D Qualities associated with loanwords: – new – necessary – Japanised – convenient E Qualities associated with Japanese: – flexible – rich – ­­broad-minded ​­​­​­ – skilful – tough – diverse – greedy – assertive F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb kyūshūsuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The effects of the desirable patient of action are taken as an advantage for the agent of the action kyūshūsuru. 2 The problems of the undesirable patient of action are mitigated, offset, or reduced as a result of the action kyūshūsuru. 3 Sometimes when used as a metaphor, there is a hierarchical relationship between the agent and patient of the action kyūshūsuru, in which the agent of action takes control over the patient of action. 4 The patient of action is associated with fluid or dynamic characteristics. The verb kyūshūsuru is in most cases employed to positively evaluate the impact of loanwords in the Japanese language. With the image of water being

Japanese or Foreign?  99 absorbed into the soil, and thus becoming part of it, the term contrasts with other water-related ­­ ​­​­​­ metaphors, such as hanransuru or afureru, which delineate the image of water as out of control. In this regard, it can be seen as one of the two most emblematic expressions in the loanword discussions, alongside hanransuru. The agent of action with this term is the Japanese language, the Japanese, or Japan, while the patient of action is often the use of loanwords, foreign language, or knowledge from Western (or foreign) countries. As is the case with the general use of the verb kyūshūsuru, there is a connotation here that the potential negative impacts of loanwords are cancelled out, and the Japanese language maintains its equilibrium as it develops. Before the action of absorption has been completed, the Japanese language and loanwords are perceived as separate entities, as respectively the agent and the patient of action. However, on completion of the action, loanwords are seen to have become a coherent part of the Japanese language, or the agent of action. The use of kyūshūsuru is similar to that of toriireru in that loanwords are often associated with a notion of foreign or Western knowledge that is conceptualised in positive terms. This foreignness is seen as contributing not only to the development of the Japanese language, but also to Japanese culture, and to Japan as a whole. The linguistic situation is almost always discussed with reference to cultural and societal developments, and the use of loanwords is described as being something beneficial to the Japanese language – just as objects, knowledge, and concepts imported from other countries are seen to enrich Japan from a cultural, societal, political or economic point of view. Thus, the agent of action kyūshūsuru is often Japan, as in extracts (37) and (38), the Japanese, as in extracts (36) and (39), or Japanese culture. The verb is frequently used in a historical context in relation to the Meiji period to describe its influx of Western culture after more than two centuries of selfimposed closure. However, unlike the use of the verb ryūnyūsuru to refer to a historical context, kyūshūsuru can make a link between the present and the past. In other words, the use of loanwords observed today is seen as part of a tradition of ‘learning from abroad’ that was seen in the Meiji period. Extracts (37) and (38) explicitly refer to the Meiji period while extracts (36) and (39) more implicitly implies that it has long been the Japanese tradition to learn from abroad. The recent use of loanwords is herein described as part of a longer history that has shaped national tradition and Japan’s conception of self. This being the case, discussions relating to contemporary politics and public administration rarely use the verb ryūnyūsuru. Loanwords are associated with novelty and convenience through adjectives such as atarashii (new) ­­ and benrina (convenient), while the Japanese language is associated with flexibility, diversity, vitality, vigour, and expressiveness. Adjectives and adjectival expressions frequently employed for Japanese include jūnan’na (flexible), yutakana (rich), don’yokuna (greedy), and ­­ ­­ ­­ tasaina (diverse). These qualities delineate a situation in which Japan autonomously and willingly accepts loanwords due to its flexible and vigorous

100  Japanese or Foreign? outlook, and is able to benefit from new ideas and modern conveniences embodied in this new vocabulary. The action of kyūshūsuru is also modified by adverbs such as dondon (vigorously) ­­ and takumini (skilfully), which focus on Japanese competence in making good use of newly imported vocabulary. As the verb kyūshūsuru is also often used for nutrition, the ‘absorption’ of loanwords is, by extension, perceived as a desirable process for Japanese to remain healthy. Since absorption is another phenomenon related to liquid, the use of kyūshūsuru underscores the solidity and stability of a Japanese language that has always retained control over the fluidity and dynamism of its vocabulary. This view is more commonly expressed by language specialists such as linguists and editors in the context of contributed articles and ­­ ​­​­​­ ­ ​­​ editorials, while water-related metaphors that imply criticism of loanwords – ­​­ ­ ​­​­​­are often used by non-specialists ­­ ​­​­​­ hanransuru and afureru, for instance – in letters to newspapers. 4.2.13 Hadome o kakeru (to put a brake) A

Sample extracts: 40 On the 25th, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Tōyama announced a plan to set up a committee consisting of experts by the end of next month. Its aim is to put the brakes on the abuse of loanwords to maintain the traditional and beautiful Japanese’. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 26 June 2002) 41 The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics is reviewing the possibility of replacing loanwords. The loanwords committee established in August is consulting external experts in order to put the brakes on the overflowing loanwords. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 17 December 2002) 42 Shouldn’t we make more efforts to put the brakes on the current trend in which loanwords inundate? (reader’s letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 7 August 2003) B Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – specialist jargon – foreign country C Word associations for Japanese; – kanji – hiragana – readers – Japan – effort D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult – incomprehensible

Japanese or Foreign?  101

E

F

– ambiguous – new – thoughtless – lazy Qualities associated with Japanese: – beautiful – appropriate – traditional – splendid – magnificent Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb hadome o kakeru can be summarised as follows: 1 The patient of action is generally an ongoing phenomenon that can result in an undesirable outcome. 2 There is a connotation that immediate action is required to stop it. 3 The agent of action often has a certain degree of public impact through its institutional or individual authority.

The expression hadome o kakeru was prominent in the years 2002 and 2003 in the context of describing NINJAL’s project to replace non-assimilated loanwords. While the expression was not used in official documents issued by NINJAL, the objective of its project was often described as hadome o kakeru in relation to what was widely perceived as the unstoppable increase of loanwords. The term hadome refers to a stopper placed under wheels to keep a vehicle from moving when it is not supposed to. Just like a vehicle with its movable wheels, the expression hadome o kakeru creates a contrast between that which is moving and that which stops the movement. The agent of the action hadome o kakeru is often a governmental authority or national organisation, as in extracts (40) and (41), while the patient of action is a rapid increase of loanwords, described in terms of ‘abuse’, ‘overflow’, ‘inundation’, and so on. When this expression is used, there is a connotation that the phenomenon has occurred at a very fast rate thus far uncontrolled, and should be stopped or slowed through some regulatory measure taken by a public authority. The action to stop the increase of loanwords is often associated with the idea of doryoku (efforts), as in extract (42). It is contrasted with the idea of doryoku o okotatta (lazy), ­­ or an’ina (thoughtless) use of loanwords. The expression hadome o kakeru also creates a contrast between loanwords and the beauty of the Japanese language. The adjective utsukushii (beautiful) is often used to describe the Japanese language, as in extract (40). Utsukushii is one of the most frequently employed adjectives used with ­­ the term nihongo in discussions of loanwords. Other recurrent adjectives used with hadome o kakeru include rippana (magnificent) and subarashii ­­ (splendid). The frequent use of these adjectives shows that the expression hadome o kakeru evokes an affective sentiment with regards to the Japanese

102  Japanese or Foreign? language, as these adjectives represent positive personal feelings. After its intensive use in 2002 and 2003, the expression faded from the loanwords debate and has not been used in either of the two newspapers consulted in this study since 2010. The expression may have become obsolete due to the fact that there has not been a major public project to replace loanwords since NINJAL’s initiative was completed in 2006. 4.2.14 Haijosuru (to ­­ eliminate) A

Sample extracts: 43 In the training [for elderly people to use computers] that took place for a total of eight hours in two days, difficult loanwords were eliminated as much as possible, and the materials were written vertically (tategaki). ­­ (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 8 October 1997) 44 The government eliminates difficult loanwords such as autosōshingu [< outsourcing] and ajenda [< agenda] etc. (headline, The Asahi Shimbun, 13 June 2003) 45 As there are words that have assimilated as Japanese, such as basu [< bus] and kompyūtā [< computer], I am not saying that loanwords should be eliminated. (reader’s ­­ letter, Asahi Shimbun, 11 October 2007) B Word associations for loanwords: – official documents – mass media – disarray – computer C Word associations for Japanese: – vertical writing (tategaki) ­­ – elderly people – translation D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult – difficult to understand – new E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – precise – simple F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb haijosuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The patient of action is often someone or something that causes disharmony. 2 The agent of action has some degree of authority to take an action against the patient of action.

Japanese or Foreign?  103 3

The verb implies an amelioration of the situation through the removal of the source of disharmony.

The verb haijosuru was used frequently in the context of governmental projects to reduce the use of loanwords between the late-1990s ­­ ​­​­​­ and the mid­­ ​­​­​ 2000s. In the affirmative form, the verb represented a negative view on loanwords. As the patient of the verb haijosuru is generally associated with some form of disharmony, loanwords are perceived to be a cause of disarray, disharmony or miscommunication. Since the ­­mid-2000s, ​­​­​­ the affirmative use of this verb decreased significantly, however  – p erhaps due to its puristic connotation that for many appears too strong. Since the m id-2000s, the verb has been used in the negative form to partially agree with the use of loanwords, denying the wholesale elimination of loanwords  – this can be seen in extract (45). The agent of action is somebody who writes widely-read texts, be it a journalist, politician, or specialist in a certain field, while the patient of action is the loanword. Being an author of important documents, the agent typically has some form of authority within society. What is particular about the verb haijosuru, as with hadome o kakeru above, is that that agent with authority is perceived to offer an improvement, or a ‘solution’ to the problem. This is to be contrasted to other recurrent verbs in which those authority figures are described to be the ‘cause’ of the problem in their use of loanwords that are incomprehensible to the general public. The action of elimination takes place in the Japanese language, but in many cases, the idea of nihongo is often extended to the idea of the daily life of the Japanese. For example, in extracts (44) and (45), specific loanwords are mentioned. While in extract (44) the loanwords are described as difficult words that should be eliminated, in extract (45) the loanwords are described as having been assimilated into Japanese and thus need not be eliminated. Comparing the four words raised in extracts (44) and (45), the former two in ­­ extract (44), autosōshingu [< outsourcing] and ajenda [< agenda], are terms that are used in business or political contexts mainly by specialists in the field, while the latter two in extract (45), basu [< bus] and kompyūtā [< computer], are names of the things that today many people use on a daily basis. These loanwords are not only assimilated into Japanese, but the things being communicated by the loanwords have been assimilated into the everyday lives of the general public. ­­ It is notable too that loanwords are contrasted to tategaki (vertical writing) in extract (43). This can be contrasted to the idea of ‘horizontal writing’ through the recurrent expressions yokomoji (horizontal letters) or yokogaki (horizontal writing) used as a synonym of loanwords. In extract (43), the teaching materials were written vertically to make them easier to understand for the elderly people attending the class. By juxtaposing the elimination of loanwords with the use of vertical writing, there is an implicit association of loanwords with ‘horizontal writing’, even without an explicit reference being made. The extract thus implies that horizontal writing is difficult

104  Japanese or Foreign? to understand, while vertical writing is easier. In this much, the verticalhorizontal contrast is associated with the overall contrast between Japanese and loanwords and their respective associations (see Section 4.2.18). 4.2.15 Haisekisuru (to ­­ boycott) A

Sample extracts: 46 He [Sōbē Arakawa] has argued in his Gairaigo Gaisetsu, published after the outbreak of the Pacific War, that the boycott on loanwords ­­ is far from true patriotism. (The Asahi Shimbun, 19 June 1995) 47 Just because they are loanwords, we should not boycott everything. We can make efforts for assimilation if we see a good word to adopt for a thing or an idea that does not exist in the established Japanese usage. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 30 October 2002) 48 I have no intention whatsoever to boycott foreign languages, but words and letters can have their values only when they are communicated and understood. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 4 February 2003) B Word associations for loanwords: – foreign language – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – English – foreign culture – enemy language – new knowledge and concepts from abroad – evolution – internationalisation C Word associations for Japanese: – elderly people – general public – foreigners – wartime – nationalism D Qualities associated with loanwords: – convenient – thoughtless – complicated E Qualities associated with Japanese: – rich – kind F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter  3, characteristics of the verb haisekisuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The patient of action represents deviation from the mainstream or majority.

Japanese or Foreign?  105 2 3

The agent of action often has a strong determination to reject or boycott something. The action haisekisuru can be seen negatively as it may be against the idea of diversity and flexibility.

The verb haisekisuru occurred frequently in 1995 and 1996, as well as in 2002 and 2003, after which its use decreased significantly. With its very strong connotations, the verb is used in its affirmative form either to describe the wartime linguistic policy of censoring Western vocabulary, or to report the linguistic policy of another country. The use of the verb haisekisuru is comparable to that of ryūnyūsuru, as it is mainly used to describe situations that happened in the distant past or where a great geographical distance is involved. In describing the more recent use of loanwords in Japan, the verb is used in its negative form to express either acceptance or partial acceptance of loanwords. The agent of action is often the government when used in the affirmative form, while the patient of action is loanwords. The verb is employed to describe the situation in which loanwords are strongly rejected based on political motivation, be it in wartime Japan or another country. In its negative form, the patient of action is the notion of loanwords, but the agent of action is often an implicit ‘I’ or ‘we’. Through the verb haisekisuru, the action of eliminating loanwords is described as something undesirable, either because it is too extreme or because it is deemed to be politically motivated. In 1995 and 1996, the verb was frequently used in the news media following the death of the linguist Sōbē Arakawa, who had been critical of the wartime policy of censoring ­­English-derived ​­​­​­ loanword ­usage – ​­​­​­see extract (46). In this context, loanwords are associated explicitly with the English language and with American or British culture. In the same years, however, the verb was also used to report a new Iranian law banning the use of foreign words, which was passed in 1996 to mandate the use of Persian in ­­ public spaces (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 4 December 1996). As is the case with ryūnyūsuru, even when discussing the situation in Iran, the expression yokomoji is employed exclusively in relation to the English language or Englishderived loanwords. The use of the expression to describe Iranian developments thus delineates a contrast between the Middle East and the West, due to the association of yokomoji with the ­Anglosphere  – ​­​­​­although its original comparison was with countries in the Sinosphere whose languages were traditionally written vertically. In the contemporary Japanese context, the verb is frequently used in its negative form to criticise an extreme boycott of loanwords, as in extract (47). In some other cases, as in extract (48), the verb is used in negative form to partially criticise the use of loanwords while denying an intention to boycott them altogether. Therefore, whether used in its affirmative or negative form, and regardless of context, the choice of the verb haisekisuru indicates the view that an extreme boycott of loanwords is not desirable.

106  Japanese or Foreign? 4.2.16 Rampatsusuru (to ­­ overissue) A

Sample extracts: 49 At the prefectural governmental meeting, many pointed out during the general Q&A session that official documents that ‘overissue’ ­­ loanwords make them difficult for the citizens to understand. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 5 July 2003) 50 There were [in the speech by Shinzō Abe] ‘yokomoji’ ­­ everywhere (…). In particular, he almost ‘overissued’ ­­ the term inobēshon [< innovation]. Many people must have had trouble understanding it. As there is a beautiful Japanese language, I want him to speak ‘properly’ to the citizens using easy words that everyone can under­­ stand. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 29 January 2007) 51 I think it is better not to overissue loanwords in yokomoji in every­­ Asahi Shimbun, 21 February 2020) day conversation. (The B Word associations for loanwords: – English – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – information Technology (IT) ­­ – education – katakana C Word associations for Japanese: – citizens/people ­­ – beautiful country – kanji D Qualities associated with loanwords: – difficult to understand – incomprehensible – annoying E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – easy/kind ­­ – beautiful – splendid – steady F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb rampatsusuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The patient of action is not necessarily undesirable and is often something necessary or important so long as its quantity and frequency remain ­­well-controlled. ​­​­​­ 2 There is a potentially undesirable outcome that is not taken into account by the agent of action. 3 The expression is generally employed to criticise the situation.

Japanese or Foreign?  107 With its negative connotation linked to recklessness, the verb rampatsusuru is almost exclusively used in extracts that criticise the heavy use of loanwords. The agent of action is often a governmental agency, an administrative office or a politician, while the patient of action is the use of loanwords, sometimes described as ‘katakana’ ­­ or ‘yokomoji’. ­­ The use of this verb gives the impression that loanwords are used in an uncontrolled manner by the agent of action, which is typically the bearer of some form of public authority. With the image of the reckless shooting of a gun, it suggests a picture of one-sided communication, in which a public authority issues a scattershot of loanwords at the public without hitting a clearly defined target. Since many of those who hold public authority have a higher than average level of education and foreign language competency, loanwords are often associated with English, with Western languages described as yokomoji as in extracts (50) and (51), or with education itself. Loanwords are often described as ‘difficult to understand’ and either implicitly or explicitly are contrasted with the notion that the Japanese language is ‘easy to understand’ for citizens, as in extracts (49) and (50). The verb became particularly prominent in 2006 and 2007, when Shinzō Abe first served as Prime Minister. Abe used numerous loanwords in his policy speeches as described in extract (50). Since Abe had famously described his political goal as building a ‘beautiful country’, his use of loanwords was often ironically contrasted with the ‘beautiful Japanese language’. The choice of the verb rampatsusuru thus conveys concerns over a communication problem in the political sphere. It is a problem of lopsided communication, where information is issued by public authorities using specialised language, to a general public that in large parts does not possess the vocabulary to properly understand it. ­­ surge) 4.2.17 Oshiyoseru (to A

B

Sample extracts: 52 New words surge before we can learn them. It is like a wind of ka­­ Yomiuri Shimtakana blowing against the Japanese language. (The bun, 4 July 2002) 53 It is understandable to want to put the brakes on the endless surge of loanwords, but there are words that can be adopted for their practicality and efficiency. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 16 December 2002) 54 There are a decreasing number of people who can use kanji and idioms with the correct knowledge of their meanings. What will happen if we accept loanwords that surge like a rapid stream without sufficiently understanding them? (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 30 April 2003) ­­ Word associations for loanwords: – English

108  Japanese or Foreign? – specialist jargon – neologisms – abbreviated words – Western culture – young generation – government offices – advertising industry – broadcasting industry – current of time – change C Word associations for Japanese: ­­ – citizens/people – Japanese ancestors – unique culture – East Asian countries – Japanese translation – kanji – kango – idioms D Qualities associated with loanwords: – vexing – new – good looking – specialised – handy – quick E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – beautiful – appropriate – native F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb oshiyoseru can be summarised as follows: 1 There is a close association with waves. 2 In many cases, the agent of action is advancing in the same direction rapidly with a momentum that can provoke a sense of fear or threat. 3 The agent of action can also be a social or political change that is happening quickly to the point of seeming uncontrollable. The verb oshiyoseru is often used with a simile related to a wave or a stream (extract 52), as well as to wind (extract 54). The verb is typically used to lament the heavy use of loanwords and was most prominent in the 2000s. The agent of the action oshiyoseru is loanword usage that is comparable to a

Japanese or Foreign?  109 rapid stream of water or a strong wind, menacing the Japanese language, or the everyday life in which it is used. Loanwords are often associated not only with English, yokomoji, and specialist jargons, but also with other kinds of vocabulary that are seen to be on the increase, including neologisms, abbreviated words, and the vernacular of young people. In some cases, loanwords are associated with the concept of ‘change’ and the ‘current of time’. Thus, the adjective atarashii (new) is often used to modify a reference to loanwords. The practicality and efficiency of loanwords are also commonly emphasised, as in extract (53). Examples of loanwords discussed using this verb are often those introduced recently in business or information technology. With its association with waves or winds, the verb oshiyoseru evokes an image of rapid and constant change in society. Thus, loanword discussions that use it can also be interpreted as discussions of changes in Japanese society that are perceived to be happening too rapidly. At the same time, loanwords are contrasted with a Japanese language described as wakariyasui (easy to understand) and utsukushii (beautiful). ­­ The Japanese language, in this conception, is associated with other linguistic elements such as kanji and the correct use of idioms in extract (54). In some cases, it is associated with Japanese citizens, Japanese ancestors, or the uniqueness of Japanese culture, and sometimes it is even used to convey a notion of East Asia in general. This verb, moreover, underscores the rapidity with which loanwords are seen to be increasing, often prompting a sense of fear or anxiety among Japanese citizens. Since the agent of action is the concept of loanwords in and of itself, this gives the impression that the increase of loanwords is an automatic phenomenon, which is difficult to stop or regain control over. This creates an image of loanwords with an autonomous power to replicate, amassing in opposition to the implicit ‘us’ of the Japanese people, who are facing this situation together. The verb oshiyoseru therefore associates the use of loanwords with two intertwined phenomena: (1) rapid social change, and (2) the loss of traditional knowledge, and this is perceived as a concern for everyone. 4.2.18 Ōkōsuru (to be rampant) A

Sample extracts: 55 The rampancy of loanwords is a warning signal that our attention to the Japanese language is collapsing. (The ­­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 18 July 1995) 56 We should take more seriously that incomprehensible loanwords are rampant in fields relating to our daily lives and well-being, such as medicine and welfare. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 7 January 2003) ­­ 57 The Japanese language is in disarray partly because of the rampancy of Western words (yokomoji). ­­ (reader’s ­­ letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 24 March 2006)

110  Japanese or Foreign? 58 W hat is even more problematic is that loanwords written in katakana are rampant when discussing rules in the society. (The ­­ Asahi Shimbun, 16 March 2016) B Word associations for loanwords: – Western language (yokomoji) ­­ – governmental offices – medicine – welfare – media agencies – disarray – crisis ­­ – illness/sickness C Word associations for Japanese: – life – many people – society – communication D Qualities associated with loanwords: – incomprehensible – intelligible – ambiguous E Qualities associated with Japanese: – easy to understand – beautiful F Analysis of use: Based on the discussion in Chapter 3, characteristics of the verb ōkōsuru can be summarised as follows: 1 The agent of action implies that there is malicious intent. 2 There are people who suffer from the consequences of the action. 3 There is an impression that the malicious action is taken relatively easily. The verb ōkōsuru is often used in discussions of loanwords in the fields of politics and public administration, as well as in medicine and welfare  – see extracts (56) and (58). The agent of action is the use of loanwords, and the place of action is the Japanese language. But the verb is also implicitly associated with the everyday life of Japanese ­citizens  – ​­​­​­extract (56)  ­­ – ​­​­​­and with Japanese society more broadly  – extract (58). Through the choice of this verb, the use of loanwords is seen to be an undesirable phenomenon, often linked with communication problems. When described using the verb ōkōsuru, those problems, once again, relate to an information gap between those who possess the necessary knowledge to understand loanwords, and those who do not. Since sectors such as medicine and politics are highly specialised fields, the knowledge involved is not only one of foreign languages, but also of professional expertise. By result, there is often a reference to a

Japanese or Foreign?  111 sense of crisis or danger – extracts (55) and (56) – regarding the inaccessi­ ​­​­​­ ­­ ­­ ​­​­​­ bility of essential information to a non-specialist general public, which is perceived to be increasingly dependent on specialists for important information. Therefore, what is at stake is ‘our daily life and well-being’, as in extract (56), and ‘social rules’, as in extract (58), encapsulated in the idea of nihongo in the loanwords debate. As seen in extract (57), the expression yokomoji is often used as the agent of the action ōkōsuru. As ōkōsuru and yokomoji share the same first character 横, which refers to ‘side’ or ‘horizontal’, there is a visual and perceptual commonality between the two words. This is significant in so much that the contrast between the Japanese language and loanwords is sometimes described as a contrast between vertical writing (tategaki) and horizontal ­­ writing (yokogaki/yokomoji) (see Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.14). The use of the ­­ ­­ expression ōkōsuru emphasises the horizontality associated with loanwords together with the term yokomoji. The idea of midare (disorder, disarray) is also frequently referred to alongside ōkōsuru, as in extract (57). From this point of view, the vertical-horizontal contrast in the loanword debate is both one based on the direction in which language is written, and a reflection of difference in social structure. As the conservative Japanese society is often referred to as tateshakai (vertical society) with a hierarchical structure, the idea of verticality is associated with rules and order. By contrast, Western society is generally, and to some extent stereotypically, perceived as horizontal with a meritocratic or flat structure. Thus, as in extract (58), the use of loanwords is described as being even more problematic when used to describe social rules. It is probably significant here that the character 横 is also used for other words related to disorder or misappropriation, including ‘ōryō’ (横領), which means ‘embezzlement’, and ‘ōbō’ (横暴), which refers to ­­ ­­ ­­ ­­ oppression based on the misappropriation of power.

4.3 Summary Our examination of these eighteen verbs has provided an indication of the common structure and recurrent narratives in the loanwords debate. First of all, regardless of the opinions expressed on loanword use, the concepts of the Japanese language (nihongo) ­­ and loanwords (gairaigo/katakanago) ­­ ­­ are treated as separate entities. Participants in the debate tend to give their opinions on the use of loanwords in this conceptual frame, whether or not they favour the phenomenon. This dichotomy between nihongo and gairaigo is observed in the following use of recurrent verbs and expressions: – – – – –

to rephrase gairaigo in nihongo nihongo adopts gairaigo to replace gairaigo with nihongo gairaigo permeates nihongo nihongo accepts gairaigo

112  Japanese or Foreign? – – – – – – – – –

gairaigo flow into nihongo to expel gairaigo and use nihongo nihongo absorbs gairaigo to eliminate gairaigo and use nihongo to say in nihongo instead of gairaigo to say what can be said in nihongo in gairaigo to translate gairaigo into nihongo to use gairaigo if there is no translation in nihongo nihongo and gairaigo coexist

In these examples, loanwords are excluded from the conceptual framework of the Japanese language. This structure is commonly observed in the loanword debate and it is extremely important in scrutinising the relationship between the language debate and the question of national identity. Language plays a crucial role in the process of national identity formation, and the contrast here is between the Japanese language, perceived as domestic, and loanwords, perceived as foreign. This creates the image dualism of national Self and foreign Other, forming an arena for the negotiation of national identity. The point is further substantiated by the fact that loanwords (gairaigo/katakanago) ­­ ­­ are perceptually linked to the idea of ‘foreign languages’ or ‘Western languages’ through the following word associations: – – – – – –

foreign language Western language (yokomoji) ­­ foreign words Western words European words English

At the same time, the Japanese language (nihongo) is perceptually linked ­­ with the idea of ‘Japan’ through the following word associations: – – – –

Japan the Japanese Japanese culture Japanese society

Based on this imagined contrast between the Japanese language, labelled as inherently Japanese, and loanwords, labelled as foreign, participants in the debate build different narratives to describe the relationship between the two. Generally, these can be divided into two groups. On one hand, some create a picture of the Japanese language under threat from an uncontrollable surge of loanwords, thus expressing their anxieties about the integrity of the Japanese language. They refer to various challenges that Japanese faces today: the difficult terminologies used by politicians, communication

Japanese or Foreign?  113 blockages between younger and older generations, and between specialists and non-specialists. On the other hand, some depict the Japanese language as enriching itself by absorbing new wisdom via loanwords, emphasising the vigour and vitality of Japanese. They refer to various historic examples in which an influx of foreign culture to Japan contributed to the development of its society: the classical period with its Chinese influences, the Meiji period with its influence from the West, or the post-war period in which Japanese society was increasingly shaped in relation to influences from America. These two pictures are almost always substantiated using the recurrent associations and adjectives respectively attached to the Japanese language and loanwords. In the former type of narratives, the use of loanwords is commonly associated with the following six themes: (1) politics and administration, (2) medicine and welfare, (3) information technology, (4) media and journalism, (5) the generation gap, and (6) disaster and emergency. Some examples are listed below: 1 Politics and administration – bureaucratic jargon – government – government offices – official documents – politician 2 Medicine and welfare – medicine – welfare – nursing – hospital – doctor 3 Information technology – IT jargon – computer – personal computer – information technology – informatisation 4 Media and journalism – television – radio – newspaper – news – mass media 5 The generation gap – young people – young generation – student

114  Japanese or Foreign? 6 Disaster and emergency – earthquake – natural disaster – emergency On this side of the debate, loanwords are largely associated with undesirable qualities through recurrent adjectives that can be divided into five categories: (1) those that represent difficulty of understanding, (2) those that represent unfamiliarity, (3) those that represent ambiguity, (4) those that represent laziness or disorganisation, and (5) those that represent superficiality. Some examples are listed below: 1 Difficulty – わかりにくい wakarinikui (difficult to understand) ­­ – 難しい muzukashii (difficult) ­­ – 意味がわからない imi ga wakaranai (incomprehensible) ­­ – わけのわからない wake no wakaranai (incomprehensible) ­­ – 理解不能な rikaifunōna (incomprehensible) ­­ – 難解な nankaina (difficult) ­­ – 意味不明の imifumeino (incomprehensible) ­­ – ちんぷんかんぷんな chimpunkampunna (totally incomprehensible) – 不可解な fukakaina (incomprehensible) ­­ – 複雑な fukuzatsuna (complicated) ­­ 2 Unfamiliarity – 聞きなれない kikinarenai (unfamiliar to hear) – 耳慣れない miminarenai (unfamiliar to the ears) – なじみの薄い najimi no usui (unfamiliar) ­­ – なじみのない najimi no nai (unfamiliar) ­­ 3 Ambiguity – あいまいな aimaina (ambiguous) ­­ – 生煮えの namanieno (half-cooked) ­­­­ ​­​­​­ – 中途半端な chūtohampana (halfway) ­­ 4 Laziness and disorganisation – 安易な an’ina (reckless) ­­ ­­ – 規則性のない kisokusei no nai (irregular) ­­ – 努力を怠っている doryoku o okotatteiru (lazy) 5 Superficiality ­­­­ ​­​­​­ – かっこいい kakkoii (good-looking) ­­ – 響きのいい hibiki no ii (good sounding) ­­ – 歯切れのいい hagire no ii (crisp sounding) – 耳に響きのいい mimi ni hibiki no ii (good sounding to the ears) ­­ – 響きが格好いい hibiki ga kakkōii (good sounding) By contrast, the Japanese language is associated with desirable qualities represented by the following recurrent adjectives, which can be divided into

Japanese or Foreign?  115 five categories: (1) those that represent ease of understanding, (2) those that represent familiarity, (3) those that represent precision and appropriateness, (4) those that represent tradition, and (5) those that represent beauty and authenticity. Some examples are listed below. 1 Ease of understanding – わかりやすい wakariyasui (easy to understand) – やさしい yasashii (easy) ­­ – 平易な heiina (simple) ­­ – 簡単な kantanna (easy) ­­ 2 Familiarity – 親しみやすい shitashimiyasui (easy to feel familiar) – おなじみの onajimi no (familiar) ­­ – なじみ深い najimi bukai (familiar) ­­ – 身近な mijikana (familiar) ­­ – 顔なじみの kaonajimino (familiar ­­ faces) 3 Precision and appropriateness – 正しい tadashii (correct) ­­ – 適切な tekisetsuna (appropriate) ­­ – 適当な tekitōna (appropriate) ­­ – 的確な tekikakuna (precise) ­­ – 正確な seikakuna (accurate) ­­ – 明確な meikakuna (precise) ­­ – きちんとした kichintoshita (proper) ­­ – 標準的な hyōjuntekina (standard) ­­ – ちゃんとした chantoshita (appropriate) ­­ – 完全な kanzenna (perfect) ­­ 4 Tradition – 伝統的な dentōtekina (traditional) ­­ ­­ – 昔ながらの mukashinagara no (traditional) ­­ – 日本古来の nihon korai no (traditionally Japanese) ­­ – 古きよき furuki yoki (good old) 5 Beauty and authenticity ­­ – 美しい utsukushii (beautiful) ­­ – 立派な rippana (magnificent) ­­ – 素晴らしい subarashii (splendid) ­­ – おもしろい omoshiroi (interesting) ­­ – 独自の dokuji no (unique) ­­ – よい yoi (good) ­­ – すてきな sutekina (fantastic) ­­ – 洗練された senrensareta (sophisticated) ­­­­ ​­​­​­ – 生粋の kissui no (true-born) In the more positive type of narratives, the use of loanwords is commonly associated with the following four themes: (1) history and tradition, (2)

116  Japanese or Foreign? internationalisation and globalisation, (3) the current of time, and (4) new ideas and concepts. Some examples are listed below: 1 History and tradition – ancient times – Meiji period – ­­post-war ​­​­​­ period 2 Internationalisation and globalisation – internationalisation – globalisation – international community – international organisation – multicultural symbiosis 3 Current of time – era – current of time – change – progress 4 New ideas and concepts – new things – new thoughts – new concepts – knowledge – education Loanwords associated with desirable qualities are represented by recurrent adjectives, which can be divided into three categories: (1) those that represent nobility, (2) those that represent convenience, and (3) those that represent assimilation. Some examples are listed below: 1 Nobility – 新しい atarashii (new) ­­ – 新鮮な shinsenna (fresh) ­­ 2 Convenience – 便利な benrina (convenient) ­­ – 都合の良い tsugō no yoi (advantageous) ­­ 3 Assimilation – 日本語化した nihongokashita (Japanised) ­­ – 日本語の中にとけこんだ nihongo no naka ni tokekonda (completely ­­ melted into nihongo) On this side of the debate, the Japanese language is associated with desirable qualities represented by the following recurrent adjectives, which can be divided into three categories: (1) those that represent vigour, (2) those that represent flexibility, and (3) those that represent richness.

Japanese or Foreign?  117

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118  Japanese or Foreign? Irwin, Mark (2011) ­­ Loanwords in Japanese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Jenkins, Richard (1996) ­­ Social Identity. London: Routledge. Joseph, John (2004) Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. New York, ­­ NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Kenkyusha’s New ­­Japanese-English ​­​­​­ Dictionary (2003) Fifth Edition. Tokyo: Kenkyusha. ­­ Loveday, Leo (1996) Language Contact in Japan: Language Contact in Japan: A ­­Socio-Linguistic ​­​­​­ History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Miller, Roy Andrew (1982) Japan’s Modern Myth: The Language and Beyond. New York, NY: Weatherhill. National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2006) Gairaigo: Iikae tebiki. Tokyo: Gyōsei. Oxford Languages (2015) ­­ Word of the Year 2015. Available at: https:// languages.oup. com/word-of-the-year/2015/ ­­­­ ­​­­­​­­​­­­ ­​­­­​­­​­­­ ​­​­​­ ­­ (accessed ­­ 20 January 2022). Kikuzo. Available at: http://database.asahi.com/ library2e/ (accessed 5 October 2021). The Yomiuri Shimbun Yomidasu Rekishikan. Available at: https://database.yomiuri. co.jp/rekishikan/ ­­ (accessed ­­ 5 October 2021).

5

What Kind of Loanwords?

5.1 Loanwords as ‘Outside Within’ The textual analysis in Chapter 4 revealed that loanwords (gairaigo) ­ are often treated as being independent of the Japanese language (nihongo). ­ The two concepts are contrasted through various sets of opposing qualities, such as ‘difficult’ and ‘easy’, ‘unfamiliar’ and ‘familiar’, and ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’, thus creating a perceptual dichotomy. Lexically speaking, loanwords constitute one of the three main vocabulary groups in the Japanese language and therefore should be contrasted to the key remaining vocabulary types: native Japanese words (wago) ­ and Sino-Japanese words (kango). ­ However, in popular Japanese discourse, the concept of the loanword is often contrasted with the Japanese language as a whole. In almost all kinds of narratives used in the loanword debate, loanwords are referred to as ‘foreign language’. At the same time, the Japanese language is typically referred to as nihongo not kokugo  – the term nihongo being a means to compare the ​­ Japanese language with other languages, or to view it from the perspective of speakers of other languages. In this much, when loanwords are discussed, the Japanese language is described as nihongo, even when there is no explicit reference to any specific foreign language. This suggests that loanwords are perceived as part of a broad category of ‘foreign language’. It is a result of a socio- cognitive process in which loanwords are categorised as foreign, and wago and kango as Japanese. Categorisation is an essential process in human cognition. Fowler (1986: 16) has rightly argued that “[w]e understand the multitude of things and events we encounter in our daily lives by seeing them as instances of types or categories”. Fowler offers the examples of the categories of ‘table’, ‘weed’ or ‘pet’, and explains that “you can place a book or a cup on a table whether it has four legs or five or one; a weed should be torn up from the garden even if it sports an attractive flower; a pet may be admitted to the sitting room even if it is a cobra” (ibid.). ­ Thus, classifying a certain thing into a category also means focusing on certain of its characteristics while occluding others. This view is supported by Lakoff and Johnson (1981: 123) when they state, “categorisation is a natural way of identifying a kind of object or experience

DOI: 10.4324/9781003197522-5

120  What Kind of Loanwords? by highlighting certain properties, downplaying others, and hiding still others”. Therefore, in social interaction, one subject matter can be classified into differing categories according to one’s interpretation since categorisation is “subject to negotiation and revision” (Fowler 1986: 18). Yet, those categories themselves, according to Fowler, are often taken for granted and rarely examined (ibid.: ­ 31). Similarly, Conboy (2007: 31) suggests categorisation provides one of “the first and most obvious ways” to observe a particular viewpoint. The categorisation of loanwords as foreign thus reflects a viewpoint in which loanwords are seen to be an external counterpart to the Japanese language. This being the case, the distinction between the Japanese language and loanwords can be interpreted as the perceptual dichotomy between ‘Japaneseness’ and ‘foreignness’, symbolising the Self and Other of Japanese national identity. The identification of this kind of Other is essential to identity formation. Jepperson et  al. (1996: 59) argue that Self and Other constitute a pair of “mutually constructed and evolving images”. Likewise, Jenkins (1996: 21) emphasises the importance of the concept of the other by saying “[t]o say who I am is to say who or what I am not”. The question here is, then, why the role of the other is played by loanwords that have become part of the Japanese vocabulary, when there are actual foreign languages that can be contrasted to Japanese in a way that is more equitable. In order to offer a possible answer to this question, this study defines the role of loanwords as being an ‘outside within’ following the concept of ‘outsiders within’ used by Gottlieb (2006) to describe the status of ‘minority’ groups in Japan excluded from ‘mainstream’ society. The concept of ‘outsiders within’ stems from a widely held belief in Japanese homogeneity. While repeatedly criticised as a myth, this supposed homogeneity of the Japanese population has been described as a central notion in Japanese national identity by scholars including Dale (1986), Oguma (1998), Screech (1995), Sugimoto (2003; 2009), and Iwabuchi (2016). The creation of this myth is based on a discursive process of inclusion and exclusion, as well as assimilation and differentiation. According to MorrisSuzuki (1998), it was during the Meiji period that the concept of ‘Japan’ or ‘Japaneseness’ was reinvented in the modern context. Prior to Meiji era modernisation, she argues, people in peripheral areas such as the Ainu and the Ryukyuan were excluded from the civilised centre, and were deemed barbarians under a policy of differentiation. This was a time in which Japan had a self-imposed closure policy (sakoku) and limited contact with foreign ­ countries. As the country opened up during the Meiji period, peripheral communities became redefined as Japanese and were given Japanese citizenship through a policy of assimilation (ibid.: 5). The redefinition of the Jap­ anese was therefore by and large motivated by encounter with the modern nation-states of the West. This expanded vision of the Japanese, ironically, created the conceptual basis for an enduring notion of Japanese homogeneity. Ever since, the discourse of an allegedly homogeneous Japanese people

What Kind of Loanwords?  121 has undergone constant adjustment according to the evolving environment of Japanese society. Out of this context, Morris-Suzuki suggests the early 1990s became another turning point. She explains that with the end of the Cold War and the simultaneous diversification of the Japanese population came “new challenges to the attempt to construct Japan as a racially or linguistically homogeneous nation” (ibid.: ­ 34). Building on this analysis, Gottlieb (2006) has studied discourses on minority groups in contemporary Japan, including the burakumin (who were discriminated against under the caste system during the Edo period), the Ainu, ethnic Korean and Chinese residents, women, the physically and mentally disabled, and the gay community. Despite their administrative status as being ‘Japanese’, Gottlieb argues, these people suffer from persistent discrimination (ibid.: ­ 4). The process of such ‘internal’ exclusion is no longer based upon geographical distance, as it was before modernisation, she suggests. Rather, it results from the stereotyping of the ‘average’ or ‘mainstream’ Japanese person (ibid.). ­ At the heart of this analysis is the idea that in order to construct the image of the ‘mainstream’ group, minority groups are labelled as “undesirably different”. Thus, they are excluded from the perceptual framework of the Japanese as ‘outsiders’, despite membership of the Japanese population. Minority groups here fulfil a contrapuntal role as ‘outsiders within’. Linking this to the traditional, yet persisting, social dichotomy between uchi (insider) and soto (outsider), Gottlieb believes that these ‘outsiders within’ play a significant role in the formation of the Japanese identity. The important point here is that the imagined ‘outsider’ is not an actual foreigner but somebody who lives in Japanese society and possesses Japanese nationality. The increased focus on internal otherness has been observed by other scholars, including Carroll (2001: 139), who points out that in the face of growing diversity new groups of outsiders have been created among Japanese nationals as a means to reinforce the myth of homogeneity, while foreigners are already “by definition” excluded from such discourses. Beyond Japan, it is, of course, a universal practice to create Others within society in order to sustain a belief in national coherence and homogeneity. In her influential Strangers to Ourselves, Julia Kristeva (1991: 52) examines the history of the concept of ‘foreignness’, and points to the notion of the ‘barbarian’ in Greek city-states. Considered to be the origin of foreignness, ‘barbarian’ was used not only to refer to non-Greeks who spoke an ‘incomprehensible’ language, but sometimes also to assess “others within the supposedly homogenous group”. Similarly, Schaub (2013: 64– 65) has argued that internal members of Europe have often been stigmatised as Other in order to maintain “a fictional European unity”. In this much, various groups of people historically have been labelled as ‘internal others’ – “women, witches, heretics, the poor, lepers, nomadic people, slaves, dialect-speakers, sodomites, fools, the disabled, gypsies, Jews, Moriscos, Cagots, Highlanders, Irishmen” and so on – despite their collectively representing “the huge majority of the European population”.

122  What Kind of Loanwords? Based on this idea of internal otherness, this study places the status of loanwords in the Japanese language as an ‘outside within’, based on the notion that loanwords represent an otherness that is felt within the Japanese language. By delineating loanwords as particularly foreign – whether they are seen as harmful or beneficial to the Japanese language  – participants in the debate attempt to secure well- defined boundaries between gairaigo/ katakanago as ‘outside’ and nihongo as ‘inside’. Regardless of one’s perspective in the debate, gairaigo/katakanago is treated as one element in a binary ­ with nihongo, the identity of each defined in relation to the other. By criticising or defending loanwords as the representation of otherness, the debate’s participants equally buttress an idealised vision of the Japanese language, which is the manifestation of the imagined notion of Japaneseness. Thus, while the use of loanwords is a frequent topic of language-related discussion in Japan, what is really happening in the debate, I want to suggest, is the renegotiation of Japanese identity. From this premise, the subsequent part of this chapter examines the symbolic implications of the loanword discussion, as well as its chronological evolution. Through this prism, we reveal key values and challenges in Japanese society.

5.2 Metaphors Metaphorical expressions are a notable and ubiquitous feature of the loanword debate. Out of 18 recurrent verbs examined in Chapter 4, 5 – hanransuru (to ­ inundate), afureru (to overflow), shintōsuru (to permeate), ryūnyūsuru (to ­ flow in), and kyūshūsuru (to ­ absorb) – ​­are ­water-related ​­ metaphors. Other metaphors and similes, meanwhile, are employed with other recurrent verbs. Metaphors are, thus, important for the analysis of the discourse on loanwords. They are often vehicles for associations widely shared by the general public (Hawkers, 1972: 33) and encode a particular idea or opinion on the thing they are used to describe (Fowler, 1986: 40). Knowles and Moon (2006: 2) define metaphor as a way to “communicate what we think or how we feel about something; to explain what a particular thing is like; to convey a meaning in a more interesting or creative way; or to do all of these”. Conboy (2007: 40) likewise describes the role of metaphors as providing “a bridge between the factual world and the world of ideological persuasion”. We can therefore examine metaphors as the representation of thought. In fact, it has been compellingly argued that human thought processes are innately “largely metaphorical” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 6). In cognitive linguistics, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) established the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). This influential set of ideas demonstrates how metaphors constitute “a primary basis for understanding a wide range of abstract concepts” using examples of everyday expressions related to ‘argument’ and ‘time’ (Gibbs 2017: 18). The first example, ‘argument is war’, is a conceptual metaphor which provides the basis for many related metaphorical expressions: “your claims are indefensible”, “he attacked every

What Kind of Loanwords?  123 weak point in my argument”, or “I have never won an argument with him” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 4 –7). The second example, ‘time is money’, similarly provides the basis for other time-related metaphorical expressions: “you are wasting my time”, “this gadget will save you hours”, or “that flat tire cost me an hour” (ibid.: ­ 7– 8). Lakoff and Johnson conclude that metaphors structure perceptual frameworks for a subject, highlighting one of its aspects while hiding others that are inconsistent with it (ibid.: ­ 10–13). ­ ​­ Metaphors thus have become an important focus for discourse analysis, constituting a tool of ‘meaning-making’ and a key linguistic resource for qualitative analysis. Mautner (2008: 49) argues that in order to identify meaning-making resources in media texts, one needs to examine the evaluative load of words and phrases, such as those of news actors, and metaphors which are “used to position readers into adopting a certain point of view”. Repeated metaphors and chains of related metaphors construct cohesive ties of meaning (ibid.: ­ 43). For example, Mautner cites the metaphors ‘flooded’ and ‘wave’ as used in British media to describe ‘criminals’ and ‘migrants’. She suggests these metaphors create a cohesive chain of meaning, not only establishing the image of uncontrollable movement of criminals and migrants, but also encouraging the association that criminals and migrants are the same group of people (ibid.). ­ In the discussion of loanwords, we can therefore assume a similar perceptual relationship between the conceptual metaphor ‘loanwords are a flow of water’ and other things that are expressed with similar water-related ­ ​­ metaphors. In addition to the 5 water-related verbs mentioned above, there are other recurrent water –and liquid-related expressions frequently used in these discussions, including the following: – – – – – –

外来語の波gairaigo no nami (a wave of loanwords) 英語の大波 eigo no ōnami (a big wave of English) 外来語の洪水 gairaigo no kōzui (a flood of loanwords) カタカナ語の洪水 katakanago no kōzui (a flood of loanwords) あいまい語の洪水 aimaigo no kōzui (a flood of ambiguous words) 洪水のような英語の流入 kōzui no yōna eigo no ryūnyū (an influx of English like a flood) – 奔流のように押し寄せるカタカナ語 honryū no yōni oshiyoseru katakanago (loanwords that advance like a torrent) – 日本語の中に溶け込んだ外来語 nihongo no naka ni tokekonda gairaigo (loanwords that have melted into Japanese) Besides the fact that “a fluid metaphor” is often used for language in Japanese (Nomura, 1996: 49), these water-related metaphors suggest two things regarding the public perception of loanwords. First, there are two opposing points of view on the use of loanwords. For those who see disadvantages in their use, loanwords are inundating or overflowing. For those who see advantages in their use, gairaigo permeate or are being absorbed into Japanese.

124  What Kind of Loanwords? On one hand, the metaphors of a flood, a wave, or a torrent communicate differing degrees of threat, focusing on the strong momentum and rapidity of increase in loanword use. On the other, the metaphor of a wave communicates a more nuanced sentiment. In so much, a wave can also describe ongoing social phenomena, such as ‘wave of internationalisation’ (kokusaika ­ no nami) or ‘wave of informatisation’ (IT-ka ­­ ​­ no nami). That use communicates the acceptance of the described phenomenon into the mainstream, even if there are difficulties to be faced swimming into such a wave. When there ­ is an association of spilling water, as in expressions such as hanransuru (to inundate), afureru (to overflow), or kōzui (a flood), the use of loanwords is also seen to have exceeded the acceptable limit, causing some alarm or a defensive action. Water is a shapeless element and in our daily lives it always exists within certain vessels or boundaries: a glass or a bottle of drinking water, riverbanks, or seawalls separating land and sea. When these are breached or overcome, water can be a source of disruption, and sometimes even a threat to human life. Thus, such metaphorical expressions refer to a situation in which loanwords have exceeded their putative container and disarray ensues. In uses such as these, readers receive an impression that the Japanese language is at risk of losing its beauty and order – its equilibrium – as a direct result of the over- extension of loanwords. Those who maintain this viewpoint argue that loanwords should be intentionally removed. At the same time, the metaphors of permeation or absorption are depicted through verbs such as shintōsuru (to permeate), kyūshūsuru (to absorb), and tokekomu (to ­ melt in). These metaphors communicate an idea of stability and security, with the image of water becoming part of the soil in a controlled way and hence not subject to a catastrophic spillover. The absorption metaphor also implies that the desirable effects of what is absorbed are judiciously taken in, while the undesirable effects are minimised or reduced. Readers thus deduce that the use of loanwords is under control and the Japanese language is deriving desirable effects from it. Perhaps needless to say, those who maintain this view argue that loanwords are beneficial to the Japanese language. In both cases, water-related metaphors commonly construct an image of loanwords as fluid and the Japanese language as solid. An imaginary boundary is drawn between the two: flowing loanwords and the steady presence of the Japanese language. Furthermore, through the recurrent metaphors of water streams and the land, a conceptual division is drawn between inland territory and threat to the frontier. In particular, there are pertinent links between the idea of foreignness and the image of water in the Japanese discourse, as the Japanese national territories are largely defined by the sea. This manifests in expressions such as kaigai (literally ­ ‘sea’ ­ and ‘outside’ – ­ i.e. ​­ ‘overseas’), which refers to the general idea of foreign countries, and mizugiwa taisaku (literally ‘measures taken at the waterfront’), which refers to ‘border control measures’ against infectious diseases and the smuggling of illegal goods and objects. Because of a similar geographic standpoint, the metaphor

What Kind of Loanwords?  125 of spilling water is also often used by the British media to refer to a problem or threat from abroad. For example, Conboy (2007: 183) quotes British newspaper The Sun (3 May 2004) articulating a negative view on immigration: A tidal wave of economic migrants is moving across Europe and is about to crash onto our shores. Why? Countries such as France and Germany have set up water-tight laws to ensure their welfare handouts cannot be creamed off by foreign freeloaders…. In this extract, migrants are perceived to be fluid, while the nations are perceived to be solid, creating expressions such as, ‘a tidal wave of migrants’, ‘our shores’, and ‘water-tight laws’. These water metaphors draw a contrast between stability and instability, mobility and immobility, and between fleetingness and durability. To this end, things expressed as fluid often represent instability, mobility, and fleetingness, be it referring to loanwords or migrants, while things expressed as being solid tend to represent stability, immobility, and durability, whether in the context of a language or a nation. The contrast between fluidity and solidity expressed through water-related metaphors can be related to the association between the use of loanwords and dynamism and flexibility drawn by other recurrent verbs analysed in Chapter 4, such as teichakusuru, toriireru, ukeireru as well as hadome o kakeru. The fluidity of loanwords is further linked to the general notion of the changing environment of Japanese society and overflowing information. In Chapter 4, it was observed that the verb afureru is frequently employed to describe the increasing volume of loanwords, while it is also used to describe information in the highly internationalised and digitalised society. Thus, it has been suggested that the discourse on overflowing loanwords can also be seen as the discourse on the overflowing information itself. Similarly, the more general idea of fluidity associated with loanwords is linked to the flow of time, which continues to change the environment surrounding Japan with changing challenges and opportunities. The notion of fluidity, with the related images of overflowing information and fleeting time, can also be a symbol of oscillating identity, which is illustrated by the below example in which loanwords are associated with toki no nagare (current of time). 1 Even though it is important to follow the current of time, I want to pro­ Yomiuri tect the Japanese language without abusing loanwords. (The Shimbun, 25 December 2017) Therefore, loanwords are associated not only with the image of flowing water, but also with the flows of information and time, all of which are repeatedly described using water-related metaphors. Besides these water metaphors, there are a number of others based on biological concepts observed in the textual data this study has produced: in particular, metaphors of viruses and invasive species. While the virus

126  What Kind of Loanwords? metaphor was already in use prior to 2020, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic saw the use of this metaphor became more frequent – partly because the loanword debate became increasingly focused on the use of language during the pandemic. This can be seen in the following example: 2 Along with the spread of the coronavirus, loanwords are inundating. (The Asahi Shimbun, 5 June 2020) This shift of focus is mainly because media reports related to the pandemic tended to include a large number of English- derived loanwords due to the international nature of the reported information, thus prompting a reinvigoration of the loanword debate. The Japan Times introduced this phenomenon with an article entitled “COVID-19 spurs debate over loanwords” (Brazor, 2020). Similarly, debates on Covid-related loanwords were observed outside Japan in other non-Anglophone countries where large numbers of English- derived words featured in pandemic reporting. This frequently became the focus of criticism from the general public, many of whom were unfamiliar with such terms, adding further layers of confusion and anxiety to the already heightened mood of uncertainty that proliferated during the pandemic. In Italy, Claudio Marazzini, the president of the Accademia della Crusca, lamented that one of the secondary damages of coronavirus is the spread of Anglicisms in the Italian language (Carratu, 2020). ­ The metaphor of invasive species has also been widely used to describe loanwords. In studies of ecological linguistics (Haugen, 1972), the linguistic system has long been compared to the biological ecosystem with its genealogical tree. In this metaphor, loanwords are often compared to invasive foreign species with Japanese words positioned as the native species, while the Japanese language itself is compared to an ecosystem, in which foreign species menace the lives of native species. This is apparent in the following example: ­ 3 I wonder what will happen to the ‘cultural ecosystem’ of the Japanese language as a result of the inundation by loanwords. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 11 February 2005) As is discussed in Chapter  2, the ideas of loanwords and invasive species are often compared in Japanese discourses. This is partly due to the fact that both words contain the expression gairai – literally meaning ‘that which comes from outside’. Both virus and invasive species are threatening to lives and often difficult to control once they start to spread. Moreover, one of the most recurrent verbs used to describe loanwords, teichakusuru, is used not only to describe their stabilisation in a given language, but also to refer to the settlement of foreign species in a new environment. Hence, it can

What Kind of Loanwords?  127 be argued that the biological metaphor for loanwords creates a conceptual metaphor that language is an ecosystem and words are living organisms that can be healthy or sick, thriving or nearly extinct. Finally, the personification of words is another commonly observed metaphor. Sōbē Arakawa (1898–1995) – a school English teacher and researcher of loanwords  – described loanwords using the metaphor ‘the bride of the language’ in the course of arguing against the elimination of loanwords during the war (The Asahi Shimbun, 14 January 2002). In his Gairaigogaku Josetsu (1932), Arakawa suggested that we should welcome the bride into the family and should not be like a mother-in-law who bullies the bride. In modern Japanese convention, brides often become part of the family of the groom through marriage. Therefore, the bride metaphor delineates a power structure in which loanwords become part of the Japanese language. There is a further layer to this in a common association in Japanese culture whereby the mother-in-law ­ ­​­­ ​­ is seen to bully the bride. Thus, the ­mother-in­​­­ ­​ law – meaning Japanese words or Japanese speakers – is understood to be a stronger agent than the bride, representing loanwords. The family, meanwhile, is the Japanese language. This vision created by Arakawa is in line with other favourable views of loanwords, and contrasts with the biological metaphors of virus and invasive species. His bride metaphor is comparable to one used by Joachim Du Bellay (1522–1560) in his Défense Et Illustration De La Langue Française, which describes loanwords as a foreigner in a city who should be welcome as a citizen of a republic (Joseph, 2004: 107). Du Bellay’s metaphor also delineates a picture in which the city has a similar authority over foreigners as the mother-in-law has over the bride. The commonality of all the metaphors discussed above, however, is that they offer a sense of fluidity, mobility, and impermanence with regards the idea of loanwords. Be it virus, invasive species, a bride, or foreigners, they are in motion, and their approach may be either threatening or welcomed. These recurrent metaphors thus help understand the loanword debate from a metalinguistic point of view. They show the notion of fluidity is a pervasive implicit theme in the discussion of loanwords. In this discourse, the fluidity of loanwords is often contrasted to the stability of the Japanese language. However, language by nature is fluid, as it is constantly changing with chronological and geographical variations. Therefore, the stability of the Japanese language is an imagined concept, albeit one that is taken for granted. Its idealised image of the Japanese language in reality is spoken by nobody. As an important symbol of Japanese national identity, the characteristics of this imagined Japanese language are narrated in various different ways, according to the idealised vision of Japanese identity each individual holds. The narratives surrounding loanwords can thus be understood as the renegotiation of this idealised vision of the Japanese language which buttresses the Japanese national identity. Therefore, debates over loanwords can be seen as attempts to define important values in Japanese

128  What Kind of Loanwords? society in the flux of a constantly changing environment. Fukuyama (2018: 164) has described the nature of modernisation as “mobile, fluid, and complex”. While admitting that the fluidity of the modern world is a desirable condition, citing the example of those who manage to flee “villages and traditional societies that do not offer them choices”, Fukuyama also observes the same fluidity is partly responsible for a “confusion over identity” (ibid.). ­ Based on this view, the fluidity symbolised by loanwords can be understood as the fluidity of time in the contemporary world, which can even be understood as the fluidity of the oscillating modern identity itself.

5.3 Contrasts If the loanword debate constitutes part of the renegotiation of Japanese identity, qualities associated with loanwords can reveal key values in Japanese society. This section revisits some of the recurrent qualities discussed in the debate on loanwords, and proposes the hypothesis that they are important values not only for the Japanese language, but also for the construction of ‘Japaneseness’. As the underlying structure of the debate has already been identified as a dichotomy between Japanese as Self and loanwords as internal Other, associated qualities are examined in terms of a similar contrast. In doing so, references are made to sets of contrasting values identified in Thomas’ discussion of the discourse of linguistic purism (Thomas, 1991), and others identified in Dale’s discussion of the myth of Japanese uniqueness (Dale, 1986). These sets of contrasting values have many characteristics in common with those identified in the textual data used in this study. This allows us to understand the Japanese discourse on loanwords as a case study within the wider frameworks of linguistic purism and the myth of Japanese uniqueness. The Japanese debate over the use of loanwords is, in this much, at least partly an example of linguistic purism, since the majority of opinions are critical of foreignisms. Thomas (1991: 19) explains that linguistic purism is characterised by a dualistic view, which labels certain linguistic elements as ‘pure’ and others ‘impure’. The idea of purity, here, is often grounded in the recognition of a national standard language, which divides all linguistic elements into the binary classification of ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’. This leads to the contrast between ‘pure’ and ‘impure’, and, in turn, to one between ­ ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’, and ultimately ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ (ibid.: 39). To support this idea, Thomas (1991: 25–32) introduces four sub-notions of purity: (1) genetic and genealogical purity, (2) metallurgical purity, (3) aesthetic purity, and (4) religious purity, and he lists qualities associated with the notions of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’, which can be summarised as follows: Pure – Standard – superior

What Kind of Loanwords?  129



­

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130  What Kind of Loanwords? keep in mind that language is often ‘nationalised’. As Romaine (1989: 325) asserts, languages are labelled and described as if they were possessions of ­nations – ​­‘French’, ­ ‘English’, ­ ‘Greek’, ­ ‘Spanish’, ­ etc. – ​­“whose ­ integrity and purity must be safeguarded”. Languages are thus seen as a national heritage, despite the fact that they predate the creation of modern nationstates. In this context, puristic debates on language tend to intensify when national identity is at stake. Jernudd (1989: 3) asserts that linguistic purism “occurs at particular historical times to defend, demarcate, and protect that which constitutes Self” for greater consolidation of the nation. In this context, the above contrasting qualities between ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ are also often projected on the dichotomy between ‘national’ and ‘nonnational’. This discursive structure of linguistic purism can be applied to the Japanese debate on loanwords with its dichotomy between nihongo as ­ ­­ ​­ ‘national’ vocabulary and gairaigo/katakanago as ‘non-national’ vocabulary. The qualities associated with these respective notions are closely linked to the perceived visions of Japaneseness and foreignness held by the participants in this debate. The profound intertwinement between the Japanese language and national identity has been discussed by a variety of scholars, including Miller (1982), Gottlieb (1995), Maher (1995), and Stanlaw (2005: ­ ­265–278). ​­ Focusing particularly on a dichotomous structure in the discourse on Japaneseness, Dale (1986) argues that Japan’s national identity is based on the distinction between generalised images of Japan and the West. Sakai (1996: 19–21) has also pointed to a tendency to delineate Japanese ‘uniqueness’ based on an unscientific and unsustainable dichotomy between Japan and the West. In this, Sakai suggests, Japan is counterposed to a mythic monolithic entity called ‘the West’, and not “the wide range of societies with which the nation might meaningfully be compared  – Korea, Thailand, France, Britain, Nigeria, Mexico, etc.”. Similarly, Morris-Suzuki (1998: 157) discusses a tendency in the literature on Japanese civilisation that focuses “almost entirely on the relationship between ‘Western’ and ‘Japanese’ civilisation”. Historically, this tendency is seen as a characteristic of the literature known as nihonjinron (literally ‘theories of the Japanese’), which is often criticised for its tendency to take Japanese homogeneity for granted. As part of his critique of the nihonjinron literature, Dale (1986: 41–51) lists the following contrasting values attributed to the polarity between Japan and the West: – – – – – – –

blood purity versus miscegenation verticality versus horizontality spirituality versus materialism emotionality versus rationality particularity versus universality homogeneity versus heterogeneity receptive nature versus donative nature

What Kind of Loanwords?  131 The popularity of nihonjinron literature is typically associated with the postwar period up to the 1980s  – a period in which Japanese self- confidence was revived as post-war reconstruction morphed into the economic boom of the ‘Japanese miracle’. Thus, the nihonjinron literature is generally associated with the past. However, the loanword discourse suggests that the same mental dichotomy between Japan and the imagined Other persisted into the subsequent period from the 1990s onwards. This is reflected in the fact that linguistic elements are divided into the two generalised categories of nihongo and gairaigo, despite the diversity of words’ etymological origins, and distinct notions of country, region, language, vocabulary, and script. In the contemporary discourse on loanwords, however, there has been an evolution in the treatment of the notions of the Other. While in the traditional discourse on Japaneseness, the Other was defined as the generalised notion of the ‘West’, in the contemporary discourse there has been a conflation between the notion of the ‘West’ and the notion of the ‘foreign’, blurring the relationship between the notions of the ‘East’ and ‘Japan’. In the frame of this debate, gairaigo and katakanago, used mostly to refer to Western loanwords, are often seen ‘foreign’. Indeed, in the textual data analysed in this study, loanwords (gairaigo/katakanago) ­ ­ are most commonly associated with a flattened-out conception of foreign language (gaikokugo) ­ (appeared 226 times in total, 123 times in The Asahi Shimbun and 103 times in The Yomiuri Shimbun). By treating gairaigo and gaikokugo as ­quasi-synonyms, ​­ the notions of words of Western origin and foreign languages are conflated. On this point, Hosokawa (2018: 56) has explained that in contemporary Japanese discourse, the distinction between East and West, or between the Orient and the Occident, has been reinterpreted as the distinction between Japan and foreign. That is to say, although contemporary Japanese values are at least in part founded upon an Eastern tradition largely shared with Chinese civilisation, the notion of Japaneseness itself has become independent of the notion of the ‘East’. At the same time, the notion of the ‘West’ has been enlarged to encapsulate the general notion of foreignness. As a result, the notion of the ‘East’ has become a flexible element that can be labelled either as ‘Japanese’ or as ‘foreign’ depending on the values that are being emphasised. Sino-Japanese linguistic elements such as kanji and kango can thus be grouped together with Japanese native words to be contrasted with Western loanwords, yet they can also be discussed as an example of ‘foreign’ elements that have taken root in Japanese – and thereby seen as the model for more recent Western loanwords. The usage depends on the narratives being constructed around the Japanese language. In both narratives, however, what remains unchanged is that various notions surrounding the Japanese language and the Japanese nation are labelled either as Japanese or foreign, and associated with contrasting qualities based on an idealised vision of Japaneseness. From this point of view, it is worth scrutinising how the contrasting qualities associated with ‘Japanese’ and ‘foreign’ reveal the values associated with the vision of Japaneseness. In the popular discourse, only certain loanwords

132  What Kind of Loanwords? are discussed as a counterpart to Japanese. By finding out what kind of loanwords are discussed, it is possible to know what kind of Japanese is imagined as being ideal, and this in turn reflects the ideal vision of Japaneseness. Based on the lists of contrasting qualities compiled by Thomas (1991) and Dale (1986), the below section examines the following four sets of qualities as central values associated with the Japanese language and loanwords: A B C D

Comprehensibility and incomprehensibility Beauty and disarray Tradition and novelty Spirituality and materialism

Subsequently, the following four sets of qualities are reviewed as secondary values in the discourse on loanwords: E G F H

Verticality and horizontality Correctness and incorrectness Perfection and imperfection Efforts and laziness

A

Comprehensibility and incomprehensibility

Simplicity is one of the values Thomas (ibid.: ­ 32) relates to purity, and is contrasted with the complexity of impurity. In the discourse on loanwords, the most common contrast made between Japanese and loanwords is between comprehensibility and incomprehensibility. Example of this contrast follows: 4 This year, Suginami City will start an initiative to replace difficult loanwords used at the city office with easy Japanese. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 10 January 2003) The qualities of being complex and difficult to understand are often associated with loanwords, implying that key qualities of the Japanese language are ‘ease’ and ‘simplicity’. Adjectives related to comprehensibility are often used for Japanese, including the following: – – – – –

わかりやすい wakariyasui (easy to understand) 簡単な kantanna (easy) ­ やさしい yasashii (easy/kind) ­ ­ 単純な tanjunna (simple) ­ 平易な heiina (simple and easy).

In keeping with this, adjectives related to incomprehensibility are often used for loanwords, including these examples: – わかりにくい wakarinikui (difficult to understand) – わかりづらい wakarizurai (difficult to understand)

What Kind of Loanwords?  133 – – – – – – – – – – –

理解しにくい rikaishinikui (difficult to understand) よくわからない yokuwakaranai (not very understandable) 難しい muzukashii (difficult) ­ 難解な nankaina (difficult) ­ 複雑な fukuzatsuna (complicated) ­ 不可解な fukakaina (incomprehensible) ­ 意味がわからない imi ga wakaranai (incomprehensible) ­ ちんぷんかんぷん chimpunkampun (incomprehensible) ­ 意味不明の imifumeino (incomprehensible) ­ 理解不能の rikaifunōno (incomprehensible) ­ 読みにくい yominikui (difficult to read).

The contrast between easy and difficult is often linked to the contrast between familiarity and unfamiliarity due to the fact that that which is familiar is easy to understand, while the unfamiliar, by contrast, is difficult to understand. While adjectives such as najimi no nai (unfamiliar), ­ miminarenai or kikinarenai (unfamiliar to the ears) are often used for loanwords, adjectives such as mijikana (familiar) and kaonajimino (familiar) ­ are used for Japanese, as in the example below. In such narratives, what is familiar and comprehensible is described as nihongo, while the unfamiliar and incomprehensible is described as gairaigo or gaikokugo (foreign ­ language). 5 NINJAL is working on an initiative to replace unfamiliar loanwords with Japanese. (The Asahi Shimbun, 21 August 2003) Furthermore, the contrast between easy and difficult also results in the contrast between the precise and vague. In this construction, what is said in familiar and easy language is understood with the exact idea communicated. By contrast, what is said in unfamiliar and difficult language has its meaning obscured with only a vague idea communicated. As a result, adjectives such as tekikakuna ( precise) are used for Japanese, while adjectives such as aimaina (vague, ambiguous) are used for loanwords. This is seen in the example below: 6 The heavy use of ambiguous loanwords can be an obstacle in the thinking process or conversation. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 17 December 2002) Needless to say, there are loanwords whose meaning is unequivocally understood through daily use and which are not perceived to be difficult, unfamiliar or vague. There are innumerable examples of such words: pen [< pen], sofa [< sofa], tēburu [< table], and so on. By the same token, there are Japanese native words and Sino-Japanese words that are rarely used, and are not understood by the majority of the population. This begs the question why loanwords are so often associated with incomprehensibility, unfamiliarity and ambiguity. The answer, perhaps, is that the notion of gairaigo is

134  What Kind of Loanwords? associated with all the things that, for whatever reason, are unfamiliar to the general public  – be it due to a lack of specialist knowledge, or a new way of thinking that has yet to spread through society. Criticism of loanwords based on their difficulty can then be understood as a criticism of that which is unfamiliar in society. And, by extension, we might view the ideas of ambiguity and incomprehensibility associated with loanwords as also being associated with a Japanese identity that continues to oscillate in a changing environment. On the other hand, praise for the use of difficult loanwords can be understood as praise for the attitude that we should learn new lessons from the unfamiliar, however much effort is required. In this construction that defines loanwords as something difficult and incomprehensible, the Japanese language, as its counterpart, is delineated as something familiar and comprehensible. Thus, the central value is the comprehensibility of Japanese, while loanwords play a symbolic contrapuntal role of foreignness, unfamiliarity, and vagueness, which it is necessary for the Japanese to overcome, whether by refusing them or internalising them. The concept of comprehensibility, meanwhile, has evolved over time. Since the 2000s and the yasashii nihongo initiative, the Japanese language has been increasingly associated with the quality of being easy and familiar. This initiative promoted the use of plain language in documents issued by public offices to foreign residents in order to provide information that is essential for everyday life. The idea was originally proposed by a linguistics research group led by Kazuyuki Sato at Hirosaki University (Iori, 2013: 1). Yasashii is an adjective that can be interpreted both as ‘easy’ and ‘kind’, since in Japanese these two adjectives share the same pronunciation (Iori, 2016: 5‒6). Therefore, this clever play on words suggests that the act of using plain language  – and thus making a message easy to understand for all  – is inherently also an act of kindness. This idea of making information universally accessible has been an important agenda since 1995, when the Great Hanshin earthquake underscored the importance of efficient and equal diffusion of essential public information. It has become increasingly prominent since then, due to a sequence of events that includes the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, the Kumamoto earthquakes in 2016, and the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Beyond the growing public awareness of natural disasters and pandemics, the yasashii nihongo initiative also attracted particular attention due to Japan’s growing population of foreign residents. According to the Immigration Services Agency of Japan (2020), the number of foreign residents reached a record high of 2.93 million in 2019. Though this figure dipped slightly in subsequent years due to the restrictions that accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic, it is evident that the number of foreign residents Japan will continue to grow alongside the trend of internationalisation. Furthermore, it is seen as imperative for Japan to improve the living environment for foreign residents in order to tackle the associated demographic challenges and respond better to the international need to accommodate

What Kind of Loanwords?  135 social diversity. To ensure easy access for all to essential information is seen as a key part of the solution. To that end, there have been increasing efforts by national and municipal governments to provide public services in foreign languages, such as English or Chinese. However, according to a survey carried out by NINJAL, the most commonly spoken second language among permanent residents in Japan is Japanese  – it is spoken by 62.6 percent of respondents, followed by English (spoken by 44.0 percent) and Chinese (38.3 percent) (Iwata, 2010). Another study of foreign residents carried out by the Minister of Justice (2016) found that only 10.4 percent of respondents answered that they spoke ‘almost no Japanese’. On top of this, the English proficiency level in Japan is relatively low, ranking 27th out of 29 Asian countries – only Tajikistan and the People’s Democratic Republic of Lao scored lower in the TOEFL iBT test results in 2019 (ETS, 2019: 22). This means the task of translation into English requires a substantial amount of time and cost. This confluence of factors has led to the growth in initiatives for public offices to release important information in simple Japanese. This is seen as being more time and cost efficient than translating documents into English and other foreign languages. In 2020, a set of official guidelines was jointly published by the Immigration Services Agency of Japan and the Agency for Cultural Affairs to provide government and municipal offices guidance in preparing public-facing documents. According to its recommendations, documents should be prepared considering the following points (Immigration Services Agency and Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2020): – – – – – – – – – –

to use shorter sentences and lists to avoid repetitive and complicated expressions to avoid double negation to avoid ambiguity to avoid passive and causative sentences to avoid loanwords to use Japanese native words not Sino-Japanese words to avoid using many kanji to add phonetic readings to kanji to use the Western calendar system instead of the Japanese imperial calendar system

These rules are generally in line with plain language guidelines used in other multilingual communities. For example, the European Union, in which multilingualism is a key value – its 27 member states speak 24 official languages – uses a guideline on clear writing, which sets out the following rules (European Commission, 1998): – to keep sentences and documents short – to avoid ambiguity

136  What Kind of Loanwords? – to use the positive form rather than the negative form – to use the active form rather than the passive form – to be aware of false friends, jargon, and abbreviations What is particular to the case of Japanese is the use of kanji and gairaigo. In addition to kanji, which is challenging for many Japanese learners, loanwords are found to be another obstacle in communication. Since the majority of loanwords go through a high degree of nativisation, their meaning and pronunciation are substantially different from the original words. As a result, loanwords are often difficult to understand even for those who understand the language from which a word has been borrowed. The incomprehensibility of loanwords for foreign residents has become an increasingly common argument made to criticise their use, and reflects the similar, but more common, argument that they are difficult for elderly people to understand. B

Beauty and disarray

As Thomas also points out (1991: 27), the notion of aesthetics is one of the central ones associated with purity. The idea of beauty or order is expressed in the Japanese words utsukushii (beautiful) and utsukushisa (beauty), and is often contrasted to the idea of midare (disorder, disarray). The adjective utsukushii is one of the adjectives most frequently used for nihongo. The expression utsukushii nihongo (beautiful Japanese) alone was used a total of 40 times (21 times in The Asahi Shimbun and 19 times in The Yomiuri Shimbun) between 1991 and 2020 in the textual data used in this study. This demonstrates the strength of the psychological association between the notion of beauty and the Japanese language. The wide acceptance of the term utsukushii nihongo is also seen in the results of a survey carried out by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2016. In that survey, the question “Do you think there is such a thing as utsukushii nihongo?” prompted 90.8 percent of respondents to answer ‘Yes’. That percentage, notably, marked an increase from 87.7 percent in 2009 and 84.8 percent in 2002, when the same question was included in the survey (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2016: 2–3). The implication of the term utsukushii can best be understood in contrast to the word midare (disorder, disarray), which is frequently used to describe the use of loanwords. The expressions kotoba no midare (disarray of language) and nihongo no midare (disarray of the Japanese language) were used a total of 46 times (20 times in The Asahi Shimbun and 26 times in The Yomiuri Shimbun) in the textual data of this study. The term midare is also often included in opinion surveys about Japanese language use. The question ‘Do you think that the Japanese language is in disarray?’ has been asked over subsequent surveys, and the percentage of respondents who answered ‘Yes’ either ‘to a great extent’ or ‘to some extent’ was 73.6 percent in 1995, 85.8 percent in 1999, 88.9 percent in 2000 (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 1996: 5;

What Kind of Loanwords?  137 ­Table 5.1  Number of mentions of kotoba no midare (disarray of language) in discussions on loanwords ­1991–1995 ​­ ­1996–2000 ​­ ­2001–2005 ​­ ­2006–2010 ​­ ­2 011–2015 ​­ ­2 016–2020 ​­ Asahi Yomiuri Total

 8  3 11

 4  6 10

 3 13 16

5 3 8

0 1 1

0 0 0

2000: 53; 2001: 8), 79.5 percent in 2008, 73.2 percent in 2015, and 66.1 percent in 2020 (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2020: 1). The number of mentions of the phrase kotoba no midare in discussions on loanwords has evolved as shown in Table 5.1. The above figures show that the sense of disarray in language was strongest during the early 2000s, after which the percentage started to fall. These results, moreover, correspond to the percentage of respondents who answered that there is a beautiful Japanese language, which has increased since the early 2000s. This suggests that toward the late 1990s, the idea of disarray in language continued growing, after which the idea that Japanese is a beautiful language was introduced, which contributed to the decrease in the number of people who believe that the Japanese language is in disarray. The evolution of the perception of the Japanese language is to be further scrutinised in 5.4. As was discussed in Chapter 4, the idea of disarray is also encapsulated in the recurrent verb ran’yо̄ suru, which shares the same first character 乱as midare. The fact that the expression ran’yо̄ suru is one of the most frequent verbs used for loanwords confirms the close association between loanwords and the notion of disarray contrasted to the beauty of the Japanese language, as is seen in the following example: 7 Although I have given up on the abuse of loanwords in the mass media, as it is the current of the time, it is a pity that even the government offices do not protect the beautiful Japanese language for us. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 9 April 2002) Studying the perception of disarray of language, Carroll (2001: 79– 80) points to the implication of the term midare as “a subjective value judgement, where the emphasis is on movement away from one’s own standard or yardstick of how things should be”. Based on this interpretation, it can be argued that the 1990s was a period of struggle in search for a new norm in the usage of loanwords. As we saw in Chapter 3, the National Language Council set out a standard for the transcription of loanwords in 1991, defining an orthographic specification for their use. This gave rise to questions regarding a moral standard for language use in which the fundamental question became one of whether it was desirable to use loanwords instead of a narrower focus on the rules of their use. More generally, the 1990s is seen as

138  What Kind of Loanwords? a period in which Japan attempted to build a new identity in its renewed domestic and international contexts. Under these circumstances, a new moral standard was needed to define the key values of the country as it navigated this new environment. The unfulfilled quest for new values was manifested in the impression that the language was in disarray. It is no coincidence that Prime Minister Abe’s rise to office in the m id-2000s was conducted under the promise to build a ‘beautiful country’. As much as the notion of disarray is highly subjective, so is the term beauty. The introduction of that value in the 2000s was part of an effort to reconstruct the Japanese identity after the loss of the national confidence that had characterised the 1970s and 1980s; a period when the myth of ‘Japan as number one’ had prospered on the back of the economic boom made famous by Ezra Vogel (1979). The new quest for identity traded the old value standard of economic success for this new preoccupation with beauty and, in so doing, encompassed the abstract idea of Japanese uniqueness. These events also explain why the two subjective qualities, utsukushii and midare, are often contrasted in popular language-related discussions, and in surveys carried out by national agencies, despite being qualities with no exact ­counter-relationship. ​­ The adjective utsukushii means not only ‘beautiful, pretty, attractive, lovely, good-looking, charming, picturesque, sweet, or delightful’, but also ‘orderly, neat, or well-tended’ and ‘good, noble, or pure’ (Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary, 2003: 274). At the same time, the aesthetic value carried by the adjective utsukushii is able to be fundamentally different from the normative value carried by the notion of midare, even though both are identity-building value systems. Therefore, the contrast between nihongo no midare (disarray in Japanese) and utsukushii nihongo (beautiful Japanese) can be interpreted in two intertwined manners. It can be understood as a search for normative value that has been lost, and as a search for an alternative value that restitutes the national confidence. Once introduced into the language discourse, the notion of beauty of the Japanese language created another contrast of qualities between ‘authentic beauty’ and ‘superficial beauty’; associated with nihongo and gairaigo/ katakanago respectively. In the textual data, the adjective kakkoii (good­­ ​ looking) is often employed for loanwords, while the adjective utsukushii (beautiful) is often used for the Japanese language. Both adjectives are used for positive aesthetic evaluation. However, kakkoii refers to a purely visual quality while utsukushii also refers to an inner quality  – frequently seen synonyms for which include subarashii (splendid) or rippana (magnificent). ­ These opposing qualities show a typical contrast associated with loanwords and the Japanese language, especially held by those who are at least partially critical of loanword use. This can be seen in the example below: 8 The disarray of Japanese is often pointed out and the abuse of foreign language is part of the phenomenon. Some people choose to use an unfamiliar foreign language or good-sounding loanwords with a meaning

What Kind of Loanwords?  139 different from the original words, despite the fact we have splendid Japanese. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 6 February 2007) In such arguments, loanwords are attractive-looking and seductive, tempting people to recklessly use them without profound reflection on their meaning. Thus, the aesthetic value associated with loanwords is superficial and deceptive, while the beauty of the Japanese language is genuine and truthful. From the same point of view, adjectives related to superficiality – such as mimizawari no ii (good-sounding), ­­ ​­ inshо̄ no ii (giving a good impression), and uwasuberina (superficial) – are also used for loanwords, while adjectives related to genuineness – such as kissuino (genuine) – are used for Japanese. On this point, Dale (1986: 57–58) points to a perceptual dichotomy between ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ components of the Japanese language, arguing that there are some key words in Japanese that are believed to be authentic and untranslatable into any other language – for instance, iki (chic), ­ ukiyo (the ephemeral world), mono no aware (the pathos of things), and amae (coaxing). He argues that those Japanese words are believed to be the bearers of something unique to the Japanese, and thus foreign loanwords and linguistic calques are seen as a menace to the “the pure autonomy of Japanese experience” (ibid.). Related to authenticity, the quality of being ‘real’ is ­ one of the values associated with purity by Thomas (1991: 25). These values of ‘authenticity’ and ‘realness’ are reflected in the discourse on loanwords through the perceptual dichotomy between authentic beauty of the Japanese language and superficial beauty of loanwords. C

Tradition and novelty

As part of aesthetic purity, Thomas (1991: 28–29) points to the quality of being ‘traditional’, arguing that purists see the importance of faithfulness to the “values and models of the past”. The notions of history and tradition are important in the constitution of national identity. Jenkins (1996: 27–28) explains that two essential elements of identity are temporal and spatial location. One’s interpretation of history therefore plays an important role in the identity formation process. Linguistic identity is likewise founded on the pillars of spatial unity, which emphasises a belief in the shared intelligibility of language by all its speakers regardless of location, and temporal continuity, which is language conceived as unbroken tradition (Yasuda, 2007: 13). The notion of ‘tradition’ is therefore important in the question of language and identity. In the dis­ course on loanwords, the Japanese language, native Japanese words (wago, yamatokotoba) in particular, is often referred to as ‘traditional’ through the use of expressions such as dentōtekina (traditional), ­ furukukarano (old), and furukiyoki (good old). This can be seen in the following example: 9 Yamatokotoba refers to old Japanese words. Unlike Sino-Japanese words and words in katakana, they are not loanwords and can be found

140  What Kind of Loanwords? even in Man’yōshū and Kojiki [ancient Japanese literature]. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 12 January 2012) Indeed, the survey on loanwords carried out by The Asahi Shimbun in 2020 revealed that out of a total of 1,723 respondents, 194 answered that they find loanwords intolerable because ‘the tradition of the Japanese language would be spoiled’ (The Asahi Shimbun, 2 May 2020). By contrast, one of the most common qualities associated with loanwords is novelty, and is described using expressions such as atarashii (new) and shinsenna (fresh), as is seen in the below example. 10 Loanwords are adopted because they are convenient to express new things and concepts or give a fresh impression. (The Asahi Shimbun, 29 September 1992) Within the textual data used in this study, loanwords are associated with the following expressions that incorporate the adjective atarashii: – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

new way of thinking new concept new things new information new system new structure new situation new phenomenon new words new emotion new sensibility new sense new discipline new Japan

There is thus a perceptual contrast between ‘traditional’ Japanese and ‘new’ loanwords. This is related to the conceptual metaphor that opposes ‘stable’ Japanese and ‘fluid’ loanwords, as tradition is commonly seen as something stable, while the notion of novelty is often linked to fluidity, in that what is new does not remain new. It is constantly replaced by that which is even newer. At the same time, however, it is important to be reminded that the notions of history and tradition are constantly reconstructed. Morris-Suzuki (1998: 38) underlines that traditions are “open to a range of interpretations and acquire new nuances as they come into contact with fresh ideas and changed social circumstances”. Therefore, depending on the narrative built around the Japanese language, the definition of ‘traditional’ Japanese can vary

What Kind of Loanwords?  141 wildly. Most obvious here is the way the interpretation of Sino-Japanese elements (kanji ­ and kango) can differ according to an individual’s point of view. Many consider kanji and kango to be part of the traditional Japanese language, together with hiragana and wago/yamatokotoba, ­ while katakana and gairaigo/katakanago ­ are excluded as new and unfamiliar elements that exist outside the tradition. On this point, Carroll (2001: 173) has pointed out that kanji is principally associated with the notions of “tradition, heritage, erudition, history, and spiritual resonance”. These notions are, not coincidentally, close to key images associated to the linguistic purity discussed by Thomas (1991: 25–32). Those who hold such a view therefore call for the use of wago and kango as ‘traditional’ vocabulary that are the basis of Japanese culture. This is seen in the example below. 11 I fear Chinese and Japanese classics that constitute the basis of the Japanese culture may be threatened if difficult loanwords make the Japanese language just as difficult. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 7 May 2003) There are also, however, those who see kanji and kango, contrastingly, as a foreign import comparable to gairaigo/katakanago. ­ Indeed, a large part of kanji and kango is of Chinese origin and was imported to Japan as part of an influx of Chinese civilisation observable over the course of centuries. Even though there are kanji that were invented in Japan as kokuji (national ­ character) such as hatake (畑/畠, ­ ­ field), tōge (峠, ­ mountain pass), and tsuji (辻, ­ crossroad) (Frellesvig, 2010: 16), they were based on Chinese character formation rules, and they could not have been created without the intake of Chinese civilisation. Similarly, as mentioned in Chapter 1, even though there are kango that were invented in Japan as wasei kango – especially ​­ as loan translation for Western terms imported during the Meiji period, such ­ ­ as keizai (economy), minshushugi (democracy), enzetsu (speech) and tetsugaku ( philosophy) – they could not have been created without the knowledge of Chinese word formation rules. For that matter, even the hiragana, now recognised as the symbol of Japanese native culture, and katakana, now recognised as the symbol of Western loanwords, are both built on the forms of Chinese characters. After all, Japanese is said to be one of the languages most receptive to foreign influences (Miller 1982; Thomas, 1991). Thus, it is impossible to unequivocally separate ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ elements in the Japanese language. Those who focus on this aspect of the Japanese language use the notion of tradition to describe the nature of the Japanese people, culture, and language as having the vigour, vitality, and flexibility to continue to grow by absorbing and adapting external influences. From this point of view, SinoJapanese elements are often juxtaposed with Western loanwords, and the vigour of the Japanese language is often characterised as active and voluntary. While the terms gairaigo and katakanago are generally used as synonyms

142  What Kind of Loanwords? to refer to Western loanwords, in such narratives Sino-Japanese vocabulary is sometimes also referred to as gairaigo. This view is often held by those who have a language-related profession, be they journalists, linguists or language teachers. In this context, the two terms gairaigo and katakanago are sometimes distinguished, with gairaigo defined as both Sino-Japanese words and Western loanwords, and katakanago defined only as Western loanwords. In such narratives loanwords are often described with expressions such as nihongokashita (Japanised) and nihongo ni tokekonda (melted ­ into Japanese) to emphasise that foreign elements become part of the Japanese language after being imported. This idea existed historically within expressions such as wakon kansai (Japanese spirits and Chinese technology) and wakon yōsai (Japanese spirits and Western science). The former is an expression used during the Nara period, when Japan imported a large amount of Chinese culture and civilisation, while the latter is a slogan, based on the former, used mainly during the Meiji period to describe its influx of Western culture and civilisation, as was also mentioned in Chapter 2. These slogans refer to the principle of importing foreign civilisation while maintaining the Japanese spirit, by drawing a clear distinction between ‘things Japanese’ and ‘things foreign’. Kuwabara (1983: 134) describes those slogans as having been developed “in order to keep confidence in what was originally going on in Japan” and “respect what is indigenously Japanese”, thus protecting Japanese cultural and national identity at a time characterised by the influx of foreign culture. Regarding this type of narrative, Dale (1986: 51–52) points out that there is a perceptual contrast between ‘receptive Japan’ and ‘the donative West’, which is expressed in the popular belief that the Japanese language has a unique feature through which “alien culture is somehow inevitably naturalised or Japanified at the frontier”. This is the case with Buddhism, which is seen “to have set down deep roots into the soil of Japanese culture”, and with the flooding of foreign loanwords, viewed as evidence of the language’s specific character “which facilitates the adoption of foreign words”. MorrisSuzuki (1998: 153) likewise points to a similar view in Japan that Japanese has the “ability to serve as a sort of cultural ‘adapter’, transforming imported know-how to suit the tastes of both local consumers and other Asian markets, [and] is already evident in Japan’s twentieth- century industrial success”. What is noteworthy about this type of narrative, characterised as it is by the ideas of importation and constant modernisation, is that tradition nevertheless remains an important value. It proposes that Japan should maintain its tradition of enriching itself through the judicious intake of foreign wisdom, as seen in the example below: 12 Japanese culture has a diverse and broad-minded characteristic and, in the end, it absorbs everything including horizontal writing (yokogaki) ­ and loanwords as part of its tradition. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 2 February 1994)

What Kind of Loanwords?  143 D Spirituality and practicality Another central notion associated with purity, according to Thomas (1991: 29), is religious purity. Although not explicitly linked to the idea of religion, the Japanese language appears to be associated in the popular mind with spiritual values, and this is often contrasted with the practicality associated with loanwords. Dale (1986: 41–51), in this much, has pointed to the contrasting values of spirituality and materialism that Japanese culture respectively associates with Japan and the West. In the discourse on loanwords, those critical of their use often refer to the spiritual value of the Japanese language as being corroded through loanword use. In that narrative, loanwords, thus contrasted with the spirituality of Japanese, are often attributed the quality of being materialistic – a sometime vehicle for this being the metaphor of kombiniensu sutoa [< convenience store] or of famirī resutoran [< family restaurant] (reasonably-priced ­­ ​­ chain restaurant or an ­American-style ​­ diner), both of which also happen to be words in katakana. This contrast, however, sometimes remains as a way of structuring the debate for those who are positively disposed to loanword use. From that point of view, the spirituality of Japanese is contrasted to the practicality of loanwords, which are often described with expressions such as benrina (convenient) or yakunitatsu (useful). Examples of both viewpoints follow: 13 The politics of Prime Minister Abe are like a family restaurant with a menu full of katakana. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 November 2006) 14 Loanwords are convenient to express new things or ideas that did not previously exist in Japan. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 9 October 2004) In being contrasted with the materialism or convenience of loanwords, the spirituality of the Japanese language is often discussed in terms of ­ kotodama. This is a term that refers to a myth of ‘language spirit’ (koto = ­ ­ word/language + tama/dama = soul/spirit). According to Kamata (2017: 274), the main idea of the kotodama myth is that language has a spiritual power which can influence or alter reality. Although much of its origin remains unknown, this idea is said to be derived from a prehistoric ritual in Shintoism called kotoage (lifting of words). According to this ritual, a divine power resides in language with which “beautiful words, correctly pronounced, were believed to bring about good whereas ugly words or beautiful words incorrectly pronounced were believed to cause evil” (Kitagawa, 1987: 68). Kotoage is thus considered to be a form of vocal prayer, which is found in the ancient anthology Man’yōshū (circa 759). There is also the earliest written record of kotodama in three of the poems included in Man’yōshū. However, there is no explanation of what kotodama exactly refers to in these poems, and without other contemporaneous definition of kotodama being available it is not possible to know whether the concept was linked specifically to the Japanese language (Konno, 2020: 92). Konishi (1991: 114, 461) has pointed to

144  What Kind of Loanwords? the frequent association of kotodama with the ‘Land of Yamato’ (the ancient name for Japan), as ‘the land where the spirit of language brings good luck’ (kotodama no sakiwau kuni), the expression found in the two poems above. He speculates that kotodama was believed to dwell only in the “correct language of Yamato correctly pronounced” (ibid.: ­ 461). On this point, Kamata (2017: 6) argues that the two fundamental ideas behind the kotodama belief are animism and nationalism. He explains that the belief was initiated as a form of linguistic animism, and that by Man’yōshū’s time of writing, it had become assimilated into Japanese national identity through Japan’s contact with the Tang Dynasty (274–275). Similarly, Konno (2020: 44– 45) identifies two essential concepts, kami (God) and kuni (country, nation), in the discourse on kotodama. With this association between the Japanese nation and kotodama, the myth has come to be frequently cited when the Japanese language is discussed in relation to Japanese identity (Hosokawa, 2015: 380). One historic example of this can be found in kokugaku, the nativist movement of the Edo period, which used the kotodama discourse to call for the appreciation of Japanese literature without dependence on the Chinese classics. It has been suggested that in that historic moment the idea of kotodama was used as “an expression of an awareness among early Japanese that their language and society were essentially different from others like Chinese and Korean, and not only different but blessed by a spirit all their own”; and thus the concept represented “a solution to an identity crisis thrust upon the Japanese by their contact with foreign civilization” (Poulton, 1996: 191). The reinvention of the kotodama myth was, in this much, motivated by contacts with the external world, stimulating a desire to seek values in what is originally Japanese. The kotodama myth was reinvented once more as a political ideology during the Second World War (Miller 1982; Gottlieb, 1995; Dale, 1986). As part of military discourse, kotodama was defined as “a kind of mystical spirit in some way inherent in the Japanese language and intimately linked to the national polity” (Gottlieb, 1995: 26–27). In this effort, Western loanwords were actively avoided as ‘words of the enemy countries’ (tekikokugo), ­ and replaced by ‘Japanese’ words – albeit Sino-Japanese words, in most cases. For example, the word ragubī [< rugby] was replaced by tōkyū (fight ball), while anaunsā [< announcer] was replaced by hōsōin (broadcasting person). Even English language instruction was halted in this period (Field, 1991: 114). Chinese characters and the historical script system became “the object of veneration” (Gottlieb, 1995: 87) in this context, and were associated with the spiritual unity of the nation. On this point, Shelley (41) explains that SinoJapanese language and Chinese characters were reinterpreted as the core of kotodama, because they were considered useful by the Japanese government in its advancement of the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, bolstering a common linguistic identity in the region. As Carroll notes (2001: 65), “the irony that these characters were not indigenous, but introduced from China, seems to have been conveniently ignored in this way of thinking”. Another

What Kind of Loanwords?  145 irony was that it was not only Western words and the Roman alphabet that was discouraged, the use of kana was too, since the exclusive use of a phonetic script was seen as a foreign idea, and replacing characters with phonetic letters was seen a violation of kotodama (Gottlieb, 1995:87). Yet, the phonetic approach had been seen a symbol of kotodama by kokugaku scholars including Mabuchi Kamo who, in his book Goikō (1789), argued that Japanese is a ‘spoken language’ in contrast to Chinese which is a ‘written language’ (Kamata, 2017: 97; Konno, 2020: 104– 105). While the interpretation of this myth during the war had little in common with previous narratives, the reconstruction of kotodama was again motivated by a strong consciousness of the ‘Other’, this time mainly represented by the Western Allied Powers. In the post-war period, kotodama remained important, encapsulating the Japanese attitude toward their language. Miller (1982: 127) argues that the myth was once again reinterpreted as “the idea that this somehow unique Japanese language [is] inextricably bound up with the essence of the Japanese national spirit and must never be tampered with on that account”. Today, kotodama is still frequently cited in popular discussions of language, including those on loanwords. When used in popular discourses, the term kotodama is typically used as a means to warn people to be careful with the language they use, or to enjoin them to appreciate the beauty or importance of their language. In the discourse on loanwords, the idea of kotodama is used as a reason to lament the overuse of loanwords, and relies on the idea that the kotodama only resides in the Japanese language. This can be seen in the example below: 15 Kotodama refers to a mystic power believed to reside in language in ancient times. On the street, we notice there are many loanwords today and worry about the future of Japanese. (The Asahi Shimbun, 16 April 1997) In particular, kotodama was often mentioned in criticisms of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s use of loanwords during his first term in 2006–2007. This notion was used to highlight a perceived contradiction between his slogan of a beautiful country, and his overuse of loanwords, which were seen as unbeautiful, and as corrupting the beautiful country protected by kotodama. This is seen in the following example: 16 Inobēshon [< innovation], terewāku [< tele-work], ­ ​­ ajia gētouei [< Asia gateway], raibu tōku [< live talk], kantorī aidentitī [< country identity] … What do they mean? ‘Abe’s speech is not beautiful’. Mr. Prime Minister, Yamato [an antiquated way of calling Japan] is the land ‘protected by kotodama’. (The Asahi Shimbun, 30 September 2006) Despite its dramatic re- contextualisation throughout history, the concept of kotodama, with its imagining of a spiritual essence unique to the Japanese language, constantly represents Japanese consciousness on Self and

146  What Kind of Loanwords? Other. Throughout, the myth has been used to define Japanese linguistic identity, with the ‘Japanese’ language thus conceived as sacred, and in opposition to ‘foreign’ influence – even though the interpretation of ‘foreign’ and ‘Japanese’ continues to vary. From this point of view, the loanword debate rearticulates a set of deep themes, in which spirituality inheres in the Japanese language, and loanwords are seen as the most recognisable current foreign influence to threaten its integrity. E

Verticality and horizontality

Dale (1986: 44) outlines the importance of the contrast between verticality and horizontality, associated with Japan and the West respectively. Already discussed in Chapter 4, the psychological demarcation between the verticality of the Japanese language and the horizontality of loanwords is a common one in the discourse on loanwords. This is most often made through the expressions yokomoji (horizontal letters) and yokogaki (horizontal writing) used for loanwords, and tategaki (horizontal writing) used for Japanese – although, it should be noted, the use of tategaki is much rarer, and the notion of verticality is often only implicitly contrasted to the horizontality of loanwords. An example of the contrast follows: 17 We, elderly people, are totally troubled by the inundation by loanwords and yokomoji, and we don’t even know if they are English or not. (The ­ Yomiuri Shimbun, 27 May 2002) The contrast between horizontality and verticality is, as already established, based on the fact that the Japanese language is traditionally written vertically, while Western languages are written horizontally. This contrast has been further reinforced by the fact that, contrary to Western loanwords, ­Sino-Japanese ​­ elements such as kanji, kango, and kambun are often perceived as part of the Japanese language, as vertical writing is a common practice shared by East Asian languages in the Sinosphere. For example, in the below extract, the inundation of loanwords is juxtaposed with the declining kanji competency of young people: 18 The inundation of loanwords is troubling elderly people while lowering the kanji competency of young people. (The Asahi Shimbun, 17 July 2004) However, Japanese texts, as well as Chinese and Korean texts, though traditionally written vertically, today can be also written horizontally. Thus, the vertical-horizontal contrast has become only symbolic. Horizontality is often associated with the notion of loanwords, through the expressions yokomoji and yokogaki and through the recurrent verb ōkōsuru, with the first character 横 shared by all three words. At the same time, the idea of

What Kind of Loanwords?  147 horizontality likewise has possible linkages to the idea of midare, as verticality is associated with social order in Japan, while the character 横 is used in words that are related to the misappropriation of power. Finally, as discussed in Chapter  4, the expression yokomoji is even employed to describe the use of English- derived loanwords in Iran, despite the fact that, just like English, the Persian language is written horizontally. This seems to confirm that the contrast between verticality and horizontality is symbolic, associated with the contrast between that which is perceived as ‘oriental’ and that which is perceived as ‘occidental’. To this end, definitions of ‘orient’ and ‘occident’ are socially constructed and therefore variable. F

Correctness and incorrectness

Thomas (1991: 32) associates purity with the value of ‘correctness’. The dichotomy between ‘correctness’ and ‘incorrectness’ is often observable in the discourse on loanwords. Adjectives related to correctness used for Japanese, such as tadashii (correct) and seikakuna (accurate), are often contrasted with loanwords, which are occasionally described as machigatta (wrong). That ‘wrongness’ is often based on the idea that the meanings and pronunciations of loanwords are not the same as in the language of origin. In this much, though it seems natural for loanwords to go through a nativisation process, this leads to the belief that loanwords are incorrect versions of English (or any other foreign language), resulting in a sense of inferiority. In order to overcome this, the idea of ‘correct Japanese’ is frequently introduced as a contrasting notion in the loanword debate. The idea of ‘correct Japanese’ thus works as a basis for Japanese identity, as can be seen in the below example, where the idea of ‘correct Japanese’ is associated with Japaneseness through the expression ‘nihonjinrashii’ ­ (Japanese-like): ­­ ​­ 19 It would be more ‘Japanese-like’ to express things in correct Japanese rather than using words in katakana in an incorrect way. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 13 July 2004) It is notable that in the loanword debate the adjective tadashii (correct, right) is also often employed for the Japanese language, even without reference to the contrasting notion of ‘incorrectness’. Depending on the context, tadashii can refer to (1) right, reasonable, proper, (2) righteous, just, upright, honest, truthful, (3) correct, right, accurate, exact, genuine, pure, and (4) lawful, legitimate, legal (Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary, 2003: 1606). Thus, the adjective can express the value of Japanese not only ‘being free of error’, but also ‘being righteous’ and ‘being orderly’. Therefore, the Japanese language, when expressed as ‘tadashii’, can also be associated with the ­ idea of accurateness, appropriateness or orderliness, and can be contrasted with the idea of disarray. The expression tadashii nihongo can therefore be used in the same way as utsukushii nihongo, as a vague idealised value of

148  What Kind of Loanwords? the Japanese language, whose definition is clarified through the negation of undesirable elements, such as the inundation of loanwords. G Perfection and imperfection Thomas (1991: 31) lists the quality of ‘wholeness’ as an element of purity. The contrast between ‘wholeness’ and ‘partiality’ can be seen in the dichotomy between Japanese and loanwords. Adjectives such as kanzenna ( perfect) and ­­ ​­ rekkitoshita (fully-fledged) are used for nihongo, while the likes of chūto­­ ​­ hampana (halfway) and namanieno (half-cooked) are used for gairaigo/ katakanago, as seen in the example below. 20 Inundation by words in katakana, such as half- cooked loanwords and Japanese-made English, is often criticised. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 2 October 1996) This association between loanwords and imperfection is often based on the fact that they are seen to be neither part of Japanese nor English (nor of any other language a loanword may be borrowed from). Therefore, in the above example, ‘half-cooked’ ­­ ​­ loanwords are aligned with ‘Japanese-made ­­ ​­ English’ (wasei ­ eigo) – a concept that is often included in the mental category of loanwords, or seen as existing in a similar category. Even though Stanlaw (2005) explains that the use of English words, including wasei eigo, is a sign of linguistic vigour and of the creativity and innovation of the Japanese language, in the popular discourse Japanese-made English is often criticised for being ‘wrong’ English, and as not understandable to English speakers. This can be seen in the following example: 21 Loanwords are useful to learn new words. However, there are also wrong loanwords, Japanese-made English. For example, they are gōruin [< ‘goal­­ ​ in’ (reaching the goal)], and bakkumirā [< back-mirror (rear view mirror)], gattsupōzu [< guts-pose (raising a fist in triumph)]. There are no such words in English. (reader’s letter, The Asahi Shimbun, 18 April 2010) The above contrast between correctness and incorrectness constructs its notion of imperfection on the basis that loanwords and wasei eigo are not usable in languages other than Japanese. It is notable, however, that knowledge of foreign languages, including of English is almost never criticised in the discourse on loanwords in Japan. While the term eigo (English) is often used as a synonym for loanwords, the idea of the supremacy of the English language as an international lingua franca is rarely a target of criticism. Similarly, while the general notion of the West or Western countries is often contrasted to the notion of the Japanese language, there is rarely any mention of a particular country as the origin of a loanword. This tendency is characteristic to Japan, while similar discussions on the use of English- derived loanwords

What Kind of Loanwords?  149 in other non-Anglophone countries often cohere around the linguistic hegemony of the English language (see Chapter 6 for further elaboration). The notion of gairaigo being imperfect due to loanwords not fully belonging to either language is contrasted to the notion of nihongo, which is imagined as unquestionably ‘Japanese’. From another point of view, the sense of imperfection, or vagueness, associated with loanwords can be understood as a manifestation of an identity crisis, which stems from a contemporary Japanese society that, apparently, follows neither traditional Eastern values, nor those of any particular Western country. The attendant sense of uncertainty, here, is the basis on which loanwords are criticised as being imperfect. H Effort and laziness As touched upon in Chapter 4, the notion of translation plays an important role in discussions of loanwords as a process in which a distinction is drawn between what is ‘Japanese’ and what is ‘foreign’. Even though loanwords are extensively nativised for use in the Japanese language, loanwords as direct loans are not perceived to be domestic, while loan translations are often perceived to be fully Japanese. Therefore, the act of translation is seen an essential process in which foreign influences are internalised and become ‘Japanese’, whereas without translation, loanwords remain ‘borrowings’. Translation is thus often associated with the idea of effort and hard work through the expression doryoku (effort), ­ kufū (creativeness), and kurо̄ (hardship, sweat) as in the following example: 22 At the beginning of the Meiji period, our ancestors replaced loanwords imported from abroad with Japanese with hard work. (The Asahi Shimbun, 30 August 2013) Contrary to this honouring of translation, the use of loanwords is seen as a sign of a lack of effort, and of laziness or thoughtlessness. The following is an example of such cases: 23 There are those who refuse loanwords, as such words can be a result of the laziness of specialists and the news media not making efforts to translate them, while bureaucrats and politicians use them to confuse the citizens. (The Asahi Shimbun, 15 April 2020) The idea of translation and its concomitant effort are often associated with the Meiji period, during which many Western words were imported in the form of loan translation. As far as vocabulary is concerned, there is a common evaluation that such words are well digested and carefully translated into Japanese often through Sino-Japanese style words. This being the case, there is a perceived contrast between scholars in the Meiji period, positively

150  What Kind of Loanwords? evaluated for their effort in ‘translating into Japanese’, and the negative evaluation of today’s bureaucrats and politicians, who are seen to represent laziness for their direct borrowings of foreign terms, without taking the effort to clarify their meaning in Japanese. To summarise, in the discourse of loanwords, gairaigo symbolises an otherness that is associated with being: – – – – – – – – – – – –

incomprehensible difficult to understand unfamiliar vague disorderly new practical convenient horizontal incorrect imperfect lazy

With the discourse on loanwords as its contrasting counterpart, the Japanese language is associated with being: – – – – – – – – – – – –

comprehensible easy to understand familiar precise orderly beautiful traditional spiritual vertical correct perfect hardworking

While Dale (1986: 41–51) has delineated a similar contrast between notions of Japan and the West, the discourse on loanwords foregrounds a more specific contrast between the notions of Japaneseness and foreignness/otherness. Even though loanwords generally refer to Western loanwords, and certain of their associations, such as horizontality, come from the East-West dichotomy, the notion of loanwords goes beyond the idea of the West to represent a more general idea of otherness. That otherness encompasses everything new and unfamiliar which challenges, or creates opportunities, for Japanese society in the changing environment. Thus, the above contrasting qualities

What Kind of Loanwords?  151 represent the ideal values for Japanese identity as it oscillates in the face of the flow of time.

5.4 Evolution of Japanese Identities Since the debate over loanwords can be understood as a manifestation of the ongoing renegotiation of Japanese identity, it is important to also understand when and how these debates have risen to prominence in recent history. Chapter 1 briefly discussed some of the key moments where the discussion of loanwords was observed to spike, including the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995; Minister of Health Koizumi’s call to reform administrative language in 1997; the NINJAL survey on the use of loanwords in 2002–2006; the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011; the legal case against NHK for its use of loanwords in 2013; and the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the publication of official guidelines for the ‘easy/kind Japanese’ initiative in 2020. This chronology suggests that the discussion of loanwords has been motivated, and further animated, by events in Japanese society. This being the case, it is essential to examine how the evolution of this discussion might have coincided with changing values in Japanese identity during the same period. This aspect of the loanwords discourse can only be analysed qualitatively. On one hand, the numerical data shows that the proportion of those who are critical of loanwords has not changed dramatically since 2000, when the Agency for Cultural Affairs started its survey on the Japanese language. Asked for their opinion on this contested topic, the window of criticism has consistently fluctuated at between 35 percent and 40 percent of respondents contending that the use of loanwords is ‘undesirable to some extent’ (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2018: 55). Over the 30 years this study has examined, opinions have remained divided, never converging towards acceptance or rejection. On the other hand, however, there are certain expressions and narratives, and examples of loanwords, that were used intensively in a given period of time, but very rarely in others. What has changed in the past few decades therefore is not the proportion of opinions for and against the use of loanwords. It is the constructed stories surrounding the Japanese language and identity that have changed. To this end, the kind of loanwords cited as examples has changed significantly during the past 30 years. The same fundamental linguistic issue has seen participants in the debate gravitate, consciously or unconsciously, to certain types of loanwords to symbolically represent the issue. In the opinion survey carried out by The Asahi Shimbun in 2020, only 1 percent of the 1,723 respondents answered that they ‘always’ use loanwords, while 28 percent answered ‘regularly’, 52 percent answered ‘sometimes’, and 12 percent ‘never’ (The Asahi Shimbun, 2 May 2020). This clearly cannot be true if the respondents consider all the words derived from Western languages as ‘loanwords’. In the Japanese vocabulary, a large number of loanwords are used on a daily basis – for example, fōku [< fork], naifu [< knife], basu

152  What Kind of Loanwords? [< bus], terebi [< television], and pen [< pen]. It is almost impossible for a Japanese speaker, regardless of generation or social profile, to spend a full day without using a single loanword. Yet, in this it is clear that respondents only imagine certain types of loanwords to be ‘gairaigo/katakanago’. ­ ­ In fact, even in the discussion of loanwords, there are certain well-assimilated loanwords that are constantly used by critics and defenders alike, such as terebi [< television], rajio [< radio], and anaunsā [< announcer]. What guides their interventions is therefore not so much the actual usage of loanwords as their symbolic representation. In the loanword discourse, loanwords are perceived as a symbol of otherness. Therefore, we can identity what is felt ‘foreign’ or ‘unfamiliar’ in Japanese society, examining specific contexts of the debate as well as specific examples of the loanwords that are heavily cited in each period of time. The below section examines the evolution of the narratives surrounding loanwords along with representative examples of loanwords frequently cited in the discussion. In the textual data examined in this study, fields in which loanwords are discussed can be largely divided into the following six categories: – – – – – –

information technology business and economy media and journalism politics and public administration medicine and welfare crisis and disaster

These fields are typically said to be the arenas in which the use of loanwords is most remarkable. NINJAL has listed 11 categories in which more unfamiliar loanwords are used (NINJAL, 2006: 202–204): – – – – – – – – – – –

medicine welfare public administration management economy and industry informatics environment science and technology education safety common

For the purposes of this study, these commonly discussed fields have been reorganised into six categories, following the typical narratives through which the general public engage in the debates on loanword use. For example, medicine and welfare have been grouped together, as they tend to be

What Kind of Loanwords?  153 discussed in the same context. Furthermore, the contexts in which the use of language in the above fields is discussed can be largely divided into the following five categories: – – – – –

tradition and history democratic communication culture and learning ageing society internationalisation

While discussions based on the above contexts are recurrent and observable throughout the 30 years examined in this study, there are certain tendencies in the narrative structure that we can identify for four periods of time consisting of roughly five to ten years: (1) the early 1990s, (2) the late 1990s and early 2000s, (3) the late 2000s, and (4) the 2010s. In the early 1990s, the discourse on loanwords was typically centred on the fields of information technology as well as business and the economy. The 1990s is characterised by two important changes in the world. One is the advancement of information technology that developed in part due to the demands of the Cold War and later spread into commercial and personal use. The other is the period of rapid internationalisation that followed the end of the Cold War, during which flows of commodities and people became faster and more widespread. Consequently, the Japanese language saw an influx of foreign vocabulary related to information technology and international business in the 1990s. The interest of the general public was, understandably, in newly introduced information technology and a rapidly internationalising system of commerce, economy, and finance. This meant both enormous opportunities and fear and uncertainty over the new system of the world. It was in this context that the use of loanwords was overwhelmingly discussed during this period. The question of the appropriateness of loanwords discussed during those years can thus be understood, at least in part, as a proxy for another more pointed one about dealing with the new global system created by the contemporary emergence of this vast network of information technology. At the same time, the 1990s was a period of economic struggle and crisis for Japan, with profound implications for national identity – a crisis so hard, it became commonly known as the ‘Lost Decade’. In the period immediately prior to this, from the m id-1980s, Japan had enjoyed accelerated economic growth and reinforced its status as the world’s second largest economy. This was Japan’s so- called bubble economy. By 1991, with real estate prices and the stock market inflated to their apex, the economy had overheated, and Japan’s bubble was ready to pop. When this occurred, it heralded a period of decline that would last for over a decade. That this coincided with the end of the Showa era under Emperor Hirohito, meant a definitive historical division seemed to be drawn between the late-1980s and the early-1990s, and the new era would be characterised by uncertainty. After the end of the war,

154  What Kind of Loanwords? Japan had well- defined goals of post-war democratisation, national reconstruction, and economic growth. But, in the 1990s, the standard of national achievement was blurred, which led Japan to a period of fundamental reevaluation of its national value. This is when the National Language Council changed its agenda to search for new value of the Japanese language in the internationalising world (see Chapter 3). With the nation struggling in search of new ways to conceive and measure its value, the discussion of loanwords formed into narratives that emphasised disarray, irregularity, and chaos, and which seemed to question whether the traditional norms were lost. Thus, the question of loanwords was often framed in the context of history and tradition, and expressions related to disarray were frequently used to describe loanwords: for instance, kisokusei no nai (irregular) and ­ muchitsujoni (chaotically). Typical examples of loanwords frequently mentioned in the early 1990s include the following: – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

ワープロ wāpuro [< word processor] コンピュータ kompyūta [< computer] フォーラム fōramu [< forum] シンポジウム simpojiumu [< symposium] パネルディスカッション paneru disukasshon [< panel discussion ] コミュニティ komyuniti [< community] ハブ habu [< hub] ミニマムアクセス minimamu akusesu [< minimum access] コンセプト konseputo [< concept] ニーズ nīzu [< needs] コンビニエンスストア kombiniensu sutoa [< convenience store] リストラ risutora [< (company) restructuring] フロントオフィス furonto ofisu [< front office] ファイナンシャルプランナー fainansharu purannā [< financial planner]

The above list suggests that in the early 1990s, the most frequently cited loanwords were in the context of informatisation, trade liberalisation and the reorganisation of commercial and corporate activities. Terms related to the burgeoning use of information technology include wāpuro [< word processor] and kompyūta [< computer]. Along with the various free trade treaties and agreements that were discussed, related words drew critical attention, including fōramu [< forum] and simpojiumu [< symposium] and the minimamu akusesu [< minimum access] discussed at the Uruguay Round held in 1986–1993 as part of the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Besides that, there were many words that symbolise changes in consumption activities, such as kombiniensu sutoa [< convenience store], and related to new ideas in the corporate sector, such as furonto ofisu [< front office] and fainansharu purannā [< financial planner]. It is also grimly symbolic that the term risutora [< (company) restructuring]

What Kind of Loanwords?  155 was one of the most discussed terms during this period, with a large number of people losing their jobs to company restructuring during the economic crisis. With Japanese companies traditionally organised around a system of lifetime employment, this phenomenon was perceived as a fundamental shock to society, and the term risutora became a symbol of the profound struggle faced by Japanese society. It is also characteristic of this period that proper nouns were discussed as loanwords, including names of companies, buildings, projects, magazines, and shops, and this became much rarer in subsequent years. Similarly, many of the examples of loanwords listed for the early 1990s ultimately became assimilated, and were later considered by survey respondents to be ‘ tolerable, assimilated loanwords’. In particular, words related to information technology were often later excluded in the debate on loanwords, as the focus of the controversy shifted to the domains of politics and public administration as well as culture and learning. This shows how the perceived acceptability of loanwords has changed over time in relation to the social environment. Subsequently in the late-1990s and the early-2000s, the discourse on loanwords started to shift towards the narrative of democratic communication. In 1995, the Great Hanshin earthquake had revealed the problem of uneven information distribution at a time of natural disasters and national crisis. Not long after that, in 1997, then Health Minister Jun’ichirō Koizumi consolidated the theme, proposing to reform the language used in the Ministry of Health. His aim was that the general public – and especially the elderly – would be able to access information necessary to receive services in the fields of health and welfare. Koizumi’s proposal was taken up by many national and municipal governmental offices, and thus the discussion of loanwords became focused mainly on the fields of politics, administration, health and welfare. This discourse peaked in 2002 with the start of the nationwide surveys carried out by NINJAL. The purpose of NINJAL’s initiative was to propose alternative terms for unfamiliar and difficult katakana words that were used in documents issued by national and municipal offices. Therefore, the key value pushed to the front of the loanwords discussion in this period was the democratisation of information. In this narrative, a contrast is typically drawn between the government and citizens, and between specialists and non-specialists such as doctors and patients. This period’s debates on the use of loanwords can thus be better understood as debates over the use and abuse of authority and information, and on questions of how the general public can participate in the establishment of new values in the face of an ever-faster flow of information. The following is an example: 24 I want bureaucrats to stop using superficial loanwords and try to name [their projects] in easy Japanese. (reader’s letter, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 17 June 1997)

156  What Kind of Loanwords? ­Table 5.2  Number of mentions of the adjective wakariyasui in discussion on loanwords ­1991–1995 ​­ ­1996–2000 ​­ ­2001–2005 ​­ ­2006–2010 ​­ ­2 011–2015 ​­ ­2 016–2020 ​­ Asahi Yomiuri Total

 8  3 11

26 11 37

22 37 59

19 19 38

 7  4 11

10  9 19

25 Loanwords contribute to accurate and efficient exchanges of information for specialists. However, for the general public without specialist knowledge, loanwords can be an obstacle in conveying information. (The Yomiuri Shimbun, 7 January 2003) Valuing democratic communication, the use of the adjective wakariyasui (easy to understand) peaked in the early 2000s. Table 5.2 shows the number of mentions of the adjective wakariyasui in the textual data examined. Typical examples of loanwords frequently mentioned in the late 1990s and early 2000s include the following: – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

デイサービス dei sābisu [< day service] ホームヘルパー hōmu herupā [< home helper] インフォームドコンセント infōmudo konsento [< informed consent] セカンドオピニオン sekando opinion [< second opinion] インセンティブ insentibu [< incentive] フレックスタイム furekkusu taimu [< flex time] ワークシェアリング wāku shearingu [< work sharing] アウトソーシング autosōshingu [< outsourcing] アカウンタビリティー akauntabiritī [< accountability] コンプライアンス kompuraiansu [< compliance] パブリックインボルブメント paburikku imborubumento [< public involvement] パブリックコメント paburikku komento [< public comment] ノーマライゼーション nōmaraizēshon [< normalisation] ボーダーレス bōdaresu [< borderless] ユニバーサルデザイン unibāsaru dezain [< universal design] エンパワーメント empawāmento [< empowerment] デジタルデバイド dejitaru debaido [< digital divide] アイデンティティ aidentitī [< identity] モラルハザード moraru hazādo [< moral hazard] グローバリゼーション gurōbarizēshon [< globalisation]

The above list reflects the loanwords treated in the NINJAL surveys on the use of loanwords (NINJAL, 2006: 219–223). According to the survey results, most of the above words have a low rate of understandability with less than 25 percent of respondents answering that they understand their meaning.

What Kind of Loanwords?  157 Since the initiative taken by the government and NINJAL regarding the use of loanwords had an objective to democratise the language used in public services in health and welfare sectors, there are naturally many words related to these sectors such as dei sābisu [< day service], hōmu herupā [< home helper], and infōmudo konsento [< informed consent]. There are also words that represent new ways of thinking in social and professional life, such as insentibu [< incentive], furekkusu taimu [< flex time], and wāku shearingu [< work sharing]. They are new words that derive from new ways of working that did not previously exist in Japanese corporate culture. The term ‘incentive’ thus represents the Western meritocratic system of work, which is fundamentally different from the hierarchical structure of Japanese corporate culture, where ‘duty’ might be a more familiar concept. The terms ‘flex time’ and ‘work sharing’, meanwhile, were newly introduced to Japanese society to better adapt to the diversity of individual work styles. Thus, these words, in this moment, were the symbols of new needs in Japanese society. They represented the social response to issues such as the ageing society, and the impetus to accommodate greater flexibility in workplaces. In that context, there are also words that are related to democracy and equality, such as paburikku imborubumento [< public involvement], nōmaraizēshon [< normalisation], bōdaresu [< borderless], unibāsaru dezain [< universal design], empawāmento [< empowerment], and dejitaru dibaido [< digital divide]. This also confirms the value placed on the democratic distribution of information. Frequently cited examples of loanwords in this period include words more fundamentally related to the oscillation of identity, such as aidentitī [< identity], moraru hazādo [< moral hazard] and gurōbarizēshon [< globalisation]. With globalisation fast advancing, there was a widely felt need to establish a new moral standard and new values to support the version of Japanese national identity that was emerging in its wake. However, it was not always an easy challenge to tackle, with many new concepts and ways of thinking being introduced to society. That explains, in part, the difficulty the general public felt when trying to understand the loanwords that emerged in this moment. According to the NINJAL survey, the proportion of respondents who answered that they understood the meaning of the word aidentitī was 8.5 percent of those aged 60 years and above, and 23.1 percent for everyone ­ ​­ else (NINJAL, 2006: ­206–208; 219). In 2000, in the report of its twenty-second meeting, in a section titled ‘place of the Japanese language in the time of internationalisation’, which constituted one of the report’s main themes, the National Language Council published a set of rules regarding the treatment of loanwords. In the report, loanwords were categorised into three categories in order to take appropriate measures to make them all comprehensible: (1) words that are in wide use and that use has been stabilised among the people, (2) words that are not yet widely understood by the general public and are easier to understand if rephrased in Japanese, and (3) words that are not widely understood by

158  What Kind of Loanwords? the general public and for which there is no easy replacement. The word aidentitī was categorised into group 3 together with five other words including nōmaraizēshon [< normalisation] and bariafurī [< barrier free], as there was no good word available as a Japanese equivalent (Agency for Cultural Affairs, 2000). Subsequently, in 2003, in the process of proposing alternative terms for loanwords with a low rate of understanding, NINJAL postponed its decision on a replacement for the word aidentitī and for nine other words, including insentibu [< incentive] and moraru hazādo [