This book is a study of the major cultural, social and political aspects of language in Japan. It focuses on the interaction between the language and the people it serves from an overarching social rather than specifically linguistic perspective, with the intent of contributing to the study of the sociology of language in Japan. The term “language in Japan” may seem on the surface to be unproblematic; when we look more closely, however, we find dimensions not apparent at first glance. The Japanese language itself, for instance, is not a monolithic, unchanging entity as the term implies, although some of the ideological arguments both prewar and postwar have been devoted to making it seem that way. Like any other language, it exhibits dialectal variations, differences in usage based on gender and social register, subcultural jargons and foreign influences. No language functions in a vacuum; it comes with its own freight of wider cultural implications for its native speakers. One of the objectives of this book is to tease out those implications and examine how they manifest themselves in practice in relation to Japanese itself (Chapters One, Three and Four). The other is to show the diverse range of languages other than Japanese spoken in Japan today and their sociocultural contexts (Chapter Two).

The organizing theme of the book is the interconnection between language and identity.