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The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turnfor Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations

Authors: Ellen Head & Chie Tsurii
Title: Book Review and Critical Dialogue about The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language
Ideology and Japanese Modernity (Heinrich, 2012)
Date of publication online: 2021
Author contact: <tsurii@andrew.ac.jp> & <ehead@sky.miyazaki-mic.ac.jp>

Published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Learner Development Special Interest Group, Tokyo
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Copyright 2021 each respective author

The APA citation reference for this paper is:
Head, E., & Tsurii, C. (2021). Book review and critical dialogue about The Making ofMonolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity (Heinrich, 2012). In A.
Barfield, O. Cusen, Y. Imamura, & R. Kelly (Eds.), The Learner Development Journal Issue 5:
Engaging with the Multilingual Turn for Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, andTheorisations (pp. 125-135). Tokyo: The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT)
Learner Development Special Interest Group.

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PRACTICE-RELATED REVIEWBook Review and Critical Dialogue about The
Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology
and Japanese Modernity (Heinrich, 2012)
The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity.. Patrick Heinrich.
Multilingual Matters, 2012. viii + 204 pp. ISBN 978-1-84769-656-4

Reviewed by
Ellen Head, Miyazaki International College, Japan <ehead@sky.miyazakimic.ac.jp>
Chie Tsurii, Momoyama Gakuin (St. Andrew’s) University, Japan <tsurii@
andrew.ac.jp>
Head and Tsurii take Heinrich’s book, The Making of Monolingual Japan, as a starting point for a critical dialogue in which they
make connections between language ideology, native speakerism, and learner autonomy. Heinrich focuses on the historicaldevelopment of the modern Japanese language after the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century. He highlights the link
between modernist language ideology of “one nation, one language,” which originated in 18th-century Germany, and the Meiji
era drive to create a unified Japanese language. Although not explicitly referring to an alternative multilingual ideology,
Heinrich suggests that inequalities in modern Japan result from the monolingual language policy and that “powerbased ideologies should be replaced with ideologies based on cultural liberty and solidarity” (p. 4). In their dialogue, Tsurii
and Head discuss connections between monolingual ideology and native-speakerism. Finally they explore how this awareness
impacts their practices as teachers who would like to foster learner autonomy.
The Making of Monolingual Japan (Heinrich, 2012) に基づき，言語イデオロギー，ネイティブスピーカー信仰，学習者の自律性を関連付けて，批判的対話を行った。Heinrichは，19世紀後半の明治維新後の近代日本語の歴史的発展に焦点をあて，18世紀のドイツを起源とする「一国家に一言語」という現代主義的な言語イデオロギーと，明治時代の日本語統一への動きとの関連性を議論している。代替となる多言語イデオロギーに関しては明確に述べていないが，Heinrichは現代日本の不平等は単一言語政策によるものであり，「権力に基づいたイデオロギーは文化的自由と結束に基づくイデオロギーに置き換えられるべきである」（p.4）と提唱している。本稿では，単一言語
イデオロギーとネイティブスピーカー信仰の関係を議論する。そしてこの認識が，学習者の自律性の育成を目標とする教師とし（による指導）ての実践にどのように影響するのかを探る。
Head和Tsurii以Heinrich的《日本单语的形成》一书为起点，进行了批判性的对话，在对话中他们将语言意识形态，母语者主义和学习
者自主性联系起来。海因里希关注的是1868年明治维新后现代日语的历史发展。他强调了起源于19世纪德国的 “一个国家，一种语言” 的现代主义语言意识形态与明治时代创造一种统一的日语的动力之间的联系。虽然没有明确提到另一种多语言意识形态，但海因里希提出，现代日本的不平等是由单一语言政策造成的，“基于权力的意识形态应该被基于文化自由和团结的意识形态所取代”（第4页）。在他们的对话中，Tsurii和Head讨论了单语意识形态和母语主义之间的联系。最后，他们探讨了这种意识如何影响他们作为希望促进学习者自主性的教师的实践。

Keywords

monolingual, native language, native speaker, language ideology, learner autonomy, native speakerism
単一言語，母語，母語話者，言語イデオロギー，学習者の自律性，ネイティブスピーカー信仰
单语的, 母语, 母语者, 意识形态, 学习者的自主性, 母语者主义

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Book Review and Critical Dialogue about The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese ModernityIn this review, we take The Making of Monolingual Japan as a starting point for a critical
dialogue in which we make connections between language ideology, native speakerism,
and learner autonomy. At the start, we would like to note that, throughout this review, theterms “native (speaker)” and “non-native (speaker)” will be written with inverted commas,
following Holliday’s (2013) assertion that the categories are “constructed by ideologies
and discourses ... and they are always ‘so-called’” (pp. 19–20). We met while teaching at
Momoyama Gakuin University in 2002–5 and, since 2019, we have corresponded occasionallyabout teaching-related matters. In 2019, Chie Tsurii was on sabbatical in England, pursuingresearch into the cultural impact of native-speakerism. Ellen Head (still in Japan) noticed
a social media post by Chie, referring to a book called Setsu Ei no susume [A Recommendation
for Using Less English] (Kimura, 2016) and we started to chat about native-speakerism. When
The Learner Development Journal called for reviewers of The Making of Monolingual Japan, we
decided to work on a joint review. After reading the book, Ellen sent some questions to Chie.
Chie replied, we exchanged drafts, and discussed our ideas on Zoom. We also presented atthe 2021 JALT PanSIG conference together. This review is the trace of a wide-ranging, multidimensional, ongoing discussion over the last 18 months. We hope readers will be stimulated
to read Heinrich’s book and think about his ideas. The table of contents is given below,
followed by a summary of the book. We then proceed to our critical dialogue.

The Making of Monolingual Japan: Overview
This book is organized into the following nine chapters:
Chapter 1: Language Ideology as a Field of Enquiry
Chapter 2: The Call of Mori Arinori to Replace Japanese with English
Chapter 3: The Creation of a Modern Voice
Chapter 4: The Unification of Japanese
Chapter 5: The Linguistic Assimilation of the Ryukyuans and Ainu
Chapter 6: The Most Beautiful Language in the World
Chapter 7: Language Ideology as Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Chapter 8: Current Challenges to Modernist Language Ideology
Chapter 9: Language Ideology in 21st-century Japan.
The Making of Monolingual Japan is both a narrative of the history of the Japanese language
since the Meiji era, and a discussion of language ideology. The first chapter and the final
three chapters develop the thesis that monolingual, nationalist ideology is deleterious toequality, culture and education. Drawing on documents in Japanese by nineteenth and earlytwentieth century language reformers like Ueda Kazutoshi and many others, Heinrich
describes how a unified national language came to be seen as necessary for modernization.
The analytical framework is provided by a discussion of language ideology, which is a strong
theme of the book. Heinrich holds that “power-based ideologies should be replaced with
ideologies based on cultural liberty and solidarity” (p. 4).
In Chapter 1, after reviewing the study of language ideology, Heinrich aligns himself
with Bourdieu (1991), by stating his intention to focus on “the difference between ‘ideology
brokers’ and ‘the linguistic margin’” (p. 18). He traces the development of monolingual
ideology back to the writing of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), among others, who
first claimed that the character and identity of a nation are formed by its language. These
ideas were brought back to Japan by Ueda, after four years’ study of comparative linguistics
in Germany. Ueda was highly influential through publications such as “National Language

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Ellen Head & Chie Tsurii

and the State” (p. 66) and the creation of the National Language Research Council. However
the national language issue was hotly debated throughout the Meiji era (1868–1912).
Chapters 2 to 4 tell the story of the Japanese language, starting in 1872 with the proposal by
Mori Arinori to replace Japanese with a simplified form of English (Chapter 2). The proposal
was rejected, but it highlighted the need for linguistic standardization. One of the problems
was that spoken and written Japanese were substantially different, with written Japaneserelying on Chinese characters and there were many different genres of written Japanese.
Chapter 3 details how the Genbun itchi undo1 called for a “plain and unified” written Japanese
to be based on spoken language. Chapter 4 deals with Ueda Kazutoshi, and the work of the
National Research Council. The government appointed young Ueda in 1895. Fresh fromstudies in Germany, Ueda led a team of academics in cataloguing existing forms and making
decisions about which forms to select and codify as the standard. A Grammar of the Spoken
Language and Supplement to the Grammar of the Spoken Language were not published by the
research council until 1917. In the process of creating a national language, the speechof the Tokyo elite became the base of standardization for both the spoken and written
forms prescribed for school use. Regional diversity became non-standard, leading to themarginalization of all the non-Tokyo forms.
Chapters 5 and 6 describe how the distinctive languages of the Ryukyuan people of Okinawa
and the Ainu people of Hokkaido were actively suppressed in the period that followed. The
newly standardized “kokugo” (national language) became the language of schooling, andchildren were punished for using other varieties.
In Chapters 7 to 9, the picture is brought up to the present, with details of the linguistic
and cultural losses in relation to Ryukyu and Ainu languages (Chapter 7) and the lack oflanguage support for the various allochthonous minorities of Japan such as bilingual secondgeneration Korean-Japanese (Chapter 8). Heinrich suggests that the current lived experienceof ethnic minorities results in a challenge to the official “common sense” ideology of amonolingual nation. In other words, as “native”-like fluency is no longer the prerogative of
the genetically pure, monolingual ideology is stretched. At the institutional level, Heinrichpoints out that Japan has not been quick to respond to the challenge of providing multilingual
schooling and equal cultural opportunities for the children of minorities such as those from
Korea, China and Brazil. The last chapter of the book (Chapter 9) re-visits the theme oflanguage ideology as it relates to applied linguistics and ends with an appeal for a fresh
approach grounded in freedom of choice and support for diversity at the academic andpolitical levels.

Critical Dialogue
The Language Ideology of Monolingualism
Ellen

Heinrich frames the book with a detailed discussion of ideology. Why do you think
he does this, rather than starting from the contemporary socio-cultural reality or thehistorical narrative?

Chie

Heinrich writes, “The ideological nature of what are seen as common sense facts is
hidden, and so it becomes unnecessary to draw explicit attention to the authorityof the dominant ideology” (p.74). I think he wants to emphasize that ideology isimportant, even though we do not think about it every day. This is very true, I think;the more naturalized beliefs become, the more difficult it becomes to realize theassumption underlying them.

1= Movement to unify the spoken and written language
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Ellen

I agree. It is often said that Japan is more homogeneous than other countries. Whileliving in Osaka, I met people from the Korean and Brazilian communities. They wereborn in Japan, bilingual, but did not feel fully accepted as Japanese. It was much moredifficult for them to enter university. Heinrich points out that the education system
has devoted insufficient resources to the support of these communities. Althoughlanguage support might be available for them to learn Japanese, I don’t know if you
could find the study of Portuguese or Korean as formal options in the public school
system. The perception at the official level is that resources need to be devoted toJapanese language learning and English learning.

Chie

This reminded me of the fallacies pointed out by Phillipson (1992) in his book
Linguistic Imperialism. Fallacies discussed in Phillipson include, for example, “English
is best taught monolingually,” and “if other languages are used much, standardsof English will drop.” Such ideas are often mentioned in debates regarding English
education. I feel they engender an uncritical, distorted perception of English language(teaching/learning) in Japan and often lead to unsatisfactory achievement in learning.
I thought the monolingual nationalist ideology explored by Heinrich might reflect why
such distorted views on English (learning/teaching) are so widespread.

Ellen

According to Heinrich, “Ideologies give rise to a binary opposition, whereby the self
and the familiar are assigned a positive value, while the other and the new are seen as
negative” (p. 174). I can see how that could be negative for foreign language learning!
Can you say more about the current situation as you see it?

Chie

I also think that almost all the problems related to English language education stem
directly or indirectly from native-speakerism, defined as “a pervasive ideology within
ELT, characterized by the belief that ‘native-speaker’ teachers represent a ‘Westernculture’ from which spring the ideals both of the English language and of English
language teaching methodology” (Holliday, 2006, p. 385). I have also researched
how terms indicating neitibu ネイティブ [native] are used on social media. I feel the useof “native” / “non-native” can facilitate the binary division between they/we, andtherefore superior/inferior.

Ellen

It is interesting that these terms are widely used by the Japanese when talking about
foreign language learning. Heinrich speculates that there might be a connection
between Japan’s monolingual ideology and ambivalence about learning foreign
languages. He writes “A state and its inhabitants not valuing the linguistic andcultural plurality within…its borders cannot convincingly claim to be doing just that[valuing plurality] with regard to international languages” (p. 177).

Chie

I find there is something in common between native-speakerism andmonolingualism. In Heinrich, the process of Japan’s creating itself as monolingual,“which required suppression of linguistic diversity” (p. 6) is described and discussed
thoroughly. Although English language education in Japan itself is not dealt withdirectly in the book, the discussion on the making of monolingual Japan in this bookis highly suggestive for deconstructing common perceptions of English and English
education. I hope we can discuss this when we talk about relating the book to ourpractices as teachers.

The Historical Perspective
EllenLet’s focus on the historical part of the book now. The opening of Chapter 2 is worth
quoting because it highlights the dramatic changes of the period:

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Ellen Head & Chie Tsurii… in the early 1870s … all Japanese were required to take family names;
women were prohibited to blacken their teeth; the first post offices were
established; the practice of issuing licenses for domestic travel was ended;
restrictions on marriages between feudal ranks were abolished; feudal domains
were re-organized into prefectures; commoners were permitted to ride horses;
the first daily newspapers appeared; school education was established; and thewestern calendar was adopted. (p. 21)
I was absolutely astonished that Mori Arinori had suggested English becoming thenational language of Japan in 1872.
Chie

Regarding the process of the unification of Japanese, the Genbun itchi undo, thelinguistic assimilation of Ryukyuans and Ainu was surprising. As for the debates onwhether the Japanese language should be replaced by another language, I was not
surprised at all. I know this kind of debate often emerges recurrently, as we will
discuss later. After reading Heinrich’s book, I could understand why some of thelinguistic ideologies about the English language observable nowadays in Japan havebeen created and where they have come from. Shall we start with the first aspectdiscussed in this book, the Genbun itchi undo?

Ellen

Were you taught about this movement at college?

Chie

At college? No. Regarding the history of Japanese language reform in the Meiji era, tobe honest, I did not know (or was not taught) in detail. In state school education, I
mean, at elementary school and junior high school, we were taught just that “There
was a movement called ‘Genbun itchi undo’.” That’s it. No explanation of the process,the background, or the discussions held in that period was given. Of course, this varies
from school to school, the curriculum of each school, and the teacher. But generally
speaking, I feel many people have not been taught about his movement in detail.

Ellen

Heinrich describes the different phases and groups involved: reformers, literarypeople, and linguists, each with differing priorities. With hindsight we know that
the Japanese language as it was developed became more than adequate to the task of
economic development! It’s hard to take on the mindset of those nineteenth century
reformers who were really facing the idea that their country might be taken overby Europeans or Americans because the Japanese language was insufficient to serve
the task of economic progress. It seems the idea of adopting English as a national
language may have come from an American physicist, Joseph Henry, who Mori
Arinori corresponded with while he was in the USA. But other foreign experts suchas Whitney, advised Mori to standardize Japanese instead of adopting English. There
was an outcry against Mori and he was assassinated in 1889 although it was notdirectly related to the language issue. The process of standardization took over 40
years! I sometimes wonder why the reformers didn’t just adopt hiragana syllabary foreverything.

Chie

The government attitude was ambivalent because linguistic simplification became
associated with the Jiyu minken undo [Movement for Freedom and People’s Rights].
So Heinrich says the Genbun itchi undo was actually repressed by the government fora while. Ueda Kazutoshi emerged as an important figure in establishing a National
Language Research Council and its research priorities. He was a brilliant young man.
He studied linguistics in Germany, where he was exposed to the ideology of linguistic
nationalism. Ueda was a key figure in creating a national language policy.

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From Kokugo to “Native-speakerized Nation”?
Ellen

Ueda’s work led to the creation of kokugo as a school subject in 1903. Heinrich says
the aim was “the establishment of a spoken and written language variety that
could be mastered by all” (p. 67). This involved promoting Japanese-derived words
over Chinese ones, simplifying and standardizing kanji. Since spoken Japanese wasincluded, the creation of kokugo [a national language] impacted the status of regionalvarieties in a negative way.

Chie

As described by Heinrich, a deliberate and concerted effort was made for several
decades both in the Ryukyu Islands and in Ainu Mosir, which means “a quiet groundof the human beings” (Akanko Ainu Kotan, n.d.), to create a national language
ideology. In the book, regarding the assimilation of Ryukyuans, a variety of measures
were taken to spread Japanese language throughout the Ryukyu islands during the1880s. The reason was that the Japanese governors could not communicate withthe local population. In addition to the measures taken to spread the use of theJapanese language, such as the establishment of a Conversation Training Centre withthe responsibility of compiling a Japanese language textbook, the use of Ryukyuan
languages was deliberately and manipulatively repressed, by, for instance, punishing
Ryukyuan children for using their own languages in school by fixing a punishment tag[hogen fuda] to their wrist.

Ellen

Heinrich’s account of the assimilation of Ryukyuan languages is disturbing. He
states that “linguistic data was made to fit the ideological framework” (p. 86), sothat the Ryukyuan languages were made to appear to come from mainland Japanese,
whereas they form a separate branch of Japonic languages. The account of “TheGreat Dialect Debate” in 1940 shows that there were several educationalists such as
Yanagi Muneyoshi who argued strongly to defend the use of the Ryukyuan languages
alongside “standard” Japanese, but the Department of Education of the time ignored
their advice for political reasons.

Chie

Heinrich also raises awareness of the problems in the process of the assimilation ofpeople in Ainu Mosir. The use of Japanese in Hokkaido became mandatory with thestart of compulsory school education in 1898. Assimilation took place more quickly
because the schools taught that Ainu culture was inferior and the number of speakersof Ainu was small. These ideologies are now so naturalized that many people inJapan normally tend to think that Japan is a monolingual country. This naturalized
uncritical ideology about language may create another one-nation-one-language
ideology, which can often be seen in discourses about foreign (or, in most cases,
English) language learning/education in Japan.

Ellen

You used the phrase “native-speakerized nation” to encapsulate this idea when we
discussed it before, didn’t you? The idea of “one language, one nation” appears tohave predominated in discourses about education since the time of those linguistic
reforms. Yet, as Heinrich points out: “There are already many Japanese of mixed
ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage, and their numbers are growing year onyear” (p. 169). He holds that “the newcomer immigrants present a new challenge tomodernist ideology” (p. 170) because they provide living proof that genetic heritageand linguistic heritage are not the same. Heinrich identifies a source of alternative
ideologies within these communities: “Counter-ideologies that value linguistic
diversity in Japan and seek to support it, may be found too” (p. 171). For example, theidea that alternative languages should be cherished for their aesthetic value, which hecalls “aesthetic multiculturalism” (p. 179) seems to be growing.

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How Does This Impact Our Practices as Educators?
Ellen

I see a connection between learner autonomy and a way of teaching which isorientated towards noticing and valuing diversity. On the other hand, a monolingual
ideal will always tend to promote control by a central authority. If there is only one
right way, then students have to listen to the teacher. Of course you can get trappedin a paradox where students say “I want you to teach me the one right way.” So I
suppose the question is, how do we talk to students who have been raised with theseassumptions that Japan is monolingual, and perhaps with accompanying insecurities
about the possibility of learning English?

Chie

When introducing or talking about myself, I always explain myself, like “I am aJapanese user as my mother tongue, or the first language…,” trying to make students
aware that in Japan, and in the classroom, we do not assume that the Japanese
language is the first language of all members in the society. By saying this, I expect
all the students, including those who are using different languages with their family
and in their community, feel comfortable.

Ellen

I agree, it’s important to be respectful and value the languages of all the members of
the class. But it’s occasionally necessary to challenge them as well, isn’t it?

Chie

I remember a student, when I was teaching at senior high school, more than 25
years ago, who told me, “I’m not going to America. That’s why I don’t need to learn
English.” I said, “You aren’t going to America. That’s exactly why you need to learn
English to open your eyes.”

Ellen

That was a powerful intervention. As an expert speaker of both Japanese and English,
you are a strong role-model for students and you are also able to make specificcomparisons between languages. In the future I think pedagogy will embrace thatkind of bilingual methodology again. Since becoming acquainted with the concept ofmediation as a target in the new CEFR criteria (Council of Europe, 2018), I feel more
comfortable than I used to with allowing Japanese in the classroom so long as it ispurposeful and on-task.

Chie

I often encounter students who seem to be made to believe that, for example, “whenyou are learning English, you should think in English, you do not have to rely on
the Japanese translation” or “when speaking in English, we should change the wayof thinking, not in the Japanese way, but the English way”, then I tell them I thinktheir English is good enough. As a user of both Japanese and English, we do not haveto change our way of thinking. Thinking in their first language is sometimes very
helpful. If we change our mindset, it is easy to learn and use English.

Ellen

Interesting! Issues around language choice and the use of power in the classroom
relate directly to autonomous learning. I want students to be able to make their own
choices about when to use L1 as a resource but make them in a sensible way.

Chie

Yes, while I was reading the book, I was thinking in the same way. I also feel someconcern about university students’ narrow value judgments about language. However,university students have been exposed to the common beliefs in society, and they
are very susceptible to them. Their value judgments are a reflection of society. I
have seen some posts on SNSs by Japanese lecturers and professors, lamenting that
university students criticise their teacher’s accent in Japanese in a harsh way incourse evaluations. I mean, some Japanese university students object to the variety ofJapanese spoken. I, myself, have heard/seen students saying/writing which variety ofEnglish is good or bad. For example, I often hear students say, “Because in Canada,
they speak beautiful English, I want to go to Canada,” or “His/Her English is not
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good, because s/he has a strong accent.” It seems many university students judge
which English (variety) is good/bad, beautiful/not beautiful, or clear/unclear. They
also believe that they should learn a normative, standard international English andthat there is a right form of and correct pronunciation of English which they haveto learn and follow. These beliefs lead to “native speakerism” in that students
uncritically focus on normative standard English and believe that having an Englishonly classroom with neitibu (“native-speaker”) teachers is the best way to be fluent inEnglish.
Ellen

I think such views show how teenagers reproduce the ideology they have learned. The
teacher’s role is to stimulate their reflection on their assumptions. At least they havenoticed that there are varieties. We can build on that. For example, sometimes I teacha poem in Scots called “This is The Six O’Clock News” by Thom Leonard (2012). It
challenges them linguistically and ideologically but it’s also fun.

Chie

This sounds like a good activity. I personally doubt that students, especially the
first-year students at university, realise the fact that there are varieties in English.
So I do not think students select one variety as their preference based on theirknowledge on English varieties used in the world. As an example, when I ask students
to read an article on varieties of English, summarise and write their reflection, many
students write that they have never thought of Englishes used in other places except
the so-called English-speaking countries. Many people talk about the difference inaccents of speakers, in most cases with value-laden expressions. It is likely that theysense the difference based on what they have been exposed to, which they believe isright or beautiful.

Ellen

As teachers, we have a responsibility to make sure students are exposed to materials
in a variety of Englishes. Thanks to the influence of the CEFR, examining boards suchas Cambridge Exams and Educational Testing Service (ETS) are beginning to makemore of an effort to offer more diverse listening material. Changes are also happening
in the curriculum in Japan, as the study of World Englishes becomes more accepted.
In my college, “English as a Global language” is actually a subject of study in thesecond-year compulsory English modules and they discuss whether English has
impacted other languages negatively.

Alternatives to Monolingual Ideology
Ellen

So far we have discussed the things that we love about the book. However there
were one or two areas which I wanted to raise questions about. I feel Heinrich does
not acknowledge the extent to which the establishment has been influenced by analternative multilingual ideology. Most people in Western academia nowadays would
accept that intelligibility is more important than “native”-like pronunciation andcriteria of the CEFR have been updated to reflect that.
…the aim of language education is profoundly modified. It is no longer seen as
simply to achieve ‘mastery’ of one or two, or even three languages, each taken in
isolation, with the ‘ideal native speaker’ as the ultimate model. Instead, the aim
is to develop a linguistic repertory, in which all linguistic abilities have a place.
(Council of Europe, 2001, p. 5)
Heinrich does not really deal with the existence of an alternative multilingual ideology
clearly although he does hint at it in the final chapter. But maybe this is not relevant
to Japan.

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Chie

I agree with the idea that developing a plurilingual competence and the idea of alinguistic repertory is necessary. However, as I wrote in the very beginning, thedistorted views of English and English language learning, that is, fallacies pointed out
by Phillipson (1992), are so strong and deeply entrenched in Japanese society that it isextremely difficult to gear English education for the plurilingualism ideology.

Ellen

Positive influences from outside can be seen in the way Japan finally acknowledged
the Ainu language and culture in the Diet in 2008, after signing the UN Declarationon the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, 2007). Although the promotion of Ainu may be too late tomaintain it as a living language, on a global scale there is support for other kinds ofideology, such as the developments in the CEFR mentioned above, or the indigenous
language reclamation projects underway in Australia (e.g., First Languages Australia,n.d.; Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, n.d.). But
Heinrich does not outline alternative, plurilingual ideologies in any detail, despite
discussing theoretical aspects of ideology.

Chie

It’s not fair to expect him to include all the debates on ideology. The working
definition which he takes of ideology suggests that he is primarily focusing on
situations in which ideology is damaging to different minorities. “The study oflanguage ideology investigates the origin and effect of beliefs about language structure
and use, as well as ways in which those beliefs are promoted and spread beyond thesocial groups whose interests they serve.” (p. 18)

Ellen

You are right. I must say it wasn’t an easy read! Here’s an example of a sentence
which I had to read several times: “Successfully transforming modernist language
ideology will require all to depart from the view that Japan is multicultural andmultilingual” (p. 80). To my mind, “depart from” means “go away from this view,”
but he means “start from this view.” He uses “depart from” in this way earlier inthe book too, but it is quite an unusual usage for me. I read the book twice and someparts more than twice, almost as if they were Zen koans (riddles or puzzles in Zen
Buddhism).

Chie

Zen koans… very good analogy. I think both social science research and Zen koans
have something in common. I mean, both of them have something to do with how weperceive the world or our knowledge.

Ellen

The other area I would like to see more of, is analysis of micro contexts in which
the drama of language choice/power/suppression is played out. For example,
Ohara and Mizukura (2020) connect a critique of ideology to a detailed account oftranslanguaging in a self-access centre and show how multilingual interactions
were empowering for Japanese students who volunteered in the centre. Actually
I wished the book were longer, and the discussions of ideology were grounded bymore examples. Heinrich points out that our choice of what to research is a choice
to reinforce or challenge prevailing ideologies. Holliday’s idea of “small culture”(Holliday, 2021), Lowe’s notions of “framing” (Lowe, 2021) seem to offer alternative
ways of doing linguistic research which might serve the kind of “cultural liberty”
which Heinrich writes about in the closing pages.

Chie

Yes, I also prefer discussions and arguments made with examples in real life contexts.
As Heinrich has been involved in promoting the study of the Ryukyuan languages, his
investigation on the creation of linguistic uniformity in the process of modernizationof Japan is convincing to me.

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Book Review and Critical Dialogue about The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity

EllenIt’s an extraordinary achievement in terms of making a coherent argument out ofmaterial, mostly sources in Japanese, spanning the arc of over a century and a variety
of disciplines. I think The Making of Monolingual Japan will stimulate future scholars,
and I hope someone translates it into Japanese. It deserves to be widely read.

Chie

Let’s hope it is influential! It’s not only relevant to the Japanese language but to othercontexts as well. His investigation of language ideologies can help us think about
language education and policy at a global level.

Concluding Thoughts
Reading The Making of Monolingual Japan has given us new insights into the history of theJapanese language itself and deep-seated social attitudes in relation to both the Japanese
language and foreign languages. The very idea that Japan was not originally monolingual was
not something we had thought about deeply before. We would like to see students learning
about this historical heritage, including the standardization of Japanese and the existence/erasure of linguistic diversity in Japan, in social studies or CLIL classes. The suppression of
the Ryukyuan languages and the Ainu language made us very sad. The major issue which
Heinrich raises at the end of the book is, how will the actual increasing linguistic diversity be
accommodated at the official level, as we move towards a more multilingual Japan? We findthat in Japanese academic circles, the presence of other languages in the community is still
frequently framed in terms of the “problems” that the non-Japanese might be having due
to their poor understanding of Japanese. Especially among the older generation of academics
we can find the monolingual mindset which was characterized in Heinrich. In our dialogue
we have developed the idea that monolingualism at a national level can go hand-in-handwith native-speakerism in the foreign language classroom. However, we have found it ispossible in our own classrooms or teaching practices, to help students to gain confidence
and self-acceptance by discussing native-speakerism and investigating various varieties ofEnglish. We try to show our aesthetic and cultural enjoyment of various forms of language,and, in certain contexts, embrace the mixing of languages in the classroom. This dialogue
has been challenging and stimulating for us. We note that Japan often follows trends fromabroad in applied linguistics, as in other matters. As the idea of the multilingual turn becomesincorporated into the linguistic repertoire globally, we are hopeful that it will find its place asa legitimate part of the Japanese linguistic landscape too.

Author Bios
Ellen Head: After graduating with an MA in English and Latin from St Andrews University,
Scotland, Ellen Head worked in EFL in Greece, England, Japan and China. She has been alecturer at Miyazaki International College since 2017. Her current research interests are
related to learner autonomy and willingness to communicate in compulsory college English
courses.
ヘッド·エレン。スコットランドのセント·アンドルーズ大学で英語·ラテン語の修士号を取得後，ギリシャ，イギリ
ス，日本，中国で（外国語としての）英語教育に従事。2017年より宮崎国際大学教員。大学の英語必修英語科目
における学習者の自律性とコミュニケーション意欲に関する研究を行っている。
Chie Tsurii: Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Momoyama Gakuin (St. Andrew’s)
University, Japan. She holds a Master of Research in Educational and Social Research, an MA
in TEFL/TESL, and a Master in English and American Language and Literature. Her researchinterests include ideologies of (learning/teaching) English in Japan, social media discourse

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Ellen Head & Chie Tsurii

analysis, and qualitative research methods in applied linguistics.
釣井千恵。桃山学院大学准教授（応用言語学）。教育社会科学研究法修士号，TEFL/TESL修士号，英語英米文学修士号を取得。研究テーマは，日本における英語（学習・教育）に関するイデオロギー，ソーシャルメディアの談話分析，応用言語学での質的調査法など。

Review ProcessThis paper was blind peer-reviewed by members of The Learner Development Journal Review
Network and Journal Steering Group. (Contributors have the option of open or blind review.)

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