Доклад на тему: "Sociolinguistics in Japan"

The linguistic situation in Japan gives rise to many problems, often directly related to the most important aspects of life and having, to one degree or another, political significance.Without a rational solution to language problems, neither full-fledged training, nor effective influence of propaganda means, nor communication with foreigners are possible.Therefore, language policy is also included in state policy.But perhaps in none of the developed capitalist countries the government pays so much attention to linguistic issues as in Japan.A similar trend was also evident to some extent before the war, primarily in connection with school education. State institutions were created to address the issues of language norms, rationalize the teaching of native and foreign languages, and improve the texts of the press, radio, and television. The most important of them are the mentioned State Institute of the Japanese language and the Institute of culture of radio and television programs.Since the end of the XIX century in Japan, a synthesis of the national linguistic tradition with the ideas of European linguistics took place. At the same time, due to the consistently synchronous nature of the traditional Japanese language science, the ideas of historical and especially comparative historical linguistics did not find an echo there, but Japanese scholars very quickly mastered the structural methods of language learning; as already mentioned, the Japanese language was the first into which F. de Saussure's book was translated. The ideas of F. de Saussure, C. Bally and others influenced a number of Japanese scientists, of which the largest was Shinkichi Hashimoto (1882-1945).However, the influence of structuralism drew criticism from a number of scholars in Japan, including a professor at the University of Tokyo Motoki Tokieda (1900-1967).He was a prominent specialist in general and Japanese linguistics, the author of fundamental grammars of modern and old-literal Japanese published in the post-war years, works on stylistics, sociolinguistics, and the history of Japanese linguistics.M. Tokieda proceeded from the fundamental difference between the object of natural sciences and the object of linguistics.If in natural sciences "an object is in front of the observer as an object separated from him", then with language this is not the case.We can observe only sounds and written signs, but “a concrete linguistic experience is acquired only when, having heard some sounds, we recall some meaning or express some ideas in sounds.Unlike M. Tokieda, the proponents of the school of linguistic existence were primarily interested in the social, rather than psychological, prerequisites of speech activity, reducing the object of linguistics to the text and the environment of its production or perception, and recognizing language units only as scientific abstractions. The school created original works in the field of language situation and speech culture. In the course of research with many informants of various social groups, a large amount of factual material was collected (for example, T. Shibata developed a method of "language learning in 24 hours", in which the researcher records all the speech activity of the subject, who is considered as a "typical representative" of a particular social group), but did not find a complete theoretical study. More important is the fact that the issues of language practice occupy a prominent place in the Japanese media. Every week Japanese Newspapers in English discuss the problems of teaching English to Japanese people and teaching Japanese to foreigners. Language programs also play a big role on television. It is significant that since April 1984, regular programs about the Japanese language were transferred from the NHK curriculum to the General one, they were broadcasting at the most convenient time for viewers: on Saturdays from 22 to 22: 30.So, in modern Japan, the science of language is primarily considered as the basis for language practice, as a means to help Japanese people use their language correctly.