In the vibrant tapestry of American society, the Japanese diaspora occupies a unique position, bearing the rich cultural legacy of Japan while being deeply woven into the fabric of the United States. For Japanese Americans, language is an integral part of their identity, connecting them to their ancestors, heritage, and roots. However, as we stand at the crossroads of multiple generations, we find ourselves grappling with a profound challenge - the preservation and revival of our heritage language, Japanese. This book is dedicated to Japanese Americans, especially those who find themselves as third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth-generation descendants. Our journey in embracing the Japanese language is both a testament to our resilience and an acknowledgment of the hurdles we face in preserving our ancestral ties.

Why are different varieties of the Japanese language used differently in social interaction, and how are they perceived? How do honorifics operate to express diverse affective stances, such as politeness? Why have issues of gendered speech been so central in public discourse, and how are they reflected and refracted in language use as social practice? This book examines Japanese sociolinguistic phenomena from a fascinating new perspective, focusing on the historical construction of language norms and its relationship to actual language use in contemporary Japan. This socio-historically sensitive account stresses the different choices which have shaped Japanese and Western sociolinguistics and how varieties of Japanese, honorifics and politeness, and gendered language have emerged in response to the socio-political landscape in which a modernizing Japan found itself.

Although the United States is a nation of immigrants, few Americans are familiar with the ethnic community mother-tongue schools that nurtured and maintained the immigrants' language and culture. This book records the history of the schools of Americans of Japanese ancestry, focusing on the efforts of the Japanese community in California to maintain their linguistic and cultural heritage. The main focus of the book is on the period from the early 20th century to World War II, but it also surveys conditions during the war and in the postwar era up to the present. The coverage examines the difficulties experienced by the ancestors of the model minority, from the San Francisco Japanese school-children segregation incident in the early part of this century to private school control laws in the 1920s. The book also surveys the lives of Japanese Americans as college students in Japan in the 1930s, as well as looks at Japanese communities in Hawaii and Brazil.

Bringing together the latest studies on Japanese pragmatics, this edited volume showcases the breadth of research conducted in this ever-expanding, interdisciplinary field, with the introductory chapter providing a useful summary of developments in the field in the past decades. The twelve chapters address a variety of traditional and emerging topics by adopting diverse theoretical and methodological frameworks and presenting a range of perspectives on grammar, interaction and culture. They demonstrate a wide scope of pragmatics research informed by, as well as informing, usage-based grammar, cognitive linguistics, conversation analysis, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and literary and cultural studies. Chapters also consider future directions as to how the study of Japanese language in use will continue to offer critical data and analyses to the field dominated by the study of English and other European languages. This volume is certain to be of interest to students and scholars engaged in pragmatics in general and the Japanese language in particular.

A celebration of JA culture: facts, recipes, songs, words, and memories that every JA will want to share. From immigration to discrimination and internment, and then to reparations and a high rate of intermarriage, Americans of Japanese descent share a long and sometimes painful history, and now fear their unique culture is being lost. Gil Asakawa's celebration of what makes JAs so special is an entertaining blend of facts and features, of recipes, songs, and memories that every JA will want to share with friends and family. Included are interviews with famous JAs and a look at how it's hip to be Japanese, from manga to martial arts, plus a section on Japantown communities and tips for JA's scrapbooking their families and traveling to Japan to rediscover their roots.

How does language or culture come to be standardized to the degree that it is considered 'homogeneous'? How does teaching language relate to such standardization processes? How can teaching be mindful of the standardization processes that potentially involve power relations? Focusing on the case of Japanese, which is often viewed as homogenous in terms of language and culture, this volume explores these questions in a wide range of contexts: the notions of translation and modernity, the ideologies of the standardization of regional dialects in Japan, current practices in college Japanese-as-a- Foreign-Language classrooms in the United States, discourses in journals of Japanese language education, and classroom practices in nursery and primary schools in Japan. This volume’s investigation of standardization processes of Japanese language and culture addresses the intersections of theoretical and practical concerns of researchers and educators that are often overlooked.

Tacoma's vibrant Nihonmachi of the 1920s and '30s was home to a significant number of first- and second-generation Japanese immigrants to the United States, and these families formed tight-knit bonds despite their diverse religious, prefectural, and economic backgrounds. As the city's Nisei grew up attending the secular Japanese Language School, they absorbed the Meiji-era cultural practices and ethics of the previous generation. At the same time, they positioned themselves in new and dynamic ways, including resisting their parents and pursuing lives that diverged from traditional expectations. Becoming Nisei, based on more than forty interviews, shares stories of growing up in Japanese American Tacoma before the incarceration. Recording these early twentieth-century lives counteracts the structural forgetting and erasure of prewar histories in both Tacoma and many other urban settings after World War II. Lisa Hoffman and Mary Hanneman underscore both the agency of Nisei in these processes as well as their negotiations of prevailing social and power relations.