Language Choices at Naha Airport

Abstract

This paper investigates regimented language choices at Naha Airport in Okinawa Prefecture in order to study how these language choices relate to language ideology on one hand and to creating a self-supporting language ecology of maximum diversity on the other. Issues of power and ideology underlie the language choice and the language ecology which evolve from them, as well as ideologically erased language choices. Despite its multilingual heritage and the presence of a large English-speaking community of US military personnel on the island, Naha Airport reproduces ideas of individual and societal monolingualism with regard to Japan as well as to neighbouring countries. Owing to entrenched nationalist ideology and language attitudes, a change in such language regimentation cannot be envisaged in the near future, despite several shortcomings in the present linguistic organization of Naha Airport. Officially regulated public spaces accessible to all, such as Naha Airport, can play a key role in readjusting and re-evaluating specific behaviours and values.

Notes

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²Hokama, Okinawa no gengoshi.

³Miyara, ‘Okinawago kōshi’, ‘Japonikku gozoku’.

⁴For a discussion of terminology, see Fija, Brenzinger and Heinrich, ‘The Ryukyus and the New’.

⁵UNESCO, ‘Interactive Atlas'.

⁶For details, see Heinrich and Shimoji, Ryūkyū shogo kiroku hozon.

⁷Figal, ‘The Battle of Tropical Ryukyu’.

⁸Gottlieb, Language and Society in Japan.

⁹Lüdtke, ‘Sprache zwischen Chaos und spontaner Ordnung’.

¹⁰Ben-Rafael, ‘A Sociological Approach’, 41.

¹¹Haugen, Ecology of Language, 325.

¹²See for example, Duranti, Linguistic Anthropology; Harrison, When Languages Die; Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power; and Inoue, Nihongo no nedan.

¹³Mühlhäusler, ‘Language Planning’.

¹⁴Sloboda, ‘State Ideology and Linguistic Landscape’, 175.

¹⁵For details, see Heinrich, ‘Ryūkyū shogo no gengo shifuto’.

¹⁶For a detailed discussion, see Heinrich, ‘Ryūkyūgo no dankaiteki shōshitsu’.

¹⁷Okinawa Convention and Visitor Bureau, Smile Island, 2. ‘Manyo language’ is the language of the Man'yōshū, a collection of poetry from the eighth century.

¹⁸For discussion, see Fija, Brenzinger and Heinrich, ‘The Ryukyus and the New’.

¹⁹For more details on Ryukyuan pop and rock music, see Roberson, ‘Uchina Pop’.

²⁰Coulmas, ‘Changing Language Regimes’, Wright, Language Policy.

²¹Heinrich, National Language Ideology.

²²Blommaert and Verschueren, ‘The Pragmatics of Minority Politics’, Masiko, Ideorogii.

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²⁴Crystal, English as a Global Language.

²⁵Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge.

²⁶Eagleton, Ideology.

²⁷The sixth endangered language mentioned earlier, Amami, is in Kagoshima Prefecture.

²⁸Clark, Kokugo Revolution, Lee, Ideology of Kokugo , Tanaka, Kokkago o koete.

²⁹Heinrich, National Language Ideology, Long, English on the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands, Maher, ‘Akor Itak’.

³⁰Irvine and Gal, ‘Language Ideology’.

³¹Shohamy, Language Policy, 110.

³²Backhaus, ‘Rules and Regulations’, 167.

³³Anderson, Imagined Communities.

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³⁵Backhaus, Linguistic Landscapes.

³⁶Miura, ‘Shokuminchi-jidai’.

³⁷Wright, Language Policy, 245.

³⁸Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power.

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⁴⁰Anderson, Emergent Language Shift in Okinawa.

⁴¹Fishman, Reversing Language Shift.

⁴²Mühlhäusler, ‘Language Planning’, 332.

⁴³Baumann, Intimations of Postmodernity and Postmodernity and its Discontents.

⁴⁴Heinrich and Galan, Language Life.

⁴⁵Spolsky, ‘Prolegomena’, 33.

⁴⁶Smith, ‘Introduction’, 1.