Book review and critical dialogue about The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity (Heinrich, 2012)

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 historical development 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 “power-based 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.