Professor Makiko Matsuda, who studies Japanese language education at the faculty of human and social sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University. Her study questions the way societies should be, or how people should live from the perspective of ‘Japanese language communication’.
Not only Japanese students, but also students from several foreign countries study at Matsuda’s office. We interviewed Professor Matsuda on details of her studies and the meanings for foreign students to learn Japanese language at Tokyo Metropolitan University.
Japanese language education can be opportunities to question your identity
―― To get started, please tell me your major.
If I put it in short, it is the ‘study of communication in contact zones’.
How minorities secure their spaces in certain places. Or how majorities in those places co-exist with minorities. Those asymmetrical relationships or zones where negotiations of those relationships are noticeable are called ‘contact zones’.
For example, what language minorities use, or how they are living. If they are feeling a ‘difficulty of living’ there, how they feel it. If they are living happily, how they reached that happiness. We are studying those themes from the perspective of Japanese language communication.
―― When it comes to Japanese language education, we think of the ‘Japanese language’ itself, but you study various areas with the perspective of Japanese language.
What I worked on when I started this career was indeed Japanese language itself. Japanese language is something fixed and does not change. Therefore, with an assumption that it is knowledge that we can share, I studied how we could properly share it with students who were not native Japanese speakers, or what grammar it had un-written.
Of course, those are important areas that we should make clear, but as I kept studying, I came to think that ‘Language is something softer. Language is a practice’. I think that the role of Japanese language education is to cultivate boundaries between Japanese the border between Japanese and foreign languages, and to release Japanese language or people who are dominated by norms and stereotypes of Japanese language communication. I believe that studying with a questioning attitude is rather important, because social norms tend to form and spread widely if we lose our critical perspective.
That is the case not only for Japanese people, but also for people around the world. There are actually few people who use only one language from birth through death. Regardless of the county you are born and you grow up in, you would be involved in linguistic and cultural diversities with the connection of yourself and surroundings, including dialects. In addition, in the globalized era, you would be involved in politics, economies, histories and cultures at global levels.
In that kind of era, people’s identities are built not fixed, but more complicated and dynamically, and people may sometimes be minoritized and feel isolation due to the intersectionality of their identity. I would like to consider a free and flexible way to build identities for people who live in the era of mobility, and transmit that to the world. What I’m particularly interested in is the study of people who are feeling difficulty to live, due to Japanese language. I study Japanese people’s stories who have connections to South America, and often hear about experiences that they felt alienation with their Japanese languages or behaviors being rejected by "Native" Japanese People.
Contact zone is also an area of negotiation and transformation. I believe that people can become free when each individual develops the ability to critically view the world, regains ownership of their own language, and can engage in collaborative activities with others using their own language.
―― I felt that your study of Japanese language education is related to academics, such as sociology or phycology. What do you think is different in the study for Japanese language education than other academics?
I think that the significant difference of study of language education from other academics is ‘practice (*1)’. Sociology and psychology often analyze societies or people’s behaviors. Meanwhile, studies of language education are something practice where we think about language with people who actually use it, or people who support educations, and we struggle and flexibly transform with them. Relatively, it may be more of a practical study.
I think the interesting aspect of this study is that we pioneer the latest studies with people who actually use it.
*1 While the word ‘practice’ is used in various areas in various meanings, it means ‘activities that bring social transformation’.
―― I heard that your own study was selected as a ‘fundamental study (A)’ of Grants-in Aid for Scientific Research. What is ‘Japanese language study that draws attention in the world’?
Now with internet and social media highly developed, many ‘Global-standard format’ are rapidly being created, as a result of attempts to effectively share information among people with different languages and different cultures. It is an effective way, considering productivity or scalability（*2）. On the other hand, it is becoming difficult to live maintaining local languages, cultures or values.
Then what should be done for people in various countries or regions to interact, maintaining their unique values? Just like ‘brackish water’, where freshwater and sea water mix and sometimes create unique ecosystems, we would suggest that societies where various linguistic and cultural diversities are maintained ‘could exist’. That is my study, ‘International collaborative study of Network for Translingual Japanese
that contribute to designing mobile-based societies’, which was selected as ‘fundamental study(A)’.
*2 Scalability is a term used by anthropologist Anna Tsing, referring to standardization. A representative example is the scientific management of plantations in European colonial territories.
There are regions that have ‘brackish water’, and I confirmed ones in South America and Australia. What is interesting is that both are in the ‘South’. I think that in the South, values or indigenous people are respected, and the view or world is not as much with the concept that the center of the world is human, compared to the ‘North’, with the influence of nature stronger. I think that makes not only the nature and animals, but people, including those who have various languages and cultures, have stronger awareness to ‘co-exist with everyone’.
Especially, Bolivia has an Okinawa emigration region where many immigrants from Okinawa live. Here, Bolivian local people and immigrants from Okinawa are living together maintaining each identity, and I am trying to find out how this is happening.
I believe that how ‘Japanese’ people live in South America and foreign countries, including the example of Bolivia, would be a hint to change the current situation where many people feel difficulty of living. My study pursues practice with the basis of South America, referring to existing studies of ‘translanguaging’ or ‘more than human’.
‘Mix’ different cultures and values. The reason students come from all over the world to Professor Matsuda’s office
―― Currently, how many students study in your office?
We have three undergraduate students, one from master’s course and two from doctoral course. The two from doctoral courses are coming from Thai and Silia. Besides, I teach students from Taiwan, Brazil, Vietnam and China.
―― There are many foreign students. What kind of study do you have with foreign students?
It depends on students, but many students study ‘practice’ itself, that I mentioned earlier.
There is a student who is studying practical education of multi languages for Thai children who were born in Japan and are growing in Japan. It is difficult for those children to learn their mother tongue in Japan, where there is a lot of peer pressure. The study focuses on how Thai identities are inherited in those situations.
Also, there is a Japanese student who is studying the differences between ‘Kimi’ (‘you’ in casual form) and ‘Anata’ (‘you’ in formal form). A theme such as why you would say ‘Kimi’, but not ‘Anata’, when you call someone.
I think that they notice subtle differences in their studying activities, where Japanese and foreign students interact with each other.
Some want to work on language education itself, and some are interested in minorities or diversities. Of course, some change areas that they are interested in, as their studies proceed. There is no definition on ‘how foreign students should act’ or ‘what they should learn’, so I would like them to come to Japan, stay and enjoy interactions with many people first.
I studied in the US and India as a student myself, and those experiences still have influences as ‘my triggers’.
Tokyo Metropolitan University has the environment to face yourself through Japanese language
―― What do you think is the meaning for foreign students to study in Tokyo?
I think of Tokyo as a place where “Dokodemo (Anywhere) Doors” from Doraemon converge—a city where people from diverse backgrounds and cultures come together, each bringing their own unique stories.Also, there are a lot of stations that start in Tokyo, and it has domestic and international airport. You can feel various Japanese ‘local’ in Tokyo, and Tokyo’s locality is attractive as well.
‘Japan’ has various regions, and each of them has own cultures and histories. That is why I think that Tokyo, which is a ‘Anywhere Door’ that can access to every region, is a good base camp for foreign students.
―― Finally, please tell me the benefit of studying at Tokyo Metropolitan University, while there are many universities in Tokyo.
There are a lot of benefits, but if I pick one, that would be that it is ‘liberal’. At Tokyo Metropolitan University, there are many researchers in many areas who are working on interesting and flexible studies.
It is of course the case for Japanese language education. There are other many teachers besides me in this university whose majors are Japanese language education, but none of them would say ‘Japanese language education should be in certain form’. There is a teacher who believes that languages and education are diverse and dynamic, and they have powers to change societies and realize peace as well.
For those who consider the way societies and languages exist in critical way and who are interested in studies of language education to build better societies, I would like to recommend Tokyo Metropolitan University. Learning at Tokyo Metropolitan University would be a chance not only to discover new charms of Japanese language, but also to question yourself.
