The Kokugo Revolution

Education, Identity, and Language Policy in Imperial Japan

Paul H. Clark

• Publisher: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
• Year: 2009
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781557291608
• Subtopic: Educational Policy
• Index: History

Through a study of the development of the Japanese national language, Paul H. Clark discusses reforms in the education system and the creation of a modern cultural identity in the Meiji era and beyond. The book begins with the varied early forms of spoken and written Japanese and goes on to explain how the colloquial version was promoted, especially by Ueda Kazutoshi, and became kokugo. It also demonstrates how language was used as a tool for social control and a means through which a greater sense of national unity was created as Japan careened toward total war with Asia. Source materials include interviews in addition to publications such as journals, books, newspapers, the official government gazette, and textbooks.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Notes to this edition
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Writing Literacy, Language Reform, and Education Reform in Early Meiji Japan
• 3. Creating Kokugo Consciousness: Education Officials and the Emergence of National Language Ideology
• 4. The Birth of the Genbun'itchi Movement and Futsabun in the Middle Meiji Years
• 5. Ueda Kazutoshi, Systemic Linguistics, and the Academic Legitimization of Kokugo
• 6. The Genbun'itchi Society and the Establishment of the National Language Research Council
• 7. Grammar, Textbooks, and the Implementation of the National Language
• 8. Kokugo, the State, and Yamada Yoshio
• 9. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover