日本社會語言學之觀點

A Japanese Sociolinguistics Point of View

日本社會語言學研究之目的為：調查日常生活中實際使用的語言，透過該語言現象與社會背景關聯之解析，深入探討日本社會所面臨之問題點。現今的日本社會，以日語以外的各種語言為母語之人口逐漸增加，該如何確保各語言人口的「語言權」儼然形成一大重要課題。具體而言，例如有：醫療、教育、社會福利、訴訟等領域的語言使用問題、手語相關問題、與刻板印象息息相關的角色語問題、以及異文化接觸下的非母語使用者受排擠問題等。針對這些問題，歐美各國政府已與社會語言學家共同攜手合作努力設法解決。而，日本則剛起步。

Japanese sociolinguists conducts fields surveys of language in it various domains of usage, analyzing insights into society gained through an examination of language phenomena, and aiming to shed light on problems facing Japanese society. In present day Japan, which supports a population who native languages are increasing in diversity, the protection of ”language rights” has become a problem of the highest magnitude. This includes issues of the languages used in medicine, education, social welfare, and the courts, but also extends to issues of sign languages, the stereotypical images of so-called ”character speech” (yakuwari-go), and even to problems of non-native speaker exclusion in cross-cultural contact situations. In countries of the West, governments and sociolinguists have joined forces to work towards the amelioration of such problems, but similar efforts in Japan are still in their infancy.