Japanese migrants in Australia and the problems of language maintenance : An examination of the differing views of war brides and later migrant women
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Abstract
This is a study of language maintenance and language shift in the Japanese migrant community in Australia. It focuses on female migrants, who by far constitute the majority of that community, and, unlike most studies which focus only on recent arrivals, ranges from the War Brides of the 1950s to the present. Using semi-structured interviews with migrants across several generations, it explores the complex mixture of motivating factors and obstacles which influenced the language choices of these women for themselves and for their children. The study pays particular attention to the impact of government policies in the host country, whether the assimilationist White Australia policy in force to the 1970s or the multicultural policy which followed it, and to the influence of cultural ideologies in the homeland such as Nihonjin-ron (the ideology of Japanese uniqueness) and Kokusaika (internationalization). It also identifies the key role of community institutions such as the Japaneselanguage Saturday School, and explains the importance of intermarriage and how this could either inhibit or promote language maintenance depending on the shifting social context. The study further demonstrates how differences in social background and perceptions of gender roles and identities across the years, in both Australia and Japan, have had a major influence on migrant women’s stance towards maintaining their language heritage
Journal
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- Journal of Humanities Research St. Andrew's University
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Journal of Humanities Research St. Andrew's University (6), 153-188, 2017-03-10
桃山学院大学総合研究所
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Keywords
Details 詳細情報について
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- CRID
- 1050282812568621056
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- NII Article ID
- 120006009226
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- NII Book ID
- AA12704345
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- ISSN
- 21889031
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- NDL BIB ID
- 028047461
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- Text Lang
- en
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- Article Type
- departmental bulletin paper
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- Data Source
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- IRDB
- NDL
- CiNii Articles