Rezensionen

In seiner 2005 vorgelegten Habilitationsschrift widmet sich Ludger Basten den Entwicklungstendenzen an der Peripherie nordamerikanischer und europaischer Stadtregionen, die er als Ausdruck einer postmodernen Epoche der Stadtentwicklung und aus einer „postmo­ dernistischen" wissenschaftstheoretischen Grundpers­ pektive heraus thematisiert. Im Mittelpunkt der lesens­ werten Studie stehen detaillierte Einzelfallanalysen des Kirchsteigfeldes in Potsdam und des „Panorama Villa ge" in Surrey im Siiden der Stadtregion Vancouver. Da­ bei analysiert Basten insbesondere die Entwicklungs­ prozesse, durch die raumliche Vorstellungen entworfen und realisiert werden, sowie die von Bewohnern vor­ genommenen Bewertungen der architektonischen und stadtebaulichen Gestaltung der stadtischen Peripherie.


Reviewed by Torsten Weber
In a recent volume of the publishing house Iwanami's well-received "Intellectual Frontier" series, simply titled Ajia/Nihon [Asia/Japan], Yonetani Masafumi suggests to re-visit "Japan's entangled relationship with Asia" by starting from Sun Yat-sen's famous "Greater Asianism" address of 1924. Given in Kôbe to a mainly Japanese audience, Sun's speech highlights "the ambiguity of solidarity (rentai) and invasion (shinryaku) contained in the Asian solidarity thesis (Ajia Rentai Ron)", 1 Yonetani states. Owing to its wide circulation in Japan until 1945, Sun's "Greater Asianism" has become an important part of modern Japanese consciousness of Asia. While in large sections of his speech Sun praised the Japanese for their civilisational achievements and successful resistance against Western aggression, towards the end he warned Japan not to become "the watchdog of Western rule of might" (badao, Jp. hadô) but to function as "the stronghold of Eastern rule of virtue" (wangdao, Jp. ôdô) instead. 2 Indeed Japan, as having to choose between joining "the West" and adopting Western imperialism on the one hand or opting for "the East" and promoting Eastern solidarity on the other is a pre-dominant topic in Japanese discourse on Asia, most famously expressed by Fukuzawa Yukichi's "Leaving Asia"-thesis (Datsu A Ron). Whereas Fukuzawa in 1885 had strongly rejected Japanese attempts to revive Asia together with its neighbours, which he denounced as the "bad company of East Asia", Sun in 1924 appealed to the Japanese for a "Greater Asianism to restore the status of the Asian peoples". Between both statements, but also after and before them, many debates on Japan's relationship with Asia, on Japanese 'Asianity', and on Asia's significance for Japan and vice versa, arose in Japan. In the past decades the diversity of such expressions of Asia consciousness (Ajia ninshiki) has received much attention by

王屏『近代日本的亚细亚主义』商务印书馆
Japanese scholars of modern history. Similarly to Yonetani, many of them have attributed particular significance to the concept of Asianism (Ajiashugi). 3 In fact, from a Japanese perspective modern Asia appears unthinkable without thinking of Asianism at the same time. Unlike Anglophone scholarship, which only of late has embarked on discussing Asianism as a part of modern Japanese Asia consciousness, 4 scholars on mainland China have long shared with their counterparts in Japan this interest in Asianism and its implications for modern Japan's relationship with Asia, in particular with China. However, until relatively recently, the political function of studying Japanese Asianism as a mere jargon for imperialism and aggression could hardly be overlooked. This position was fundamentally challenged when, in 2000, Sheng Banghe, history professor at Shanghai's East China Normal University, argued in the prestigious Lishi Yanjiu [History Research] journal for a more refined interpretation of Japanese Asianism. Before Asianism "turned right" to become the ideology behind Japan's continental policy of expansionism, he contended, it had aimed at promoting an "Asian alliance" (Yazhou tongmeng, Jp. Ajia dômei) and proposed "Sino-Japanese mutual help and guidance" (Zhong-Ri lianxie, Jp. Chû-Nichi renkei) as a means of resistance against the Western powers. 5 This partially "positive" interpretation of Japanese Asianism, which Sheng supported by extensive references to pro-Chinese Japanese writings from the early-and mid-Meiji periods, met with fierce criticism from some Chinese scholars who re-iterated the orthodox view of Asianism as being nothing but "Greater Japanism" 6 and a "product of Japan's march towards im-3 See Furuya Tetsuo's praised edited volume Kindai Nihon no Ajia ninshiki, Tokyo: Ryokuin Shobô, 1996, which contains a separate chapter by the editor on "Asianism and its circumference", and Yamamuro Shin'ichi's state-of-the-art Shisô kadai toshite no Ajia, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2001, which dedicates one third of the book to "Asianism as Entwurf" (Tôki toshite no Ajiashugi perialism", providing Japan with "a theory for invasion". 7 However, Sheng's progressive interpretation marked the start of a gradual re-evaluation of Japanese Asianism by Chinese scholars of which the book under review can be regarded as representing a current peak. Wang Ping's meticulous study, for which she undertook research at the University of Tokyo in 2000/2001, deserves particular attention mainly for three reasons. Firstly, while articles on Asianism have been published in China in great number, Wang's study constitutes the first Chinese monograph on Japanese Asianism. In fact, it may well be one of the first monographs ever published on this subject outside of Japan. Secondly, unlike many other Chinese works on modern Japan history, her study is well informed by recent Japanese scholarship, and she supports her analysis with extensive references to Japanese (not Chinese) secondary literature. Thirdly, and most importantly, the overall tone of her study is "relatively rational and extremely neutral", as one Chinese reviewer criticised. 8 This is all the more noteworthy as Wang is by no means a pariah in her field but a member of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and also a frequent commentator of Sino-Japanese relations for the central organ of the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Daily newspaper (Renmin Ribao). Although it may be too much to conclude that her book marks the beginning of a paradigm shift in official Chinese historiography of modern Japan, it doubtlessly stands out as a powerful renunciation of orthodox Chinese study of modern Japanese history (which Wang largely ignores) and as a timely contribution to international scholarship on Japanese Asianism.
Wang's choice of the term Yaxiya zhuyi ["Asianism"] in the title and throughout her book may already be regarded as an act of political incorrectness, from a Chinese point of view. In China, Japanese Asianism is traditionally referred to as Da Yaxiya zhuyi or Da Yazhou zhuyi (both meaning "Greater Asianism") in a negative sense, stressing Japanese ambitions to create and rule a "Greater Asia". 9 Wang clings to the negative connota-tions of "Greater Asianism", but she only uses the term for a specific sort of Asianism -"expansive Asianism" -whereas she chooses the more neutral "Asianism" as her overall term. Historically, a strict division between "Asianism" and "Greater Asianism" is arguable because both terms (and a third, "Pan-Asianism") were mostly used synonymously by contemporaries. At any rate, Wang's message is clear: "Asianism cannot indiscriminately be called invasionism" (17) and, from a scholarly point of view, is not to be used in a "praising" or "downgrading" sense but as a "neutral term" (25).
Wang's elaborate definition of Asianism underlines her de-politicised understanding of historical Asianism further. According to Wang, [M]odern Japanese 'Asianism' means a sort of representative political thought and its corresponding behaviour that is related to Japanese views on Asia. It took shape during a time of crisis due to intensified aggression by Western powers against the East and revolved around the question of how to understand concepts of 'East' and 'West'. As a result of the complicated and particular historical development process which modern Japanese Asianism underwent, it displays the three forms of Classical Asianism (Gudian Yaxiya zhuyi, Jp. Koten Ajiashugi) emphasizing equal cooperation in Asia, of Greater Asianism (Da Yaxiya zhuyi, Jp. Dai Ajiashugi) emphasizing expansion, and of the "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" which implemented the invasion of Asia. In the course of its formation, development, and extinction, modern Japanese Asianism completed its historical process as a qualitative transformation from "Reviving Asia" (Xing Ya, Jp. Kô A) to "Invading Asia" (Qin Ya, Jp. Shin A). (15) Similarly to Sheng, Wang emphasises that Asianism cannot be studied detached from its historical context of a "Western threat" which did not automatically lead to a Japanese formulation of a blueprint for Japanese aggression. Rather, for Wang as for Sheng, in the early period "Classical Asianism" stood for cooperation and representatively expressed itself in the Asian Solidarity thesis (Ajia Rentai Ron). This interpretation is reminiscent of the minimal definition of Asianism as "solidarity of the Asian countries" (Ajia shokoku no rentai) 10 by Takeuchi Yoshimi who, more explicitly than Wang, linked early Asianist thought to the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement of the 1880s.
Not entirely in accordance with her chronological definition, Wang's study nominally falls into three larger topical parts: Asianism as "thought", as "behaviour", and as "diplomatic strategy". However, Wang understands these divisions non-exclusively and ultimately gives preference to a historical narrative along the above-mentioned temporal units (formation, development, extinction) rather than clinging to her thematic structure. It should further be emphasised that Wang, even where she discusses Asianist action and diplomacy, generally comprehends Asianism as intellectual (not social or diplomatic) history and therefore studies, with few exceptions, writings by intellectuals expressing a particular consciousness of Asia.
In the first part ("Asianism as thought") she focuses on the time between the foundation of the Shin A Sha [Rouse Asia Society] in 1878, assumedly the first Asianist organisation, and the foundation of the Tôa Dôbunkai [East Asia Common Culture Association] by Konoe Atsumaro in 1898 (chapter 2). In chapter 3, we are reminded of Okakura Tenshin's views of Oriental and Occidental civilizations and his formulation of "Asia is one", which Wang regards as the "solid theoretical base of Asianism" (84). The fourth chapter is concerned with Asianist plans for "concrete action" and studies Tarui Tôkichi's proposed solution of the Korea problem (Dai Tô Gappô Ron) and Miyazaki Tôten's commitment to a Chinese revolution. Wang regards this "formative period of Asianism" (1878-1898) as representing "Classical Asianism".
In the last part ("Asianism as diplomatic strategy"), Wang announces her intention to study Japan's mainland policy, but effectively analyses Rôyama Masamichi's geopolitical theory and Ôkawa Shûmei's writings about establishing a new order in East Asia (chapter 10) as leading to "the extinction of Asianism" (Yaxixa zhuyi de xiaowang, Jp. Ajiashugi no shôbô) between 1928 and 1945. While 1945 appears as an obvious terminus for the study of historical Asianism, the choice of 1928 as the turning point from expansive to invasive Asianism remains somewhat opaque. Perhaps 1938 would have been a more convincing choice, in particular as Wang, in the third part, focuses on the declaration of the "New Order in East Asia" (Tôa Shin Chitsujo) of 1938 and the following debates on the "East Asian Common Body" (Tôa Kyôdôtai Ron), the "East Asian League" (Tôa Renmei Ron), and the "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" (1940). Indirectly, Wang herself admits her inconsistency regarding temporal divisions when she states that "with the appearance of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere policy, Asianism too changed into an empty slogan void of any thought but completely overlapping with the mainland policy of the Japanese government" (209).
As can be seen from this brief overview of the contents of her book, Wang chronologically covers the "usual suspects" of Asianist thought and, to a lesser extent, behaviour. Although she must be credited for introducing some hitherto little-studied contemporary writings, such as proand anti-Asianist contributions to a special "Greater Asianism" edition of the journal Nihon oyobi Nihonjin (October 1924), the bulk of her sources is well-known and has been studied in some depth by Japanese scholars and frequently, albeit dispersed, appear in Anglophone scholarship, too. Unfortunately, some major primary writings that obviously influenced the understanding of "Asianism" by contemporary Japanese, such as Kodera Kenkichi's Dai Ajiashugi Ron [On Greater Asianism, 1916] 11 or Ukita Kazutami's "Shin Ajiashugi" [New Asianism, 1918] 12 are neglected. Similarly, Wang omits important non-Japanese or international contributions to Asianist thought and behaviour, such as the revolutionary efforts of the Asian Solidarity Society (Yazhou Heqinhui/Ashû Washinkai), Rabindranath Tagore's and Rash Bihari Bose's pan-Asian writings, and Chinese affirmations of Asianism after 1940 (Wang Jingwei, Lin Baisheng, Zhou Fohai) despite their wide publication and reception in contemporary Japan. While Sun Yat-sen's "Greater Asianism" is discussed in brief (22-24), the reception of his speech in Japan and various claims to the prerogative of its interpretation in the decades after Sun's death (1925) are completely excluded.
Intellectually most stimulating are Wang's brief excursus in four subchapters to discuss Asianism versus "Europeanism" (Ôkashugi), versus Japanism (Nihonshugi), versus National Essentialism (Kokusuishugi), and versus Militarism (Gunkokushugi). In these short digressions from her historical narrative Wang re-visits Asianism in its contemporary intellectual context and examines differences between and similarities with prevailing ideas in Meiji-, Taishô-and early Shôwa-Japan. "Classical Asianism" à la Ajia Rentai Ron and Japanism as advocated by Takayama Chogyû , for example, "had nothing in common", Wang concludes, while later expressions of Nihonshugi and appeals to the "Japanese spirit" in early Shôwa were "one and the same with expansive and invasive Greater Asianism and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" (148). In spite of the fact that such comparisons are useful to remind us that Asianism itself had different meanings at different times and that Asianism was contested by and developed in relation to other common ideas at the time, Wang's approach is prone to generalisations and somewhat limited by her definitions of the respective terms. As controversial debates in contemporary journals show, Asianism (and Nihonshugi or Kokusuishugi, for example) did not only have one meaning at one time, but had several different meanings argued for by different debaters at the same time. Wang's case would have been stronger if she had referred directly to debates between Japanese who argued, for example, for Internationalism and against Asianism or for Asianism and against Nihonshugi.
The conclusion of the book provides an insight into the continuous appeal that "Asianism" as a concept still exerts today. Positioning herself against a "New Asianism" put forth by Tokyo's governor Ishihara Shintarô and the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, 13 Wang herself argues for a "New Classical Asianism". In a passionate statement she rejects any particularistic claims for "Asian values" and "Asian thought", or hegemonic hopes for an "Asian century", but argues instead for non-exclusive regional cooperation based on "horizontal contacts" (hengxiang xiaowang, Jp. yokomuki kôô, 367). If common interests, common terminology, and a "neutral" approach are essential for such contacts and cooperation, Wang's book itself may be seen as one step towards a partial realisation of a "New Classical Asianism" by bringing international -in particular East Asian -scholarship of modern Japanese history closer together. 13 Wang refers to Mahathir Mohamad and Ishihara Shintarô, 'No' to ieru Ajia, Tokyo: Kôbunsha, 1994. For this and alternative versions of "New Asianism" or "Neo Asianism" see also Sven Saaler, "Pan-Asianism in modern Japanese history: Overcoming the Nation, Creating a Region, Forging an Empire", in: Saaler and Koschmann (2007), pp. 1-18, here pp. 16-18 (see footnote 4 of this review).
Both in the context of conventional Chinese scholarship on modern Japan and of international scholarship on Japanese Asia consciousness, Wang's book stands out as a milestone. As such and as an up-to-date and detailed compendium of more than a century of Asianist thought and behaviour her painstaking Modern Japanese Asianism deserves a wide readership among scholars of modern Japan. Tsujimura, Natsuko: An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics (Second Edition). Malden et al.: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, 510 pp., $ 49.95 Reviewed by Peter Backhaus * To start with a clarifying note, An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics is not an introduction to the discipline of linguistics in Japan, but a linguistic introduction to the Japanese language. It is intended to serve "as a descriptive source and a theoretical foundation for an audience that includes students and scholars in linguistics as well as those who are interested in the Japanese language more generally" (xiii). The book was first published in 1996. The second edition, which is under review here, has been considerably revised and contains several new features. It is over 100 pages longer than the 1996 edition. It consists of an introductory chapter and seven main chapters on phonetics, phonology, morphology*, syntax, semantics*, linguistic variation*, and language acquisition** (* = considerably revised; ** = newly added). Each of the chapters ends with a list of suggested readings and an exercise section.
Chapter 2 provides a brief account of the phonetic inventory of Japanese and the basic phonetic terminology used to describe it. Consonants and vowels are discussed in separate sections, each starting with an account of the sounds of the English language.
Chapter 3 is about phonology. It discusses the most fundamental phonemic rules in Japanese such as the devoicing of high vowels, assimilation of syllabic /n/, different phonetic realizations of /s/ and /t/, and verbal conjugation rules. It also deals with the problem of sequential voicing (rendaku) and discusses at length the differences between mora and syllable, a topic that will recur on various occasions throughout the book. Other characteristics of the Japanese sound system discussed are accentuation, phonemic rules in forming mimetics, patterns of loan word integration, some properties of casual and fast speech, and constraints on word length.
Chapter 4 is an introduction to Japanese morphology. It starts with an account of the basic morphological categories. After a general introduction to morpheme types, Tsujimura discusses issues of word formation.
These include affixation, compounding, reduplication, clipping, and borrowing. In this context, she also introduces the role of the head in word formation patterns (Righthand Head Rule). The second edition comprises additional sections on transitive and intransitive verb pairs, another topic to be taken up several times in the course of the book; nominalization of verbs, adjectives, and whole phrases; and formation rules for noun-verb and verb-verb compounds. Particularly this latter issue is discussed at some length with regard to morphosyntactic problems such as transitivity and argument structure. Despite some unavoidable redundancies, the new sections fit in well with the other parts of the chapter.
The subject matter of chapter 5 is syntax. Though in this chapter no noteworthy additions have been made, it remains the core chapter of the book, covering more than 120 pages in total. It starts with introducing some of the key notions in syntactic theory and exemplifies how they map Japanese syntactic structures. The second section briefly discusses transformational rules, mainly focusing on English. Word order and scrambling are examined in the next section, which revolves around differing theories concerning the hierarchical deepness of Japanese syntactic structure. Subsequent sections discuss null anaphora and zero pronouns; characteristics of the Japanese reflexives zibun and zibun-zisin; properties of the Japanese subject and two "diagnostic tests" to identify it; passives, causatives, and causative passives; relative clauses; unaccusative and unergative verbs; and light verb constructions (verbal noun + -suru). The closing section is intended as a brief update on more recent developments in phrase structure rules, mainly X' Theory and its application to Japanese. This section must be understood against the backdrop that, as Tsujimura acknowledges in her introduction to the chapter (206), the analyses provided do not always reflect the most current developments in syntactic theory. However, as a general introduction to the properties of Japanese syntax and its linguistic analysis, the chapter can be considered more than sufficient.
Chapter 6 deals with semantics. It has been completely revised and -as a result -is much more clearly structured than in the 1996 edition. The first section on word and sentence meaning is intended to introduce the reader to some semantic basics including meaning relationships between words (homonymy, polysemy, antonymy), truth conditions, metaphors and idioms, deictic expressions, and mimetics. The next section examines tense and, particularly, aspect. As a matter of fact, it focuses on verbs and verbal morphology, including forms such as -te iru, -te aru and -te simau, and compounds such as -hazimaru/hazimeru and -owaru/oeru, among others. The analysis also casts light on some interesting interfaces with syntax (argument structure) and morphology (verb inflections). The third section ex-amines some more syntax-semantics relations of the Japanese verb and in cross-linguistic perspective. Most welcome in this chapter is a newly added section on pragmatics. It starts with Grice's cooperative principle and points out how intentional deviation from his four maxims can be construed as meaning beyond the sentence level. Pragmatic characteristics of Japanese that are discussed are the organization of information structure by means of the particles -wa (topic) and -ga (subject), among others, and the predicate morphology desu (formal) vs. da (informal). No direct reference to politeness phenomena is made at this point, probably because the issue is taken up in a separate section in the next chapter. The section ends with presenting some fascinating examples of relative clauses that demonstrate the relevance of contextual information with regard to both meaning construal and grammaticality of an utterance.
Chapter 7 is on language variation. It has been reorganized to some extent as well. It starts with a section on regional variation that reminds the reader that Japanese comprises much more than the so-called standard language spoken in the greater Tokyo area. The residuary two sections deal with sociolinguistic problems: "Styles and Levels of Speech" is an extended version of the section called "Honorifics" in the first edition. Particularly important are some new paragraphs commenting on the considerable gap between ideological norms about honorifics and their real usage. The concluding section on gender differences makes a similar point. After discussing the most frequently quoted gender markers (personal pronouns, sentence-final particles, beautification, etc.) Tsujimura refers to some recent empirical research suggesting that many of the classical gender differences in Japanese do not hold water when the linguistic practices of "real people" are considered.
The newly added Chapter 8 deals with language acquisition phenomena, i.e., how children learn to speak Japanese. The first section works out various regularities in Japanese children's language with regard to moraic structure, the lexicalization of mimetics, and the marking of tense and aspect. This theme is followed up in the next section, which is on speech errors resulting from overgeneralizations. Issues discussed include inflectional morphology in negation, case particles (indiscriminate use of -ga to mark the first NP in a sentence), and prenominal modification (over-and undergeneralization of -no). Theoretical approaches to verb acquisition are dealt with in the next section, which juxtaposes the syntactic and the semantic bootstrapping hypotheses and discusses problems of each of the two when applied to Japanese. The closing section is on acquisition phenomena in the realm of pragmatics that attest to children's amazingly high awareness of issues such as honorifics and gender distinctions from an early age on. Since this new chapter deals with issues from each of the linguistic levels discussed in the previous chapters, its attachment at the end of the book has been a wise decision.
An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics is an extensive and well-organized linguistic account of the Japanese language that will serve as an extremely helpful source of reference to everyone interested in Japanese and its linguistic analysis. Among the many creditable points of the book is that the discussion frequently centers around some linguistic problem (e.g., mora vs. syllable, rendaku patterns, transitive vs. intransitive verbs) that re-occurs in the later parts of the book. This way of organization is very stimulating in that it invites the reader to look beyond one single linguistic level of analysis in order to understand a linguistic phenomenon. Another strength of the book is its well-balanced use of English examples and its general focus on common points rather than differences between the two languages.
With special regard to the second edition, I have already mentioned that the revisions, particularly in the chapters on semantics and on linguistic variation, clearly enhance the quality of the book as a whole. The same holds true for the new chapter on language acquisition. Further noteworthy in this respect is that the exercise sections and the lists of suggested readings have been updated and adapted to the new contents. The new edition thus is clearly more than a mere reprint of the 1996 version.
On a general note, some readers may be surprised by the striking differences in coverage of the linguistic subfields. Thus, syntactic problems are discussed on over 120 pages, whereas the language variation chapter covers only 20 pages, ten less even than in the first edition. However, since Tsujimura explicitly mentions this discrepancy in her new Preface (xiii), we may be looking forward to the book's third edition. In this context, it should also be mentioned that a brief introduction to the Japanese writing system would be highly welcome. Though the primary goal of the book is "to examine spoken Japanese" (xiii), many readers would certainly profit from some background information on its graphic representation as well. Moreover, this would considerably add to the general understanding of phenomena such as the moraic structure of Japanese, rendaku rules, or the integration of English loan words. The discussion of these issues at times appears unnecessarily complicated owing to missing references to the Japanese writing system.
In the same vein, it would be desirable to include a brief paragraph stating more explicitly that the Kunrei rather than the Hepburn transliteration system is used (mentioned only once on p. 5 in brackets), but that Japanese loan words in English are usually based on Hepburn rules. This would prevent confusing readers not too experienced with Japanese, who may be puzzled by the co-occurrence of terms like susi and sushi throughout the book. One last suggestion for future editions of the book is a brief bilingual glossary of technical terms, which would no doubt be highly appreciated by both Japanese and English readers.
All in all, the second edition of An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics is not only a stimulating and well-structured textbook, but an essential source of reference to everyone interested in the linguistic analysis of Japanese.

Reviewed by Patrick Heinrich
Langue, lecture et école au Japon features 18 papers in French addressing the issue of learning how to read and write Japanese. Five papers deal with issues concerning the Japanese writing system and four papers each discuss Japanese schools, pedagogy and history, respectively. The book closes with an epilogue by Jacques Fijalkow. It further includes an introduction by the editors and a brief explanation of the Japanese writing system. The book under review adds to existing Western literature on written Japanese, which so far has explored issues as various as the history of writing, script reforms, language and technology, writing systems and language on signs. Extending the topic to written language learning represents a welcome contribution to the field. The issue so far has only been addressed in Galan's (2001) doctoral thesis, albeit with a narrower and more historical focus.
Since the book results from a conference which was convened in Toulouse in 2003, some papers partly overlap in their contents and at times even make contradictory claims (for instance whether Chinese characters are ideographic or not). Rather than a coherent monograph, Langue, lecture et école au Japon thus is a collection of papers approaching the issue of learning how to read and write in Japan from various perspectives. Since 18 papers on more than 400 pages constitute a hefty task to the reader (and the reviewer), papers adding new insights to the issue of written Japanese will be given more attention in the following.
The first three papers by Jean-Pierre Jaffré, Anne-Marie Christin and Irène Tamba discuss general characteristics of the Japanese writing system. Since they address issues which have largely been dealt with in previous works of Japanese Studies (e.g. Seeley 1991, Twine 1991) and on writing systems (e.g. Coulmas 1996), they are mainly relevant to French students with no or limited knowledge of Japanese. The fourth paper by Patrick Beillevaire traces the history of writing in Okinawa. It attends to issues as broad as diglossia (with Chinese and Japanese as high varieties and the local languages as low varieties), the adaptation of Japanese kana in order to write down the local languages, pre-modern language learning and scholarly exchange, modern linguistic studies and language policy in the archipelago.
Beillevaire's account is followed by Yazawa Makoto's comprehensive description of Japanese text processing. His account of the development of word processors in Japan of the late 1970s and the codification as well as the input and conversion of written characters on personal computers and, later on, mobile phones, provides the reader with many fascinating details. On the basis of this meticulous overview, Yazawa, argues that recent technological changes should be considered more thoroughly in language education as recent technology has forever changed the practices of reading and writing in Japan.
Four papers deal with language education in Japanese schools. Horio Teruhisa's contribution criticizes existing teaching practices. He singles out several problematic points including missing pedagogic freedom, lack of psycholinguistic knowledge, social inequality arising from more specific training in private schools as well as lack of consideration of pre-elementary school education. It is argued that the reduction of schooling from six to five days a week in 2002 has led to a stronger reproduction of social inequalities. A first key issue to counter such negative consequences of the education reform, Horie argues, would be to relieve teachers from too heavy administrative responsibilities and to increase their autonomy in lesson design. Nanba Hirotaka's contribution sheds lights on how current practices of teaching written Japanese underlie the Japanese performance in the PISA test. Despite Japan's comparatively high scoring, a weakness in grasping the broader meaning of texts, in particular regarding explanatory and argumentative text types, was noted among Japanese students. This, according to Nanba, is due to the fact that discussions of texts focus strongly on tracing particular information while discussions of one's own position towards the contents is treated rather lightly, if treated at all. He argues for a shift in paradigm, from trees to forest, in his own words, and, towards this end, suggests specific measures of how spaces of argumentations, in which all texts are embedded, can be taught in Japanese classes. Next, Claude Lévi Alvarés gives an account of national language teacher training and recruitment practices as well as the criticism of these very practices by the Japanese Teacher Association. The retirement of the baby-boom generation teachers and the large-scale increase of new recruitments have put existing practices under further pressure. Shutô Hisayoshi's paper, which concludes this section, is a historical overview of teaching reading and writing in Japan.
Four papers on pedagogy follow. Norimatsu Hiroko examines pre-elementary kana studies by means of capped verses (shiritori). The presentation and discussion of several large scale empirical studies on capped verses on one hand, and reading and writing abilities on the other, reveal that it is easier for children to cap the initial rather than the final syllable, that the ability to find a word starting with the capped syllable is strongly linked to the ability to read and write, but that teaching of written language is already possible when children can isolate the initial syllable. Finally, children's ability to recognize syllables develop from initial to final and then to complex syllables.
The two subsequent papers, by Kawakami Sachiko and by Amano Kiyoshi, deal with teaching practices of written language. They give many details on learning problems and the way they are dealt with in Japanese national language education. It is revealed, amongst other things, that children have started learning to read and write Japanese at an increasingly young age in the last half century, beginning today mostly at the age of three. The shift from active to passive mastery of Chinese characters in the course of school education results in the fact that, starting from the third year of elementary school, approximately one third of a class experience difficulties in writing some characters they were supposed to have already mastered. This is a figure which corresponds to that of other countries. In 1999, nevertheless, the Ministry of Education has reacted to this gap between active and passive kanji proficiency and now requires children only to be able to correctly write those characters which have been taught in the previous school year. The section on pedagogy concludes with an analysis of recent textbooks by Yasuhiko Tsukada.
In the history section, Kobayashi Akemi explores reading in Japan in the 8 th and 9 th century. The period under consideration experienced emancipation from reading as practiced in China, resulting in the development of Japanese pronunciation norms after enormous efforts had been made to keep in sync with the Chinese readings for two centuries. Reading Chinese characters in Japanese required that knowledge of reading Chinese characters in Chinese stopped being a requisite for those recognized as language specialists (oto no hakase). The paper thus gives fascinating insights into the language management efforts of that period. Similarly intriguing is Peter Kornicki's account of female readers of the 17 th century, a period which marked the beginning of a popularization of reading and writing in Japan. What was considered to be adequate reading for women was a controversial issue as many female readers preferred the Japanese classics over the Chinese moral and didactic literature recommended to them (by men). Besides gendered ideologies on reading, the paper describes how Japanese women turned to the Heian period as a source of aesthetic inspiration at a time when reading and erudition in general largely meant being versed in Chinese matters. Women's choices on literature, in a way, projected a more general shift which took place two centuries later during the Meiji Restoration. The following paper by Richard Rubinger on illiteracy in Meiji Japan is largely based on a previously published paper in English (Rubinger 2000).
The last paper in this section is by Christian Galan, who sets out to deconstruct what he calls the myth of total literacy in Japan. This is overdue since the idea that Japan has achieved a rate of literacy unmatched by any other society in the world is both long standing and often repeated, despite the lack of empirical data to support such staunch claims. Rather, as Galan emphasizes, total literacy is wishful thinking of powerful language ideologues that hides language problems of a large part of the Japanese society (see Mashiko (2001) for a similar criticism). Galan traces back the origin of this view in post WW II Japan to works of Dore (1965) and Passin (1965) and demonstrates how their ideas were repeatedly reproduced and recontextualized. Just as many other countries already do, Japan, Galan argues, must differentiate between the history of education and the history of literacy. While he severely undermines the credibility of the claim that Japan has a literacy rate unparalleled by that of any other developed society, Galan does not tell us why such beliefs exist in Japan, and nowhere else. In other words, he does not trace them back to modernist Meiji language ideology which had to prove to the West that Japan, its language and its culture, was just as good as its Western counterparts. As the first country ever to overcome the Western bias towards non-Western countries, Japan needed to develop thick layers of empowering ideology (Gluck 1985). The myth of total literacy is a manifestation thereof -deconstruction of such discourse a requirement for overcoming (linguistic) modernity.
In the epilogue, Jacques Fijalkow discusses the contributions of the book in the light of psycholinguistic and pedagogical findings as well as ongoing debates in these two fields. He calls out for more comparative research which takes the case of Japanese into account.
As can be inferred from Fijalkow's concluding remarks, the book under review does not only address students of Japanese Studies but specialists of language pedagogy as well. For both target groups, the book presents a plethora of fascinating details. No other book in Western language provides information as concisely and comprehensively on the teaching and learning of written Japanese. Even though a few papers are not based on original research, the book presents details otherwise widely dispersed and not easily available outside Japan. If this is the major benefit of the book, and I believe it is, then its language might prove problematic. The fact that half of the papers have been translated manifests that many scholars of Japanese Studies are not proficient in French. It is unfortunate that Langue, lecture et école will be accessible only to people with sufficient knowledge of French, since the book certainly would deserve a wider readership. The question remains whether the editors are to blame for this or whether Western students of Japanese Studies and language learning who have not learned to read French are to be blamed. The editors, it seems, have made their choice.