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Linking Language, Trade and Migration

Economic Partnership Agreements as Language Policy in Japan

  • Book
  • © 2023

Overview

Authors:
  1. Ruriko Otomo

    1. Research Faculty of Media and Communication, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

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  • Link between trade policy, migration and labor from the perspective of language policy and planning
  • Provides a comprehensive picture of Japan’s contemporary language policy initiatives
  • Offers a fresh approach to emerging language policing activities and social policies

Part of the book series: Language Policy (LAPO, volume 33)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xx
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Ruriko Otomo
    Pages 1-16

  3. Trade Policy as a Language Policy

    • Ruriko Otomo
    Pages 17-54

  4. Policy Discourses in the EPA Programme

    • Ruriko Otomo
    Pages 55-80

  5. Policy Actors and Goals in Negotiation

    • Ruriko Otomo
    Pages 81-120

  6. Language Training as a Site of Language Policy Creation, Interpretation and Appropriation

    • Ruriko Otomo
    Pages 121-148

  7. (Re) Marking the Boundaries: Language Policy as a Process

    • Ruriko Otomo
    Pages 149-191

  8. Challenges and Prospects for the EPA Programme: Implications for Japan’s Language Policy and the Discipline of Language Policy and Planning

    • Ruriko Otomo
    Pages 193-216
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines the effect of trade policy on language which represents an underrecognized area in the field of language policy and planning. It argues that trade policies like Japan’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have important consequences for national language (education) policies and for discourses about language and nation. Since 2008, Japan has signed the EPAs with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam to recruit migrant nurses and eldercare workers and manage their mobility by means of pre-employment language training and the Japanese-medium licensure examinations. Through the analysis of these language management devices, this book demonstrates that the EPAs are a manifestation and representation of contemporary language issues intertwined particularly with pressing issues of Japan’s social aging and demographic change. As the EPAs are intertwined with welfare, economy, social cohesion, and international political and economic relations and competitiveness, the book presents a far more complex picture of and a richer potential of language policy.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Research Faculty of Media and Communication, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Ruriko Otomo

About the author

Ruriko Otomo is Associate Professor at the Research Faculty of Media and Communication at Hokkaido University, Japan. She specializes in language policy and planning, with particular attention to the relationship between language, migration and labor. Her contributions appear in international journals and edited books such as Multilingua, Asian Studies Review, Routledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (Routledge, 2019), and Language, Global Mobilities and Blue-collar Workplaces (Routledge, 2020).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Linking Language, Trade and Migration

  • Book Subtitle: Economic Partnership Agreements as Language Policy in Japan

  • Authors: Ruriko Otomo

  • Series Title: Language Policy

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33234-0

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-33233-3Published: 22 June 2023

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-33236-4Due: 23 July 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-33234-0Published: 21 June 2023

  • Series ISSN: 1571-5361

  • Series E-ISSN: 2452-1027

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XX, 216

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Language Policy and Planning, Language Education, Economic Policy

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