抄録
Studies have been accumulated on individual policies related to English language education in Japan or on Japanese society as a determinant of these individual policies. Few studies, however, have ever been done on the discussion in the Japanese Diet, which connects the policies and the society. This is because the society, or the view of the Japanese people, affects what and how to discuss in the Japanese Diet, based on which new policies must be developed. The aim of this study is to investigate thoroughly what and how the actors, who are the participants of the Diet, have discussed English education in the Japanese Diet. For this purpose, we gathered all the statements made in the Japanese Diet about English education from 1947 to 2013, and analyzed the data using the method of quantitative content analysis. We divided the post-war era into four periods based on the number of the conferences mentioning English education and defined five actors. The main findings are: (1) each period has its own prominent topics; (2) there are some words or types of statement more frequently used by each actor. We believe this research will open a new field of study, which would enhance the historical studies of English education.
