An Overview of Japanese Language Education Discussion Topics in China

Based on an Analysis of Journal of Japanese Language Study and Research (1979-2012)

Abstract

In this paper, I summarize how Japanese Language Education is discussed in contemporary China, focusing on what kind of people were involved, and on what kind of points they made and how. The corpus used for analysis was the Journal of Japanese Language Study and Research (1979-2012) . As a result, I came to the following conclusions: 1) The argument concerning Japanese language education became very active at the beginning of the 1990s; 2) more than half of the authors are teachers affiliated with universities located in Beijing, Jilin and various cities on the coast; 3) more than 60% of the papers focus on Japanese language education at university level; 4) approximately half of the studies pertain to fields like "language acquisition/teaching methods" and "language and language use"; 5) until now, points have been made on such topics as the importance of literature, cultural understanding, the cultivation of communication skills, state-building, the particular style of Japanese language education in China, learner-centered instruction, the development of human resources dedicated to research, answering social needs, the importance of general education, students' initiative, complex human resources, and business Japanese.