英語教育と言語相対性のポリティクス

実用と教養の歴史を読み解く

抄録

Since the Meiji era, English education in Japan has always been seen from different two points of view: practical and cultural. Teachers have often been criticized for students' bad performance of English, and their counter-arguments have been that students can get cultural or educational benefit through English even if they are still poor at its practical use. The point is that English has always been seen not as a transparent tool of communication but as something that influence people's ways of thinking. This paper investigates the history of English education in Japan and find how such connection between language and thought has been used in English education policies and debates among critics. Finally, this paper finds that our world is now increasingly dominated by neoliberalist market system and English has become a symbol of such globalized economy.