A Comparative Study of Immigrant Language Situations and Immigrant Language Policies from an International Perspective

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Along the rapid increase of foreign population from the late 1980's several immigrant languages have emerged in Japan as settled living languages. At the same time these non-Japanese speakers have encountered various communicative problems in their daily life and in education to their children. This project has paid attention to immigrant languages and studied from a sociolinguistic viewpoint about their present situations as well as policies towards immigrants' language problems. Immigrant language situations vary greatly in accordance with state's immigrant policies, immigrants' status and the attitude of the host society to immigrants. In the course of study, several notable cases, however, have been observed in respect to the possibility to accommodate both immigrants' and the state's interests, for Japan's probable transition to a multiethnic society as has been seen in Western immigrant states.