Writing and literacy in the Japanese society

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the literacy and illiteracy problems in the Japanese society, with a particular focus on the problems surrounding the modern postwar literacy myth claiming that 99% of the Japanese population is equally literate. In the introductory part of the thesis, I will analyze the historical development of the Japanese written language, starting from the origin of the Chinese characters (kanji) in China, the problems of adaptation of the Chinese writing system in the Japanese contest and the emergence of different autochthonous scripts and syllabaries (the kana). In the following part of the thesis, I will analyze from a sociolinguistic perspective the problems concerning literacy and illiteracy starting from the Edo period (1603-1868), when literacy spread widely outside the elite classes to a broader population, until the contemporary society. I will also analyze the connected script and education reforms that the government carried out in order to solve the problems of illiteracy and lack of sufficient literacy in the society. I will then closely analyze the “Survey on Literacy of the Japanese” (Nihonjin no yomikaki nōryoku chōsa) conducted in 1948, the main pillar of the myth of perfect literacy. This myth spread in the context of the modernist ideology and it is increasingly being deconstructed in academic fields. Deconstructing the modernist ideal of “perfect literacy” and equally distributed linguistic skills among the Japanese, I will argue that there are still some problems concerning illiteracy, lack of sufficient literacy and information accessibility in the contemporary Japanese society.