Comments on Ryuko Kubota's "Japanese Culture Constructed by Discourses: Implications for Applied Linguistics Research and ELT": Postmodern Applied Linguistics: Problems and Contradictions (original) (raw)

Abstract

s Ryuko Kubota raises questions surrounding the nature of Japanese culture and the discourse of the Other in her recent TESOL Quarterly article (Vol. 33, No. 1, Spring 1999). She makes four main points: (a) that essentialized cultural labels found in the literature parallel the discourse of the Other in colonial discourse; (b) that nihonjinron (theories on the Japanese) represent an appropriation of the Other by itself in its struggle against Westernization, notably since the 1960s; (c) that new research refutes the stereotypes of Japanese culture and education found in the literature and in nihonjinron; and (d) that critical multiculturalism offers a better way of approaching cultural identity and "critical acquisition of the dominant language for social transformation" (p. 9). Her article contains two types of problems. One is errors of fact or interpretation. The more serious concerns the underlying contradictions of poststructuralism. In contrast to the arguments presented by Kubota, I maintain that Japanese culture is not constructed by discourse; rather it is a reality built by the history and behavior of the Japanese people. My critique traces the origins of nihonjinron to a millennium earlier than Kubota, casting the notions of Japanese uniqueness, the discourse of the Other, and Western influences in a different light. I also question the strength of Kubota's examples of "counterknowledge." Finally, I explore some of the crucial problems raised by critical multiculturalism.