This study documents the attitudes and perspectives toward Japanese language education of seven “newly-arrived” Japanese immigrants, jp. Shin-issei, who are raising bilingual or multilingual children in New Orleans, Louisiana. The participants of this study consisted of six mothers and one father who speak Japanese to their children at home and act as teachers of this language at the Japanese Weekend School of New Orleans, jp. Nyū Orinzu Nihongo Hoshūkō, a supplementary language school. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this thesis has two interrelated objectives: One is to analyze parents’ attitudes toward Japanese language maintenance and show that although the home remains the crucial site for language education, the Japanese School of New Orleans represents a relevant site for the maintenance of the Japanese language and the indoctrination of Japanese cultural values. The second is to explore how these parents connect the process of teaching at and attending the school to a sentiment of diasporic nationalism. This study calls for a renewed ethnographic focus on often ignored —or known by few— immigrant communities in Louisiana by recognizing the presence of Japanese immigrants in this area, their constant efforts to maintain ties and connections to their home country, and their motivations to do so.

Este estudo teve por objetivo reconstruir o contexto de produção e o conteúdo da política editorial da série do livro didático Nippongo, que foi elaborado no período entre 1959 1961 e publicado em 1961 no Brasil. A fim de delinear o contexto sócio-histórico da época e o processo de estabelecimento da sua política editorial, fontes primárias como jornais e revistas da época foram pesquisadas. Foram mapeados o surgimento de Bunkyô e Nichigakuren, a influência dos jornais nipo-brasileiros, mudança na política no Brasil, reformas no sistema de escrita e da educação no Japão. Além disso, é observado que os isseis preocupavam-se com a baixa motivação dos nisseis nos estudos de língua japonesa. E também havia a necessidade de que as autoridades brasileiras reconhecessem o livro didático. Neste contexto, Ando iniciou o seu movimento, na Reunião de Ensino de Língua Japonesa, porém, acabou fracassando. Depois foi criada uma nova comissão chamada de Comissão de Publicação do Livro Didático da Língua Japonesa (CPLD), para confeccionar livros didáticos com o apoio financeiro de uma editora do Japão, Teikoku-Shoin. A CPLD estabeleceu uma política editorial, levando em consideração as opiniões dos professores em exercício. Comparando-se os livros didáticos utilizados anteriormente pela colônia com o Nippongo, podemos dizer que houve uma continuidade do ensino do pré-guerra em relação ao foco nos kanjis e na aprendizagem dos kanas, mas também houve a adoção de uma nova abordagem com a introdução de empréstimos lexicais do português e a inserção de textos com tópicos abrangentes, bem como aqueles que relacionados ao Brasil. / This study aims to examine the context of the production and contents of the editorial policy of a textbook series called Nippongo, which was edited between 1959 and 1961 and published in 1961 in Brazil. In order to outline the social and historical context and the process of establishment of its editorial policy, primary sources such as newspapers and magazines during those periods were investigated. According to the contexts, the following factors were observed: foundation of Bunkyô and Nichigakuren, newspapers influence, policy change in Brazil and reform of orthography and education system in Japan. Moreover, it was observed that many Japanese immigrants perceived that their childrens motivation to learn Japanese were low. In addition, they needed textbooks officially approved by Brazilian authorities. In this context, Ando started to express his own view about Japanese language education. Andos ideas were promoted via a newly formed group called the Committee of Education for Japanese Language, but in vain. After that, the Committee for Publication of Japanese Language Textbooks was founded with financial support by a publishing company in Japan called Teikoku-Shoin. The committee established its editorial policy, taking teachers´ opinions into considerations. Compared with other series of textbooks used in Japanese community in Brazil, this series of Nippongo consists in contents of those before the World War II, such as a large quantity of Chinese characters and its focus on the reading. However, it is observed adaption of new approach such as the use of loan word from Portugues and of texts which treat wide topics, for example, about Brazil.

Este estudo teve por objetivo reconstruir o contexto de produção e o conteúdo da política editorial da série do livro didático Nippongo, que foi elaborado no período entre 1959 1961 e publicado em 1961 no Brasil. A fim de delinear o contexto sócio-histórico da época e o processo de estabelecimento da sua política editorial, fontes primárias como jornais e revistas da época foram pesquisadas. Foram mapeados o surgimento de Bunkyô e Nichigakuren, a influência dos jornais nipo-brasileiros, mudança na política no Brasil, reformas no sistema de escrita e da educação no Japão. Além disso, é observado que os isseis preocupavam-se com a baixa motivação dos nisseis nos estudos de língua japonesa. E também havia a necessidade de que as autoridades brasileiras reconhecessem o livro didático. Neste contexto, Ando iniciou o seu movimento, na Reunião de Ensino de Língua Japonesa, porém, acabou fracassando. Depois foi criada uma nova comissão chamada de Comissão de Publicação do Livro Didático da Língua Japonesa (CPLD), para confeccionar livros didáticos com o apoio financeiro de uma editora do Japão, Teikoku-Shoin. A CPLD estabeleceu uma política editorial, levando em consideração as opiniões dos professores em exercício. Comparando-se os livros didáticos utilizados anteriormente pela colônia com o Nippongo, podemos dizer que houve uma continuidade do ensino do pré-guerra em relação ao foco nos kanjis e na aprendizagem dos kanas, mas também houve a adoção de uma nova abordagem com a introdução de empréstimos lexicais do português e a inserção de textos com tópicos abrangentes, bem como aqueles que relacionados ao Brasil. / This study aims to examine the context of the production and contents of the editorial policy of a textbook series called Nippongo, which was edited between 1959 and 1961 and published in 1961 in Brazil. In order to outline the social and historical context and the process of establishment of its editorial policy, primary sources such as newspapers and magazines during those periods were investigated. According to the contexts, the following factors were observed: foundation of Bunkyô and Nichigakuren, newspapers influence, policy change in Brazil and reform of orthography and education system in Japan. Moreover, it was observed that many Japanese immigrants perceived that their childrens motivation to learn Japanese were low. In addition, they needed textbooks officially approved by Brazilian authorities. In this context, Ando started to express his own view about Japanese language education. Andos ideas were promoted via a newly formed group called the Committee of Education for Japanese Language, but in vain. After that, the Committee for Publication of Japanese Language Textbooks was founded with financial support by a publishing company in Japan called Teikoku-Shoin. The committee established its editorial policy, taking teachers´ opinions into considerations. Compared with other series of textbooks used in Japanese community in Brazil, this series of Nippongo consists in contents of those before the World War II, such as a large quantity of Chinese characters and its focus on the reading. However, it is observed adaption of new approach such as the use of loan word from Portugues and of texts which treat wide topics, for example, about Brazil.

Contemporary Japanese possesses three major types of words, (1) kango (Sino-Japanese words), (2) wago (Japanese native words), and (3) gairaigo (loanwords), and each word type is associated with three types of scripts, (1) kanji (Chinese characters), (2) hiragana, and (3) katakana. Kanji are a set of logographic/ideographic scripts, and both hiragana and katakana are phonetic syllabaries. Kanji are used for presenting kango and wago, while some wago are written only in hiragana. Katakana are used for presenting gairaigo. Moreover, katakana are unconventionally used to write kango and wago for the purposes of emphasis and so forth. This paper extensively examines katakana words including gairaigo as well as kango and wago written in katakana unconventionally. Many observers have commented that katakana words are increasing in Japanese writings. However, there is little empirical data to prove their increase in such writings. This dissertation pursues this question by hypothesizing that katakana words have been increasingly used in Japanese writings. Together with providing evidence of their increase, this dissertation captures differences in katakana word usage between different publication outlets, namely, magazines and newspapers as well as television commercials. In order to investigate these issues, a research project is conducted where vocabularies from the three types of media are collected on computer databases. The increase of katakana words in Japanese writings poses a problem to foreign learners of Japanese whose L1 is English. As reported in various research including Chikamatsu (1996), the learners generally experience difficulty in processing and comprehending katakana words. From the learners’ perspective, the increase of katakana words in Japanese writings means that the learners need to know more katakana words than ever before to read Japanese writings. Meanwhile, native readers of Japanese also express some difficulty with katakana words, as illustrated in the recent survey results by the National Institute for Japanese Language and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Both governmental agencies found that many Japanese had the experience of being unable to understand the meaning of some gairaigo. Their difficulty seems to partially be caused by the increase of gairaigo in Japanese writings. From the native readers’ perspective, the increase of gairaigo means that new gairaigo are continuously introduced in such writings, some of which are not deeply rooted in Japanese gairaigo inventory but have been introduced relatively recently, with the ensuing result that many people do not know the meaning of such words. Although it is clear that both foreign learners and native readers of Japanese have difficulty with katakana words due to the increase of such words, to date no linguistic analysis has been conducted to account for reasons of their difficulty. Thus, this dissertation examines such reasons, and then offers some suggestions as to how to make gairaigo more comprehensible from the point of view of script policy and pedagogical practice. And ultimately, some conclusions regarding the role of katakana in the Japanese orthographic system will be discussed in the light of the history of the Japanese language and its writing system.

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