The Idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the Evolution of a Global Language by Philip Seargeant

Providing an ontology of the English language and how it is conceptualized in a foreign country is an ambitious undertaking; however Philip Seargeant, with his volume The Idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the Evolution of a Global Language, provides a compact, anthropological investigation of this issue through a careful selection of case studies as well as thought-provoking analysis. It is a study particularly refreshing to see, as Japan is still fairly underrepresented in world Englishes literature. For sociolinguists and Japanologists alike, this book is a welcome addition to the current literature on language and society in Japan. It assertively questions how linguistic ideologies are reproduced and the implications these ideologies have on how English is viewed globally. The book is essentially comprised of several articles that Seargeant had previously written about Japan, globalization and the ideology of English. The theoretical and methodological frameworks in this volume are detailed in the Introduction (pp. 3–5), ch. 2, “The Concept of English as a global language” (pp. 6–21) and ch. 3 “Language ideology and global English” (pp. 22–42). In ch. 2, after he commences his introduction with the proposition that “language exists not only as a medium but also as a concept” (p. 1, italics mine), he carefully reviews two prominent schools of thought in world Englishes, which pit Quirk’s monocentrist orientations towards a universal English language against Kachru’s more pluricentric, nuanced outlook that appreciates linguistic variety. Seargeant deftly employs this debate as a springboard for his intentions to determine the ramifications that “contextspecific conceptualizations” (p. 20), like Japan has for the development of a theoretical approach. In ch. 3, Seargeant presents his choice of a qualitative, language ideologies framework in order to investigate how English is positioned within Japanese society, and what assumptions about the language can be gleaned from this positioning. He does this through semiosis, by analysing written and visual texts, as well as conducting small-scale interviews, though he concedes in a later chapter that he tends to draw predominantly from written text about English produced in the English language rather than in Japanese. Chapter 4, “English in Japan: The current shape of the debate” (pp. 43–62) and ch. 5, “Globalization: Enriching Japanese culture through contact with other cultures” (pp. 63– 86), begin the conceptual case studies that first delve into the issue of language-in-education policy. In his thoughtful critique of the ‘determinism’ that tends to be a feature of English language teaching and research in Japan, he interrogates the seemingly dubious positions taken by the Japanese ministry of education with respect to the English language as a tool for communication, highlighting that ‘communication’ in Japan and the West may be quite different concepts. The subsequent chapter approaches the issue of how globalization in