The Symbolic Meaning of Visual English in the Social Landscape of Japan

Abstract

The visual display of language across the social landscape is one of the most noticeable aspects of the existence of English in modern Japan. The contemporary Japanese cityscape, with its numerous neon signs and animated billboards, is, from a purely formal perspective, strikingly bilingual: the different Japanese writing scripts are everywhere interwoven with words and phrases in the Roman alphabet, and from public information signs, through advertising hoardings, to commercial shop signs and clothing design, there is a high density of recognizably ‘English’ forms on display. The significance of this can be interpreted in various ways. Certain studies (e.g. Backhaus, 2007) have examined the phenomenon in terms of the index it provides of a developing multilingualism in the country. The ever-increasing presence of English text alongside Japanese is taken as a reflection of the way that English is beginning to be positioned more as an international rather than a foreign language; and while English may have no official status within Japan, the suggestion is that it can, now, be seen to operate as a de facto working language for certain functions in particular social contexts. Other studies (e.g. Hyde, 2002; Seargeant, 2009) look more to the emblematic significance of this display of English, and examine the way the language is mobilized within Japanese culture as a symbol of modernity and for the promotion of an international sensibility.