Review of Aoyama, Akashi & I (2020): Ringafuranka to shite no nihongo [Japanese as a lingua franca]

Japanese as a Lingua Franca is an edited volume that advances practical and theoretical contributions to the reconceptualization of Japanese language education in response to intensifying sociolinguistic diversity and accelerated social change in Japan and elsewhere. It pays particular attention to the diversification of speakers, new language functions and practices, and recent pedagogical models. Adopting the analytic lens of lingua franca, the contributors collectively seek to deconstruct and rearticulate prevailing understandings of Japanese, which in modern Japan has been predominantly construed as a national language (kokugo).