A Comparative Study on Japanese Language Textbooks after 1937: Mainland Japan and Colonial Taiwan

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K21990
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0102:Literature, linguistics, and related fields
• Research Institution: Aoyama Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Sun Shih-Wei 青山学院大学, 文学部, 助教 (30881966)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-09-11 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 国語 / 教科書 / 台湾 / 国民学校 / 公学校

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, I examined the contents of the Japanese language textbooks ("kokugo" or national language) used in both the center of the Japanese empire and its peripheral colonies, namely in Taiwan. The colonial government applied two types of textbooks to differentiate the Japanese children who lived in Taiwan and the local children who were mostly ethnic Han Chinese. At the same time, I also examined the contents of other colonial territories (Korean peninsula,Manchuria, Southeast Asian regions) and oversees Japanese textbooks for the immigrants (north America). It is confirmed that both textbooks have made emphasis on strengthening the wartime ideology after the outbreak of Sino-Japanese and Pacific wars. This emphasis became gradually evidential when the empire involved in the wars deeper and deeper. Moreover, it is important to point out that the educational contents for the colonized Han Chinese children seemed more drastic than for the colonizers' children in similar topics.

Free Research Field

日本文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

先の大戦の戦時中に、「国語」教科書が戦意高揚目的に使用されたことがしきりに指摘されてきたが、植民地台湾においても同じ傾向が見られた。その戦時下イデオロギーの中核をなすものとして、日本語を話す人々が生まれ持った「日本精神」が、近代天皇制と紐づけて語られた。しかしながら、日本語を母語としない漢民族の子供たちを同じような枠組みに入れようとする際に、この論理の矛盾が浮かびあがる。すなわち、植民地支配下に置かれた人々を、帝国日本の臣民として「一視同仁」することが現実的にはできないことを、教科書の内容が端的にそれを示している。現代にまで地続きの差別と偏見問題の根深さを考える上で、きっかけとなる成果である。