Towards Theoretical Approach to the Understanding of Language Ideologies in Post-Meiji Japan

The paper wishes to examine the specific conditions that have generated the understanding of language in post-Meiji Japan and propose a theoretical approach to the question why a specific view on language, or to use a more precise concept – a language ideology, was, and still is, inevitable within a specific ideological horizon – the horizon of nationalism. In order to do so, it first gives an overview of the linguistic situation in post-Meiji Japan with all its competing and opposing views, following with an outline of the up to date research, its breakthroughs, its problems and its dead ends. Finally it proposes the orthodox method of dialectical materialism as a possibly only methodological approach hoping to grasp all these connected social problems in their totality.