Event Report: Colonizing Language by Dr Christina Yi

On February 3rd, 2021, the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs, in cooperation with the Centre for the Study of Korea and the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Toronto, co-hosted an online panel discussion titled “Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea.” 

The speaker for the event was Dr Christina Yi, Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of British Columbia. Her research specializes in modern Japanese-language literature and culture, examined via the lenses of postcoloniality, language ideology, genre, and cultural studies.

Her presentation was mainly centred around the contents of her recently released monograph: Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea. Within this monograph, she studies the effects of linguistic nationalism and identity on the cultural artefacts produced by Korean and Japanese writers during the age of Kōminka.

Kōminka was a social campaign launched by the Japanese Empire during the late 1930s and ended along with the war in 1945. Under this policy, Japan wished to project itself not as a foreign imperialist, but a power defending against Western imperialism and a champion of Pan-Asianism. A key element of this policy was its reforms on linguistic rules and interpretation. Restrictions on native colonial languages as well as mandatory name changes were all instituted under the umbrella of Kōminka. Symbolically, the state language of the Empire was not Nihongo (Japanese in Japanese) but rather Kokugo (National Language in Japanese). 

The cultural items highlighted in the presentation were two pieces that were produced by ethnically Korean artists:

1. The 1936 novella Artists of the Peninsula written by Kim Sŏngmin, and 
2. Its 1941 film adaptation Spring on the Peninsula, which was directed by Yi Pyŏng-il.  

Kim Sŏngmin was a well-known author during the age of Japanese colonization of Korea. His most famous work, Artists of the Peninsula, accrued critical acclaim during its release in both Korea and Japan. While colonial acceptance of the work in the Imperial homeland might appear like a progressive response, Dr. Yi explores literature reviews of the time that paint a different picture. Such reviews suggest that the book was famed not because of its literature substance but simply because the Japanese people were impressed that a colonial subject could produce such an artistic work in Japanese. Kikuchi Kan, a famous Japanese writer of the time, commented that “because the author is Korean and writing in Japanese, which is to him a foreign language, there is still much room for improvement”. Such a response shows the disconnect between the Japanese and their colonial subjects and the failure of the Kōminka campaign. Japanese continued to be ideologically thought of as a language only for the Japanese despite the Empire’s efforts to use it to close the cultural difference between itself and its colonies. This inherent belief not only stood in Japan’s colonies but within Japan’s home islands as well.

The film further demonstrated the linguistic differences faced under Imperial Japan. Several elements of the film that Christina highlighted were the incorporation of a full Korean cast of characters as well as extensive use of the Korean language within the script. A subtle yet insightful detail that was presented was the use of subtitles within the film, and how only Japanese subtitles were exclusively used whenever the Korean language was used within the film. There was 1 character within the film that primarily spoke Japanese and her speech was presented without any subtitles whenever she spoke. 

Thus, the film is constructed in such a way that for any Korean viewers, any Japanese spoken in the film is left intentionally unintelligible. Likewise for Japanese viewers, the use of subtitles for Korean shows the linguistic disconnect between Japanese citizens and their colonial subjects.

This panel provoked one to further contemplate how the languages we abstractedly speak can shape our nationalistic identity. Languages are the cultural jewel of any society and hence during times in which culture is threatened, it becomes a medium for those attempting to safeguard and preserve identity. 

Ricky Kim is a second year student studying Economics. An immigrant from South Korea, Ricky hopes that as an Events Reporter for East Asia, he will be able to learn more about the research conducted about the social workings of his native region. Some topics of interest to him are economic development, international trade and the intersection of culture and economics in societal structure and development.