The power of language —東京オリンピック開催地決定に思う—

2020年夏のオリンピックが東京にやって来る。
けれども開催地が決まるほんの数日前、メディアはこぞって、東京五輪の招致は絶望的になった、と報道していた。９月４日に行われた記者会見で福島第一原発の汚染水問題を海外のメディアに問いただされた時に、東京招致委員会の代表が「福島と東京は離れているから大丈夫」といったような内容の答えをして「東京が安全なら福島はどうでもいいのか？」と誤解を生み、結局納得のいく回答にならずに終わり、記者や関係者は、"Disastrous!" (悲惨、破壊的!）と嘆き、会場を後にしたという。

東京の会見は全て英語で行われ、ある記者は、「マドリッドの代表記者会見は全てスペイン語で行われた。東京の代表も無理して英語でやらずに、リスクの少ない日本語でやったらよかったのに。英語でやったから誤解を招くことになった」と漏らした。

ところが日本時間の９月８日、ニッポンの人々は東京五輪招致成功の明るいニュースで目を覚ますことになった。私もツイッターでそのことを知り、目を疑った。
え？！あれほど「絶望的」と嘆かれていたのに、東京にオリンピックが来る。
一体どんなどんでん返しがあったんだろう？

すぐさまその前夜に行われた最終プレゼンの様子をビデオで見てみることにした。

まず東京は皇族の高円宮久子さんをトップバッターに据えてきた。
彼女はひとり白いスーツを身にまとい、紺のブレザー姿の他のメンバーとは意図的に一線を画す形で前列の一番左に座った。
私は実は皇室には昔からあまり興味がないので、彼女の存在すら知らなかった。
どんなスピーチをするのかなあ、と眺めていたら、彼女は気品ある笑みを浮かべながら壇上に上がり、突然流暢なフランス語を喋り始めたので、私は度肝を抜かれてしまった。
途中から、「皆さまに私の言葉をより明確に伝えることができるよう、ここからは英語でお話しさせていただきます。」とさっと英語に切り替え、フランス語がわからない聴衆への気遣いも忘れなかった。
内容は五輪招致ではなく、東日本大震災の復興支援への感謝の言葉とスポーツの持つ力や素晴らしさについてだった。
終始、自信と奥ゆかしさの絶妙なバランスを保ちながらの、堂々とした二カ国語のスピーチに、会場の圧倒された雰囲気が否応無しに伝わってきた。

「この人のスピーチが効いたのだな」と私は思ったが、これは一因に過ぎなかった。
東京招致のメンバーはこの後４５分にわたり全て英語かフランス語で熱く語りかけた。
アスリートの二人も、竹田招致委員長も、猪瀬知事も、安倍首相も、堂々と英語でプレゼン。滝川クリステルは終始フランス語で日本人のおもてなし文化を語り、水野理事は英語とフランス語両方でプレゼン。
皆笑顔で堂々としていた。そういう印象だった。
記者会見であれだけ「リスクの少ない日本語でやったらよかったのに」と嫌味を言われたのに、東京は「聞く人の立場」になって、敢えて日本語を避け、IOC公式言語の英語とフランス語にこだわった。
私はこれが効いたのだと確信した。

後でイスタンブールのプレゼンを見てみたら、トルコの首相はトルコ語でスピーチをし、他の代表アスリートもトルコ語だった。マドリードも案の定、スペインの大統領は何のためらいも見せずにスペイン語でスピーチをした。私は米国留学中、たくさんのトルコ人やスペイン人に会ってきたけれど、皆それはそれは流暢な英語を話す。一国の首相や大統領となれば、英語でスピーチするくらい、なんでもないことに思える。そこを、プライドがそうさせたのか、リスクの少ないほうを選んでか、イスタンブールもマドリードも、母国語でのスピーチを選択した。英語はともかく、東京のように敢えてフランス語まで使うようなことはどちらの都市もしなかった。

東京は、日本語を一言も発しなかった。滝川クリステルが言った「おもてなし」も、フランス語訛りの「お、も、て、な、し」だった。まずはプレゼンで通訳を介さなくても、直接みんながわかる言語を使う、そうやって聞き手を思いやる。そこに、IOC委員は東京の、そして日本の「おもてなしの心」いや、「おもてなし根性」を見たのだと思う。

五輪開催地決定にあたり、オリンピックよりも被災地再建が先だろう！オリンピック村の建設よりも、仮設住宅をどうにかしろ！という反対意見も根強い。これからの課題が山積しているし、私もひとえに喜べないところもあるけれど、東京が行った招致の最終プレゼンは、素直に素晴らしかったと思えた。安倍さんの英語は確かに日本語訛りのある日本語英語だった。日本の政治家はもっと英語を頑張らないと、という厳しいツイートもあった。でも彼は、母国語に頼ってのリスク回避や何らかのプライドを守ったトルコやスペインの大統領に、圧倒的な差をつけた。個人的に、彼は支持できない政策ばかりを打ち出して来るし、質疑応答で彼が放った「汚染水は完全にブロックされています」という回答には本当にびっくりしたけれど、私は少なからずとも言語に関わる研究者として、彼の果敢な英語でのスピーチの挑戦を大きく評価したいと思った。

Lost in translation and Japanese obsession to the West and “their” English - why does Haruki Murakami choose not to write in English?

When discussing credentials for Standard Canadian English versus Standard American English, the professor asked the class, “What about Japanese English? What criterion does Standard Japanese English need to have? Who speaks Standard Japanese English?” We came up with a vague idea that it’s a variety that many educated Japanese people speak, with a Japanese accent. Some suggested that we might find features of Standard Japanese English in translations and interpretations in literature. It got me thinking.

The majority of Japanese novels, as far as I know, are translated by American English speakers or British English speakers, or other Inner-Circle speakers—usually not Japanese English speakers. I can’t think of any well-known Japanese authors who directly write in English either (in the way that Ha Jin does). We are beginning to see the emergence of Chinese English writers, Indian English writers, Thai English writers, etc. But not Japanese English writers, yet.

Haruki Murakami is by far the most popular and can be considered to be the most influential Japanese writer today. His novels and stories have been translated into English and forty other languages. All of his work in English is translated by American translators. It seems that he particularly likes using Jay Rubin as his translator (Rubin is currently a professor at Harvard). There are many quite well-known Japanese translators in Murakami’s own country who are his Japanese cultural contemporaries and who grew up in Japan along with him and who intimately understand the shared culture and background of Murakami’s work. They would love to translate his work. So why doesn’t Murakami choose them?

The flavor of the original text can vary from one translator to another. Moreover, by using translators from outside, some important cultural concepts/ideas, certain subtleties, and other intentional ambiguities may be lost in translation. It’s true in any editing work as well. When it is filters through a moderator, your work naturally becomes less original. Murakami doesn’t seem to mind some features of his originality getting lost in translation. He instead, he seems to worry about the readers in the West getting lost in some peculiar Japanese English and its rich characteristics. If he used Japanese translators for his work—or if he wrote his work in English (he has translated all works of Raymond Carver and about 20 other books from English into Japanese, so he is clearly a skilled translator)—it would be a great opportunity to use his fame to help raise awareness about Japanese English, as a variety of English, to rest of the world. However, it seems that Murakami couldn’t care less of sharing Japanese English, nor does he see any value in doing so.

“Wild Haruki Chase” (2008) is a collection of literary reviews of Murakami works, and the first chapter, “To translate and to be translated” is written by Murakami himself. There, he states that he never re-reads his own works, because he finds it embarrassing to take his own novels in his hands. Instead, he said he would rather look forward and think about his new novels. This may be the legitimate reason why he does not translate his own works. However, then, why does he seem to prefer American translators to Japanese translators? Later in that chapter Murakami states, “I have tried to write my novels using prose that I have constructed by first converting Japanese… into a mock foreign language in my head—that is, by clearing away the innate everydayness of language that lies in my self-consciousness” (p.30). It becomes obvious now that, to some degree, Murakami does not really want to sound Japanese. He rather wants to clear away the everydayness—in part, really, the Japanese-ness, of his writing. By erasing that everydayness, he is actually devaluing his own cultural background, because he thinks it’s too mundane, less worthy—and he perhaps feels a bit of shame in sharing “warts and all” features of his own culture.

In Clark (2011), the pianist Mitsuko Uchida says  “there’s a lack of confidence about tradition because the Japanese are still enthralled with western culture (Clark, 2011, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/50eb01f4-f3fc-11e0-b221-00144feab49a.html#axzz1b1ybrWli). I think that is a plausible observation. I would like to find out why Expanding-Circle speakers—especially Japanese people—are still fascinated to the Inner-Circle variety of English and fail to acknowledge their own varieties. In the research paper, I would like to explore historical and cultural background of Japanese English and how to overcome its negative self-perception.

In defense of American Japanese

                Kachru and Nelson (2006) state that Inner-Circle speakers are not used to the “code-mixing” phenomenon, and so, for example, using an English word in a French language class tends to be treated as a mistake (p.257). It made me think of what I do in my Japanese classes and how I treat code-mixing phenomenon among my students.

Since the scope of English borrowing in Japanese is phenomenal—8% of the total Japanese vocabulary consists of borrowed words from English—I have had many interesting opportunities in my Japanese classes to “teach” my students Japanese loan words originating from English. It feels odd to teach them English loan words pronounced and written Japanese-ly. For example, the equivalent of the word “basketball” is basukettobōru, and the equivalent of the word “McDonald’s” is makudonarudo. The worst of all is when I have to correct them if they pronounce a loan word in an Anglicized way. I feel guilty not because these words originally belonged to English—which is “their” language—but because I feel like I fail to recognize the legitimacy of their Japanese. My students are speaking English loan words in Japanese with their American accent, and if I correct them, it means I am being dismissive toward their variety of Japanese, which is American Japanese.

            However, when it comes to intelligibility, there comes a problem. If my American students say “hamburger” too American-ly to a Japanese person, there is a high chance that they will not be understood, nor get any hamburgers. They need to say “hanbāgā” to get the meaning across—and, most importantly, in order to actually get a hamburger to eat.

            One of my American friends who lives in Tokyo told me an interesting story. He has lived in Japan more than 10 years now. He uses English at work but he knows that he cannot speak “proper” and “authentic” inner-circle English when he speaks with Japanese people. He says over the years he’s learned how to adjust his English to be intelligible, depending on whom he speaks with, so usually he is successful in communicating with Japanese people. However, he was in a meeting with Japanese people the other day, and they did not understand when he said “Microsoft Silverlight” (a product name). What got them lost was the way my friend said “Silverlight.” He said it in the normal way he would say it to another inner-circle speaker. Usually, my friend knows how to pronounce English words Japanese-ly, but this time he stumbled at trying to remember how to say “Silverlight” correctly (in a Japanese way). The conversation collapsed and after having to repeat himself several times, he ended up writing out the word on a whiteboard. 

            I realize that in my Japanese classes, I actually teach a lot of Japanese English through English-origin loan words. In addition to the value of actually helping students learn the words, it also gives monolingual inner-circle students opportunities to get a grip on a strategy of code-mixing in a Japanese context, and to understand the utility of code-mixing. In doing so, however, I seem to dismiss the legitimacy of American Japanese as a legitimate variety, and to have the effect of encouraging students themselves to not consider the possibility of American Japanese as a legitimate variety. Though American Japanese may not have much demand, or very little practical usage, it should not be downgraded or ignored completely—because it surely does have value in some contexts. And some will still argue that Japanese people should just pronounce English loan words in “proper” English way instead. The study of World Englishes still gets complicated when we start considering “whose” language it is, and I wonder if we can completely let go of the certain possessiveness we have over what we consider “our” language. Perhaps it’s a natural characteristic of language in general that we feel a kind of ownership of the languages we speak natively. Maybe we can’t avoid feeling that way.