Tourism for a Sustainable Future? A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Public Signs in Japan

Yoshinori Nishijima

Abstract

This article points out that what have become conventional, ‘standard’, multilingual, public signs do not seem to be appropriate for establishing Japan as a tourism nation in the long run, as the current model indicates a preference for visitors from specific countries – namely China and South Korea, which could make visitors from other countries feel put off. Instead, we propose a simplified and more neutral example of multilingual public signs, for which only English as a lingua franca is used in addition to Japanese. However, problems with the English translations used in such signs are also discussed. English translations need to be carefully considered not only from a systemic linguistic perspective, such as grammar and vocabulary, but also from cognitive and sociolinguistic perspectives, to avoid misleading foreign visitors.

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