the mother tongue ideology 母語のイデオロギー
Some questions to consider and discuss ---
1) Some popular dictionary definitions of "mother tongue" in English include:
Cambridge Dictionary: "the first language that you learn when you are a baby, rather than a language learned at school or as an adult"
COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary: "Your mother tongue is the language that you learn from your parents when you are a baby"
Macmillan Dictionary: "the main language that you learn as a child"
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: "the language that you first learn to speak when you are a child"
* Which is closest to your own idea of what mother tongue means?
2) "The mother tongue of the Japanese is Japanese." Do you agree or disagree with this claim? Why? (See further below for a brief commentary.)
3) As with the claim in (2) above, the concept of mother-tongue can be closely associated with monolingualism - and with nationalism. What do you see as the difference between these two terms: 母語 ("bogo"/mother tongue) and 母国語 ("bokokugo"/language of the motherland")? To explore these issues, see this article here.
4) Some researchers (e.g., Leung, Harris, & Rampton, 1997) have suggested that, rather than using a single concept such as "mother tongue", it would be more helpful to consider a combination of factors, namely:
(i) language expertise (how proficient a person is in a language)
PLUS
(ii) language affiliation (the strength of attachment or identification a person feels for a language, whether or not they are expert in that language)
PLUS
(iii) language inheritance (ways in which a person is born into a language tradition that is positively valued within their family and community, whether or not the person is expert in that language, and whether or not the person feels attachment or identification for that language).
* What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of using such a three-factor alternative to "mother tongue"?
References
Leung, C., Harris, R., & Rampton, B. (1997). The idealised native speaker, reified ethnicities, and classroom realities. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 543-560.
Pulvers, R. (17 June 2007). Stand by your language — but not as a nationalist icon. The Japan Times. Retrieved from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2007/06/17/commentary/stand-by-your-language-but-not-as-a-nationalist-icon/#.WwvQvFOFOZM
University of Groningen (no date). Multilingual practices. Retrieved from https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/multilingual-practices/0/steps/22638
University of Groningen (no date). What does a language hierarchy tell us? Retrieved from https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/multilingual-practices/0/steps/22639
Weber, J-J., & Horner, K. (2012). Introducing multilingualism: A social approach. London: Routledge.
Commentary in response to Question 2 (adapted from Weber & Horner, 2012, p.18)
"The mother tongue of the Japanese is Japanese." The claim is problematic in many ways.
1. All Japanese people are seen as having only one mother tongue.
2. The single mother tongue is understood to be Japanese in all cases.
3. Not all Japanese children learn Japanese as their first language.
4. Not all Japanese speakers are Japanese.
5. Children may grow up bilingually/multilingually, using Japanese as one of their languages.
6. Some children learn to speak Japanese first, but then first become literate in another language.
7. Some children learn to speak another language first, but then first become literate in Japanese.
8. Some children learn Japanese first, but consider their main language to be something other than Japanese, i.e., they self-identify with another language.