The Mobilisation of the National Language as a Tool for Projecting National Identity: A Comparative Analysis of the French and Japanese Public Diplomacies since the 1990s

We consider language a crucial instrument for communicating and reaffirming one’s cultural differences and fostering a sense of identity in people. For nationalist ideologies, language links to an illustrious past and acts as a repository of national collective greatness. If we link it to public diplomacy, language is an essential tool that helps a country be introduced to the public and promote a positive image of itself. The promotion of a language overseas is a means to foster mutual understanding and a favourable image of the State. Governments conduct activities to learn and teach a State’s language in other polities, but such practices differ based on a Nation’s cultural values and history. In the case of France and Japan, both States historically mobilised their culture as a tool for influence, but to various extents. Whereas French’s status as an international language has long been an essential part of France’s diplomacy, the Japanese language does not benefit from the same scope, although popular culture significantly contributed to its spread overseas. We thus speak of two languages that carry today divergent statuses that impact their promotion overseas. This paper thus aims to answer the following question: how do both States instrumentalise language as a tool for projecting national identity? We will evaluate how both languages' historical traditions and legacy influence such policies. Through a qualitative narrative analysis of speeches held by the actors in charge of this policy, we aim to understand how political elites justify and legitimise those strategies through explicit (or non-explicit) references to the Nation. Our main findings are, on the one hand, that the mobilisation of the French language explicitly promotes a universal goal. The French Presidents of the Republic proceed to a sacralisation of this language, relying on various cultural resources such as past events, historical characters, and values; they explicitly affirm a will to institute it to a worldwide extent. On the other hand, Japan does not proceed to a sacralisation of Japanese; on the contrary, it does not explicitly reference Japanese values. Instead, it builds its discourse around one core principle, that of mutual understanding, making the Japanese an instrument to gain the trust of foreign audiences.