Comparative Study of the Influence of Cultural and Linguistic Differences on Child-Rearing Practices in Japan and America

Abstract

American occupation in Japan began shortly after the surrender by the Japanese towards the end of World War II. At about this same time there was a renewed influx of western thoughts and ideas into Japan. However, despite these influences from the West, the Japanese people have still been able to retain at least some of the main characteristics of their traditional Japanese society which can be contrasted to the values and characteristics of American society. Therefore, in comparing the Japanese and American societies, I would like to examine the following questions in this paper. What are these characteristics of Japanese society that make it distinctive? How are these characteristics perpetuated through the child-rearing practices used? Then finally, how is this reflected in the respective languages? First of all, one of the characteristics of Japanese personality is the sense of group as of a central importance to the Japanese person. That is to say, the Japanese individual exists only in terms of the groups to which he belongs and has little identity apart from these chosen groups.1 one example of this Japanese group identification is that when asked about their jobs, the Japanese person has the tendency of naming the company he works for rather than naming his specific job title or occupation. In other words, “rather than saying ‘I am a typesetter’ or ‘I am a filing clerk,’ he is likely to say, ‘I am from B Publishing Group’ or ‘I belong to S company’”.2