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Translational Studies for Inclusive SocietyConsidering Multilingual/Multiculturalism in the Administration of Justice

writer: INABA, Mitsuyuki (College of Policy Science Professor) published: 2014-1

Introduction

It has been said that Japan is a country with a single ethnicity and language. In point of fact many people from other countries live in Japan, and the number of foreigners who visit this country is increasing every year. According to the Ministry of Justice, there are more than 2,000,000 registered foreigners in Japan. In 2010 the number of foreigners entering the country reached an all-time high of 9,440,000. In other words, there are people of diverse ethnicities with various native languages living or staying in Japan mundanely.
In fact, it is not only foreign nationals who speak a variety of languages. There are many regional dialects being used throughout Japan. The Grammar atlas of Japanese dialects produced in 1991 by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics lists 52 different ways of saying “get up [okiru]” as in “get up early in the morning”, and there were 98 ways of saying “get sick of/tired of [akiru]”. With such an extensive diversity of dialects there is significant potential for discrepancies and misunderstandings in the communication between people from different regions of Japan.
While people might have trouble understanding the local dialect when they travel to a different region, this will presumably not develop into mutual distrust and deep conflict. But if during an investigation or trial discrepancies or misunderstandings related to dialect occur, a just/fair judicial ruling will become difficult, and there is a risk of people’s lives being significantly altered in an improper manner.

Dialects, standard Japanese, and legal terminology

The authors are currently engaged in reexamining a trial in which the indicted individuals were residents of the mountain area of Western Japan. Depositions were the only form of evidence presented at the trial, and in the end all of the accused were found not guilty. As a result of doubts about the lengthy detention and interrogation techniques used, this incident has frequently been discussed in the mass media as a case of “false accusation”. In order to clarify how this occurred, the authors analyzed depositions and trial records and met with the five people who were interrogated to interview them directly.
The authors asked these five individuals how well they had been able to understand legal terminology at the time. They had hardly understood any of the legal terms used during their interrogation and trial, and they had found conversing in standard Japanese difficult. At the police station one woman told the police officers “I won’t understand anything unless you speak to me in my own dialect”, but this entreaty was ignored.
The authors themselves noticed that these individuals sometimes had difficulty not only with legal terminology but also with engaging in normal conversation in standard Japanese. One man said he did not understand the word “tea cupboard [chadansu]”. Another man said he did know the meaning of the word “voluntary [nin-i]”. Interestingly, he then added, “I understand “voluntary accompaniment [nin-i dōkō; voluntarily accompanying the police to a police station]”, and, when asked to explain the meaning of this phrase, he replied, “that’s when the police say, ‘we’d like to ask you a few questions’, isn’t it?” This response was not an explanation of the term’s meaning, but rather an account of his concrete experience.

Language and culture

Since the authors perceived a difference not only in language but also in ways of thinking, with the consent of the five individuals they administered psychological and cognitive tests. One example of the results of these tests was that only one of them was able to correctly answer “East” when asked, “From which direction does the sun rise?” One woman replied that she couldn’t answer, “Because there are all kinds [of directions from which it rises]”.
The authors also visited the small village in the mountain area where the people in question reside. They formed the hypothesis that their answers had been shaped by the environment in which they live. It seemed that while the positional relationship between fields and houses surrounded by trees was very important in their daily lives, the abstract concept of direction was not. And since with the nearby mountains as a frame of reference the position in which the sun rises is slightly different in each season, the answer that there are “all kinds” of directions in which the sun rises can also be said to be an accurate description of a concrete experience.
This gap between abstract thought and concrete thought can be seen as having something in common with the results of experiments conducted by A. R. Luria et al. on Uzbek speaking subjects in a rural area in central Asia (Luria, 1976). When questions involving syllogisms (for example, “In the Arctic where it snows, all of the bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the Arctic. What color are the bears there?”) were put to them, these subjects made no attempt to answer regarding things of which they had no concrete experience.
 It seems highly probable that the seemingly unnatural conversation between the authors and the former defendants, too, was the result of an encounter between a “culture tied to a regional dialect” and the “culture tied to standard Japanese”, and that during the trial and interrogation of these individuals the addition of “judicial culture in which legal terminology is used” on top of these two languages/cultures also gave rise to significant discrepancies.

Multilingual/multiculturalism in the administration of justice – The example of the State of Hawaii

At the Hawaii Women’s Community Correctional Center (The man on the far right is Warden Patterson). From what has been discussed so far, it has become clear that since within the single nation of Japan there are diverse languages and cultures, if nothing is done to eliminate the conflicts that arise between them there is a risk that just/fair judicial determinations will not be conducted.
 So what does a judicial system that subsumes linguistic/cultural differences look like? The authors had an opportunity to visit a women’s community correctional center in Hawaii, an American State that is said to have a multicultural society. According to warden Patterson, people who commit crimes in Hawaii have diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, but because the racial and cultural backgrounds of the people engaged in the administration of justice are also diverse, people who speak the same language and have the same cultural background as the defendant are involved in the trial and correction or rehabilitation processes. The impression received was that while of course deep issues concerning race and history cannot be resolved overnight, at least to the extent that there was a framework to prevent breakdowns in communication caused by linguistic and cultural differences there were many aspects [of the Hawaiian system] that the Japanese judicial system could draw on.

Inclusive administration of justice and multilingual/multiculturalism

 The “lay judge system” started in 2009, and lay citizens have begun to take part in judicial procedures. This has meant the emergence of an opportunity for people with various linguistic and culture backgrounds within the single nation of Japan to participate in the administration of justice.
In one sense, this can perhaps also be said to have increased the probability of problems related to communication arising in Japanese judicial processes. At the same time, however, linguistic and cultural diversity among those rendering judgment has also increased, and through leveraging this diversity it is possible to believe that, like the initiatives undertaken in the State of Hawaii, the foundations are beginning to be laid for a judicial system of which it can be said that the problem of gaps in communication caused by linguistic and cultural differences does not arise.
Surely it can be said that in this country, too, we have reached the stage at which we must consider the potential for a “multilingual/multiculturalism in the administration of justice” that takes full advantage of the linguistic and cultural diversity possessed by various lay judges, and seriously consider the nature of an “inclusive administration of justice” in which false accusations resulting from differences in dialect/cultural background/style of thought will not occur.

Works cited:

  • Luria, A. R. (1976) Cognitive Development, Its Cultural and Social Foundations, Harvard University Press.

journal

Ritsumeikan Journal of Human Sciences

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