Motivations of Chinese Learners of Japanese in Mainland China

This article reports on the motivations of Chinese learners to learn Japanese in light of increasing diplomatic tensions between China and Japan over the last three decades. In the study, 35 Chinese learners of Japanese were selected, according to the time they began learning, to examine their motivations to learn Japanese as mediated by shifting sociopolitical conditions. Most began learning the language without enthusiasm, but became motivated and sustained their motivation to learn or use Japanese as they gained new Shiye (视野) (vision), Chuang (窗) (perspective), renshi (认识) (understanding), and other desirable attributes for their self-development. This improved their understanding of both the target language speakers’ communities and their own. These findings suggest that teachers and learners of Japanese could bridge the gap between the two communities (i.e., Chinese and Japanese) through language learning to sustain peaceful exchanges between them.