Multilingualism in Japanese public space - reading the signs

This paper looks at multilingual signs and what these signs have to tell us about multilingualism in Japan in general. Working with a larger sample of signs collected in central Tokyo, it is shown how these signs can be read to reflect larger transformations in Japanese society and its linguistic make-up at large. Four interrelated factors are identified as indicative of these transformations: (1) favourable attitudes toward foreign languages, (2) official internationalization policies, (3) growing ethnicisation in some areas, and (4) a recent interest in Korean culture and language.