Alignment, persuasiveness and the putative reader in opinion writing

This paper explores a new line of analysis for comparing opinion writing by reference to differences in the relationships being indicated between author and addressee. It draws on recent work within the appraisal framework literature to offer proposals for linguistics-based analyses of what has variously been termed the ‘intended’, ‘imagined’, ‘ideal’, ‘virtual’, ‘model’, ‘implied’ and ‘putative’ reader (the ‘reader written into the text’). A discussion is provided of those means by which beliefs, attitudes and expectations are projected onto this ‘reader in the text’, formulations which signal anticipations that the reader either shares the attitude or belief currently being advanced by the author, potentially finds it novel or otherwise problematic, or may reject it outright. The discussion is conducted with respect to written, persuasive texts, and specifically with respect to news journalism’s commentary pieces. It is proposed that such texts can usefully be characterised and compared by reference to tendencies in such ‘construals’ or ‘positionings’ of the putative reader – tendencies in terms of whether the signalled anticipation is of the reader being aligned or, conversely, potentially unaligned or dis-aligned with the author. The terms ‘flag waving’ and ‘advocacy’ are proposed as characterisations which can be applied to texts, with ‘flag waving’ applicable to texts which construe the reader as largely sharing the author’s beliefs and attitudes, while ‘advocacy’ is applicable to texts where the reader is construed as actually or potentially not sharing the author’s beliefs and attitudes and thereby needing to be won over. This line of analysis is demonstrated through a comparison of two journalistic opinion pieces written in response to visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, one published in the English-language version of the mainland China newspaper, China Daily and one in the English-language version of the Japanese Asahi Shimbun. It is shown that one piece can usefully be characterised as oriented towards ‘flag waving’ and the other towards ‘advocacy’.

Placemaking and pastoral park planning in Japan: the Showa case

Purpose The purpose of this study is to critically assess how a National Government Park in Tokyo aims to commemorate the first 50 years of the Showa era (1926–1976), a time of drastic upheaval and societal change, with a naturalistic landscape. Design/methodology/approach The author investigated the park by conducting a literature review, making observations in the park on multiple occasions, conducting a survey of and interviews with park users and compiling photographs. Findings The author found that the park nostalgically highlights the early 1950s as the essence of Showa Japan. These few years represent a lull between the two Showa-era upheavals of war and rapid development and urbanization, and symbolize a last flowering of Japan’s 2,000-year-old agrarian way of life. The nostalgic presentation of Japan’s rural essence presents, the author argues, a different nationalist narrative than the military-glorifying variant that has gained traction since the end of the Cold War. Social implications According to critical theorists, society and space are dialectically related and mutually constitutive. The nationalist vision of a landscape, then – including the park’s landscape – has potential to inform and help shape social beliefs and values. Originality/value While Japanese nationalism is a major topic among Western academics, the literature on nationalist landscapes in Japan – with the exception of “obviously” symbolic sites, such as Yasukuni Shrine – is extremely limited. This paper helps fill the gap.

Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese Christian Responses, and a Kuyperian Ecclesiological Perspective

This article explores the issue of official worship at Yasukuni Shrine and how Japanese evangelical Christians have responded to this problem. Established in 1869 as a mixed Shinto, military, and imperial site, it enshrined the souls of those who died for the emperor. The government used it to mobilize Japanese people for its fascist agenda during the first half of the twentieth century. After the disestablishment of the shrine as a state facility in 1946, many right-wing conservative politicians and war-bereaved families have worked ceaselessly to revive its special status. After surveying Japanese Christians’ responses, the ecclesiological background of their arguments is analyzed and the implementation of Abraham Kuyper’s ecclesiology to enhance their political engagement is proposed. KEYWORDS: Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese Christians, Abraham Kuyper, church and state, ecclesiology

DENIAL OF HISTORY? YASUKUNI VISITS AS SIGNALING

Under what conditions would Japanese leaders visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and why? Previous studies have focused primarily on the domestic benefits and effects of such visits, claiming that leaders employ visits to follow their own conservative ideology and gain domestic political support. Given the harsh international criticism that tends to ensue, however, political leaders should also consider the cost and international effects of such visits. This study proposes three necessary conditions for such visits: a conservative ruling party, a government enjoying high popularity, and Japan's perception of a Chinese threat. With regard to the latter, a security threat from China has allowed Japan to use these visits as a credible signal of its resolve against China. Comparative analyses of Japanese cabinets after the mid-1980s support this argument.

Gardens in Diplomacy, War, and Peace

Chapter 10 continues the exploration of how visual artifacts can be sensory spaces and infrastructures of feeling that provoke unexpected affective communities of sense. It examines gardens as social constructions of social-ordering and world-ordering that both shape and participate in international politics. It questions how we use peace/war to understand international politics and argues that the “civility/martiality” dynamic is better for grasping such social-ordering and world-ordering performances. It develops civility/martiality to explore the sensible politics of how two key national war memorial sites—China’s Nanjing Massacre Memorial and Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine—work as gardens to perform international politics in unexpected ways. The conclusion considers how civility/martiality is useful for understanding (and feeling) the sensible politics of other key national memorial spaces, such as the National September 11 Museum and Memorial in New York. As with film-making, here garden-building is theory-building: by producing new sites and sensibilities, it creatively shapes our understanding of international politics.