ABSTRACT
The Japanese have looked to the US way of debating as their model, engaging in “imitation pedagogy” that involves aggressively importing, studying, and practicing US debate habits. Through transpacific networking, this Japanese pedagogical appropriation reached its zenith during the mid-1980s, a time when the popularity of English-language intercollegiate debate peaked in Japan, as the number of tournaments and schools entering the tournaments skyrocketed. This chapter focuses on a series of developments during the 1980s. Japanese reception and consumption of US debate theory and practice, however, did not occur uncritically. From the point of view of an insider, a series of developments within the Japanese debate community during the 1980s made the initial exchange rather natural. During the mid-1980s, the demography of the Japanese judging pool became more diverse. The number of available “skills” and “stock issues” judges became a smaller minority, while “policy-making,” “hypothesis-testing,” “tabula rasa” and “critics of argument” judges increased.
