ABSTRACT
Harasawa contends that Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in Japan can be analogically considered in relation to the introduction and assimilation of the Chinese classics because they were the only foreign language we had come into contact with before Western European languages. As Shameem Black argues, Black's focus here is on decentering Anglo-American normative readings of Anglophone postcolonial literature, particularly in terms of recognizing linguistic alterity manifested in nonstandard Englishes. This topic could lead scholars to appreciate English or foreign language teaching in the Meiji era despite its basic methodological drawbacks, for, without it, Japanese literature of the period as we have it would have hardly been possible. Suman Gupta argues that 'a reorientation of how English studies is thought about and practised is called for'. The reception of English literature among Japanese English scholars has hitherto trafficked in its own historicity, content for the most part to introduce and summarize the work of Western writers and critics.
