Toward Bilingual Legal Competence: Measuring Japanese Language, Legal Knowledge, and Logical Reasoning among Law Students in Asia
This paper presents the preliminary results of the third wave of a simulated, test-style survey. The aim is to evaluate the educational outcomes of Japanese law programs for non-native speakers. Building on the first two waves conducted in 2023 and 2024, the research indicates that general Japanese proficiency, legal knowledge, and logical reasoning are three distinct yet interconnected factors influencing students' success. This wave introduces a combined format in which participants first read a short excerpt from an actual statute. Then, they answer a set of timed multiple-choice questions. These questions assess participants' legal understanding, Japanese language proficiency, and logical reasoning based on the provided legal text.
The main participants in this study are international undergraduate and graduate students studying law in Japan through programs taught in Japanese. A comparison group of native Japanese-speaking undergraduate students is also included. This setup allows for a more accurate, context-sensitive assessment of how learners handle the syntactic, semantic, and conceptual challenges of legal Japanese.
While the full analysis is still in progress, this wave aims to clarify the relationships indicated by previous surveys. Specifically, the analysis indicates that general language skills alone do not predict legal performance, suggesting that understanding legal Japanese and logical reasoning are more critical. By improving assessment tools and comparing students with different language backgrounds, the study aims to contribute to the development of methods that enhance bilingual legal competence across languages and jurisdictions.