Engaging the fields of discourse analysis and language ideology, this paper examines the construction of elitism (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2009) among the characters in the Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) morning drama Massan (September 2014—March 2015). The uneven allocation of English abilities along with other semiotic cues associated with class, gender, and age erases the privileged position that elite men occupy in Japanese society. In doing so, male characters with English abilities are discursively constructed as self-motivated individuals with exceptional qualities. By ignoring their inherited privileges, the drama indexes larger neoliberal discourses that hide the increasing social divide in Japanese society. Such discursive representations of English abilities is highly problematic given NHK’s position as Japan’s only public broadcasting organization.

从事话语分析和语言意识形态领域，本文考察的精英主义在日本放送协会（NHK）上午剧人物中建设（沃斯基和瑟罗，2009） Massan （2014年9月至2015年3月）。英语能力的分配不均，以及与阶级，性别和年龄相关的其他符号学提示，消除了日本社会精英阶层所享有的特权地位。在这样做的过程中，具有英语能力的男性角色被话语建构为具有超凡品质的自我激励的个体。由于忽略了他们的继承特权，这部电视剧记录了更大的新自由主义话语，这些话语掩盖了日本社会日益扩大的社会鸿沟。考虑到NHK作为日本唯一的公共广播组织的地位，这种对英语能力的话语表达存在很大的问题。