Being and becoming a speaker of Japanese : an autoethnographic account / Andrea Simon-Maeda.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Simon-Maeda, Andrea, 1951-

Series:

Second language acquisition (Clevedon, England)

Second language acquisition

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japanese language--Study and teaching.

Japanese language.

Second language acquisition--Study and teaching.

Second language acquisition.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (170 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bristol ; Buffalo : Multilingual Matters, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This autoethnographic account of the author’s Japanese as a second language learning trajectory is an important and unique addition to diary studies in SLA and applied linguistics qualitative research circles. In-depth ethnographic details and introspective commentary are skilfully interwoven throughout Simon-Maeda’s narrative of her experiences as an American expatriate who arrived in Japan in 1975 – the starting point of her being and becoming a speaker of Japanese. The book joins the recent surge in postmodernist, interdisciplinary approaches to examining language acquisition, and readers are presented with a highly convincing case for using autoethnography to better understand sociolinguistic complexities that are unamenable to quantification of isolated variables. The comprehensive literature review and wide ranging references provide a valuable source of information for researchers, educators, and graduate students concerned with current issues in SLA/applied linguistics, bi/multilingualism, and Japanese as a second language.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Postmodern Basis of Autoethnography

Chapter 2. Narrative Inquiry in SLA and Applied Linguistics

Chapter 3. In the Beginning: Situating the Story

Chapter 4. In the Middle: Love, Marriage, Family

Chapter 5. Career Discourse(s)

Chapter 6. Where I Am Now: Two Days in the Life of an Expatriate

Appendix 1: Foreign population

Appendix 2: Newspaper article

Appendix 3: Typical examples of Mayor Kawamura’s ‘Nagoya dialect’

Appendix 4: Examples of Japanese emoticons

Appendix 5: Manual for high school visits

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 07. Jul 2020)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-14773-4

9786613147738

1-84769-362-8

OCLC:

750183122