Being and Becoming a Speaker of Japanese : : An Autoethnographic Account / / Andrea Simon-Maeda.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter MultiLingual Matters Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Simon-Maeda, Andrea,
• Place / Publishing House: Bristol ;, Blue Ridge Summit : : Multilingual Matters, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Second Language Acquisition
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (184 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgements --; Part 1 --; Introduction --; Chapter 1. The Postmodern Basis of Autoethnography --; Chapter 2. Narrative Inquiry in SLA and Applied Linguistics --; Part 2 --; 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
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781847693624; 9783111024738; 9783110663136; 9783110606713
• DOI: 10.21832/9781847693624
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Andrea Simon-Maeda.

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.