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.)

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.

Table of Contents

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