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

• Record Nr.: UNINA9911152668803321
• Autore: Simon-Maeda Andrea <1951->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Bristol ; ; Buffalo, : Multilingual Matters, 2011
• ISBN: 1-283-14773-4; 9786613147738; 1-84769-362-8
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (170 p.)
• Collana: Second language acquisition
• Disciplina: 495.6/8071
• Soggetti: Japanese language - Study and teaching; Second language acquisition - Study and teaching
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: 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
• Sommario/riassunto: 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.