Speaker
Description
This presentation explores how multilingualism and language prestige shape identity negotiation among mixed-race individuals in Japan. Focusing on a half-Japanese, half-Russian participant, it examines how Japanese, English, and Russian are differently valued in interaction and narrative. Using discourse-analytic approaches, the study highlights how raciolinguistic ideologies constrain belonging and lead to the rejection of stigmatised linguistic identities.
Short summary
This presentation explores how multilingualism and language prestige shape identity negotiation among mixed-race individuals in Japan. Focusing on a half-Japanese, half-Russian participant, it examines how Japanese, English, and Russian are differently valued in interaction and narrative. Using discourse-analytic approaches, the study highlights how raciolinguistic ideologies constrain belonging and lead to the rejection of stigmatised linguistic identities.
References
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 585–614. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054407
De Fina, A., Schiffrin, D., & Bamberg, M. (Eds.). (2006). Discourse and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kubota, R. (2011). Learning a foreign language as leisure and consumption: Enjoyment, desire, and the business of Eikaiwa. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14(4), 473–488. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2011.573069
Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621–647. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404517000562
Seargeant, P. (2009). The idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the evolution of a global language. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Abstract
This presentation examines how multilingualism, language prestige, and raciolinguistic ideologies shape identity negotiation among mixed-race individuals in Japan. Focusing on a half-Japanese, half-Russian participant born and raised in Japan, the study investigates how language is mobilised as a semiotic resource in the construction and negotiation of social identities. Drawing on a sociocultural linguistic and discourse-analytic framework (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; De Fina, Schiffrin & Bamberg, 2006), the analysis explores how Japanese, English, and Russian are differentially evaluated and positioned in everyday interaction and narrative self-representation.
The data consist of occurring conversations and semi-structured interviews, revealing that language choice plays a role in negotiating legitimacy, belonging, and social value. Japanese and English are consistently oriented to as high-prestige languages within Japan’s linguistic hierarchy, indexing educational attainment, cosmopolitanism, and social desirability (Kubota, 2011; Seargeant, 2009). By contrast, Russian is constructed as a low-prestige and stigmatised language, associated with geopolitical otherness and social marginality. The findings demonstrate that the participant actively rejects and disaligns from Russian language and cultural identification, despite his biracial heritage, to align with more socially sanctioned identities.
Crucially, this refusal is shown not as an individual psychological choice but as a socially learned response to dominant language ideologies circulating in Japanese society. The study illustrates how identity possibilities and claims to belonging are contingent upon the perceived symbolic clout of particular languages. By foregrounding the marginalisation of Russian within Japan’s linguistic hierarchy, the study contributes to discussions on language ideology, raciolinguistic inequality (Rosa & Flores, 2017), and mixed-race identity.
Keywords
multilingualism, language prestige, belonging, identity, ethnicity and race
| Scheduling preference | Anytime on Saturday or Sunday |
|---|---|
| Title | Multilingualism: Identity and Belonging. |