“My Japanese is Blue, Because it Makes Me Blue”: Centering Emotion in Language Practices Through Language Mapping

Abstract

Since the social turn in applied linguistics, there has been growing interest in the role of emotion in language practices. This role is especially relevant to self-access language learning in terms of how it influences learner autonomy and motivation. With its focus on autonomy and sociality, self-access learning offers unique affordances for facilitating learner and advisor awareness of emotion in language learning. To this end, this study used an arts-based method, language mapping, for learners to express their language practices in multimodal ways. Language mapping integrates body mapping and language portraits methods to catalyze individual and group reflection anchored by embodied, emotional experiences. The researchers collaborated with a Japanese university self-access language learning center to engage seven volunteer participants in a series of two workshops. Data were gathered through participants’ language maps, narratives shared in workshops, and questionnaire responses. Findings highlight the potential of language mapping in exploring learners’ affective connections to their named languages. While mother tongues were generally portrayed as comforting, vivid, default, and unconscious, relationships to learned languages were represented through more diverse visual and verbal metaphors. Key pedagogical considerations include the impact of exemplars and group processes.