Working the Hybridization: A Case of Bi- and Multilingual Speakers in Japan

Abstract

This report is part of a larger, 2-year ethnography of bi- and multilingual speakers in Japan. On the basis of audio and videotape recordings of discussions among international students in a Japanese university, this study examines participants' deployment of different conversational resources to understand and talk about marginalizing experiences. The first part of the article highlights the verbal and nonverbal conduct involved in speakers' attempts to orient themselves and their interlocutors to societal contexts that are not always receptive to outsiders from different cultural groups. Through a nexus analysis framework, the second part of the article explains how the interlocutors' local speech behavior is a form of social action embedded in larger discourses concerning foreigners. The closing sections feature a discussion of how a cross-disciplinary synthesis of micro- and macro-analyses not only provides a more complete picture of the situation under investigation but also constitutes a more holistic and socially responsive methodological approach.