Learning Japanese as an Additional Language

Given the pressure on learners to achieve high secondlanguageproficiency, one question worth asking is, what arethe consequencesof additional language on the sense of self? Toexperience personalityand emotion, hold values and to display norms of thehost society, eventhe desire to assimilate into a target culture arenot influence free. Thisbook attempts to make a contribution by investigatingthe social,linguistic and philosophical dimensions that promoteJapaneselanguage learning. The four purposes of the studymotivated aqualitative approach using an edited topical lifehistory technique tocollect data. Four Caucasian Australian women and twoCaucasianAustralian men where chosen from a pool of Japaneselanguagelearners using Japanese in the workplace. Emergingfrom the analysisof the data comes the term 'identity slippage' whichis discussedthroughout the book.

Autorentext
William S. Armour has been learning Japanese as an additionallanguage since 1973.He has taught Japanese at both secondary school and universitysince 1980. Hisresearch interests include additional language identities,constructions of masculinityin Japanese manga and anime, and the representation of Japanesenationals inHollywood film.

Klappentext
Given the pressure on learners to achieve high second language proficiency, one question worth asking is, what are the consequences of additional language on the sense of self? To experience personality and emotion, hold values and to display norms of the host society, even the desire to assimilate into a target culture are not influence free. This book attempts to make a contribution by investigating the social, linguistic and philosophical dimensions that promote Japanese language learning. The four purposes of the study motivated a qualitative approach using an edited topical life history technique to collect data. Four Caucasian Australian women and two Caucasian Australian men where chosen from a pool of Japanese language learners using Japanese in the workplace. Emerging from the analysis of the data comes the term 'identity slippage' which is discussed throughout the book.