Language Issues in Your Life and Around You
Language Issues in Your Life and Around You
“…each individual repertoire …is a key aspect of our individual identity … the way we use the linguistic resources at our disposal to communicate ...” (Piller, 2016, p. 12)
(1) To understand your linguistic repertoire, think of it as the range of communicative language resources that you have and use. It includes how you use different …
* accents (for example, Kansai accent, Nagano accent, Tokyo accent, Japanese accent, New Zealand accent, UK southern accent, and so on …)
* language varieties (for example, standard Japanese [標準言語], a local dialect [方言])
* registers (for example, informal register between friends, “keigo” [敬語] with senpai and people of different status)
* genres [ジャンル] (everyday conversation; discussion; meeting; or, texting, writing an academic report, writing a business email, and so on)
* modalities (face-to-face speaking, writing, online, and so on)
* language in particular communicative situations and areas of life (family, friends, high school, university seminar, student circle, workplace, field-trip, at the doctor’s, and so on)
* ….
(2) Even with one “language” (such as Japanese) you have a vast range of communicative language resources that you are constantly using and developing in your life and daily social interactions.
(3) Your linguistic repertoire also includes:
* the beliefs and ideas (= “ideologies”) that you (and others) may have about language (e.g., “Because I am Japanese, I cannot speak English”; “People in Tokyo will judge me negatively if I use my local dialect/variety from Miyazaki”; “Japanese people who have lived abroad and speak a foreign language are less Japanese”)
* “other languages” (such as English, Korean, Chinese, French, and so on) that you may use (from a few phrases and basic numbers through to being fluent in another language);
* critical/memorable experiences/struggles/incidents connected with language that you have had, or are having, and the impact of those experiences on you and your development as an individual and member of society;
* your reflections about your own experiences/struggles/incidents connected with language and the impact of those experiences on you and your development as an individual and member of society.
(4) Your linguistic repertoire is dynamic and changing: It changes and ranges within each language you use, and across all the languages you use.
(5) Click on the links here to see how two students relate their individual linguistic repertoires to wider factors and conditions in society:
Kaori's linguistic repertoire and language portrait: "Kaori grew up in Tokyo, and used Korean at home with her mother and Japanese with her father, but for a period of her life became reluctant to use Korean outside of the home. Kaori sees standard Japanese as her “mother tongue ... .”
Nanako's linguistic repertoire and language portrait: "Nanako comes from Kansai. In her language portrait Nanako highlights Kansai-ben, the Kansai variety of Japanese, at the top, with notes about “keigo”, standard Japanese, and Persian on her left, and English and Spanish on her right. For Nanako Kansai-ben is her main language and she uses it for talking with her friends at university in Tokyo, no matter where they come from ..."
A Language Portrait is a creative representation of how you see and portray your Linguistic Repertoire.
(1) Click here to see some example Language Portraits.
(2) Try making your Language Portrait:
o reflect on your own experiences to do with language, as well as on your linguistic repertoire
o explore connections to wider factors and conditions in society that impact your linguistic repertoire
o use different colours
Choose one or two stories here to learn about language issues in the lives of different individuals.