Multiethnic Japanese-English Bilinguals’ Meal Time Talk

Abstract

This study employs sequential conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis to codeswitching multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual Japanese-English speakers. The research examines how participants accomplish social actions and goals such as teasing, planning schedules, complaining about family members, and being friends. In doing these social actions, transportable ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identities become emergent. Hence, this research shows instances of linguistic, multiethnic, and multicultural categories constructed and utilized for situational tasks and locally emergent goals. Furthermore, this study sees acts of codeswitching as a communicative resource that invokes not only multilingual identity, but also multiethnic and multicultural identity. This research hopes to give insight into how these categories become relevant and managed between various multiethnic Japanese friends and how bilingual discursive practices can be used to propose, and reject the objectification of these identities. The audiorecorded excerpts are naturally occurring conversations among friends during dinner time.