Discursive representation and enactment of national identities: the case of Generation 1.5 Japanese

Abstract

This study, as part of a larger ethnographic project, focuses on the language-in-use, in research interviews, of two Generation 1.5 Japanese, who immigrated to the US in their early life stages. To address the issue of construction of national identities, I examine linguistic resources that the participants use to (co-)construct their identities and stances toward Japanese and Americans. By drawing on discourse analysis from a multidisciplinary perspective, I found that: the interview data contain a large number of ‘complaint sequences,’ in which the Japanese participants complain about Japan/Japanese to a Japanese researcher; both participants represent and enact the past self in Japan negatively and the present self in the US positively; the participants take highly negative stances toward Japanese, although paradoxically identifying themselves with Japanese. I discuss the implications of the study for larger social processes that reconsider the complex relationships among language, ethnicities and national identity in late modernity.