Constructing agency out of language contact: Evidentiality in Japanese high school English lessons and the production of socio-cultural identity

This dissertation explores English language learning as a cultural practice within two public high schools in Tokyo, Japan. One setting is a liberal arts high school. The other is a technical high school where students are trained in technical sub-fields such as industrial chemistry and electrical engineering. By contrasting two different communities of learning, I show how language-learning practices construct two different institutional discourses of responsibility, and consequently, different stances with respect to Japanese national identity and different language mixing ideologies at the point of language contact. I show that the organization of participation in a foreign language learning activity is also a way of constructing the socio-cultural agency of participants. I find that interaction during English lessons constructs affective-evidential frameworks within which participants are cast as responsible agents. I show that this different organization of responsible agency is central to an understanding of language mixing in Japan. At the liberal arts high school students are socialized through what I call an analytical participant framework to regard English language as an expressive tool they must master in order to represent Japan as a cultural entity to an outside. Consequently the integrity of English words is largely maintained and they must stand in one-to-one relationships with Japanese words. On the other hand, at the technical high school students are socialized through what I call an empathetic participant framework into a cautious encounter with English language. This results in a view of English as something that must be contended with and controlled from within Japan, and consequently, as I suggest, filtered through a Japanese phonemic system. These divergent stances parallel broader institutional discourses concerned with the socio-economic orientation of students with respect to the nation state and the Japanese self. Thus I show that language ideologies, and consequent socialization toward language mixing, are shaped at very local levels and connected to the local negotiation of social identities in Japan.