Between Inheritance and Commodity: The Discourse of Japanese Ethnolinguistic Identity among Youths in a Heritage Language Class in Australia

Abstract

This paper explores how the discourse of Japanese ethnolinguistic identity differently affected three youths in a heritage language class in Australia. Based on a case study involving these informants, I show how the discourse was contested, reproduced, and appropriated. More specifically, I show how language was disaligned from ethnicity and construed as a commodity. This, however, did not make ethnicity irrelevant. It was reconnected with language to give it added value and authenticity. The discourse of ethnolinguistic identity and the discourse of commodification were thus articulated—or expressed together—by some of the youths to construct an interstitial space between these discourses, which allowed them to reap the benefits of their putative inheritance, while exempting themselves from its obligations. The paper thus sheds light on the polycentricity of heritage language classrooms, and on the multiple, layered discourses that operate in such spaces.

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