Recently, I’ve been watching the Disney+ show Shōgun, a historical fiction drama about the political entanglements between a daimyo (feudal lord) outmaneuvering political rivals, and an English sea navigator shipwrecked in 1600s Japan. The show is visually stunning, emotionally captivating, and, of importance for this blog post, linguistically inspiring. That is, the show is almost […]
“But that’s in bad faith”, a student retorted to my comment. “It’s done in bad faith”, they emphasized. “How so?”, I asked back. “We just saw it from research”, I added, with a somewhat rising intonation. “Well, it’s just… it’s bad faith… yeah”, the student shrugged with a tight-lipped, resigned smile. Hmm, is it? […]
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a pattern I’ve been noticing—but low-key ignoring—in my daily linguistic interactions with some Montrealers. That is, for some reason, my interactions would almost always start in French, but will never end in French. Instead, such interactions would typically switch into English within 5 seconds. But I suppose it’s […]
Perhaps the beauty—and challenge—of doing second language research lies in its propensity to provide the researcher unexpected moments of reflexivity. In the following text (for a lack of a better word), I share my reflections about language, identity, and one’s ‘right to talk,’ inspired from reading and discussing Norton’s (2013) book on identity in language […]
This blog post includes a linked audio file. Just click on the link below if you would like to hear the post read aloud. Scroll down to read the text. “If the Land is a person, how would you introduce yourself to it?” My academic ate ([‘atɛ]; “big sister” in Tagalog) Rhonda asked that while […]
