Acceso usuarios
[1]
Kamigyō-ku, Japón
In this second half of a larger survey study, the opinions of Japanese EFL students regarding their status as emergent bilinguals and associated differences in the emotions they experience when speaking English were investigated. Importantly, this paper takes up a stance in which all foreign language students are considered emergent bilinguals, not simply perpetual language learners, with multilingual identities and complex languaging abilities unrelated to monolingual native speakers. The survey results showed that, although the majority of the participants did not consider themselves to be bilingual, those who did were statistically more likely to have longer EFL learning experiences and/or to be majors in English or Global Studies. Furthermore, the majority of the participants claimed not to experience changes in their emotions when speaking English, which was attributed to a mix of inter-language linguistic differences, lack of vocabulary, and participants’ refusal to consider themselves bilingual. However, more participants expressed a stronger connection to the sensitive emotions of secrets and embarrassment when speaking English, perhaps due to lower inhibition in their less familiar language, suggesting a (re)negotiation of their multilingual identity overall.
