3 - Behind the Jovial Translingual Displays

Summary

Based on fieldwork at a Japanese restaurant in Toronto, this study uncovers the transnational workers’ complex power dynamics that exist behind the façade of jovial translingual practices. Through the multi-layered analysis of the restaurant’s menus, video-recorded staff meetings and worker interviews, we found that linguistic and semiotic resources used to enhance the ethnic identity of the business can cause frictions among the workers, whose linguistic resources are embedded and valued differently at the local and global levels. Japanese managers hold institutional power over the decisions concerning the restaurant’s identity and language policy. These managers, who have limited English skills, actually rely on the creation of a Japanese-dominant space, supported by the global popularity of Japanese cuisine, as a means of survival in the English-dominant local community. The managers depend on English-speaking servers to interact with local customers. On the other hand, the servers, who have limited Japanese skills, consider the restaurant as just a temporary stop on their transnational journey and envision their future as being in the global English-speaking labor market. This study shows how translingual practices, often romanticized as a representation of cosmopolitan conviviality, are built on the precarious grounds of power negotiations and job security among transnationals.