Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T13:36:53.043Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Embodiment, Ritual, and Ideology in a Japanese-as-a-Heritage-Language Preschool Classroom

from Part III - Language Socialization and Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2020

By
Matthew J. Burdelski
Edited by
Matthew J. Burdelski  and
Kathryn M. Howard
Matthew J. Burdelski
Affiliation:
Osaka University
Kathryn M. Howard
Affiliation:
California State University, Channel Islands
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the ways teachers in a Japanese-as-heritage-language classroom in the United States prepare children to receive a preschool graduation certificate to be held at the end of the school year. It shows ways this preparation entails children learning an elaborate sequence of embodied moves that have to be imitated and performed in a fixed way (e.g., receiving the certificate from the school principal with both hands, taking a step back and then bowing deeply). It identifies various stages of this instruction, including modeling and demonstration by teachers of explicitly articulated “good”/“correct” and “bad”/“incorrect” examples followed by individual one-on-one rehearsal that entails an abundant amount of verbal and embodied correction of each child’s embodied moves. The chapter argues that teachers’ verbal and embodied practices during this preparation are rooted within an ideology of “correctness” of form (kata) that permeates many of the activities observed in this preschool classroom (e.g., learning to write Japanese, doing origami) in ways that prepare the children for Japanese society, in which attention to details of prescribed form is highly valued.

Keywords

Japaneseheritage languagepreschoolembodimenterror correctionelicited imitationmodeling
Type
Chapter
Information
Language Socialization in Classrooms
Culture, Interaction, and Language Development
 , pp. 200 - 223
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agha, A. (2001). Register. In Duranti, A. (ed.), Key Terms in Language and Culture (pp. 212–215). Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ben-Ari, E. (1997). Body Projects in Japanese Childcare: Culture, Organization and Emotions in a Preschool. London: Curzon.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power (translated by G. Raymond and M. Adamson). Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2016). Embodied sociolinguistics. In Coupland, N. (ed.), Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates (pp. 173–197). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burdelski, M. (2010). Socializing politeness routines: action, other-orientation, and embodiment in a Japanese preschool. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(6), 1606–1621.Google Scholar
Burdelski, M. (2011). Language socialization and politeness routines. In Duranti, A., Ochs, E., and Schieffelin, B. B. (eds.), The Handbook of Language Socialization (pp. 275–295). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Burdelski, M. (2015). Reported speech as cultural gloss and directive: socializing norms of speaking and acting in Japanese caregiver-child triadic interaction. Text & Talk, 35(5), 575–595.Google Scholar
Burke, R. S. and Duncan, J. (2015). Bodies as Sites of Cultural Reflection in Early Childhood Education. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cekaite, A. (2010). Shepherding the child: embodied directive sequences in parent-child interaction, Text & Talk, 30(1), 1–25.Google Scholar
Cekaite, A. (2015). Coordination of talk and touch in adult-child directives: touch and social control. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48(2), 152–175.Google Scholar
Clancy, P. M. (1986). The acquisition of communicative competence in Japanese. In Schieffelin, B. B. and Ochs, E. (eds.), Language Socialization across Cultures (pp. 213–250). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cook, H. M. (1996). Japanese language socialization: indexing the modes of self. Discourse Processes, 22(2), 171–197.Google Scholar
DeCoker, G. (1998). Seven characteristics of a traditional approach to learning. In Singleton, J. (ed.), Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan (pp. 45–67). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Doerr, N. and Lee, K. (2010). Inheriting “Japanese-ness” diversely: heritage practices at a weekend Japanese language school in the United States. Critical Asian Studies, 42(2), 191–216.Google Scholar
Dunn, C. D. (2016). Creating “bright, positive” selves: discourses of self and emotion in a Japanese public-speaking course. Ethos, 44(2), 118–132.Google Scholar
Dunn, C. D. (2018). Bowing incorrectly: aesthetic labor and expert knowledge in Japanese business etiquette training. In Cook, H. M. and Shibamoto-Smith, J. S. (eds.), Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power, and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse (pp. 15–36). London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ellis, R. (2012). Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Enfield, N. (2009). Everyday ritual in the residential world. In Senft, G. and Basso, E. B. (eds.), Ritual Communication (pp. 51–80). Oxford: Berg Publishers.Google Scholar
Friedman, D. (2010). Speaking correctly: error correction as a language socialization practice in a Ukrainian classroom. Applied Linguistics, 31(3), 346–347.Google Scholar
García-Sanchéz, I. M. (2010). The politics of Arabic language education: Moroccan immigrant children’s language socialization into ethnic and religious identities. Linguistics and Education, 21(3), 171–196.Google Scholar
Gaskins, S. and Paradise, R. (2009). Learning through observation in daily life. In Lancy, D. F., Bock, J., and Gaskins, S. (eds.), The Anthropology of Learning in Childhood (pp. 85–117). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1959 [1956]). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, R. (2012). From pitiful to privileged? The fifty-year story of the changing perception and status of Japanese returnee children. In Goodman, R., Imoto, Y., and Toivonen, T. (eds.), A Sociology of Japanese Youth: From Returnee to NEETs (pp. 30–53). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2003). Pointing as situated practice. In Kita, S. (ed.), Pointing: Where Language, Culture and Cognition Meet. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M. H. (1992). Assessments and the construction of context. In Duranti, A. and Goodwin, C. (eds.), Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon (pp. 147–190). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M. H. (2004). Participation. In Duranti, A. (ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology (pp. 222–244). Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M.  H. (1990). He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization among Black Children. Bloomington, IN: Indian University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. and Cekaite, A. (2018). Embodied Family Choreography: Practices of Control, Care, and Mundane Activity. Abingdon, UK and New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hayashi, A. and Tobin, J. (2011). The Japanese preschool’s pedagogy of peripheral participation. Ethos, 39(2), 139–164.Google Scholar
Hayashi, A. and Tobin, J. (2015). Teaching Embodied: Culture Practice in Japanese Preschool. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Holloway, S. D. (2000). Contested Childhoods: Diversity and Change in Japanese Preschools. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hood, L. and Schieffelin, B. B. (1978). Elicited imitation in two cultural contexts. Quarterly Newsletter for Comparative Human Development, 2(1), 4–12.Google Scholar
Howard, K. M. (2009). “When meeting Khun teacher, each time we should pay respect”: standardizing respect in a Northern Thai classroom. Linguistics and Education, 20(3), 254–272.Google Scholar
Kassing, G. and Jay, D. M. (2003). Dance Teaching Methods and Curriculum Design. Champaign, IL: Human Kinesics.Google Scholar
Kern, F. (2018). Correcting bodily conduct in adult–child interaction. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 2(2), 213–234.Google Scholar
Kondo, D. (1990). Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourse of Identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kulick, D. and Schieffelin, B. B. (2004). Language socialization. In: Duranti, A. (ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology (pp. 349–368). Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lyster, R. and Ranta, L. (1997). Corrective feedback and learner uptake: negotiation of form in communicative classrooms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20(1), 37–66.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. (1973 [1935]). Techniques of the body. Economy and Society, 2, 70–88.Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of Perception (translated by C. Smith). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Meyer, C., Streeck, J., and Jordan, J. S. (2017). Intercorporeality: Emerging Socialities in Interaction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, L. C. (2006). Learning by heart in public and Qur’anic schools in Marous, Cameroon. Social Analysis: The Interactional Journal of Culture and Social Practice, 50(3), 109–126.Google Scholar
Moore, L. C. (2011). Language socialization and repetition. In Duranti, A., Ochs, E., and Schieffelin, B. B. (eds), The Handbook of Language Socialization (pp. 209–226). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ochs, E., Solomon, O., and Sterponi, L. (2005). Limitation and transformations of habitus in child-directed communication. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), 547–583.Google Scholar
O’Neill, P. G. O. (1984). Organization and authority in the traditional arts. Modern Asian Studies, 18(4), 631–645.Google Scholar
Peak, L. (1991). Learning to Go to School in Japan: The Transition from Home to Preschool Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Philips, S. U. (1983). The Invisible Culture: Communication in Classroom and Community on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. New York, NY: Longman.Google Scholar
Razfar, A. (2005). Language ideologies in practice: repair and classroom discourse. Linguistics and Education, 16(4), 404–424.Google Scholar
Riley, K. C. (2011). Language socialization and language ideologies. In Duranti, A., Ochs, E., and Schiefflin, B. B. (eds.), The Handbook of Language Socialization (pp. 493–514). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rogoff, B., Paradise, R., Arauz, R. M., Correa-Chávez, M., and Angelillo, C. (2003). Firsthand learning through intent participation. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 175–203.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A (1998). Body torque. Social Research, 65(3), 535–596.Google Scholar
Schieffelin, B. B. and Ochs, E. (1986). Language socialization. Annual Review of Anthropology, 15, 163–191.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In Robinson, P. (ed.), Cognition and Second Language Instruction (pp. 3–32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shilling, C. (2012 [1993]). The Body and Social Theory, 3rd Ed. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Smith, R. J. (1998). Transmitting tradition by the rules: an anthropological interpretation of the iemoto system. In Singleton, J. (ed.), Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan (pp. 23–34). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tobin, J. J., Wu, D. Y. H., and Davidson, D. H. (1989). Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China, and the United States. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tsujimoto, M. (2014). The somaticization of learning in Edo Confucianism: the rejection of body–mind dualism in the thought of Kaibara Ekken (translated by B. D. Steben). In Huang, C.-C. and Tucker, J. A. (eds.), Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy (pp. 141–164). Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×