SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Intercultural perspectives on the process of learning and using a foreign language underscore the importance of interpretation – an inevitably ideologically reflexive activity – in the structuring of sociocultural knowledge. An encounter with new cultural worlds triggers iterative acts of interpretation, which are shaped by, among other things, conceptual frames and their discursive correlates, that is, the lexical categories we use to talk about the world. Mobility, increasing diversity, and a heightened metapragmatic awareness among cosmopolitan learners make categories that frame experience along national or cultural contours increasingly ill-fitting and less salient. This study follows a learner of Japanese with a rich and complex cultural background over roughly 30 months, straddling a period of study abroad, to illustrate the delicate balance involved in selecting suitable frames to conceptualize her subjective position and her journey, focusing on the political implications of categorial practice. Hazel’s dynamic recourse to the broad indexicalities of the categories of “the West” and “Asia” illustrates how categorial content can prime perceptions and how it is recycled or modified to accommodate evolving intercultural understandings, allowing her to retain control of challenging experiences. Her performance underscores the role of critical metapragmatic awareness in ensuring that typifications never slip into stereotypifications.