A Case Study on Management of Language Choice by Multilingual in Japan

This study covers a survey of (1) whether a multilingual interlocutor responds in a language similar to that another multilingual initiates discourses in ; (2) whether linguistic recency and linguistic distance will affect the choice of a language. The data in this case study was collected from three multilingual individuals , all were Indian males, engaged in a free format conversation session. We assessed self-assessment of linguistic distance and frequency of linguistic recency after the session. The results show the correlation of matching rate of input and output language may be a pattern of behaviors of multilingual. The result indicates the possibility that if a non-verbal language1 is increased, then the matching rate of initiation language and response language is reduced in terms of choice of a language. 1.Introduction The purpose of this study is to examine how multilingual workers in Japan manage their language choice when they interact with a multilingual Japanese ; (1) whether a multilingual interlocutor responds in a language similar to that another multilingual initiates discourses in ; (2) whether linguistic recency2 and linguistic distance will affect the choice of a language. Nowadays in Japan, Japanese people are and will be facing the situations that they have to contact with non-Japanese people in various social settings. According to Japanese Ministry of Public Management , the number of legal foreign residents against Japanese population in 2004 was 1,973,747 (3.1% up compared with 2003) as of June 2004 and will be rapidly increasing (Ministry of Public Management 2005). It is about 1.5% of Japanese population, 127,619,000. The number of legal foreign workers in 2006 as of June was 192,124 (3.5% up from 2003), which is about 0.2% of Japanese population. We cannot ignore these numbers as many people will easily face cross-cultural situations on business and/or in daily life. Table 1 shows the numbers of legal foreign workers who were given“technical”visa to stay (Japanese Immigration Bureau 2005). The ranking of the top three countries of origin for immigrant workers in Japan, from most to least , is China, South Korea, and India. Many of foreign workers’mother tongue are not English. So it can be considered that foreign workers use Japanese and/or English as their 1 Non-verbal language includes gestures, nodding, expressions in face, eye-contact, distance between speaker and hearer, and posture (Nihongo Kyoiku Jiten 2005 : 482) [Japanese]. 2‘language recency’means which language has been often used recently rather than other languages. ‘recency’is considered a possible factor for cross-linguistic influence (Cenoz, 2001).