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Part of
The Sociolinguistics of Place and Belonging: Perspectives from the margins
Edited by Leonie Cornips and Vincent A. de Rooij
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 45] 2018
► pp. 89–112

Chapter 5
Us, them and all the others

Analyzing belonging among Japanese immigrant women in The Netherlands

| Victoria University of Wellington

This study examines the linguistic practices of a group of Japanese immigrant women temporarily living in Amstelveen, and their ways of constructing belonging. Taking as an example three linguistic variables: (i) personal pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’; (ii) specific ethnic labels (single self-referring label Nihonjin ‘The Japanese’ versus multiple labels Orandajin, Oranda no hito/hitotachi, Orandajin no hito/hitotachi, Oranda ‘The Dutch’); and (iii) the use of non-standard Osaka Japanese negation I discuss how speakers in this group (re)create various boundaries, and how they draw on ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy as a way of achieving group cohesion.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Constructing belonging
  • Ethnographic background
    • ‘Japan on the Amstel’
    • The Club
    • Participants
  • Data and methods
  • Language resources as means for indexing belonging
    • Personal pronouns: From ‘I’ to ‘we’
    • Ethnic labels
    • The use of standard and non-standard negation
  • Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.45.05ban
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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Ilbury, Christian
2022. A tale of two cities: The discursive construction of ‘place’ in gentrifying East London. Language in Society 51:3 ► pp. 511 ff. DOI logo
Jaspers, Jürgen
2018. Chapter 2. The boundaries of belonging. In The Sociolinguistics of Place and Belonging [IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society, 45], ► pp. 17 ff. DOI logo

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