Hidden Bilingualism: Ideological Influences on the Language Practices of Multilingual Migrant Mothers in Japan

Abstract

This study examines the challenges of minority language transmission in exogamous families in a society where linguistic and cultural homogeneity still prevails. Specifically, it investigates the macro and micro ideological influences that lead multilingual migrant mothers in Japan to speak Japanese to their children. Interview data with six Thai mothers revealed that political influences made them emphasize the learning of Japanese. Economic factors led to the mothers’ valorization of Japanese, and even English, and lackadaisical efforts toward developing their children’s Thai. Sociocultural influences contributed to their practice of speaking Japanese to their children in front of Japanese speakers. The mothers’ childrearing experiences also affected their language practices. Their perception that Thai exposure delayed their older children’s Japanese development led them to use more Japanese to their younger children. The mothers’ limited use of Thai led to a lack of comprehension and low production of Thai by their children.

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Hidden Bilingualism: Ideological Influences on
the Language Practices of Multilingual Migrant
Mothers in Japan
Janice Nakamura
To cite this article: Janice Nakamura (2016) Hidden Bilingualism: Ideological Influences on the
Language Practices of Multilingual Migrant Mothers in Japan, International Multilingual Research
Journal, 10:4, 308-323, DOI: 10.1080/19313152.2016.1206800
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Hidden Bilingualism: Ideological Influences on the Language
Practices of Multilingual Migrant Mothers in Japan
Janice Nakamura
Department of English Language, Culture, and Communication, Sagami Women’s University, Kanagawa-ken, Japan
ABSTRACT
This study examines the challenges of minority language transmission in
exogamous families in a society where linguistic and cultural homogeneity
still prevails. Specifically, it investigates the macro and micro ideological influ-
ences that lead multilingual migrant mothers in Japan to speak Japanese to
their children. Interview data with six Thai mothers revealed that political
influences made them emphasize the learning of Japanese. Economic factors
led to the mothers’valorization of Japanese, and even English, and lackadai-
sical efforts toward developing their children’s Thai. Sociocultural influences
contributed to their practice of speaking Japanese to their children in front of
Japanese speakers. The mothers’childrearing experiences also affected their
language practices. Their perception that Thai exposure delayed their older
children’s Japanese development led them to use more Japanese to their
younger children. The mothers’limited use of Thai led to a lack of comprehen-
sion and low production of Thai by their children.
KEYWORDS
Family language policy;
Japanese; language
ideology; minority language
transmission; multilingual
mothers; Thai
Introduction
Japan has been traditionally known as a homogenous, monolingual society. Yet it is diversifying due
to the influx of migrants, or “newcomers”who have been arriving since the economic boom of the
1980s, and many of them are female. Women made up 54.5% of registered foreigners in 2011, and
the majority of them were in their 20s and 30s (Lee, 2013). Marriage migration is an important
source of female migration into Japan. Since 1992, the year from which detailed statistics on the
origin countries of non-Japanese spouses were tabulated, more than 20,000 exogamous marriages
were registered annually (Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, 2016). Exogamous marriages made
up 4.3% of marriages registered from 1992 to 2014, and 76.6% of them involved non-Japanese
women mainly of Chinese, Filipino, South/North Korean, and Thai nationalities marrying Japanese
men. This makes exogamous marriages “a genderized and racialized domain”(Nakamatsu, 2011,p.
19). These women play an important role in childrearing and in transmitting their native languages.
However, migrant mothers in Japan tend to speak Japanese to their children (Ishii, 2010; Jabar, 2013;
Yamamoto, 2005). This study examines their language ideologies and practices to understand what
makes minority language (ML) transmission challenging.
Ideological influences in minority language transmission
One of the aims in the study of family language policy (FLP) is to find out why some migrant groups
maintain their languages while others lose theirs (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009,2013). This rapidly
growing field demands our attention because FLPs “shape children’s development; connect in
significant ways with children’s formal school success; and taken together, determine whether a
CONTACT Janice Nakamura nakamura_janice@isc.sagami-wu.ac.jp Department of English Language, Culture, and
Communication, Sagami Women’s University, 2-1-1 Bunkyo, Minami-ku, Sagamihara-shi, Kanagawa-ken 252-0383 Japan.
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL
2016, VOL. 10, NO. 4, 308–323
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2016.1206800

particular language is maintained”(King, Fogle, & Logan-Terry, 2008, p. 916). Like other domains,
FLP can be analyzed as language ideology, practice, and management (Spolsky, 2004). Language
ideology is generally regarded as the driving force behind FLP (Curdt-Christiansen, 2009; King et al.,
2008). Unlike an attitude, which tends to be more specific (i.e., toward a particular language), a
language ideology is global in nature, and reflects an individual’s broad perspectives on society or
philosophy of life (Baker, 1992). The ideological component of FLP may also include parents’
implicit beliefs about childrearing and the role of children in society (Fogle, 2013). According to
Curdt-Christiansen (2009), language ideology is influenced by an interplay of macro and micro
factors. She names political, economic, sociocultural, and sociolinguistic factors as macro ideological
influences on FLP. A language may not be used when it is perceived to have low political, economic,
or social status. Languages that have an official status in the home country are better maintained in
the family than regional dialects (Yates & Terraschke, 2013). Language maintenance is also difficult if
there is little economic benefit from speaking the language and its speakers wish to cut off ties with
their past. East Sutherland Gaelic speakers abandoned their language because it was associated with
their lowly fisherfolk origin and offered them no moral or material reward (Constantinidou, 1994).
Members of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora also shifted from Tamil to English because they perceived
that speaking Tamil would reinforce their lower-caste identity, whereas mastery of English would
enhance their social mobility (Canagarajah, 2008). Likewise, Japanese women in the UK who have
embraced English culture and did not retain ties with Japan raised their children as monolingual
English speakers (Okita, 2001).
Home language practices are also affected by micro factors such as parents’expectations, education,
language experiences, knowledge of bilingualism, and home literacy environment (Curdt-Christiansen,
2009). King and Fogle (2006) explain how language experiences and knowledge of bilingualism assure
parents that bilingual parenting is “good”parenting. A lost opportunity to acquire an additional
language in childhood, and struggles in learning a new language in adulthood may motivate them to
bring their children up bilingually. The role of popular press and parenting advice literature in
promoting the cognitive and academic benefits of childhood bilingualism is another influence on
parents’language ideology. Furthermore, parents with high expectations of their children may be more
determined to develop their linguistic potential. Curdt-Christiansen (2009) describes how Chinese
parents in Québec supported their children’s Chinese-French-English trilingual acquisition because
these languages were perceived as socio-political-linguistic capital necessary for social advancement.
Contrastively, parents may not raise their children bilingually if they have what Okita (2001) calls
“language delay anxiety.”Parents may be convinced that speaking the ML inhibits the acquisition of
the societal language. Cape Breton Gaelic speakers did not speak Gaelic to their children because
they believed that it would interfere with the acquisition of English, a language that was viewed as
more superior in the Nova Scotia community (Mertz, 1989). Likewise, some Sri Lankan immigrants
were convinced that it was difficult to master English when one held on to Tamil (Canagarajah,
2008). Such anxiety can arise even if parents initially decide to speak the ML. The mother of the
Danish-Finnish bilingual child in Søndergaard (1981) discontinued using her native Finnish because
of his slow language development.
Beliefs that giving ML input would hinder the children’s acquisition of the societal language are
exacerbated by the conviction that mastery of the societal language is critical for academic success.
Indigenous Ecuadorian parents spoke Spanish instead of their native Quichua because they believed
that it would minimize their children’s hardships in Spanish-speaking schools (King, 2001).
Educators and the broader society reinforce this belief. Hammer, Davison, Lawrence, and Miccio
(2009) suspect that Spanish-speaking mothers in the United States spoke more English to their
children because they received implicit messages from school that English was necessary for
scholastic success. Concerns over academic performance and social mobility may relate to social
class. Whereas working-class migrant parents emphasize the mastery of the societal language for
success, middle-class migrant parents who have already carved out a comfortable livelihood orientate
toward maintaining their own language and culture (Lambert & Taylor, 1996).
INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 309

In reality, children’s exposure to the societal language at school is so powerful that parental use is
not required to promote language development (Duursma, Romero-Contreras, Szuber, Proctor, &
Snow, 2007). Moreover, if the parent is not proficient, there is probably no discernible effect from
societal language use. Migrant mothers in Canada with low English fluency spoke more English at
home than fluent mothers did. However, this did not benefit their children’s English vocabulary
(Golberg, Paradis, & Crago, 2008). Likewise, Canadian-born migrant children did not perform better
at narrative tasks than foreign-born children even though they received more English exposure at
home (Paradis & Kirova, 2014). Increased use of English by Hispanic mothers in the United States
also did not enhance bilingual children’s English skills in kindergarten and first grade (Hammer
et al., 2009). Rather, it was the length of time spent in a preschool/school program, and the richness
of English experiences outside school that relate to children’s English development (Paradis, 2011).
The use of English by parents who are both Spanish-speaking also takes away from the children’s
development of Spanish without benefitting their English development (Hoff, Rumiche, Burridge,
Ribot, & Welsh, 2014). Input conditions are the primary factor for ML maintenance in young
bilingual children (Pérez-Leroux, Cuza, & Thomas, 2011), and less input puts them at risk of
becoming passive bilinguals, or worse, monolingual speakers of the societal language. Language
outcomes, however, may vary according to birth order. Younger siblings may acquire the societal
language more rapidly because older school-going siblings bring it home and socialize parents into
using more of it (Bridges & Hoff, 2014; Tuominen, 1999). However, older siblings, particularly those
who have lived in the home country, can be an invaluable source of ML input for younger siblings if
they already have some fluency in it (Yates & Terraschke, 2013).
Minority language transmission in Japan
Migrant mothers in Japan can teach their children their own languages and raise them as bilinguals.
Yet, ML transmission is hindered by the overwhelming dominance of the Japanese language, which
is the only language that enjoys official status in Japan (Coulmas & Watanabe, 2002). The ethno-
linguistic homogeneity that is prevalent in Japan arguably puts pressure on migrants to speak
Japanese. The many migrants from Asia, such as third-generation Koreans, do not stand out in
society due to their Japanese-like appearances and use of Japanese (Tsuneyoshi, 2011). Their low
visibility coupled with the apparent lack of linguistic diversity in society arguably discourage migrant
parents from openly using their ML. Indeed, some Spanish speakers in exogamous relationships feel
that Japanese people react negatively to their use of Spanish in public (Vitale, 2011).
Given its global prestige and use, the only ML that is widely recognized in Japan is English. The
term bilingual is generally associated with English-Japanese speakers but not with other ML speakers
(Yamamoto, 2001). English-speaking parents are generally aware that their bilingualism is perceived
very positively in Japan, whereas non-English-speaking parents tend to feel that their bilingualism is
perceived as somewhat negative (Yamamoto, 2002). Okazaki-Luff (2008) describes how a Chinese
father was indifferent to speaking Chinese to his child because of his perception of its negative
evaluation in Japan. For some migrant parents, their perceptions may be correct. Ishii (2010) notes
that, whereas Japanese family members, including mothers-in-law, may try to learn the language of a
Western mother, Thai mothers were expected to learn Japanese and assimilate into the Japanese way
of life. Such negative attitudes toward the ML are more prevalent among ML speakers with Japanese
spouses than those with ML-speaking spouses (Vitale, 2011), suggesting that ML transmission may
be harder in exogamous families than in endogamous ones.
The negative evaluation of MLs also permeates the education system. Kanno (2008)arguesthat
Japanese education provides unequal access to bilingualism. While additive English-Japanese bilingu-
alism is fostered among children of privileged families who attend international schools, minority
children in public elementary schools receive remedial education in order to acquire basic academic
skills and qualifications. For them, “bilingualism is eliminated as a luxury that they cannot afford,”and
consequently, “Japanese monolingualism is the outcome, if not the intended goal”of minority
310 J. NAKAMURA

education (p. 178). This is evident in the case of young returnees from China who accepted the priority
of learning Japanese over maintaining Chinese because Japanese proficiency was necessary to fully
participate in Japanese society (Tomozawa, 2001).
ML transmission in the exogamous family is also difficult because the ML is generally not spoken
by the Japanese spouse. Yamamoto (2002) found that fewer Japanese spouses speak the native
languages of their non-English-speaking spouses compared to those with English-speaking ones.
Consequently, Filipino women in Japan use English instead of their native language because it is
understood by their Japanese spouse (Yamamoto, 2002). When there is no other common language,
Japanese is usually used. Vitale (2011) reports that many Spanish speakers in exogamous marriages
use Japanese because their Japanese partners and in-laws are not proficient in Spanish, and their use
of Spanish is not well received by them. Use of Spanish also purportedly gives their neighbors
displeasure. Geographical dispersion is another barrier to ML transmission in Japan. For instance,
war returnees from China who live wherever public housing was available have little opportunity to
use Chinese outside their homes (Tomozawa, 2001). Migrant spouses in exogamous marriages face
the same problem because they are likely to reside in typical Japanese neighborhoods chosen by their
Japanese spouses. These barriers to ML use, coupled with the dominance of the Japanese language in
every aspect of society, make ML transmission formidable for the non-English, ML-speaking mother,
if she actually chooses to speak the ML at all to her children.
The study
Situated in what seems to be a linguistically and culturally homogenous environment, migrant
mothers with exogamous families in Japan are speaking Japanese to their children. Nakamura
(2015) documents the almost exclusive use of Japanese by a Thai mother to her child from the
early stages of speech. Ishii’s(2010) study of Japanese-Thai mixed-ethnic children revealed that none
of them were raised in a bilingual environment nor taught Thai by their Thai mothers. This is
likewise for the Japanese-Filipino children in Jabar (2013). Yamamoto (2005) also reports that the
native languages of Filipino parents (e.g., Visaya or Ilongo) were hardly used in the home. In fact, a
majority of non-English-speaking parents use Japanese as the sole means of communication with
their children (Yamamoto, 2002). While Ishii (2010) and Jabar (2013) researched the identities of
Thai-Japanese and Filipino-Japanese children, and Yamamoto (2005) investigated how language
prestige influenced Japanese-Filipino families’language practices, an examination of the different
ideological influences that shape migrant mothers’language practices is required. This study sets out
to fill the lacuna in research by answering the following questions:
(1) What are the language practices of migrant mothers in Japan?
(2) What are the macro and micro ideological influences that shape their language practices?
(3) How do their language practices affect their children’s language development?
(4) To what extent do their older and younger children differ in terms of ML use?
Methodology
Participants
Migrant mothers from Thailand were recruited as participants for this study. In Japan, Thai women
make up the fourth largest group of foreign female spouses (Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare,
2016). In this study, five participants are married to Japanese men, and one participant is married to a
third-generation Taiwanese resident. The mothers were recruited by the researcher, who is a Malaysian
married to a Japanese man. I am a friend of three of the participants—Tida, Ning, and May (pseudonyms
used for all of the participants). Noon, Fern, and Piti were May’s friends whom she introduced to me as
INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 311

research participants. All of the mothers lived in and around Kawasaki, a city adjacent to Tokyo that is
known as a “diversity point”in Japan due to its relatively high foreign population (Tsuneyoshi, 2011).
Details of the participants are shown in Table 1. The mothers generally have a high level of
education. Three mothers have master’s degrees, and two of them (Tida and May) received theirs
from an Australian and U.S. university respectively. They were financially independent women from
the cities of Bangkok and Chiang Mai with their own careers prior to marriage. While the media
perpetuates an image of South-East Asian women entering into brokered marriages with Japanese
men for economic betterment (Nakamatsu, 2005), the women in this study met their husbands while
they were studying abroad (Tida, May, and Noon), or through work (Fern and Piti) or friends
(Ning). Their educational and occupational backgrounds show that there is a diverse mix of migrant
women in exogamous marriages in Japan. The mothers moved to Japan after marriage and had no
previous experience studying or working in the country.
All of the participants possessed high language abilities because all of them, except for Ning,
spoke a second language (English for Tida, Fern, May, and Piti, and Mandarin for Noon) and
acquired Japanese as their third language. They learned Japanese in volunteer-run Japanese classes.
Tida, Noon, and Piti had also taken courses at Japanese language schools. Noon, May, and Fern
passed N2 of the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, whereas Tida, Piti, and Ning had the N3
qualification. N2 proficiency indicates an understanding of Japanese spoken at near-natural speed in
everyday conversations, whereas N3 implies the understanding of such conversations to a certain
degree (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, n.d.). This suggests that Noon, May, and Fern could
generally function in Japanese in their daily lives. However, Piti had more limited skills in Japanese
due to her shorter length of residency in Japan, and so did Ning because of her lack of participation
in Japanese classes. Tida’s Japanese ability was probably as high as the other mothers with N2
qualifications because she had completed an N2-level course.
The participants’lives reflected the urban middle-class Japanese family. They were full-time house-
wives, and their Japanese husbands worked in managerial or professional jobs. Except for Noon, none
of them lived near their in-laws. Therefore, they were their children’s primary caregivers. Their older
children were already attending kindergarten, if not elementary or middle school, so the mothers were
able to share their childrearing experiences up to the school-age years. Before the start of the study, the
purpose of the study was explained, and their written consent was obtained.
Data collection and analysis
Given the small number of participants, a qualitative approach with interviews used as a tool of
inquiry was adopted for this study. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with each of the
participants at their homes from March to June 2014. Each interview took place on a weekday
Table 1. Details of participants.
Education
Age
Years in
Japan
City of
origin
Occupation
in Thailand Language ability
Japanese
proficiency
Type of
degree Country obtained
Language of
instruction
Tida 45 13 Bangkok Medical
technician
Trilingual T-E-J N3 Master’s Australia E
Noon 38 8 Bangkok Accounting
specialist
Trilingual T-C-J N2 Bachelor Thailand T
Ning 45 11 Bangkok Civil
servant
Bilingual T-J N3 Diploma Thailand T
May 45 8 Bangkok Banker Trilingual T-E-J N2 Master’sUS E
Piti 35 6 Bangkok Sales
engineer
Trilingual T-E-J N3 Bachelor Thailand T
Fern 43 9 Chiang
Mai
Sales
manager
Trilingual T-E-J N2 Master’s Thailand T
Notes on abbreviations: Thai (T), English (E), Japanese (J)
312 J. NAKAMURA

morning when their older children were at school or kindergarten. Follow-ups via telephone calls
and emails were made to obtain further information. Two concerns in conducting interviews were
the migrant mothers’linguistic limitations and wariness toward an interviewer who represents the
linguistic and educational authority they react against (Kouritzin, 2000). While I am not Thai, my
identity as a longtime friend (or a friend’s friend), and a foreign woman who is also in an exogamous
relationship, had probably alleviated some of these fears. I also came from a neighboring country and
share with Tida, Noon, and May an ethnic Chinese background. As a multilingual migrant mother
raising a child of a similar age, I could provide an insider view of their struggles as mothers in a
foreign land (e.g., carrying out PTA duties) and their perceptions of language use (e.g., valorization
of English).
However, a disadvantage was that the interviews were conducted in either English or Japanese
because, being non-Thai, I could not do so in the mothers’native language. This may have restricted
the extent to which the mothers could fully share their experiences. Yet, Tida, Fern, and May were fluent
English speakers who could freely describe their experiences in our interviews. Tida and May studied in
English-speaking universities, whereas Fern worked for a U.S. company. Interviews with non-English-
speaking participants were conducted in Japanese. Noon was a fluent Japanese speaker and spoke
uninhibitedly in Japanese when interviewed. Piti was also able to share her experiences in Japanese
and support her Japanese explanations with English. However, Ning’s Japanese was weaker than the
others. Questions were rephrased and prompts were given to help Ning discuss her language practices.
Each interview began by obtaining background information about the participant. It then proceeded
to the main part of the interview, which involved an extensive chronological discussion of the mother’s
language practices. While specific questions were not prepared, topics for discussion were set. Each
mother was asked to describe her language practices from the birth of her first child and how they had
changed, for example, when the children started kindergarten and elementary school. Each mother was
also asked to carefully reflect on the possible reasons for the changes as this helped to reveal her
ideology about language. School experiences, parent-child communication, cultural practices, and
expectations were also discussed as they may provide insight into the mother’s ideology. Each interview
was audio recorded and transcribed in the language used during the interview, i.e., English for Tida,
May, and Fern, and Japanese for Ning, Noon, and Piti. Upon completion, the transcripts were
reviewed carefully for accuracy. Field notes were taken during the interviews and keyed into a word
processor on the same day. Information obtained during follow-up was added to them. These field
notes were reviewed to verify and support the interview transcript data.
Following the grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), interview transcripts were coded
and categorized according to themes that emerged from the data. Categories that appeared through the
comparison of data were: (a) perceptions of the learning of Thai, English, and Japanese languages; (b)
language beliefs and experiences; (c) language practices; and (d) children’s language use and develop-
ment. Properties of each category were identified. For instance, a property of (b) is language delay
anxiety. These categories and their corresponding properties were subsequently related to the macro
and micro factors affecting language ideology in Curdt-Christiansen’sFLPframework(2009).
The mothers’language practices
All of the mothers reportedly spoke Thai almost exclusively to their older children at the beginning.
The reason was a practical one for Tida and Ning, who returned to Thailand to give birth and obtain
postnatal support from their families. Piti spoke Thai because she was still living in Thailand until
her older child was 2 years of age. Thai was also the choice for the other mothers because, being
fairly new in Japan at that time, they were still not fluent enough in Japanese to use it. Four mothers
began with the OPOL (One Parent One Language) policy by providing Thai input while their
husbands spoke Japanese. The other two mothers, May and Fern, decided on a trilingual policy by
speaking both Thai and English.
INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 313

As shown in Table 2, communication between Tida, May, Piti, and Fern and their Japanese husbands
involved English. It was the sole language used for communication when they first met because their
Japanese husbands spoke minimal Thai. However, while Tida continued speaking English with her
husband, May, Piti, and Fern reported greater use of Japanese after staying in Japan. Likewise, whereas
Noon initially spoke Mandarin to her Taiwanese husband, they had switched to Japanese. This finding
concurs with Yamamoto (2002,2005) that Japanese-non-English exogamous couples communicate in a
home lingua franca that is often English. However, this study also revealed a tendency for exogamous
couples to speak more Japanese as the foreign spouses’Japanese improves. They may even stop using their
initial language for communication, as in Noon’scase.
The mothers’language use with their children had also changed. Table 2 shows that Tida no longer spoke
Thai. Instead, she used some English with her children. May also spoke English, along with Thai and
Japanese. Fern did not speak English as she had planned, and focused only on Thai and Japanese. Except for
Fern, Japanese was the language the mothers most often used with their children. The reduced Thai input
had implications for the children’s Thai development because they generally did not hear Thai elsewhere.
Despite being friends, the mothers did not meet very often for their children to have greater Thai exposure.
Gatherings were held every one to two months because most of the mothers did not live close by each other,
and had busy schedules involving their children. They also did not hold any Thai celebrations together.
Social media, i.e., Facebook, was a popular way for the mothers to keep in touch, but this did not involve the
children. The children’s contact with Thai family members over the telephone or Internet was also brief
because only greetings and courtesies were usually exchanged. Only Piti’s children seemed to have closer
interaction with their Thai grandparents through bimonthly video calls. The children only received more
Thai exposure on annual trips to Thailand, as family members did not regularly visit Japan.
Ideological influences on mothers’language practices
The interview data revealed an interplay of macro and micro ideological influences on the mothers’
language practices. In this section, I will demonstrate how they led to the mothers’greater use of Japanese.
Political factors
Political factors concern “individuals’equal rights and opportunities to education, civil activities, and
political decisions”(Curdt-Christiansen, 2009, p. 356). These factors relate directly to the Thai
mothers’identity as migrant mothers and how limitations in their Japanese ability affected their
access to public services in Japan. For Tida, the need to master Japanese became apparent from early
Table 2. Language use at home as reported by the mothers.
Reported language use in the home
Children
(sex, age)
Country of
birth Nationality
Mother > child Child > mother
Between spouses Between siblingsJTE J T
Tida C1 (F, 14) T J, T 80% –20% 100% –
EJ
C2 (M, 4) J J 80% –20% 100% –
Noon C1 (F, 8) J T, TW 70% 30% –100% –
JJ
C2 (F, 2) J T, TW 90% 10% –100% –
May C1 (F, 5) J J, T 70% 20% 10% 90% 10% J, E J
C2 (F, 4) J J, T 70% 15% 15% 90% 10%
Ning C1 (F, 5) T J,T 60% 40% –90% 10% JJ
C2 (F, 4) J J, T 60% 40% –95% 5%
Piti C1 (F, 8) T J, T 60% 40% –60% 40% J, E J
C2 (F, 4) J J, T 75% 25% –90% 10%
Fern C1 (F, 7) J J,T 30% 70% –40% 60% J, E J
C2 (M, 3) J J, T 30% 70% –90% 10%
Notes on abbreviations: Older child (C1), Younger child (C2), Male (M), Female (F), Thai (T), English (E), Japanese (J), Taiwanese (TW)
314 J. NAKAMURA

on when she found herself socially isolated in Japan with her infant daughter. In her efforts to know
more people in the community, she decided to join a Japanese mothers’playgroup at the local ward
office. However, on her first visit, Tida was told by a male officer to join the foreign mothers’
playgroup instead. Being turned away was a huge shock for her. From thereon, she decided to speak
Japanese to her child because she believed that it was the way she could access the full range of public
and educational services available, and assimilate into the community. After enrolling for volunteer-
run Japanese classes, Tida spoke Japanese to her child while learning the language. She commented:
We cannot be different in Japan. If you use a different language or you have some different culture, it’s quite
difficult to live here. That’s why I just made decision. I should be the one to adjust myself to live. I told my
husband, “Okay, I still want my kid to speak English.”but that’s the second thought. The first one is I have to
make sure I can survive here and my kid also can be like Japanese.
The mothers seemed concerned that, due to their lack of Japanese literacy skills, they may not be
able to fully support their children as Japanese mothers do, and this may adversely affect their
children’s education. Ning’s reading skills were weak, and she often had to rely on her husband to
read letters from kindergarten. She foresaw that she would not be able to supervise her children’s
homework once they start elementary school and had already requested for her husband to assume
the role. Noon doubted her ability to check the accuracy of her second-grader’s Japanese sentence
constructions using kanji (Japanese characters), which was a responsibility that the teacher entrusted
all parents to do. Similarly, while Piti could help her first-grader with her homework, she felt that she
would not be able to do so for higher grades, and enrolled in a Japanese language school so that she
could learn Japanese quickly and keep up with her children’s schoolwork. Tida stopped helping with
school work after the third grade because it became too difficult for her, particularly for subjects such
as Japanese and social studies.
Oral Japanese skills were also important for participating in school activities. Tida was at a loss when she
first attended mendan (teacher-parent interviews) and kondan (teacher-parents class meetings) at her older
child’s school. Ning explained how she merely listened while the teacher did most of the talking. Since PTA
duties were obligatory and predominantly performed by mothers, Tida and Ning were anxious about
getting duties that they could not perform, knowing that being foreign was no exception and that the failure
to do them would leave a negative impression of themselves and their children. The mothers’difficulties and
corresponding feelings of inadequacy probably impressed upon them that Japanese abilities were important
to be full-fledged members of society.
Some mothers were also criticized for their children’s lack of Japanese oral skills. Tida felt guilty when the
kindergarten teacher attributed her younger children’s inadequate verbal skills to a lack of Japanese input by
her. This arose despite the fact that she chose to speak only Japanese to him from birth. Fern was also advised
to provide more Japanese input to her child because she did not demonstrate sufficient vocabulary
compared to her peers. All of the mothers stressed the importance of education for their children, and
such feedback ostensibly reinforced the importance of Japanese abilities for academic success and their role
as mothers to help achieve it. Therefore, they tried to improve their Japanese and speak it to help develop
their children’s Japanese.
Speaking Japanese to the children was also a way for the mothers to improve their own proficiency. May
had few opportunities to speak to her Japanese husband who worked late, so she practiced speaking Japanese
to her children. She explained:
Maybe I keep studying Japanese and maybe I wanted my chance to speak Japanese too. I’m not good at
Japanese, and I really want to speak Japanese fluently. If I don’t talk to my kids, I don’t have a chance to talk.
This shows that, as their children became more fluent in Japanese, the mothers relied on them as
“language teachers.”In comparison to the more demanding and stressful communication contexts outside
the home, their children provided them with a safe, relaxed, and readily available environment, to improve
their Japanese oral skills, which subsequently contributed to their lesser use of Thai.
INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 315

Economic factors
The mothers intended to stay in Japan in the long term.None of them talked about returning to Thailand.
Some of them were interested in casual employment once their children were older and understood that
greater Japanese proficiency is required for it. Tida and Piti were already involved in occasional community
work. Tida taught Thai cultural and cooking classes, and was even selected to be a Kawasaki City
representative of foreign residents. She felt that her Japanese skills helped her and commented:
I’ve got many opportunities for working, so I have to use Japanese for my job, so I feel I have to practice.
Contrastively, there was arguably little economic incentive for the mothers to maintain Thai. Despite the
fact that most of the children had dual nationalities, the mothers generally did not think that they would
return to Thailand in the future. Tida chose not to apply for Thai nationality for her younger child because
she did not want him to be involved in Thailand’s military conscription. Thai was primarily required for
their children to communicate with family on their trips home. However, basic oral skills appeared to be
sufficient for this purpose because the children’s communication was supported by their mothers, who acted
as language brokers. This seemed to have resulted in the mothers’somewhat lackadaisical efforts in
developing their children’s Thai. While the mothers felt that Thai abilities were desirable, they did not
seem to give their full effort. Tida considered Thai as a simple language that could be learned later in life.
Noon,whospokelittleThaitoherchildren,plannedtohireaprivateThaitutorforthemwhentheyvisit
Thailand.InsteadofforcingThaionherchildren,Fernwantedtostayflexiblesothattheydonotendup
hating the language. Consequently, the mothers did not teach Thai literacy. They felt that it would be too
difficult, and believed that Japanese characters, or even English alphabets, should be learned first. Only Piti
taught Thai writing and reading regularly. As their children grow older, there may not even be a need for
basic Thai ability because they may stop visiting Thailand with their mothers, as Tida’s older child did from
the fifth grade onwards due to exam preparation.
There is arguably more economic incentive to learn English in Japan because it is formally taught as a
subject from junior high school and is part of university entrance examinations. Performance on standar-
dized English tests also determines employment prospects and job promotions. Unsurprisingly, English was
valorized by the mothers. May and Fern believed that English skills would give their children an advantage
over monolingual Japanese children. They used educational toys and materials, and subscribed to a
correspondence course to teach English at home. Piti enrolled her older child in English classes and planned
to send her younger child too. May and Tida also spoke some English at home. Tida increased her efforts to
speak English to her older child after she started studying it as a subject in junior high school.
Sociocultural factors
Sociocultural influences on language ideology caused the mothers, even those who were more
determined to teach their children Thai, to speak Japanese in the presence of Japanese speakers.
May felt that it was necessary for Japanese speakers to be tuned in, and Piti regarded the use of Thai
as shitsurei (bad manners). The mothers were generally concerned that speaking Thai in front of in-
laws, teachers, and other mothers would be perceived negatively. Ning confided:
もしタイ語使ったら向こうのおじいちゃんちゃん、おばあちゃんは文句を言うかも。反対かもしれま
せん。
(If I use Thai, their grandfather, grandmother might complain. They might protest.)
Ning also did not speak Thai in front of her child’s teacher for the same reason. However, it was
uncertain whether her in-laws or the teacher would actually disapprove given that she had never
tried speaking Thai in their presence. Another mother, May, was aware that speaking Japanese would
deprive her children of valuable Thai input. Her dilemma led her to a compromise of speaking some
English with Japanese. She shared:
If I speak Japanese only, I might lose the chance to teach other language. But if I keep saying Thai, (they are
wondering) what are you talking about. If I speak in English, they might understand some word.
316 J. NAKAMURA

While speaking Thai would result in complete exclusion, May reasoned that Japanese speakers
would somewhat understand English. While May denied that the prestige of English was a factor, she
probably perceived that English was more acceptable for Japanese people. The children also play a
role in socializing their mothers into using Japanese in front of their friends. Fern explained:
Then she (child) made a request, “Oh mom, when we go out and meet my Japanese friends, please stop
speaking Thai to me. Everyone question, “What is it?”and I don’t want to be different from others.”
The mothers also spoke Japanese when the fathers were present. While Fern spoke Thai to her
children at home, she switched to Japanese upon her husband’s return to include him in family
conversations. This further reduced the Thai input that the children received.
Due to the monolingual orientation of the Japanese society, the mothers probably felt a need to speak
Japanese. Whereas Piti continued speakingThaiinpublicaslongasshewasnotwithJapanesecompany,the
other mothers refrained from doing so even in front of strangers. This was partly due to the fact that the
some of the mothers had Japanese-like appearances, so they could pass as Japanese unless they spoke. Noon
disliked being observed by strangers when she spoke Thai in public. Although foreign-accented Japanese
was just as likely to arouse curiosity, she felt it would be less conspicuous. She said:
もし電車だったら結構皆がパット見るの。目が。結構、私もなるべく外だったら日本語の方がいいと
思ったのですね
.(If on the train, people look. Their eyes. So outside, I think Japanese is better.)
Fern also felt the same about speaking Thai in public and shared:
When I took my kids out to play with other kids, if I just speak Thai to the kids or just speak English to the
kids, will Japanese people accept it or will they surprise? So I didn’t stick to my rule, so I started to speak to
them in Japanese.
The mothers’practice of using Thai in private contexts where no Japanese husbands, in-laws, friends,
teachers, or even strangers were present can be described as “hidden bilingualism.”They showed a desire to
assimilate into the outwardly homogenous, monolingual community and did not want to stand out as
foreign mothers. As some of them did not look foreign, it was only their use of Thai that sets them apart.
Using Japanese was probably perceived as a simple step toward blending in. It may have even been regarded
as a social rule. Ning seemed even fearful of being reproached if she spoke Thai. Some Japanese people may
show displeasure over ML use (Vitale, 2011), but the mothers in this study did not have such experiences.
Contrarily, the use of Thai was supported by their husbands. Noon’s husband reportedly lamented the fact
that their children could speak very little Thai compared to other Japanese-Thai children, and encouraged
Noon to use more Thai. Moreover, the mothers lived away from their Japanese in-laws and received little
pressure to speak Japanese from them. In fact, Fern and Piti reported that their in-laws were impressed with
their grandchildren’s bilingual abilities. However, the positive feedback from family members did not seem
to motivate the mothers to speak Thai more consistently. This suggests that they may have internalized
societal expectations that Japanese should be spoken based on their observations of how linguistically and
culturally homogenous the Japanese society was. The mothers seemed to have taken the precautionary
measure of speaking Japanese based on their own negative perceptions of speaking Thai in public.
Consequently, some mothers failed to take advantage of their children’s willingness to speak Thai. While
Piti refrained from using Thai in front of Japanese speakers, her child supposedly enjoyed demonstrating her
Thai abilities to others despite her limited proficiency. Noon also fondly recalled how her child taught her
kindergarten teacher simple Thai expressions. Nevertheless, such enthusiasm did not motivate Noon to
speak more Thai to her children.
The mothers’language experiences
Micro factors also shaped the mothers’language ideology as they brought to the task of childrearing
their language experiences. Perceived delay in their older children’s early language development due
to bilingual exposure seemed to have discouraged ML use to the same child at an older age and with
INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 317

subsequent children. Tida spoke Thai exclusively to her older child until she was age 0;6 (year;
month), and only Japanese thereafter. Her older child purportedly did not speak until age 2;6, and
Tida believed that the early exposure to Thai caused her slow development. Therefore, she decided to
speak only Japanese to her second child from birth to avoid any speech delay. Likewise, while Noon
spoke Thai at first, she became worried about her older child’s Japanese language development
because she received little Japanese input from her busy father. At the age of 1;6, Noon started
bringing her out to play in the park, and noticed that she was less verbal than other Japanese-
speaking children. Thereon, she decided to use Japanese whenever they went out to help develop her
Japanese. It is unfortunate that Tida and Noon compared their children’s linguistic ability with
Japanese monolingual children, and did not consider that their developmental trajectories may be
different because of their bilingual exposure. This exemplifies what Okita (2001) describes as
“conditional acceptance of bilingualism”—so far as the societal language develops with no problems,
an additional language is fine. When their children’s early language development did not match up
to monolingual peers, Tida and Noon abandoned their bilingual policy. The mothers’language delay
anxiety also probably relates to their underlying desire to assimilate into Japanese society because
their children’s ability to speak Japanese as well as other children and play along with them was a
measure of their assimilation.
Experiences with older children appeared to have determined the mothers’language use with
younger children. Negative experiences made them apprehensive about speaking Thai to their
younger children, whereas positive experiences gave them more confidence in using it. Tida and
Noon spoke Japanese to their younger children from birth, and found that they acquired Japanese
faster than their older children. This reaffirmed their conviction that Thai exposure delayed their
older children’s Japanese development. In contrast, Fern’s positive experience speaking Thai to her
older child, who had no apparent speech delay, made her optimistic that her younger one would also
become bilingual, even though he was not producing much Thai at the age of 3.
It is also worth noting that Tida and Noon ended up speaking mainly Japanese to their children
despite their multilingual abilities. This may have been because their second and third languages
were acquired later in life. Tida started learning English from the age of 8, whereas Noon studied
Mandarin at university. They had little knowledge of early simultaneous bilingual development,
which was probably the source of their anxiety. Lack of knowledge of simultaneous trilingual
development also caused Fern to change her Thai-Japanese-English trilingual policy to a Thai-
Japanese bilingual one. She confided:
Now I forget about English because I was thinking that maybe, in the first stage, maybe two is enough. And I
was thinking that if she can talk to me in any way back, in any languages, later I can add English a little bit.
Another mother believed that simultaneous acquisition of Thai and Japanese would be too
difficult for her young children. Ning perceived that bilingual development should be sequential,
with Thai introduced once the children’s Japanese had developed to a certain extent. She shared:
小さいとき、２歳、３歳、多分わからないだから大きくなったら教えたい。
(When they were small,
2 or 3 years old, they didn’t know so I want to teach them when they are older.)
The ethnic Chinese identity of some mothers and their own experiences of ML loss in their homeland
may have also shaped their language ideology. Tida and May were from Chinese migrant families in
Bangkok and had a greater affinity to Chinese culture. However, as third-generation Chinese migrants, they
no longer speak their parents’Chinese dialects or observe many Chinese customs. At the same time, they did
notshowstrongemotionaltiestotheThailanguageorcultureduetotheirambivalenceabouttheirown
identity. Moreover, Tida’s experience of ML loss in her Chinese family convinced her that any effort to
maintain Thai in Japan may eventually be futile. She explained:
My grandparents both moved from China so this means they are the bilingual, my parents. I’m the third
generation so I heard the language from my grandma who couldn’t speak Thai well. So I feel like it is not useful
for me. Even though I understand the word, I cannot think it is useful and didn’t use it even with my mom and
318 J. NAKAMURA

grandma. Every time when they spoke in Chinese, I just replied in Thai. And it’s gone. After 10, 20 years, my
grandma start speaking Thai to grandkids because she feel like it is not worth grandkids not speak back to her. I
feel like it is the same situation (with Thai in Japan) because we not use it.
While a lost opportunity to acquire an ML in childhood may motivate parents to raise their
children bilingually (King & Fogle, 2006), this finding shows that experiences of ML loss can also
work otherwise and discourage ML transmission. The identity of ethnic Chinese Thai mothers as
“double migrants”may have motivated them to adapt to the language and culture of their host
country rather than to maintain their own mix of Thai and Chinese cultures.
Among the mothers, Piti and Fern were the most positive about teaching Thai, and their children also
reportedly spoke more Thai than the children of the other mothers (see Table 2). Fern had a positive attitude
toward multilingualism after reading up about the subject. She sent her older child to local and international
kindergartens when they were in Thailand and joined a weekly “multilingual club”to expose her children to
various languages through games and songs. Piti was the only mother who taught Thai reading and writing.
She was aware that literacy activities exposed her children to richer language and was encouraged by her
own mother. Piti’s mother was a former school teacher of Thai who sent Piti storybooks, textbooks,
workbooks, board games, and educational toys and even prepared a one-year literacy program for the
children that Piti used in her weekly lessons. Other mothers also had Thai books, but they were hardly used
because they found them not engaging or easy enough for their children to understand. These findings
demonstrate that knowledge of bilingualism and literacy support were ideological factors that contributed to
Fern’sandPiti’s relative success in maintaining Thai in the home.
The impact of the mothers’language practices
Despite speaking Thai almost exclusively to their older children at birth, the mothers (except Fern)
now spoke more Japanese than Thai with their children. A main contributory factor to this language
shift was arguably their practice of speaking Japanese in the presence of Japanese speakers, and Thai
in private. Such language practice has been observed in the UK where Luxembourger mothers
(Kirsch, 2012) and Japanese mothers (Okita, 2001) spoke English to include English speakers in their
conversation. However, the social pressure was probably stronger for these Thai mothers because
also refrained from speaking Thai in front of complete strangers. This practice arguably impressed
upon their children the symbolic power of the Japanese language. Whereas Japanese was used openly
with various interlocutors in different contexts, the limited use of Thai probably reinforced its
weaker status. Affect-oriented factors play an important role in ML development (e.g., DeCapua &
Wintergerst, 2009), and the mothers’hidden use of Thai arguably did not help foster a positive
attitude toward Thai.
Given that the mothers were their children’s primary source of Thai input, their reduced use of
Thai affected their children’s comprehension and production. As Table 2 shows, Tida’s and Noon’s
children reportedly only spoke Japanese, whereas May’s and Ning’s children purportedly spoke very
little Thai (10% or less). Only the older children of Piti and Fern seemed to be using more Thai (40%
and 60% respectively). When their children demonstrated limited understanding of Thai, the
mothers subsequently justified their need to use more Japanese with them, leading to even less
input. They failed to recognize the fact that the problem arose because they did not provide adequate
Thai input from the beginning. Parents’lack of insight on the cause and effect of their own language
practices is also seen in other ML-speaking parents in Japan. Bussinguer-Khavari (2011) and Vitale
(2011) report how Portuguese-speaking and Spanish-speaking parents gave up speaking their own
languages because the language was no longer understood by their children. While the mothers
spoke Thai in private with their children and Japanese in front of others, this segregation of language
use became “blurred,”just as Okita (2001) found in the use of English by Japanese mothers in the
UK. Speaking Japanese became so habitual for some Thai mothers that it was also used when they
were alone with their children. May explained:
INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 319

But sometime, if it is like morning, it is very rushed time and I have to do so many things. So at that time, I will
forget to do what I should do. But if I have time, like when they come back from school and I am not busy
much, maybe I keep talking to them (in Thai).
Both May and Noon admitted that it became more difficult to speak Thai. This was probably
because their children’s comprehension had already suffered due to limited Thai input. Speaking
Japanese was easier because their children could understand far better in Japanese. Similar to the
experiences of a Japanese mother in the UK (Okita, 2001), it became harder for May to use Thai even
in the home, and time had to be set aside to speak Thai and ‘teach’it to the children.
The children’s limited comprehension and production potentially lead to passive bilingualism.
There is a higher likelihood of passive bilingualism in children whose ML-speaking parent’s use of
Japanese exceeds 60% (Noguchi, 2001). Therefore, May’s children may become passive bilinguals
given the fact that Japanese already made up 70% of her speech. She describes her predicament:
I don’t think if I teach Thai now she will understand me, what I want to say, everything because it will be more
difficult word. We have to talk about the emotional thing. Maybe Thai word she cannot understand.
As her children’s Japanese skills increased and communication grew in complexity, May found it
difficult to sustain conversations in Thai. Her limited English input (10% to her first child and 15%
to her second child) also did not to lead to any regular or spontaneous English production. This was
likewise for Tida’s children. While May wanted her children to be trilingual, the heavy task of being
the sole provider of Thai and English input, and giving them adequate amounts of input for
development seemed difficult for her.
Nonetheless, some mothers felt that their older children were better at speaking Thai and spoke
more of it than their younger siblings (see Table 2). This was probably because they heard Thai
almost exclusively from their mothers in their early years. The mothers did not speak much Japanese
at that time because they were not yet proficient in it. The mothers also spent more time with their
older children, and made long and frequent trips back home that helped support Thai development.
Piti’s older child also lived in Bangkok for the first 2 years of her life. In contrast, the mothers had
less time with their younger children because of their involvement with their older children’s school
and extracurricular activities. Trips to Thailand became shorter to accommodate their older chil-
dren’s school holidays. They also became less frequent due to the higher costs of traveling with an
extra child. Moreover, the mothers spoke Japanese to their younger children from an earlier age
possibly because of their increased Japanese proficiency, and their older children’s socialization into
speaking it. Younger siblings were also exposed to Japanese by their older siblings.
Conclusion
The study contributes to our understanding of ML transmission in exogamous families in a society
where linguistic and cultural homogeneity still prevails. It highlights some conditions that are probably
distinct from those faced by endogamous families in more linguistically and culturally diverse societies
with large and concentrated minority communities. As mothers, migrant women in Japan play a key
role in ML transmission. Yet the results of this study show how ideological influences led Thai mothers
to speak more Japanese to their children. Political influences made the mothers emphasize the learning
of Japanese for themselves and their children, and even caused a mother to stop speaking Thai to her
child. The results also demonstrate how economic factors led to the mothers’valorization of Japanese,
and even English, and lackadaisical efforts in developing their children’s Thai. Sociocultural influences
were particularly strong in making the mothers speak Japanese in front of Japanese speakers, and Thai
only when alone with their children. The mothers’childrearing experiences also affected their language
practices. Their perception that Thai exposure delayed their older children’s Japanese development led
them to use more Japanese with their younger children. The mothers’limited use of Thai resulted in
an apparent lack of comprehension and low production of Thai, particularly in their younger children.
320 J. NAKAMURA

Only two mothers, who either had knowledge of bilingualism or literacy support, seemed to have more
success in maintaining Thai.
The findings of this study are limited due to the small number of mothers who were interviewed.
Moreover, given their relatively high level of education and urban middle-class background, the
experiences of the mothers in this study may not reflect that of other migrant mothers in Japan,
particularly those with lower socioeconomic status and living in rural areas. Yet they clearly
demonstrate how multiple ideological influences lead to greater societal language use and give us
reason to suspect that ML transmission is equally, if not more, challenging for migrant mothers with
less-privileged backgrounds.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the participants of this study for sharing their experiences with me. I am
also most grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their most helpful comments on earlier drafts of this
paper.
Funding
This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under the Grant-In-Aid for Young
Scientists (B) (24720188).
ORCID
Janice Nakamura http://www.orcid.org/0000-0003-3268-6556
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