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Journal of Multilingual and

Multicultural Development
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Bilingual behaviour, attitudes, identity

and vitality: some data from Japanese
speakers in London, UK
a

Ivan Brown & Itesh Sachdev

Department of Humane Studies and Social Studies Education,

Joetsu University of Education, Joetsu, Japan
b

SOAS-UCL Centre of Excellence in Languages of the Wider World,

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,
London, UK
Available online: 13 Jul 2009

To cite this article: Ivan Brown & Itesh Sachdev (2009): Bilingual behaviour, attitudes, identity and
vitality: some data from Japanese speakers in London, UK, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural
Development, 30:4, 327-343
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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Vol. 30, No. 4, July 2009, 327
343

Bilingual behaviour, attitudes, identity and vitality: some data from

Japanese speakers in London, UK
Ivan Browna,* and Itesh Sachdevb
a
Department of Humane Studies and Social StudiesEducation, Joetsu University of Education,
Joetsu, Japan; bSOAS-UCL Centre of Excellence in Languages of the Wider World, School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, UK

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(Received 12 May 2008; final version received 22 December 2008)

Although the Japanese community in London is relatively small, its composition
is stable and reflects several aspects of Japans relationship with the international
community. Yet there appears to have been no systematic research exploring
patterns of bilingual behaviour in relation to social psychological processes
amongst Japanese nationals in London. The 95 participants in this study were all
Japanese nationals, who came from three major groups in this community, namely
company employees, students and pupils at a Japanese school. They completed a
quantitative questionnaire about language use, attitudes to use, proficiency,
identity, contact and perceived vitalities in both London and Japan. Although
the findings confirmed the dominance of Japanese in proficiency and identity, they
also suggested some systematic variance in use and attitudes according to context.
Furthermore, while multivariate analyses supported the predictive value of
English proficiency for the use of each language, the prediction of English use
and attitudes was significantly enhanced by incorporating three factors related to
identities and vitalities. Finally, Japanese use and attitudes were also associated
with social contact. These findings are discussed with reference to ethnolinguistic
identity theory, intergroup and intragroup factors, and the international status of
English.
Keywords: English; ethnic identity; ethnolinguistic vitality; Japanese; language
use; London

Introduction
The value of social psychological models for predicting language use in multilingual
communities has been argued for and supported by a wide range of literature (e.g.
Edwards 1994; Giles and Coupland 1991; Hamers and Blanc 2000; MacIntyre et al.
1998; Sachdev and Giles 2004; Yashima 2002). This includes several studies on
minority communities in London (e.g. Kelly et al. 1993; Lawson and Sachdev 2004),
which is unsurprising, given that London is undeniably a major cosmopolitan city.
According to the Office for National Statistics (2007), non-white ethnic minority
groups represented 30.2% of Londons population, 21.8% of its population was born
outside the European Union (EU) and 218,000 international migrants came to
London in 2004, themselves representing 3% of the population.
*Corresponding author. Email: brown@juen.ac.jp
ISSN 0143-4632 print/ISSN 1747-7557 online
# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01434630902780715
http://www.informaworld.com

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328

I. Brown and I. Sachdev

There has never been large-scale immigration of Japanese into the UK (The
Guardian 2005). Nevertheless, the Embassy of Japan in the UK (2006) reported that
there were 60,751 Japanese nationals resident in the UK, of whom 37,041 were
resident in Greater London, and 26,597 were resident in London itself. Studies on
Japanese speakers and their languages in London include Okitas (2002) study, which
investigated the bilingual child-rearing of Japanese/non-Japanese intermarried
couples and their children in the UK. However, there appears to have been little
or no systematic research focusing on social psychological variables and language use
in this context. The present study therefore explored the characteristic social patterns
of language use among Japanese communities in London, and investigated the
predictive utility of proficiency, social contact, attitudes and beliefs about identity
and vitality in this context.
Among the most obvious determinants of language behaviour in multilingual
communities are proficiency and norms (Edwards 1994; Sachdev and Giles 2004).
However, as Lawson and Sachdev (2004, 56) note, Linguistic variation often occurs
either in the absence of, or in spite of, a normative framework, hence the role of
social psychological variables. Among these, language attitudes arguably play a
mediating role between language use and other social psychological phenomena;
especially where infrequent use of a given language is merely due to a lack of
appropriate social contact or proficiency (see Sachdev and Giles 2004). The pattern
of dynamic, reciprocal relationships between language behaviour, attitudes and other
social psychological variables hinges crucially on the important role of language, not
only as a channel of socialisation, but also as a criterion of social group membership.
Ethnolinguistic identity theory (Giles and Johnson 1981), which is based on
social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979), essentially aims to explain these
processes. Recent literature suggests that the development of social identities involves
both cognitive and motivational processes (see e.g. Sachdev and Bourhis 2005).
Cognitive processes include the individuals perception of social groups or categories
in society, such as female/male, British/Japanese or English speaker/Japanese speaker,
leading to self-categorisation. Motivational processes may include striving for
positive social identities, where the relevant in-group is perceived favourably by
comparison with one or more out-groups (Tajfel and Turner 1979), and striving for
balance between human needs for uniqueness and a sense of belonging (Brewer
1991). This development of identities takes place through socialisation in individual
networks of linguistic contact (INLC), where the individual lives the totality of his
ethnolinguistic experiences (Allard and Landry 1994, 121). It has also been
suggested that ethnolinguistic identity itself may, in turn, motivate the individual
to seek out or develop particular networks of contact, and furthermore, that
networks of contact, socialisation, norms of language use and social identities have
reciprocal relationships with social patterns of bilingualism, official state policies and
ethnolinguistic vitalities (e.g. Sachdev and Giles 2004).
Hamers and Blanc (2000) classified three social patterns of bilingualism: (1)
territorial bilingualism, where the communities that speak each language live in
separate physical spaces; (2) the use of one language as a lingua franca between
communities that do not share the same first language; and (3) diglossia, an enduring
societal arrangement, extending at least beyond a three generation period, such that
two languages each have their secure, phenomenologically legitimate and widely
implemented functions (Fishman 1980, 3). Given Wardhaughs (1998) distinction

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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

329

between stable bilingualism, such as in Switzerland or Canada, versus unstable

bilingualism, such as in London or New York, it follows that one would not expect
diglossia among the Japanese living in London. In any case, these social patterns are
likely to interact with patterns of individual additive and subtractive bilingualism
(Landry and Allard 1994), where complete additive bilingualism would encompass:
(1) high levels of proficiency in all aspects of L1 and L2; (2) maintenance of a strong
L1 ethnolinguistic identity and positive attitudes towards the L2 ethnolinguistic
group; and (3) generalised use of L1 without diglossia. Social and individual patterns
of bilingualism are likely to be influenced by official state policies, which can be
classified on a continuum ranging from the most supportive towards minorities,
pluralist, through the laissez-faire civic and the oppressive assimilationist, to the
exclusive and divisive ethnist ideologies (Bourhis 2001).
The final major factor here, ethnolinguistic vitality (Bourhis, Giles, and
Rosenthal 1981; Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor 1977; Sachdev and Bourhis 1993)
arguably sways the ethnolinguistic identity of individuals in a given group through
the combined effects of demographic strength, institutional support and status
associated with the groups language, interacting with individuals desires for positive
social identity. If a groups ethnolinguistic vitality is low compared to another
groups, members of the group are likely to engage in strategies of identity
management (Tajfel and Turner 1986). Individuals may leave their weak group in
order to assimilate with the strong group, possibly acquiring and using the strong
groups language. Alternatively, members of the weak group may act collectively to
directly challenge the culpable social conditions, such as lobbying for the boosting of
the vitality of their language. On the other hand, they may challenge the social
perceptions of in-group devaluation, perhaps by constructing and promoting new
criteria on which the group will compare favourably with out-groups. The
ethnolinguistic vitality construct itself has received considerable scrutiny and
criticism (e.g. Edwards 1994; Husband and Saifullah Khan 1982; Williams 1992),
but it has been robustly defended (Johnson, Giles, and Bourhis 1983) and has been
developed and used in many recent studies, albeit in differing versions (e.g. Allard
and Landry 1994; Hall and Gudykunst 1987; Landry, Allard, and Henry 1996;
Lawson and Sachdev 2004). Interestingly, Johnson, Giles, and Bourhis (1983), in
response to Husband and Saifullah Khan (1982), agreed that additional items could
explore the value to a group of knowing that their language is thriving elsewhere.
This could be especially relevant to non-indigenous groups dislocated from their
national territories, such as the Japanese in London.
Empirical tests of these relationships in an individuals acquisition and use of a
second language have produced mixed results. Kelly et al. (1993), researching Spanish
male school children in London, found that stronger identification with the minority
group was indeed positively associated with minority language use, while negatively
associated with the use of, and positive attitudes to, the dominant language. In-group
vitality also positively contributed to in-group language use and attitudes to use,
while negatively contributing to comprehension of the dominant language. Hall and
Gudykunst (1987), on the other hand, found only weak relationships in the context
of short-term sojourners visiting the USA to learn English. They concluded that such
participants might form an inappropriate kind of minority. This may be true for
short-term sojourners, visiting for a few weeks or months, but not necessarily so for
longer term residents, as are many of Londons Japanese.

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The research questions and methodology of the present study are partly based
on those of Lawson and Sachdev (2004), which revealed that second-generation
Sylheti-Bangladeshis in London displayed their trilinguality differentially and
systematically, according to context of use, perceived vitality, contact, identity and
reported proficiency. Use of Sylheti and Bengali were predicted by proficiency,
identity, contact and vitality in the two languages. Positive attitudes to the use of
English were additively predicted by Bengali and Sylheti vitality and contact with
Bengali speakers. However, the ethnolinguistic context of Sylheti-Bangladeshis in
London may be quite different from that of the Japanese speakers in the present
study. A brief outline of relevant contextual conditions is therefore necessary.
Intergroup conditions in the UK
The objective vitality of English in London is unquestionably high, even with the
presence of so many other languages. Moreover, English is steadily consolidating its
hegemony as the preferred international lingua franca (Jenkins 2003). There is little
systematic information available to give a rounded and precise assessment of
objective Japanese ethnolinguistic vitality in London, though based on the figures
quoted earlier, the Japanese population represents only around 3% of the non-EUborn minority population in London, indicating that the demographic strength of the
Japanese ethnolinguistic group in London is unequivocally low. Nonetheless,
according to the Japan Foundation Japanese Language Institute (2005), there were
6623 students of Japanese in British school education and 9700 students outside the
school system in 2003. Japanese Mother tongue classes for Japanese-speaking
children are also provided by at least three organisations in the capital. Services and
literature in Japanese are often provided by the tourism industry, and there are
several regular Japanese language publications (e.g. japan2uk 2007; Ja n 2007).
Japanese is currently the second most frequent language in worldwide web content,
with the third largest online population (Global Reach 2007). Japanese has been
valorised to some extent by the UK government and business community (e.g. Parker
1986), since Japan is the worlds second largest economy, and over 1000 Japanese
companies have operations in the UK (Orita 2004). Although somewhat anecdotal
and tentative, these indices suggest that the Japanese ethnolinguistic group in
London enjoys relatively more status and institutional support than its lack of
demographic strength would imply.
Characteristics of the Japanese community in London
Three of the largest groups of Japanese residents in London reflect the common
manifestations of Japanese culture and society outside Japan identified by Sugimoto
(1997). The first group consists of Japanese business people, whose predecessors were
first brought to London following the expansion of Japanese banks in the 1980s
(Morgan et al. 2003). The spouses and children accompanying some of these staff
arguably constitute a second major group. As for the third major group, recent
statistics show that increasing numbers of adult Japanese students are studying
abroad (Web Japan 2005). Of the Japanese student population in London, some are
enrolled on commercial English language courses, while others are enrolled on
undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses. The prominence of these three

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

331

groups is supported by data from the Embassy of Japan in the UK (2006), according
to which the Japanese population in the UK consisted mostly of private company
staff and their families (20,948), and students, researchers and teachers (21,129). The
embassy data also refer separately to permanent residents, including 3691 males and
8771 females. Some of these are likely to have non-Japanese partners, thereby
including the population of intermarried couples investigated by Okita (2002). It
should also be noted that some of the shorter term residents in the categories may
eventually become permanent residents, and that there perhaps are more residents of
various kinds not registered with the embassy.

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Intergroup conditions in Japan

In the last half-century, beliefs concerning the inherent capacity of Japanese and nonJapanese to acquire fluency in each others languages have occasionally been
negatively influenced by nihonjinron, or myths about the homogeneity and uniqueness of the Japanese race, culture and language (see Gottlieb 2005, on the language
issue, and Oguma 1995, for discussion of these myths). Nonetheless, recent trends
towards pluralism have also been identified; in the populations of ethnolinguistic
minorities, and in acknowledgments of ethnic and linguistic pluralism in public
discourse, inevitably influenced by the experiences of some Japanese acquiring very
advanced fluency in English overseas (Gottlieb 2005; Yashima 2002). English
language education has been the object of vast amounts of attention and funding
from the government (Gottlieb 2005), and Yashima (2002) has argued that there is an
increasing tendency in Japan to value the use of English as a lingua franca to
communicate with people of neighbouring East Asian countries.

Expectations of the present study

This study focused on three particular groups of Japanese nationals in London who
were born in Japan. They were therefore expected to have consistently high
proficiency in Japanese and strong Japanese ethnolinguistic identity, with more
variance in levels of English proficiency and identification with the English language
and Britishness. These factors, and the low overall vitality of the group in London,
were not expected to lead to clear diglossia, but participants were expected to report
differentiated and systematic language use according to context and social
psychological factors. Furthermore, perceptions of conditions in Japan were expected
to contribute to the prediction of language use and attitudes to language use. It was
also anticipated that there might be some variance between subgroups in the sample,
though there were no definitive expectations. Finally, in the process of addressing
these questions, the study was expected to provide further insights about how the
constructs might interact with each other in this context. For example, which
combinations of identities are additive (i.e. the identities complement each other) and
which are subtractive (i.e. conflict with each other)? How does time spent in the UK,
that is, accumulated socialisation, affect the variables?

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332

I. Brown and I. Sachdev

Figure 1.

Frequency of use by language and context.

Method
Materials
A questionnaire was compiled, based on versions that had been tested and used in
previous studies (e.g. Lawson and Sachdev 2004). The first part concerned the
participants use of Japanese and English, headed with the general question, How
often do you use each language in the following situations in London? There
followed 18 pairs of items referring to use in specific contexts, including various
interlocutors, places and media, such as: When you are in shops or restaurants and
When you are reading newspapers or magazines. The full list of contexts is shown in
Figures 1 and 2. This study did not intend to focus on systematic combinations of
contexts of use; therefore, as the figures show, these three types of context are neither

Figure 2.

Attitudes to use by language and context.

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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

333

systematically combined nor completely separate. Responses were on a Likert scale

ranging from one (Never) to five (Always). The second part contained 18
equivalent pairs of items eliciting participants attitudes to use, preceded by the
phrase, Please indicate how much you agree with the use of each language in each
particular situation in London, with responses ranging from one (Strongly
disagree) to five (Strongly agree). The third part contained 12 sets of items relating
to the vitalities of Japanese and English in London and in Japan, including items
focusing on institutional support and control (e.g. In your opinion, how much
importance is currently given to the English language by local councils, hospitals,
banks, and other local institutions in London?), status (e.g. How wealthy are people
from the Japanese language group in London?), demographic strength, and on the
overall vitality in the past, present and future. Responses ranged from one (Not/
None at all) to five (Complete(ly)/Extreme(ly)).
A fourth part contained items on personal and language background, including age,
gender, nationality, place of birth, date of arrival, occupation, contact with L1 speakers
of each language (e.g. How many people that you converse with regularly in London use
Japanese as their first language? . . . [None/A few/About half/Most/All]), ethnic identity
(e.g. I think of myself as British . . . [Never/Rarely/Sometimes/Often/Always]),
language identity (e.g. I think of myself as a Japanese speaker . . . [Never . . . Always]),
value of language to identity (e.g. Being able to speak English is an essential part of my
identity . . . [Strongly disagree . . . Strongly agree]), and subjectively assessed proficiency
in listening, speaking, reading and writing in each language.
Since the participants were generally expected to have higher proficiency in
Japanese than in English, the questionnaires were available in Japanese (n91) and
English (n4). The Japanese translation was checked and approved for validity and
reliability during pilot work. Completion of the questionnaire was not timed or
supervised. All the data from the questionnaires were entered into SPSS for analysis.

Participants
Fully representative random sampling was not possible due to the lack of available
records. Instead, participants were recruited mainly through known intermediaries; in
other words, by snowball sampling, which is useful when members whereabouts are
not easily known (Do rnyei 2003). The intermediaries were associated with three
prominent groups of Japanese in London; namely, private company employees, pupils
at an independent high school in London, and students at commercial English
language schools, colleges and universities. However, it was initially anticipated that a
wider variety of participants might be recruited. Following the pilot study, 120
questionnaires were distributed, and 106 were returned directly to the researchers. Of
these responses, only 11 were not from the above groups, and although their inclusion
might have led to valuable insights, they were excluded from the study to facilitate
structural analysis of the data. The final sample of 95 participants included 30 company
employees (15 males, 15 females, mean age 36), 36 high-school pupils (26 males, 10
females, mean age 17), and 29 adult students (5 males, 24 females, mean age 31). Their
responses indicated that they all had Japanese nationality, were all born in Japan, had
two Japanese parents and their overall mean elapsed stay in the UK was 5.5 years.

334

I. Brown and I. Sachdev

Findings
Firstly, it should be noted that the generalisability of the findings and the scope for
detailed analysis of subgroups is limited by the modest sample size, exclusion of
certain groups of Japanese in London and the uneven distribution of males and
females across the categories of occupation. However, following satisfactory internal
consistency analyses (lowest alpha value0.86), and the absence of significant
differences between listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, global (mean)
values were obtained for use, attitudes to use, vitalities and proficiencies for each
language.

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Comparisons of means
First, in order to explore patterns of bilingualism and related constructs, the means
of all variables for the two languages and three occupations were compared using
mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with one within subjects factor
(language) and one between subjects factor (occupation). Table 1 shows that, apart
from attitudes to use and contact in London, highly significant main effects for
language were revealed for most variables. The mean ratings for attitudes suggest
that, globally, these groups of Japanese in London tend to have moderately positive
attitudes towards the use of each language in London.
As expected, perceived vitalities were predictably strongly contrasted, and all
Japanese identity variables and Japanese proficiency were rated highly. English
vitality in Japan was perceived somewhat more highly than Japanese vitality in
London, reflecting the status of English in Japan as an important international
language. Interestingly, inspection of the means suggests a tendency for identity
contrasts to be most pronounced where ethnic identity is concerned, and somewhat
attenuated where language is concerned. For language use, the main effect for
language was significant but small, with slightly more use of Japanese than of English
reported by the sample overall. A strong interactive effect was revealed between
language use and occupation, with students reporting more use of English than of
Japanese, company employees reporting similar use of each language, and pupils at
the Japanese high-school reporting much more use of Japanese than of English.
High-school pupils also reported notably lower proficiency in English than students
and company employees.
It should be stressed that given the structure of the sample, effects of gender
cannot be easily distinguished from effects of occupation. Nevertheless, females not
only reported more frequent use of English (m 3.9) than males (m 2.9; t5.47,
p B0.001), but they also reported more positive attitudes to the use of English (m 
3.9) than males (m 3.4; t 3.51, pB0.001), and rated English vitality in Japan
(m 2.9) more highly than males (m 2.4; t3.76, pB0.001). The latter two
gender effects were not paralleled in the mixed ANOVA, which tentatively suggests
that they may have some degree of independence from the factor of occupation.

Bilingual behaviour and attitudes across contexts

Figures 1 and 2 show the means for use and attitudes to use according to language
and context. Inspection of the means for use, as shown in Figure 1, supports two

Table 1.

ANOVAs for all major variables by language and occupation.

Use
Attitudes to use
Proficiency
Contact
Ethnic identity
Language identity
Value of language to identity
Vitality in London
Vitality in Japan

English (meansa)

CE

Overall

CE

Overall

F (1, x) (Main effect for

language)

3.3

3.7

4.1

4.0

3.7

2.6

4.6

4.8

4.5

3.7
3.8
4.6
3.2
4.6
4.5
4.3
1.9
4.6

3.1

3.3

2.4

3.4
3.7
2.9
3.1
1.3
2.0
3.7
4.5
2.7

4.01*
0.31
333.44***
0.30
736.01***
197.05***
29.19***
756.36***
445.65***

Note: S Students, CE Company employees, P Japanese high-school pupils.

a
Means for subgroups are only shown where an interactive effect was revealed.
b
x degrees of freedom.
*p B0.05; **pB0.01; ***pB0.001.

F (2, x)
(Interactive
effect)

xb

32.76***
NS
4.99**
NS
NS
NS
NS
NS
NS

89
85
83
77
70
69
79
86
86

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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Japanese (meansa)

335

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I. Brown and I. Sachdev

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expectations. Firstly, there was a sharp contrast between the general dominance of
English in interactions with non-Japanese interlocutors, and the dominance of
Japanese in the home with family members. Secondly, for all items involving places
outside the home and the use of media, Japanese was reportedly more frequent
overall, though without such obvious dominance. In fact, apart from items where a
non-Japanese interlocutor was specified, means for Japanese use in all contexts were
above three (i.e. often or always). A similar global pattern was noted for attitudes,
although the contrasts were somewhat attenuated. These observations also support
the expectation that the bilingual behaviour of these groups of Japanese in London
is not clearly diglossic, but an instance of somewhat unstable bilingualism
(Wardhaugh 1998) of the lingua franca type (Hamers and Blanc 2000).

Factor analysis and multiple linear regressions

In order to examine how the variables of contact, identity and vitality might work in
a combined way to predict bilingual behaviour and attitudes, multiple linear
regression analyses were required. However, multiple linear regression is considered
to be most effective when the predictor variables are not correlated (Kinnear and
Gray 2000). Therefore, a factor analysis with varimax rotation was run to extract
principle orthogonal components from all the variables except proficiency, which
would be expected to influence the extent to which that language can potentially be
used. As shown in Table 2, five orthogonal factors were extracted (Eigen values 1,
loadings below 0.4 ignored), which altogether explained 77.1% of the total variance.
The factors themselves suggest interesting social psychological schema at work in this
community. Majority vitalities appeared to be strongly correlated within Factor 1,
and a cohesive Japanese ethnolinguistic identity took shape in Factor 2. In addition,
Factor 3 seemed to represent the mutually complementary value of both languages to
participants identities, and the composition of Factor 4 highlighted the relevance of
the perceived vitality of a language in ones country of origin to identification with
the given language and its group. Finally, Factor 5 reflects the inverse correlation
between the amounts of contact with L1 speakers of each language.
In the multiple linear regression analyses, proficiencies were entered in the first
step, followed by the other factors in the second step, to observe changes in predictive
power. This process was repeated for both use and attitudes for each language, and the
results are reported in Table 3. None of the dependent variables was predicted by
Japanese proficiency or Japanese ethnolinguistic identity. This may be related to the
consistently high ratings of these two variables due to the nature of the sample. In
contrast, both Japanese use and English use were predicted by English proficiency, the
former negatively and the latter positively. Japanese use was also predicted by contact,
although the addition of this factor did not significantly increase the amount of
variance explained (R Square change 0.115, p0.05, NS). However, the addition of
Factors 1, 3 and 4 did significantly improve the prediction of English use. A similar
pattern of relationships, albeit with the absence of proficiency, emerged for the
prediction of attitudes to the use of each language. Thus, while no overall predictive
model was revealed for attitudes to Japanese use, the addition of social psychological
factors significantly improved the prediction of attitudes to English use.

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Table 2.

Orthogonal components revealed by factor analysis.

Factor
Factor 1
Majority vitalities

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337

Percentage (%)
variance explained
20.0

Significant contributors
Perceived Japanese vitality
in Japan
Perceived English vitality
in London
Perceived Japanese vitality
in London

Loading
0.96
0.93
0.72

Factor 2
Japanese ethnolinguistic
identity

16.4

Japanese language identity

Japanese ethnic identity

0.96
0.94

Factor 3
Additive value of
languages to identity

14.0

Importance of English to
identity
Importance of Japanese to
identity

0.79

Factor 4
English/British identity and
English vitality in Japan

13.4

Factor 5
Subtractive
English
Japanese contact
in London

13.4

0.79

English language identity

British ethnic identity

0.77
0.70

Perceived vitality of
English in Japan

0.55

Contact with
speakers in
Contact with
speakers in

0.86

L1 English
London
L1 Japanese
London

0.84

Correlations
A few Pearson bivariate correlations are worth mentioning. For example, an additive
relationship was also found between the proficiencies in each language (r 0.23, pB
0.05). In addition, from among all the identity variables, only two significant negative
correlations were found, namely that between British and Japanese ethnic identities
(r0.29, pB0.05), and that between British ethnic identity and Japanese language
identity (r 0.30, p B0.01). Finally, time spent in the UK was correlated with: (1)
English use (r 0.29, pB0.05); (2) English proficiency (r0.40, p B0.001); (3)
British ethnic identity (r0.29, p B0.05); and (4) English language identity (r 0.25,
p B0.05).
Discussion
The findings of this study differed from studies on second-generation minorities in a
number of respects. The fact that these participants were Japanese nationals born in
Japan meant that Japanese proficiency and Japanese ethnolinguistic identity were
rated consistently highly with little variance, which led to these variables playing very
minimal roles in the multivariate analyses. Additionally, overall reported Japanese
use was significantly higher than overall English use. In contrast, Lawson and
Sachdev (2004) found consistently high ratings with respect to English proficiency,
English use and attitudes to English, which concurs with Okita (2002), who also

338

Multiple linear regressions predicting the use and attitudes to the use of each language.

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Predictors (standardised beta weights)

Step
number
Japanese use
English use
Attitudes to
Japanese use
Attitudes to
English use
a

Step
Step
Step
Step
Step
Step
Step
Step

1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2

Fa

R square
change

Japanese
proficiency

English
proficiency

7.17**
3.53**
18.25***
9.01***
0.26
1.50
3.60*
3.73**

0.19**
0.12
0.37***
0.16**
0.01
0.15
0.10*
0.21**

0.14
0.18
0.16
0.15
0.09
0.01
0.21
0.18

0.40**
0.37**
0.57***
0.39**
0.01
0.04
0.22
0.04

Df for Step 12, 64; Df for Step 27, 64.

*pB0.05; **pB0.01; ***pB0.001.

Factor 1
Majority
vitalities
0.03
0.25**
0.10
0.30**

Factor 2
Japanese
ethnolinguistic
identity
0.12
0.04
0.20
0.01

Factor 4
English/
British
Factor 3
Additive identity and
English
value of
vitality in
languages
Japan
to identity

Factor 5
Subtractive
English

Japanese
contact in
London

0.07

0.11

0.29*

0.23*

0.22*

0.15

0.15

0.05

0.28*

0.26*

0.29*

0.01

I. Brown and I. Sachdev

Table 3.

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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

339

found that English tended to dominate in any interactions involving the nonJapanese fathers, even at home. Finally, contact with speakers of each language was
evenly distributed in the present study, whereas contact with the dominant language
is typically higher among children of immigrants to western Anglophone societies
(e.g. Bourhis and Sachdev 1984; Lawson and Sachdev 2004).
The multivariate analyses both supported and progressed from previous literature
in important ways. Firstly, the variance in the use of each language was partly
predicted by a competence variable, in this case English proficiency. Secondly,
English use and attitudes to English use were predicted in similar ways by factors that
included vitality, additive value of both languages to identity, and English
ethnolinguistic identity. The analyses also suggest that these groups of Japanese in
London form attitudes to the use of English based on social psychological factors,
rather than proficiency. On the other hand, the findings supported the expectation
that conceptions of vitalities in Japan would be as important predictors of language
behaviour as perceived vitalities in London. In fact, local minority vitality played a
relatively minor predictive role, differing markedly from the findings of Kelly et al.
(1993) and Lawson and Sachdev (2004).
The occupation and gender effects revealed by this study supported the notion
that the internal structural characteristics of an ethnolinguistic group should be
taken into account in intergroup sociolinguistic studies (Husband and Saifullah
Khan 1982). In the present study, the overall patterns of means revealed for gender
and occupation suggest that the occupation effect for use could be related to the
occupation effect for proficiency. On the other hand, the gender effect for use was
arguably more traceable to the gender effects for attitudes and perceived vitalities.
Apart from some gender-neutral findings (e.g. Lawson and Sachdev 2004; Nakata
2000; Okubo 2001), females often show more positive attitudes towards other
language communities (e.g. Baker and MacIntyre 2000; Dewaele 2005; Giles and
Coupland 1991; MacIntyre et al. 2002). According to Dewaele (2005), this
phenomenon may be related to females increased socioemotional orientations, in
the sense that, from early childhood, boys may learn to deal with problems through
spatial exploration and independent action, whereas girls may do so through social
communication (Anastasi 1985), developing a focus on the metacommunicative,
interpersonal and affective aspects of their interactions (Dewaele 2001; Holmes
1997).
The whole pattern of relationships between the identity variables arguably points
to the following underlying processes driven by identity management strategies,
though we should remember that a significant positive or negative association does
not constitute proof of a cause
effect relationship. While a small minority of these
Japanese communities may develop a slight British identity that leads to increased
English language identity and attenuation of Japanese ethnolinguistic identity,
increased identification with the English language per se may not necessarily lead
to increased British identity or subtract from their Japanese ethnolinguistic identity.
There may, then, be a tendency for those Japanese community members who identify
with the English language to identify with it as a social entity independent from
Britishness, perhaps, as an international lingua franca. In fact, the additive
relationships between proficiencies and each languages value to identity indicate a
trend towards additive bilingualism as defined by Landry and Allard (1994), with the
important exception of British ethnic identity; a notion that would be consistent with

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340

I. Brown and I. Sachdev

identification with English as an international lingua franca. Indeed, this particular

status of English and its perceived vitality in Japan contributed to the significant role
revealed in this study for conditions outside the populations immediate environment.
The positive role of the additive values of both languages to participants identities in
predicting English use and attitudes to English use seems to point to an identification
with bilingual ability among these communities.
This line of reasoning, given the increasingly hegemonic status of English, has
implications for the application of the constructs of ethnolinguistic identity and
vitality in relevant contexts. It is surely essential in intergroup studies to consider this
languages increasingly diversified cultural status, however localised the population
under investigation may be, but especially in populations of relatively mobile
individuals. Yashima (2002) has responded to this important contemporary issue
(importantly in the Japanese ethnolinguistic context) by positing the social
psychological construct of international posture, in place of Gardners (1985)
integrative orientation, in order to reflect the role of English as a lingua franca,
especially its use in communicating with Japans Asian neighbours. International
posture includes the following: interest in foreign or international affairs, willingness
to go overseas to stay or work, readiness to interact with intercultural partners and
openness or a non-ethnocentric attitude towards different cultures.
Two principal caveats to these findings should be considered. Firstly, while the
three subgroups in the sample, namely company employees, students and pupils at a
Japanese high school, reflected the largest groups of Japanese in London the internal
structure of the sample was such that gender and occupation were conflated, thereby
complicating subgroup comparisons. Secondly, some kinds of Japanese resident were
not represented in this sample, such as the spouses of company employees, Japanese
spouses of non-Japanese residents and children of intermarried couples. Regarding
the latter two categories, for example, Okita (2002) found that, rather than steadily
increasing their identification with Britishness and the English language during
their lives in the UK, a small number of the Japanese mothers, who initially thought
that they should become British, later reversed this attitude and focused on
maintaining their Japanese ethnicity, culture and language.
To conclude, this study supported the general relational principles of previous
literature, in showing that the variance in bilingual behaviour and attitudes of these
categories of Japanese in London is significantly related to variance in social
psychological variables as well as proficiency and specific context of use. However, it
also highlighted several important contextual issues, particularly, the importance of
considering the precise nature of a population and its internal structural characteristics. This does not contradict previous research but it is an appropriate and
necessary consideration for studies of minorities who are not mainly of second
generation.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the participants for their time, Shoko Brown for her translation and
liaison work, and the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

341

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