Taku’s SA Narrative in the U.S.

In this chapter, the author presents the TL-mediated socializing narrative of Taku, a Japanese international student who studied in the U.S. for one semester. Taku’s prior determination to actively socialize enabled him to quickly explore TL-mediated socializing opportunities from the start of his study abroad (SA). While Taku did not experience a sudden loss of social connections, he did face a temporary decrease in socializing opportunities when the summer holidays began, as many of his ESL classmates returned home. Unlike Yuri, Taku placed less emphasis on his linguistic capital (English skills) in developing social relationships. Instead, he utilized his cultural capital, such as knowledge of soccer, sports skills, and Japanese pop culture, which became his trans-bordering cultural capital (Fukada, JACET Journal, 59, 169–186, 2015; Fukada, Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 2(1), 53–79, 2017a; Fukada, Situated target language learning in affinity space: A case study of one Chinese international student studying in Japan. In Y. Maruhashi, M. Hidaka, & M. Nishiyama (Eds.), Collected essays on comparative studies: Bridges between cultures (pp. 53–69). Eikousha, 2017b; Fukada, An ethnographic case study of one Korean international student’s TL-mediated socializing in affinity space of the host country. In V. Korhonen, & P. Alenius (Eds.), Internationalisation and transnationalisation in higher education (pp. 219–236). Peter Lang, 2018; Fukada, L2 learning during study abroad: The creation of affinity spaces. Springer, 2019). This helped him establish English-mediated affinity spaces with ESL classmates and local people. Although Taku quickly built a comfortable TL-mediated affinity space with his peers, it took longer to create one with his host mother due to a one-month argument about wearing a bicycle helmet. However, this conflict became a valuable learning experience in negotiating meaning (Wenger, Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press, 1998) and enhanced his English communication skills.