Local Practices of Global Language Learning:
Hippo Family Club in Japan and the United States

Chad Nilep

Abstract for paper presented at
GLS 2007
Language and Globalization: Policy, Education, and Media
Georgetown University
March 30-April 1 2007

This paper examines different uses made of the same foreign language curriculum in the United States and Japan, and argues that dissimilar reactions to similar discourses are a product of distinct language ideologies in each nation. Practices surrounding language learning and language use are seen as evidence for language ideologies (Woolard and Schieffelin 1994). Further, as Gal asserts, "language ideologies are never only about language. They posit close relations between linguistic practices and other social activities and have semiotic properties that provide insights into the workings of ideologies more generally" (2005: 24). This paper relates language ideologies to ideologies of nationality and national identity.

Testimony from members of Hippo Family Club, an international organization founded in Tokyo in 1981 dedicated to the notion that "anyone can speak seven languages," is examined. Club members, both adults and children, listen to Hippo CDs and recite short speeches in seven national languages - Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish - at local chapter meetings in Japan and the US, among others. Analysis of this spoken discourse is supplemented by observations during extended participant observation. Results of these analyses reveal that while Hippo members create and maintain a global, multilingual self-image, their activities and ideologies are at the same time compatible with "national identity" discourses in each nation.

Chad Nilep is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a member of the Colorado Research in Linguistics editorial board. He can be reached at:Chad.Nilep@Colorado.edu.