Language Learning, Gender and Desire

Kimie Takahashi is Lecturer at the Graduate School of English at Assumption University of Thailand. Her research interests centre on gender, second language learning and social inclusion in the context of transmigration. She is co-founder of the sociolinguistics website Language on the Move (www.languageonthemove.org).

• 1. Introduction2. Language Desire3. Ryugaku4. Desired Interlocutors5. Agency6. Going Home7. Conclusion

Kimie Takahashi's investigation of the desires that lead Japanese women to learn English interrogates and ultimately challenges all kinds of stereotypes - Asian and Western, racial and sexual, cultural and linguistic. Original and thought-provoking, this book opens up important questions about second language learning, and makes a novel contribution to ongoing discussions of language, identity and difference.