This book examines dilemmas faced by second language Japanese speakers as a result of persistent challenges to their legitimacy as speakers of Japanese. It explores ideologies linked to three core speech styles of Japanese - keigo or polite language, gendered language and regional dialects - to show how such ideologies impact L2-Japanese speakers.

Jae DiBello Takeuchi is Assistant Professor of Japanese and Director of the Language and International Business Program in the Department of Languages, Clemson University, South Carolina, USA. Her research interests include Japanese sociolinguistics and language variation, second language acquisition, foreign language pedagogy, native speaker bias and speaker legitimacy.