The linguascape of English social media and the Fukushima nuclear disaster: The sociolinguistic and educational implications in the context of Japanese EFL university students

This study conducts a critical discourse analysis on English language Western social media such as Facebook through the “eyes of Japanese EFL university students”, focusing on thematic issues specifically related to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The main research participants are Japanese EFL students studying at the University of Aizu, Fukushima, Japan, who all have personally experienced the disaster in 2011. The study shows three main implications:

1. The overall linguistic diversity and sociolinguistic practices of social media participants should be better understood through the notion of “linguascape” rather than the traditional terms such as “mono/bi/multilingualism and codeswitching/codemixing” because of the social media users’ recontextualization of varied transnational flows of linguistic, cultural and semiotic resources circulating across the current globalization.
2. Understanding locally challenging yet globally controversial issues such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster through “the linguascape of social media” may open up the ways where EFL students in Japan negotiate their linguistic and cultural differences and similarities through critical eyes and open-mindedness in order to become “socio-culturally conscious” globally mobile citizens.
3. As opposed to anecdotal and negative ideologies mainly circulating across the Western social media, the study offers a better real-life understanding of the Fukushima nuclear disaster from the perspectives of local residents, while seeking to contribute to the Fukushima revitalization initiatives and programs in Japan.