“My Body Doesn’t Hinder Me, So I’m Satisfied”: Enacting Japanese Lives through Lingual Life Histories

Drawing on narratives collected from two married individuals, I examine how a Japanese woman (Kikue) and her husband (Tōru) recast their life histories from two perspectives: changes in eating patterns and body satisfaction. Their narratives discursively construct them as particular kinds of people in a particular moment in time. Their lingual life histories are reflected in the discourses of domestic competency and body satisfaction (Kikue) and longing for youth and body disatisfaction (Tōru) which serve to enact lives of resilience and acquiescence, respectively. Additionally, they situate themselves within Japanese society by justifying actions and behaviors in ways that are deemed reasonable and comprehensible for their generation. A lingual life history account is significant because it addresses two perennial questions within linguistic anthropology: (1) how speakers’ language practices serve to (re)shape and make sense of individual experiences, and (2) how individuals both situate within and connect themselves to larger social systems.