ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the stories of two young Japanese Australian women in relation to their Japanese language skills and their developing and changing identities. It focuses on the experiences of heritage learners of Japanese in Australia. To understand the two young adult heritage learner's negotiation of identity is described in the chapter, it is also important to consider the ways in which development in a heritage language has been conceptualized in the literature and has shaped approaches to research. An alternative approach to heritage language research, focuses on analyzing the organization of communicative practices through which heritage language learners acquire or maintain sociocultural knowledge, interactional competence, and literacy. The chapter also explores that how the Japanese identities have been evaluated. Through an analysis of their stories, that their Japanese language development has a strong association with their sense of identity as Japanese. As a result, there is a change in understanding of Japanese language learning in formal education contexts.
