This paper illustrates plurilingual identities of Denisa, a female Slovak student, who has extensive study abroad experiences, focusing her lived experience of language (Busch, 2017). Changes to her repertoire are nuanced, having to prioritise some components for her career, while minimising others despite their emotional value.
This paper illustrates the plurilingual identities of Denisa (pseudonym), a female Slovak student, who has extensive study abroad experiences and I focus on her lived experience of language (Busch, 2017). Her interest, passion, and language use changed as she moved across national borders and along in her life path. Her linguistic repertoire will be reconstructed, based on 5 interviews and 4 language-portraits (languages drawn on body silhouettes) conducted and drawn in 2015-2019. Denisa speaks Slovak and Czech since childhood, and Slovak has always been the language of her emotions, associated with her home/family. Her feelings towards her other languages, however, have changed over time. She learned English, German, Latin and Spanish in school. When she was 13, she became fascinated by Japanese writing systems and began to learn Japanese in private lessons. In high school, she spent a year studying in Austria, commuting there by train. She also studied in the U.S. for a year to improve her English. She then majored in Japanese at a university in England, and spent a year in Japan for compulsory study abroad. She went on to study an MA in the UK, and then pursued a second MA in Japan, focusing on Japanese Studies. As she prepares herself to build her career, she feels the need to focus on English, the language that she now feels comfortable with and that seems most useful for her career. Slovak will be tucked away because it does not serve a professional purpose despite its emotional value. Study abroad may be regarded as a way to expand linguistic repertoires, but Denisa organises her linguistic repertoire in response to her needs and environment.
