Shifting contexts

The way people see each other, think of each other, and communicate with each other is constantly subject to change, as well as reinterpretation, as we process through time or move through space. All communication therefore is marked by relatively stable aspects, for instance rules of grammar, and shifting aspects, with a considerable degree of instability.

Thus relationships between people may change as they get older and new generations carve out their own ways of communication, quite often in deliberate contrast to what they understand to be a norm. Also, migration between countries and cultures, or within a country or region, or novel family constellations with members from places far apart, lead to types of interaction which cannot blindly follow any norm.

If we thus set out to learn "Japanese", we must remember that the people using this language are individual subjects acting and reacting within a shifting context generating perpetual awareness of changing frameworks. Moreover, we must not overlook the fact that also we ourselves are not monolithic entities sending out clear-cut signals as how others should deal with us.