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Title:

Is English a nuisance or an asset? Japanese youths’ discursive constructions of

language attitudes

Author name:

Akihiro Saito, Dr.

Affiliation:

School of Linguistics, Adult and Specialist Education, Faculty of Education,

University of Southern Queensland

Corresponding author:

Assistant Professor Akihiro Saito1

E-mail: akisaito@hi-tech.ac.jp

Office: 81 178 25 8051

Mobile: 81 90 61631842

Abstract:

This paper draws on a thematic discourse analysis of the written accounts about

“English” produced by 32 Japanese college students. A constructionist

psychological framework is used to explore the intermediary function of

language in the construction of language attitudes. The study investigates how

the respondents construct their multiple different attitudes as they interact with

the social meanings and representations of the global language and the cultural

context which reconstitute these representations. It is evidenced that the

respondents’ language attitudes are occasioned in the social and political

1 Present address:

Hachinohe Institute of Technology

Honkan 320, 88-1 Myo-Obiraki

Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture

031- 8501 Japan

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parameters of the cultural context of which they are a part. The respondents’

positions in this cultural context, their past, present, and future images of self,

and their alignment with socially induced ways of thinking about English

together exert influences on language attitudes construction. The paper shows

the immense complexity of the contestation processes between language

learners’ attitudes and the rapidly changing social climate in and around Japan.

Keywords:

language learning; language attitude; Japanese; ELT; constructionism;

discursive psychology

1 Introduction

Ever-changing global dynamics draw attention to people’s current attitudes toward

English as a much purported global language, for attitudes change in synchrony

with social transformation (e.g., Ryder, 1965). At the same time, attitude to the

target language is construed to be one of the vital factors influencing the course of

one’s language learning (Baker, 1992; Garrett, 2010). These together warrant that

attitudes constitute a timely and relevant theme of exploration in the context of

English language learning and teaching (ELT). An examination of attitudes

reveals socially-held meanings of certain phenomena and people’s positions in

society (Garrett, 2010). Namely, attitudes provide a glimpse into the contours of

one’s being in social context and of the context itself. To date, many attitude

studies have been conducted in the context of ELT worldwide (see Jenkins, 2007;

McKenzie, 2010). Meanwhile, the advent of discursive turns in social science, and

in psychology especially (Harré, 2001), induced notable change in the theoretical

and epistemological status of attitudes. With this, attitudes are viewed as dynamic

and social processes constructed in discourses as they co-occur with identity

construction of attitude holders (Davies & Harré, 1990; Potter & Wetherell, 1987).

Despite the emergence of this alternative epistemology, there seems to be an

insufficient attention to how people’s discourses intermediate in the construction

of language attitudes in Japanese contexts in particular.

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In Japan, English has been hitherto taught as a foreign language, and mandatory

lessons start at grade five (Fennelly & Luxton, 2011). In post-Meiji modern Japan,

the English language was a tool to decipher and import technological knowledge

from overseas. It has since occupied a preeminent place in the national curriculum

and university entrance examinations, and its wash-back effect has been the

prevalence and persistence of the grammar-translation method (Sakui, 2004).

Despite a continued policy effort and educational intervention, such as promoting

a more communicative approach (Nishino, 2008), the outcome has been

considered to be far from successful (Gottlieb, 2005).

However, in present-day post-industrial Japan, the English language has intensely

been institutionalised as many local companies and the bureaucracy demand

evidence of language proficiency of its employees for promotion and overseas

assignments as well as of student interviewees fresh from college (Fukuyama,

2013, May 7). Japan’s two retail giants, Rakuten (an Internet services company)

and First Retailing (operator of the clothing company Uniqlo), have adopted

English as in-house working language (“Ready or not,” 2012, June 30). Installing

TOEFL as part of university entrance exams has been a recent proposal issued by

one of Japan’s influential economic organisations (Hongo, 2013, May 25). The

recent institutional transformation of Japanese society has centred on this “global”

language, English.

This paper draws on a thematic discourse analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of the

accounts about English produced by 32 Japanese college students. It investigates

how the students construct their multiple different attitudes as they interact with

the social representations of this global language and the cultural context which

give rise to their attitudes. A constructionist psychological framework, founded

upon the assumption that language “provides us with a system of categories for

dividing up our experience and giving it meaning, so that our very selves become

the products of language” (Burr, 2003, p. 62), is used to explore the intermediary

function of language in the construction of attitudes. The corollary of using this

constructionist approach is that the theoretical construct of attitude once

conceived in positivist epistemology has fragmented into a multitude of evaluative

practices. That is, holding a particular attitude “becomes bound up with issues of

stake and the construction of factual versions (‘that’s not just what I think, that’s

the way it is’) and forms part of a broader, constantly circulating ideological field”

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(Potter & Wetherell, 1995, p. 83). This understanding of language and attitude

coincides with the notion of discourse as a social practice “that both reproduces

and changes knowledge, identities, and social relations including power relations,

and at the same time is also shaped by other social practices and structures”

(Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002, p. 65).

2 Literature Review

The inflow of qualitative methodologies into the study of language attitudes over

the past few decades has broadened its methodological spectrum (Garrett, 2010;

Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2009). Whilst psychometric experimental methods of

analysis such as matched-guise technique were conventionally preferred (e.g.,

Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, & Fillenbaum, 1960), they have hitherto received

criticisms such as (1) the difficulty in applying their findings to real-life situations,

(2) the suppression of variability in the survey responses, and (3) the separation of

the attitude object from its evaluation (Hyrkstedt & Kalaja, 1998). Whereas the

research question has to be paramount in choosing one approach from another, the

use of interpretative methodologies such as discourse analysis has been advocated

lately (Hyrkstedt & Kalaja, 1998; Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2009; Winter,

1992). Hyrkstedt and Kalaja (1998) argue that researchers should attend to “how

the attitudes or views are constructed …in the argumentative context … and what

function(s) these may serve” (p. 348). Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain (2009) argue

that “discourse-based approaches… should be regarded … as fundamental forms

of language-attitude research in and of themselves” (p. 219).

In Japan, most language attitude research operates under the positivist

epistemology. While many positivistic research studies focused on Japanese

attitudes toward different varieties of English (Benson, 1991; Chiba, Matsuura, &

Yamamoto, 1995; Matsuura, Chiba, & Fujieda, 1999; Matsuura, Chiba, &

Yamamoto, 1994; Author, 2012; Author & Co-author, 2011), research which

addressed the discursive processes involved in the construction of those attitudes

remains non-existent. Mainstream psychology views attitudes to be one’s

favourable or unfavourable responses to stimuli of some sort, or to varieties of a

language or different languages and their speakers in the case of language

attitudes. Attitudes are claimed to be consisting of three components: feelings,

thought, and behavioural tendency (Maio & Haddock, 2010). This positivistic

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understanding of attitudes presumes that they are enclosed within one’s brain and

can only be inferred via behaviour observation and/or psychometric

questionnaires. This approach places the prime emphasis upon the psychological

phenomena as observed in vitro and tends to lack due consideration of the cultural

ideologies and social environs that give rise to these phenomena under

investigation (see Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2009).

Despite this perceived weakness of the positivist methodology, only a few

researchers have adopted qualitative approaches in the Japanese context

(Kobayashi, 2001; Matsuda, 2000, 2003). Kobayashi (2001) investigated

university-preparatory high school students’ perceptions about English study,

attending to Japan’s socio-educational context. An open-ended semi-structured

questionnaire was used to elicit 66 students’ responses in written form about (1)

learning English as a school subject, (2) continuing to learn English in their life

after graduation, and (3) the English language itself and English language learning

as practiced in Japanese society. She found that the general association of English

with internationalisation in Japanese society (see Hashimoto, 2000) helps nurture

local students’ orientation to communicate with both native and non-native

speakers of English. Students’ integrative and outward orientation is complicated

with the exam-oriented educational context devoid of genuinely communicative

activities on the one hand. On the other, their perceptions are concomitant with

the society outside their educational settings which favours English for

international communication, and yet lacks any immediate practical need for

communicative skills. In sum, Japanese students’ complex attitudes are matched

with the distinction between learning English at school for university entrance

exams and their culturally afforded notions of English for international

communication.

Matsuda (2000) conducted a qualitative case study on Japanese high school

students’ attitudes and beliefs about English, use of English, and varieties of

English. Her participants’ responses show (1) their positive attitudes towards US

and UK Englishes, (2) a lack of awareness of varieties other than American and

British ones, and (3) the view of English as the property of native speakers, while

at the same time, they ambivalently perceived English to be an international

language. However, while the approach taken is certainly qualitative, the used

methodology indeed features some positivist assumptions. The first is revealed in

the theory and approach the study draws on. It cited the mainstream theory of

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attitude in quantitative psychology (Matsuda, 2000, p. 29): Attitudes are “a

hypothetical construct used to explain the direction and persistence of human

behaviour” (Baker, 1992, p. 10). Second, the study adopted the positivist ontology

which is manifest throughout the data collection and analysis procedures, such as

the counting of instances and attempts to generalise interviewees’ attitudes. The

participants’ comments were treated as reporting of their perceptions rather than

as discursive constructions of their perceptions in their own right. What counts as

knowledge, therefore, is the product of the researcher’s careful observation of the

objective reality, not of his or her interpretative accounts of how the focal

phenomena are discursively produced.

As Kobayashi’s (2001) study suggests, a sound understanding of attitudes can be

gained when their social milieu is considered duly. Matsuda’s (2000) study shows

that there is plenty of room to explore the confidence of an alternative

methodology in attitudes research in Japan. This research situation warrants the

notion of discourse as a fresh approach to both current and cultural context of

Japan’s ELT. Furthermore, the outdatedness of the data in the literature needs to

be addressed. Upon this justification, instead of taking a positivistic approach to

individual minds, the present paper investigates the processes in which language

attitudes are discursively constructed in learners’ accounts, while addressing the

up-to-date trends in attitudes.

In this context, the paper reports on Japanese college students’ attitudes to English,

focusing on a broad range of meanings evident in their discourses. Using a

constructionist methodology (Burr, 2003), the paper seeks to not only analyse

learners’ reported experiences, beliefs, and so forth, about English, but also

examine the extent to which those experiences and beliefs are interlinked with

broader cultural ways of thinking about and making sense of the English

language—its being, its significance, and the functions it is perceived to serve.

This process is an interactive one in which discourse and experience is informed

by broader social meanings, but in turn, such discourse excavates the cultural

context which gives rise to discourse and attitudes. In this discursive epistemology,

attitudes cease to be mere visceral responses for or against an attitude object.

Rather, attitudes come to be “stances on a matter of public debate … the

possession of an attitude … signifies an implicit willingness to enter into

controversy” (Billig, 1996, p. 207). The following three questions guide the

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inquiry: (1) What are the discourses around “English”? (2) what accounts do the

students tell about this language? and (3) to what extent are these accounts

interlinked with cultural ways of making sense of the global language, English?

3 Methodology

3.1 Data collection

This study was part of a larger project which investigated attitudes to English

among Japanese sojourner students at an Australian university. The students came

from two Japanese universities during their vacations and were temporarily

studying English language courses of four to six weeks’ duration. The project

information was displayed in the university premises and communicated to the

students by university staff members in class. Of these students, thirty-two

consented to participate, and a writing session was held where each respondent

wrote a brief essay as outlined below. The respondents were dominantly female

(30 out of 32), and their ages ranged from 19 to 21. They majored in a range of

different studies in their home country, such as social sciences, social welfare, law,

letters, business administration, graphic arts, and political science. In this paper,

they are referred to under pseudonyms in parentheses.

In order to make an argumentative context that the discursive definition of attitude

presupposes as above, the author constructed three excerpts which together form

one piece of writing on the global expansion and local penetration of the English

language in both Japanese society and the rest of the world. Respondents were

asked to read the excerpts and to write an essay as an expression of their response

and reflections on the themes argued about in the excerpts. The excerpts included

and argued about three themes negatively: the global prevalence of English and its

deterministic futurology, the potential detrimental impact of expansion of English

upon non-English speaking societies, and the negative implications of this

expansion for Japanese society. The language used to write the three excerpts and

to express respondents’ responses was Japanese. In this paper, English translations

of the responses are provided in lieu of the original ones.

3.2 Analysis

The written responses were transcribed verbatim electronically, and subjected to

qualitative analysis for commonly recurring themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The

overall analytic process was aimed at a rich description of the entire data rather

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than at a detailed account of a certain particular element therein. In line with the

constructionist epistemology (Burr, 2003), the analysis focused on what was

actually said or written in the respondents’ essays as a collection of culturally

available accounts or texts that help visualise the social, cultural landscape.

Therefore, it did not focus on the psychological idiosyncrasies of attitude holders

like in a positivistic study; the correlation between texts and individuals was not

involved here.

A bottom-up inductive approach was taken such that the entire process was

data-driven and the analytic outcome was strongly linked to the data themselves

(Patton, 1990). The data was read and re-read, coded and re-coded, and the

extracts linked to the codes were organised in different themes. It was ensured that

the analysis was not only engaged with the explicit content of the data but also,

where possible, pursued a latent, interpretative level analysis (Boyatzis, 1998),

which focussed upon “the underlying ideas, assumptions, and

conceptualisations—and ideologies—that are theorized as shaping or informing

the semantic content of the data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84). The analysis was

oriented to theorising the sociocultural contexts and structural conditions that give

rise to the actual instances of respondents’ written accounts.

In the end, the identified themes were reviewed, and Patton’s (1990) dual

criteria—internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity—for judging categories

was considered here. The former criterion concerns the extent to which the texts

that belong in a theme cluster together in a meaningful way. The latter criterion

concerns the extent to which differences among themes are conspicuous.

According to these criteria, it was ensured that the extracts in each theme and

subtheme appeared to form a coherent pattern (Figure 1), while at the same time,

the validity of the themes was checked against the entire data. That is, the author

considered the extent to which the themes adequately reflect the meanings evident

in the data set as a whole by reading the accounts repeatedly. If there was any data

missing from themes or an overlap among themes, additional coding was

conducted and the themes were modified.

Figure 1 (near here): Thematic map, showing two themes

4 Results

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The distribution of the identified themes and subthemes across respondents is

shown in Table 1. It is notable that while the subtheme transnational connections

was prevalent, there was no difference in terms of frequency between negative

and positive subthemes on the whole. Indeed, it is discernible that, in most

respondents’ essays, both positive and negative attitudes co-occurred and

co-located (n=17). This paper focuses on two overarching themes identified in the

respondents’ written accounts about English: “English as nuisance” and “English

as asset”.

Table 1 (near here): Frequency of themes across respondents

4.1 English as Nuisance

A negative construction of English as nuisance recurred throughout most

respondents’ accounts. This negative depiction was identified both in accounts

about personal experiences, beliefs, and so forth, and in those about how society is

supposed to embrace “English”. Here, the paper focuses on three ways in which

the construction of English as nuisance is manifest—in accounts about (a) threat

to identity, (b) imposition, and (c) communication barrier.

4.1.1 Threat to identity

A cultural context was identified where English is purported to bring about

negative impact upon the ecology of language and culture. The expansion of

English puts “minority languages at risk of extinguishment” and “discourages the

cultivation of different cultures around the world” (Ai), the use of English leads to

“the loss of languages and cultures peculiar to respective nations” (Miho). Along

with these possible negative effects, the relationship between a nation and its

culture and language were also told. The constructions of this relationship points

to an underlying assumption from which negative accounts about English could

be launched:

Speaking English means depriving a nation of its language. Language is

intertwined with culture. Depriving a nation of its culture means that the nation

disappears. (Yui)

This relationship between a nation and its language translates into the issue of

identity. Constructed in some participants’ accounts was the intersection of

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language and identity. The transliteration practice in Japanese (i.e., the

transcription of foreign words via local kana syllabaries) “leads to a massive loss

of merits and beauty of the Japanese language” (Ai). Here, the transliteration—as

opposed to translation—practice is constructed as a compromise, while at the

same time, properties of the local language are glorified. Ai highlights her mother

tongue as being at issue. The issue takes on an affective significance as she

actively constructs her identity as Japanese: “I myself was born as Japanese in

Japan, and think things in the Japanese way, and I feel a sense of self in using the

Japanese language” (Ai).

She ascribes her identity to her status as a person born and raised in Japan, a

Japanese speaker and thinker, upon which, she claims, her sense of being Japanese

rests. Here, her text merges into the external text of reference to Japanese identity,

which constitutes a discourse about the nation of Japan, shaping a set of ways to

understand one’s being and belonging. In the social sciences, this discourse is

called nihonjinron, “the popular essentialist genre in Japan, which purports to

analyse Japan's quintessence and cultural core by using three

concepts—nationality, ethnicity and culture” (Sugimoto, 1999).

Overall, the accounts in this subtheme resonate with the theory of cultural core

values (Smolicz, 1979) and/or linguistic human rights claimed to underpin the

sustainable linguistic and cultural ecology/diversity (Phillipson &

Skutnabb-Kangas, 1996; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000). The moral imperative to

protect and cultivate linguistic and cultural diversity expressed in the extracts

echoes the notions of language as a core value and language rights. While some

studies allude to or claim a negative impact of English on Japanese identity

(Kubota, 1998; McVeigh, 2004), only a limited attention has been paid to the

linkage between language and national identification in the Japanese ELT context

(Sullivan & Schatz, 2009). The data show respondents’ orientation to their

linguistic, cultural, and national identification in resistance to the spread of

English as argued in the simulated writing. It is evidenced how the respondents

constructed their sense of being and belonging from which to articulate their

stances on the matter of controversy, English. It is in this discursive context that

their attitudes and identities are concomitantly articulated.

4.1.2 Imposition

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Another manifestation of English as nuisance ran through respondents’ accounts

about societal rather than personal demands. These accounts identified a

landscape in which English is purported to be an advantage in one’s pursuit of

employment and career opportunities. The recurrent terms here were studying

abroad, being/becoming employed, and career success/promotion. In some

instances, positive evaluations of English are made, juxtaposing

internationalisation which is much purported to be underway in and around

Japanese society:

I feel that one will not be able to get by with Japanese language skills only

amidst the rapid progression of internationalisation. Indeed, speakers of English

are better off in job-seeking than those who cannot speak it. I believe one’s

English skills open up a wide range of possibilities. (Mai)

Mai placed her account against the backdrop of internationalisation such that her

account accentuates the positive impact of English upon one’s job-seeking.

Thereby English emerged being interlinked with socio-cultural artefacts, such as

schooling, university entrance competition, job-seeking, language testing systems,

and lifelong learning of English throughout one’s professional life. These artefacts

were cited to normalise people’s motives and choice to learn English emanating

from changing social structures. This is reinforced by other respondents’ accounts:

“as a current trend, companies consider English language competence as one of

the important criteria in graduate recruitment” (Hiroya), “companies demand a

high level of English proficiency of university graduates. This very practice

testifies the spread of English and its influence on Japanese society” (Mizuki); and

“English is essential in our life as we have to present TOEIC scores or other

language test certificates in applying for job interviews” (Aimi). Further

constructed in these accounts is English as something reified in quantifiable test

scores through a testing system, and these scores feeds into the current social

practice. This social practice (i.e., recruitment practice inter alia) in turn further

reinforces the testing system. To this extent, “English” is not entirely an option.

Rather, people’s choice is to a large extent occasioned by social structures. A

participant’s quote succinctly captures the scene in the following words:

Present Japanese society restricts us Japanese to English all through our life.

(Saki)

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Relatedly, an applied linguistics research perspective provides a frame of

reference from which to see the data in another light. The responses produced in

the above accounts can be read as shaping a range of variants of second language

motivation (L2 motivation) (e.g., Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011). Some responses

allude to the construct instrumental motive (Gardner, 1985; Gardner & Lambert,

1972) with which people learn a language for practical purposes, such as gaining

career advantages. From the self-determination theory perspective (Deci & Ryan,

1985, 2002; Noel, Pelletier, Clément, & Vallerand, 2003), some of the responses

that participants produced can be seen as one being in the state of external

regulation in which they express favourable attitudes toward what people in their

social network, such as teachers and parents, suggest they should do. Other

responses may be discerned as one being in the state of identified regulation

whereby they accept a certain language learning behaviour as an important

personal choice, whilst recognising its potential value in one’s future career.

Furthermore, the finding here resonates with the theorising of investment and

identity in language learning (McKinney & Norton, 2008; Norton & McKinney,

2011). The responses indicate participants’ awareness of their relationship to the

broader social world outside their immediate learning context (e.g., testing and the

classroom): namely, certain macro-sociological processes such as

internationalisation, Japan’s polito-economic position vis-à-vis the rest of the

world, and corporate businesses.

It is notable that none of the negative accounts under this subtheme alluded to the

state of mind that is regarded as ideal from an L2 theoretical perspective. This

ideal state of mind is called a self-determined state of motivation in which one is

induced to perform a learning task for its own sake to achieve a sense of

satisfaction and pleasure (Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2008). This positive

dimension of language learning is more purported in positive accounts, and this is

discussed in greater detail in section 4.2. To sum up, respondents’ accounts give a

glimpse into the social context and processes that gave rise to their negative

accounts.

4.1.3 Communication barrier

The theme “communication” ran through many respondents’ accounts, and these

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constructed a broad context in which English is deployed in meaning-making

practices. However, reported in this section are those that excavated a context

which gives rise to negative attitudes to English: “It is not desirable that the

transliteration of English words continues to be used without its meaning clarified”

(Mami). The “importedness” of English is actively pronounced and brought to the

foreground as foreignness, although in reality, both the form and ideational

content of English loan words have become intricately intertwined with Japanese

lexicon. Respondents’ use of language in their accounts functions to accentuate

the ideational difference between English and Japanese and highlights the

structural boundary between them, while alienating the former as a clearly

separated entity. This alienation works to establish the ontological status of

English as a distinct language with which to criticise the presence of English in

Japanese society. New concepts introduced into Japanese society via English

“eventually settle in as awkward pseudo-anglicisms … to make matters worse,

they appear in katakana transliteration, and many people take them as pure

English words, but they don’t work in real-world communication with English

speakers” (Ayumi). Constructed here is the hindrance in

international-interlinguistic communication.

The assumption underlying this type of accounts is that as new imported concepts

(English words) are introduced into society, the transliteration practice is more

often than not deployed as a means to promote a timely adoption of these concepts

in Japanese society. However, this approach is taken at the cost of semantic clarity,

as opposed to the use of kanji which is considered to absorb and re-express better

imported foreign concepts resorting to the ideograph. For this reason, the easy

adoption of transliteration practice does not warrant a common understanding of

the new concepts among all Japanese who share the ideographical writing system.

This helps create an unfortunate divide between those who are acquainted with

new concepts and those who are not. Hereby, the issue of communicative

hindrance extends to the area of intranational communication also:

Too much use of transliteration makes things confusing, and there are times

katakana transliteration obscures what people mean to say. (Kana)

Constructed here is the communicative hindrance implicated in the fabric of social

group relations. This is discernible in the following quotes also:

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Many elderly people do not know English. And yet, English is drawn into

society for its promising future prospects. (Ai)

As katakana words abound, the elderly increasingly do not know what these

words mean. (Haruna)

In the former extract (Ai), the statement of the elderly depends on its unstated

antonym “the young”, both of whom together constitute the nation of Japan. The

underlying assumption is that whilst the elderly are having a hard time following

the influx of new words, others are enjoying this situation to the full, the young. In

these extracts, the position of both Ai and Haruna as young constituents of society

is normalised. This necessitates the enunciation of “the elderly”, signalling that

both access to English and the benefit from being acquainted with the language is

restricted to the young. The language is regulated in the interest of younger

generations, certainly not of the elderly outside the scope of current social

structures such as education and language policy.

In the literature, it is noted that the view of learning English as a matter of simple

individual choice fails to account for the complex social, cultural, political, and

economic processes implicated in shaping such choice (Pennycook, 2001). It is

criticised that this laissez-faire perspective is inadequate to explain the power of

English and the unequal relation between English and other languages in both

education and the sociolinguistic landscape at large. This demands a day-to-day,

micro-level perspective upon the lived culture and experience of periphery

communities (Canagarajah, 1999). In this regard, the paper provides a glimpse

into how the Japanese as a periphery community, too, may be experiencing the

phenomenon of linguistic hegemony (Phillipson, 1992). Despite the apparent lack

of immediate communicative needs of English within Japanese society, the

language is indeed institutionalised in various forms, intermediates in people’s

thinking, and affects the onset and course of their linguistic behaviour.

4.2 English as Asset

Positive depictions of English—English as asset—also recurred throughout most

respondents’ accounts. Here, the paper focuses on accounts of (a) opportunity, (b)

national interest, and (c) transnational connections.

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4.2.1 Opportunity

In contrast to accounts about English as something restricting, or causing threat,

many respondents expressed what can be described as an enabling power of

English. The recurrent terms include one’s potentiality, opportunities, and/or

possibilities, and one’s horizons, vision, and perspective. The events envisioned

from this linguistic landscape range from transient overseas travel to much

socially purported ones relating to one’s pursuit of career and better life. One

participant expressed the former type of possibility with the following words:

“there wouldn’t be any problem in, like, expressing my feelings while staying at a

homestay family’s place. I imagine I would even be able to have fun experiences

in an overseas travel” (Yui). A socially available “axiom” relating to the latter is

cited by another participant:

English speakers (i.e., Japanese speakers of English) are better off in

job-seeking than those who cannot speak it. I believe English skills open up a

wider range of possibilities. (Mai)

Here, the account is not the one which emanated from the participant’s own

hands-on experience. In other words, the occurrence of this account itself points to

the cultural context where acquiring the language skills is purported to be a good

thing, as something which brings forth a range of affordances which people

believe one’s life would be better with.

More specific accounts of the way in which language skills open up one’s

possibilities were also produced as evidence of positive attitude to English. For

instance, one participant comments that being able to speak English, in addition to

Japanese, enables one to “communicate with people not only in Japan but also

with those in other countries across the world, and that will open up horizons, and

that makes a difference” (Ayumi). In this extract, the participant’s sense of self

comes under the spotlight. While identity is not explicitly articulated, it is implicit

in relation to the rest of the world that she has never seen. Similarly, another

participant observes that communicating with people all over the world is

premised upon the prevalence of English, which “requires me to understand the

cultural background of the person I talk to, and I think this enables me to broaden

my perspective” (Mami).

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Thus, one’s perspective is purported to become enriched by interacting with

culturally and linguistically other people and by learning their background

prompted by these differences. In doing so, one’s potentiality is given chance for

change. It is notable that these accounts surface in the context of respondents’

imagination of their linguistic and cultural self vis-à-vis imaginary constructions

of other peoples, languages, and cultures of the world that they may have never

seen.

Forming the undercurrent of the accounts cited here is a motif surfacing multiple

times in varying guises, that being self. The concept of self here may mean one’s

imagined future self as one’s old and present selves are being merged into a new

one through the interaction with social, cultural, and linguistic others. Conjured

here is the image of young participants pursuing what they may become in the

future vis-à-vis their desires—whether they be vague professional aspirations or

specific career goals. They also imagine how they may be relating to someone

culturally and linguistically different from themselves. The articulation of these

visions is premised upon the awareness of their present self and of the self

pursuing English language skills, and yet, of their future self envisaged.

The finding here is reminiscent of the construct of L2 motivation (Dörnyei &

Ushioda, 2011). The latest theorising of this motivation—L2 motivational self

system (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009)—represents a tripartite composite, consisting of the

ideal L2 self, the ought-to L2 self, and the L2 learning experience. Of these, the

ideal L2 self represents the image of one’s future self proficient in the target

language, being the driving force to learn the language in order to reduce the

discrepancy between one’s present and ideal self. The ideal L2 self thus holds a

close affinity to the subtheme opportunity as this component represents the L2

specific facet of one’s ideal self. In sum, many respondents claimed the power of

English that enables one to pursue ways to relate to society and to the whole wide

world. To conclude this section, the paper notes that this enunciation of self

emanates from the divisive construction of people who possess English language

skills and others who do not. The enunciation of the subtheme opportunity is

premised upon the construction of this social division, which constitutes the

common ground with the negative accounts of communication barrier.

17

4.2.2 National interest

Respondents wrote about English as something that gives the nation of Japan a

means to generate and expand publicity of their presence in the international arena.

This in turn is purported to serve the interests of the nation. The accounts in this

category seem to be mapped onto two dimensions. One of these is concerned with

the nation’s cultural publicity and the other with economic excellence in the

international community at large. The terms that characterise this subtheme are

economy, corporation/company, and growth/development. In recognition of the

increasing use of English-katakana transliteration in society, Kotone makes a

positive evaluation of the role that the language plays in relation to Japanese

society:

I think it is a good thing as we need to encourage non-Japanese people to learn

more about our country so that our economy fares well … we can anticipate

more people coming to spend money up here, which potentially leads to a

further economic growth (Kotone).

The positive outlook of English as a marketing strategy outweighs any possible

negative implications about the language. One participant expresses an optimistic

view of the spread of English as an international language:

The fact that Japanese companies extend their corporate pursuits using English

as a means contributes to enhancing Japan’s publicity to appeal to the world.

(Misaki)

Behind this account lies a set of assumptions that marketing and promoting Japan

and its perceived strengths—such as manufactured products, pop culture icons,

and tourist destinations—and maximising its publicity in the international

community in this way constitutes an important strategic tool for its economic

growth. In this regard, a participant’s account enumerates a number of cultural

artefacts to construct itself. Rena observes that Japanese culture is spreading to the

world, and evaluates this as something “wonderful”, juxtaposing cultural icons

that she believes are internationally known and symbolise Japan, such as rakugo2,

2 Rakugo is a Japanese verbal entertainment where the rakugo artist sits on the stage and tells a long comical story.

18

kabuki, sumô, jûdô, and sushi:

There are many successful instances of showcasing Japanese cultural traditions

in which English is drawn into … For instance, rakugo and kabuki are

performed in English overseas, and sports such as sumo and judo are widely

known in the world. It is a very good thing that these cultural elements are

spreading in the world. (Rena)

Further, her account reveals the way in which culture may dictate what people

think and how they act (including “write”). The dictates here may be verbalised as

follows: Japanese cultural icons should be exported in the same forms as they take

in their motherland. This is expressed with the following words: “It is very

disappointing that sushi is translated into new forms outside Japan and there are

many foreigners who don’t know authentic forms of sushi as in Japan” (Rena).

What comes to light in this construction is authenticity which underpins the

existential status of “Japaneseness”. The spread of Japanese culture in the world is

constructed as something good. The appropriation of English as a medium to

generate publicity of Japaneseness is depicted as a good thing, as the language

with which Japanese culture can best spread over the world.

These accounts inevitably project a nationalistic posture as these accounts of

appealing are being made with the awareness of self (Japan as a nation-state and

Japaneseness) and others—cultural, linguistic or geographical—as in the

references to foreign countries, foreigners, and overseas/abroad.

Here, evident in these accounts is choice and agency as something which enables

Japanese to appropriate the English language as theirs in order to boost their

economy as well as achieve their nationalist aims. In this connection, the accounts

of national interest resonate with the theory of macroacquisition3 which attributes

the contemporary status of English as a world language to the wilful choice that

the colonised as speakers of other languages made in their struggle against

imperialism, inter alia (Brutt-Griffler, 2002). By extending this theorisation, the

language situation in Japan—where the vast majority do not necessarily “acquire”

3 Macroacquisition refers to “the acquisition of a second language by a speech community” (Brutt-Griffler, 2002, p. 138).

19

but appropriate English as a means to achieve nationalist aims emerge—may be

discerned as a case of “macroappropriation”.

4.2.3 Transnational connections

The account about transnational connections is another prevalent way in which

English is depicted positively. The terms country/nation and international recurred

in many respondents’ texts. These terms share the common stem “country/nation”,

and these work as the frame of reference in thinking about possible implications

of the expansion of English. The epistemic orientation to this term among

respondents by implication invoked the label “transnational” rather than “global”.

English was written about as something which gives people connection, with

which one “can converse and exchange ideas with people from many countries”

(Kaori). Connection is conceptualised as something which both brings encounters

and enables understanding transnationally. The role that English plays as a

transnational lingua franca is constructed in the following accounts. “By using

English, we can connect not only with the English-speaking world but also with

all nations around the world” (Ayumi), and “The spread of English leads to

growing interaction among nations” (Momoko). This construction of English as a

catalyst for transnational connection crisscrosses with personal episodes. In her

account, Saori illustrates how English affords one a chance for transnational

encounter with reference to her personal experience, “using English … offers

wide open spaces for communication. Indeed, with English as a medium, I came

to know a woman from a far-off land, Siberia, which is far removed from Japan”.

Similarly, Nanami comments on her experience of interacting with other people:

I have realised I can connect with people from other countries with English.

That made me more motivated to study English, and at the same time, I feel

kind of the urge to speak English (Nanami).

Here, English as connecting nations over the world is presented as giving Nanami

an incentive to study English, leading to her positive evaluation of the role that

English plays. In these instances, transnational encounters and interaction that the

language brings forth are described as something romantic that may lead to fun,

discoveries, and one’s sense of happiness. This is purported to be so in spite of the

socio-cultural institutions, such as language testing and assessment, as argued

20

about in the negative accounts. In the romanticising accounts, such social

structures go out of the picture as though the negative implications emanating

from these structures were being resisted. For instance, Saki comments: “if all

nations around the world should speak English, we’d be able to communicate with

people outside Japan, and that makes our life more fun and enjoyable” (Saki).

In the same vein, Mai cites her sojourner experience overseas:

I think the global spread of English plays an important role in exchanges among

people from different countries. What I realised when in Australia is that people

can communicate with each other with this language, English, whether having

lived in a completely different country or grown up in a completely different

culture. That is just wonderful (Mai).

In the above accounts, the opportunity for transnational interaction mediated by

the language invokes people’s agency, empowering them to overcome

communicational restrictions imposed by linguistic, cultural, and national

boundaries. These barriers and borders are not necessarily articulated, but they do

form the tacit assumptions upon which these accounts are constructed. This

contemporary prevalence of English is seen as a communicationally transcending

and empowering opportunity. The participants’ orientation manifest in these texts

implies that even though their mode of thinking may be inescapably rooted in the

modern state-centric system, they do recognise the English language as a means to

approach and interact with new people, and achieve a mutual understanding with

anyone with whom they do not share a mother tongue. Their orientation implies

an awakening of human interconnectivity around the world, as opposed to the

international relations among faceless nation-states.

5 Discussion

This paper focussed on two overarching themes in Japanese college students’

accounts about English—English as nuisance which was manifest in accounts

about threat to identity, imposition, and communication barrier, and English as

asset, which was evidenced in accounts about opportunity, national interest, and

transnational connections. Within each of these themes, the contours of English as

a cultural phenomenon alongside the “attitudes” to the language were actively and

21

variably constructed in the respondents’ accounts. The identified themes mirror

and excavate the sociocultural landscape which gives rise to people’s meanings

and experience about English as a phenomenon from multiple angles. These

different meanings cluster and together constitute the discourses on English. In

turn, it was observed that these discourses are constituted by and constitutive of

what comes to be seen as the respondents’ attitudes toward English. In a

discursive epistemological framework (Burr, 2003; Potter & Wetherell, 1987),

neither English nor attitudes exist in their own right. The contours of English and

attitudes are constructed in the interactive process in which the cultural context

gives rise to the representations of English and people’s attitudes to these

representations, and these representations and attitudes help constitute that

cultural context.

It is notable, however, that while social representations of English as nuisance or

asset ran throughout the data, the ways the respondents wrote about English

cannot straightforwardly be regarded as representing their negative or positive

attitudes. In most of the respondents’ accounts, these representations co-existed.

Indeed, elements of each of these types of attitudes co-occurred in most

respondents’ accounts and were at times balanced and co-located alongside what

can be seen as “neutral” accounts (which this paper did not attend to). For most of

the respondents in this study, the global language English was embodied and

represented both as nuisance and as asset. This suggests that there is not a singular

meaning endowed for English as a cultural phenomenon, and that multiple

meanings contest with each other and find their place in different texts and

contexts, at different occasions. This shows a fresh look which was not produced

in past studies (Kobayashi, 2001; Matsuda, 2000).

To sum up, the prime interest of this study lies in the links between culturally

available meanings, and what language learners say in their written accounts and

their experiences of English as a much purported global language. This

constructionist focus brought to light that respondents’ accounts and attitudes

cease to be idiosyncratic properties. Rather, they are cultural products. Indeed,

accounts about English both as nuisance and asset mirror social representations of

English that have been identified outside Japanese contexts (e.g., Hyrkstedt &

Kalaja, 1998). In the present study, accounts about English as nuisance maps onto

a cultural representation of English as nuisance. This cultural representation is

22

evident in accounts of imposition, among others, through artefacts and events

such as language tests and job hunting. In this social landscape, possible concerns

emanating from the role that English plays in society are alluded to in college

English learners’ accounts, and these constitute an articulation of cultural

representations of English as something imposed upon individuals irrespective of

people’s own will. Positive accounts of English as asset similarly can be discerned

as cultural reifications, mapping onto “romantic” cultural representations of

English as enabling, as a means for personal achievements and transnational

communication.

In its constructionist framework, the paper argues that cultural representations of

English simultaneously reflect and produce the objects which are ostensibly

described, and allow for possible ways of one’s experiencing the phenomenon of

English. Accounts about English as asset demonstrate that those romanticising

conceptualisations of English linked to the nation’s interest and the vision of the

world as a connected community may well be emphasised among the currently

purported positive images of the global language in Japanese society. This

suggests that promoting more positive knowledge about English in this vein may

well be effective in helping allow positive meanings and experiences for

individual learners. In such a pursuit, however, the author maintains that any

possible negative sociopolitical implications of the role that English is purported

to have played and play in both the past and today’s world should be incorporated

in our practices (Canagarajah, 1999; Pennycook, 1994, 2001). Relatedly, in the

data presented in this paper, the cultural ways of thinking about, and the multiple

portrayals of English as a phenomenon both reveal and reassure the structural

organisation of discourse (Burr, 2003; Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). This begs a

question. Is there any room for change to the current discourses on English in

Japan? This raises the issue of agency and points to an area to explore further.

6 Conclusion

This study investigated how language learners’ attitudes are constructed through

their written accounts about their experiences of the phenomenon of English.

Under the discursive epistemology, language attitudes, in this Japanese context

too, appear to be multiple and shifting among various learners’ accounts. It was

evidenced that their language attitudes were occasioned in the social and political

settings of their culture of which the respondents are a part. The respondents’

23

positions in this cultural context, their past, present, and future images of self, and

their alignment with socially induced ways of thinking about English together

exert influences on language attitudes construction. The paper shows the immense

complexity of the contestation processes between language learners’ attitudes and

the rapidly changing social climate in and around Japanese society.

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Figure 1: Thematic map, showing two main themes

English as asset English as nuisance

opportunity

transnational connections

national interest

threat to identity

communication barrier

imposition

29

Table 1: Frequency of themes across respondents

Nuisance Asset

Threat to

identity Imposition Communication barrier Opportunity National interest

Transnational

connections

Frequency 12 10 11 13 8 22

Respondents

Ai x x x x

Saki x x

Miho x x

Mai x x x x x

Hiroya x x

Haruto x

Saori x x

Asami x x

Kaori x x

Kana x x x

Ayaka x x x x

Chihiro x

Ayumi x x x x

Misaki x x x

Aimi x x x x

Mami x x x

Mio x

Yuka x

Sakura x x

Mirai x x x x

Nanami x x

Mizuki x x

Yui x x x

Rena x x

Shiho x

Moe x

Kotone x x

Haruna x x x

Aoi x x x

30

Yumi x

Mao x x

Momoko x x