Exploring the ideologies and identities of Japanese university EFL students

: the discursive construction of Japaneseness and others

Abstract

National identity in Japan has been a strong foundation for its culture and traditional underpinnings at first glance (Gottlieb, 2007), yet this ignores the diversity of identity and plurilingual conditions that may be found in many other areas of modern Japanese society (Befu, 2001; Kubota, 2022). In particular, one major perspective to consider is the role of globalisation in English language teaching in Japan (Seargeant, 2011) and how this may be affecting language learners’ identities. “The neoliberal promotion of English is complemented by neoconservative emphasis on national identity" (Kubota, 2017) which in turn emboldens nihonjinron claims, an ethnocentric discourse that emphasises the uniqueness of the Japanese, but what are the effects of this on English language
learners' discourses about language ideologies, their self-identities and Others’ identities?

This thesis examines the differing discursive constructions of national (Wodak et al., 1999; Rear, 2017) and global identities that were exhibited within the discourses of nine Japanese university EFL students at a foreign languages’ university in Japan. Four distinct themes can be found in the data. The first two themes show how the hybrid nature (Rubdy and Alsagoff, 2013) of these Japanese
students’ identities was discursively constructed, often in tandem with a "complexity of national and transnational identity constructions in a globalised world” (Wodak, 2012). A discursive focus on Japanese uniqueness was also generally apparent and is illuminated in the findings sections. The second two themes focus on the language ideologies and beliefs about English as a global language and the discursive constructions of the Western Other. I also discuss why the role of ‘banal’ nationalism (Billig, 1995) is an underestimated concept in shaping students’ and Others’ identities within the Japanese university context. For example, many responses reflecting this included the phrase “I’m just Japanese”. Contradictions in such discursive constructions may shed light on the
ever-changing dynamics of young students’ identities in Japan and/or show how they may co-exist in a system of “hierarchies of identity” (Omoniyi, 2006).

Date of Award	2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Canterbury Christ Church University