Based on her fieldwork in post-disaster Fukushima, her hometown, the author reflects on how she negotiated insider and outsider identity as she navigated through multiple contested discourses and emotional spaces. In writing this reflective essay, she referred to the field notes she kept during her seven-month stay in Fukushima. The author…

The nature of the researcher-participant relationship in narrative inquiry is explored by reflecting on the researcher's own experience in such a relationship. It is argued that the researcher who wants to make a difference in the lives of participants must be open to change in return. Personal involvement with participants is an essential…

Within the field of linguistics there are several very different approaches to discourse analysis. Sociolinguists look at the structure of social interaction as manifested in conversation. Psycholinguists are concerned with aspects related to language comprehension. Philosophical and formal linguists are interested in the semantic relationships…

This paper presents an approach to analyzing the process of second language acquisition, entitled Interlanguage Analysis (IA). IA regards the transitional linguistic system from the learner's first language (L1) to the target language (L2 to TL) as interlanguage (IL). IA seeks to obtain pedagogical implications by clarifying: (1) the types of…

In the context of an ethnographic study of nonverbal communication within the Japanese home environment, issues in the use of videotape recordings for data gathering are discussed. The study investigated language use and behavior of Japanese host families in homestay settings, focusing on the use of nonverbal behavior to facilitate communication.…

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is the largest, most comprehensive, and most rigorous international comparison of education ever undertaken. TIMSS findings show similarities and differences in the processes and outcomes of schooling between the United States and East Asian countries, particularly Japan. This report…

Issues and elements of case study research are explored and illustrated with the example of a case study of a kindergarten in a suburb of Tokyo (Japan). Case study research is a type of qualitative research that concentrates on a single unit or entity, with boundaries established by the researcher. The case is an example drawn from a larger class,…

The matched-guise technique uses recorded voices speaking first in one dialect or language, then in another. Listeners do not know that the speech samples are from the same person, but judge the two guises of the same speaker as two separate speakers. The technique has been used to investigate a variety of sociolinguistic, social-psychological,…