Most L1 (first language) Japanese speakers in Japan seem to think that they are monolingual. While it appears that Japanese people accept monolingual-ness as normative in the nation, there is little situated understanding of what makes up this Japanese monolingual-ness. This study reports on repeated, long, and mostly unstructured interviews with…

This study examines L2 speakers' accent attitudes in relation to their linguistic profile and current practices, recruiting 107 multilingual postgraduate students of 34 different nationalities enrolled in leading research universities in Japan. The participants completed a survey regarding their perceptions of different English varieties in…

Many people involved in international education, including students and parents, engage in a stepping-stone discourse that identifies English-medium learning in non-Western countries as a preparatory stage for postsecondary education in Western destinations, with the ultimate goal to secure competitive employment. The present study examines how…

Study abroad (SA) has recently become an increasingly popular option for language learners who wish to engage in an immersive educational experience while living in a different culture, but not all SA programmes are created equal. Length of time can vary significantly, from a days or weeks up to a year or more spent in the target culture, and this…

Drawing on neoliberal ideology as a theoretical lens, this study critically examines how neoliberal ideological assumptions shape the interpretation and implementation of TGUP (Top Global University Project) as an English-medium instruction (EMI) policy in the Japanese context at multiple levels of government, universities, and multilingual…

This case study examines the goals of 13 Japanese graduate students who studied abroad, and situates those goals in the larger context of Japanese society. The study abroad objectives of the Japanese government and some Japanese universities are compared and problematised. The authors conducted three interviews of each study abroad participant…

The current study had two objectives: (a) to quantitatively investigate whether Japanese language learners of English have inclusive second language (L2) self-related motivations, and how inclusive L2 self-related motivations contribute to English learning effort and self-rated English ability, and (b) to qualitatively examine how Japanese…