THE LEARNER DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL
学習者ディベロップメント研究部会誌

ISSN: 2433-5401
https://ldjournal.ld-sig.org

The Learner Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turnfor Learner Development: Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations
Authors: Andy Barfield, Oana Cusen, Yuri Imamura, & Riitta Kelly
Title: A Practitioners’ Collaborative Review of Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives (Martin-Jones & Martin, 2017)
Date of publication online: 2021
Author contact: <abarfield001f@g.chuo-u.ac.jp>, <oana@kwansei.ac.jp>,<imamura.b152rq@gmail.com>, <riitta.m.kelly@jyu.fi>

Published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Learner Development Special Interest Group, Tokyo
http://ld-sig.org/
Copyright 2021 each respective author

The APA citation reference for this paper is:
Barfield, A., Cusen, O., Imamura, Y., & R. Kelly (2021). A practitioners’ collaborative
review of Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives (Martin-Jones& Martin, 2017). In A. Barfield, O. Cusen, Y. Imamura, & R. Kelly (Eds.), The Learner
Development Journal Issue 5: Engaging with the Multilingual Turn for Learner Development:
Practices, Issues, Discourses, and Theorisations (pp. 170-180). Tokyo: The Japan Association
for Language Teaching (JALT) Learner Development Special Interest Group.

Articles are published in the Learner Development Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution
License (CC BY), of which CC BY 4.0 is the most recent version. Under this agreement, authors grant users
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PRACTICE-RELATED REVIEWA Practitioners’ Collaborative Review of
Researching Multilingualism: Critical andEthnographic Perspectives (Martin-Jones &Martin, 2017)
Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Marilyn Martin-Jones & Deidre
Martin (Eds.). Routledge, 2017. xiv + 284 pp. ISBN 9780415748421

Reviewed byAndy Barfield, Chuo University, Japan <abarfield001f@g.chuo-u.ac.jp>
Oana Cusen, Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan <oana@kwansei.ac.jp>
Yuri Imamura, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan<imamura.b152rq@gmail.com>
Riitta Kelly, University of Jyväskylä, The Centre for Multilingual Academic
Communication, Finland <riitta.m.kelly@jyu.fi>
In this jointly written review, we give an overview of the whole book before focusing on four chapters of particular interest to
our lived experiences as multilinguals, language teachers or practitioner-researchers. The first part of this review explores thevalue of narrative analysis as a way to make sense of the struggles that transnationals face in living multilingually andmulticulturally. We then focus on visual/multimodal approaches in combination with life-history inquiries to explore
individuals’ linguistic repertoires and their lived experiences of language. The third part looks at ideas for investigating theinterplay between language ideologies and the way that languages are used in different institutional linguistic landscapes.
Lastly, we take up the benefits of team ethnography for teacher-researchers in investigating multilingual issues together. We
conclude by briefly considering the relevance of this research anthology to the multilingual turn for learner development.
この共同執筆による書評では，本書全体を概観した後，多言語，言語教師，実践研究者としての私たちの生きた経験から，特に興味深い4つの章に焦点を当てる。はじめに，トランスナショナルな人々が多言語・多文化の中で生活する上で直面する苦悩を理解する方法として，ナラティブ分析の価値を探る。次に，個人の言語レパートリーや生きた言語体験を探るために，ライフヒスト
リー調査と併用させたビジュアル／マルチモーダルなアプローチに注目する。続いて，言語イデオロギー間の相互関係と，異なる制度上の言語景観における言語の使用方法を調査するためのアイデアを検討する。最後に，教師兼研究者が共に多言語問題を調査する際のチームエスノグラフィーの利点を取り上げる。結論として，この研究アンソロジーと学習者ディベロップメントにおける多言語的転回との関連性を考察する。
En esta reseña escrita conjuntamente, ofrecemos un resumen de todo el libro antes de centrarnos en cuatro capítulosde especial interés para nuestras experiencias vividas como multilingües, profesores de idiomas o investigadorespracticantes. La primera parte de esta reseña explora el valor del análisis narrativo como forma de dar sentido a las luchas alas que se enfrentan los transnacionales al vivir de forma multilingüe y multicultural. A continuación, nos centramos en los
enfoques visuales/multimodales en combinación con las investigaciones sobre las historias de la vida para explorar losrepertorios lingüísticos de los individuos y sus experiencias vividas con el lenguaje. En la tercera parte examinamos las ideas
para investigar la interacción entre las ideologías lingüísticas y el modo en que se utilizan las lenguas en diferentes paisajes
lingüísticos institucionales. Por último, abordamos las ventajas de la etnografía en equipo para los investigadorespracticantes para investigar conjuntamente cuestiones multilingües. Concluimos considerando brevemente la relevancia deesta antología de investigación para el giro multilingüe en el desarrollo del alumno.

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Andy Barfield, Oana Cusen, Yuri Imamura, & Riitta Kelly

Keywords
lived multilingual experiences, transnational living, linguistic repertoires, institutional linguistic landscapes, teamethnography
生きた多言語経験，
トランスナショナルな生活，言語レパートリー，制度的な言語的景観，チームエスノグラフィー
experiencias vividas como multilingües, vidas transnacionales, repertorios lingüísticos, paisajes lingüísticos
institucionales, etnografía en equipoR

eviewing this particular volume on multilingualism research, with its focus on“addressing contemporary diversities, the globalized communicative order and theparticular social and cultural conditions of our times” (p. i), has proved to beparticularly illuminating for us not only as social participants and practitioner-researchers,
but also as editors of Issue 5 of The Learner Development Journal. In this review, in addition
to an overview of the whole book, each of the four authors focuses on one particular chapterthat they find of personal and professional interest to their lived experiences as multilinguals,
teachers, or researchers. Ahead of our reviews of those four chapters, we give a brief synopsis
of the whole book. We conclude by briefly considering the relevance of this anthology to themultilingual turn in learner development.

Overview of the Book
In their introductory chapter to Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives,
Marilyn Martin-Jones and Deirdre Martin trace the development of research in this field.
They first focus on the foundational work of Hymes and Gumperz into language in social
life from the 1960s, and then summarise new work in the 1980s and later that was driven
by poststructuralist and critical theory perspectives. The editors also highlight the impact
on multilingualism of far-reaching changes in the global political economy, particularly thedevelopment of new technologies and the increase in transnational population flows acrossthe world from the 1990s onwards. These have created new diversities in social life andcommunication, around which Martin-Jones and Martin present the themes in this volume in
the final part of the introduction:
ʶResearching trajectories, multilingual repertoires and identities (Chapters 2–5)

ʶ

Researching discourses, policies and practices on different scales (Chapters 6–8)

ʶ

Researching multilingual communication and multisemioticity online (Chapters 9–11)

ʶMultilingualism in research practice: voices, identities and research reflexivity (Chapters
12–15)

ʶ

Ethnographic monitoring and critical collaborative analysis for social change (Chapters
16–17).

We continue with a brief descriptive synopsis of the whole book apart from the four specificchapters (Chapters 2, 3, 8, and 13) that we have chosen to explore in greater detail later in thisreview.
The theme of Part 1 is “Researching Trajectories, Multilingual Repertoires and Identities.”
In Chapter 4, The Risks and Gains of a Single Case Study, Kamran Khan looks at research design
questions around working with a single individual over 11 months—in this case, W, from
Yemen—as he applied for citizenship in the UK. In Chapter 5, Researching Student Mobility in
Multilingual Switzerland, Martina Zimmermann discusses the benefits of using a multi-sited
approach in understanding students’ changing language practices and ideologies as they
move from one linguistic region to another in Switzerland to pursue their higher education.
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Part 2 centres on “Researching Discourses, Policies and Practices on Different Scales.”
In Chapter 6, Nexus Analysis as Scalar Ethnography for Educational Linguistics, Francis Hultexamines how researchers can explore the intersections between local practices andactions and “ideas circulating in society on wider scales” (p. 97). He argues that nexus
analysis can enable researchers to map discourses and examine how they are reproduced
and layered in single moments of social action across different scales (for example, micro,
meso, macro). In Chapter 7, Critical Ethnography of Language Policy: A Semi-confessional Tale,David Cassel Johnson presents a reflexive account of the development of language planning,
policy, and participation in two local school districts in the USA. To overcome discoursesof marginalisation, Johnson advocates collaboration between multiple actors (teachers,
administrators, students, parents, and university researchers) through “Educational Language
Policy Engagement and Action Research” (ELPEAR).
Part 3 focuses on “Researching Multilingual Communication and Multisemioticity Online.”
In Chapter 9, Methodologies for Researching Multilingual Online Texts and Practices, David Barton
and Carmen Lee discuss mixed research methods in three multilingualism online studies.
These studies looked at young Hong Kongers’ instant messaging practices and texts, themultilingual writing of active Flickr users, and the online and offline linguistic practicesof university students in Hong Kong (including their “techno-linguistic biographies”),
respectively. In Chapter 10, Investigating Multilingualism and Multisemioticity as Communicative
Resources in Social Media, Sirpa Leppänen and Samu Kytolä identify “resemiotization” and“entextualisation” as key processes for understanding how discourse is multiplied andrecirculated in digital social media “across boundaries of nations, ethnicities, languages,
genres, and formats” (p. 158). They focus on two projects: the multilingual joking on Twitterof three professional Finnish footballers in one study, and, in the other, the multimodal
literacy practices of online fans who re-work (= “shred”) the lyrics and subtitles of famousrock and pop music videos, then share their parody videos in translocal fan communities. In
Chapter 11, Virtual Ethnographic Approaches to Researching Multilingualism Online, Aoife Lenthan
and Helen Kelly Holmes explore ways of observing over time multilingual features in thewebsites of transnational corporations. They also report on research into the development ofa mobile translation app for Irish on Facebook, where online participation and observation,
handwritten fieldwork diary entries, and screenshots all formed part of the virtualethnography.
“Multilingualism in Research Practice: Voices, Identities and Research Reflexivity” isthe theme of Part 4. In Chapter 12, Reflexive Ethnographic Research Practice in Multilingual
Contexts, Marilyn Martin-Jones, Jane Andrews, and Deirdre Martin focus on reflexive
quality in research practices. Among other issues, they cover working with interpreters,developing reflexive practices, building linguistic and cultural diversity in research teams,
and creating collaborative field narratives. In Chapter 14, Researching Children’s Literacy
Practices and Identities in Faith Settings: Multimodal Text-making and Talk About Text as Resources
for Knowledge-building, Vally Lytra, Eve Gregory, and Arani Ilankuberan discuss a multilingualand multicultural team’s research into how children become literate through faith activities
in different religious communities in London. Finally, in Chapter 15, Multilingual Dynamics inthe Research Process: Transcribing and Interpreting International Data), Sabina Vakser discusses
the complexities of deciding what and how to transcribe from multilingual interviews witha couple in Australia who, through their complex transmigratory histories, have Russian,English, German, and Yiddish in their languaged lives.
The two chapters in Part 5 address “Ethnographic Monitoring and Critical Collaborative
Analysis for Social Change.” In Chapter 16, Countering Unequal Multilingualism throughEthnographic Monitoring, Haley De Korne and Nancy Hornberger take up the issue of172

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Andy Barfield, Oana Cusen, Yuri Imamura, & Riitta Kelly“ethnographic monitoring” (originally proposed by Dell Hymes) as a paradigm for linking
multilingualism research with working for social justice. From their work with indigenous
communities in Mexico, Scandinavia, South Africa, and the Philippines, De Korne andHornberger share examples of researchers forming alliances with local stakeholders
to address linguistic inequalities. In the final chapter of the whole volume, Chapter 17,
Ethnographic Monitoring and the Study of Complexity, Jef Van der Aa and Jan Blommaert argue
that the ongoing “diversification of diversity” (p. 259) across society presents fundamental
challenges for researchers in understanding “society’s rapid and permanent change, its
instability, unpredictability and complexity” (p. 260). They put forward the case for socialaction oriented ethnographic research between academic researchers and social actors on along-term qualitative basis. Illustrating their argument with a project at a family care centre
in Antwerp, Belgium, Van der Aa and Blommaert emphasise that this kind of research entails
positioning social actor participants as “organic intellectuals” who, in alliance with academic
researchers, can produce new theoretical understandings, or “counterhegemonic knowledges
aimed at achieving lasting social change” (p. 268). In other words, linguistic ethnography
has an emancipatory responsibility: This, they conclude, is central to social-action oriented
multilingualism research.

Personal Insights with Chapters 2, 3, 8, and 13
As mentioned earlier, certain chapters spoke directly to different areas of our lives. Oana
Cusen reviews Chapter 2, Narrative Analysis in Migrant and Transnational Contexts, by Mike
Baynham and Anna de Fina, as she found it to resonate with her own experiences as atransnational living in a multilingual environment in Japan. Riitta Kelly looks at Chapter 3,
Biographical Approaches to Research in Multilingual Settings: Exploring Linguistic Repertoires, by
Brigitta Busch, and makes connections to her own language portrait research with Japaneseexchange students and with university students in Finland who use Finnish Sign Languageas their first language. Next, Andy Barfield relates Chapter 8, Investigating Visual Practices
in Educational Settings: Schoolscapes, Language Ideologies and Organizational Cultures, by Petteri
Laihonen and Tamas Peter Szabo, to fieldwork with students into multilingual “scapes” inTokyo during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the final review, Yuri Imamura highlights how
Chapter 13, Reflexivity in Team Ethnography: Using Researcher Vignettes, by Angela Creese, Jaspreet
Kaur Takhi, and Adrian Blackledge can help researchers and educators explore different
stories in their lives and better support their students in the multilingual turn for learnerdevelopment.

Oana Cusen - Chapter 2 Narrative Analysis in Migrant and Transnational Contexts
Chapter 2 in this volume by Mike Baynham and Anna de Fina, tracks the evolution of
narrative analysis as a field of research. The authors point out that it started as a means
to evaluate migrants’ linguistic abilities through their narrative production and evolved
into a more practice-oriented and ethnographic approach focused on “storytelling as ameaning-making practice” (p. 32). The authors begin by showing how a narrative turnin social sciences has paved the way for different types of narratives (including, but notlimited to, biographical ones) to be the focus of narrative analysis in transnational andmigratory contexts. The main part of this chapter focuses on two research areas: naturally
occurring narratives in different institutional and other everyday contexts, and narratives
as produced during research interviews. The authors draw on a wealth of studies involving
multilingual, as well as transnational individuals and communities, to exemplify instances ofco-constructed narratives as part of research interviews, narratives as identity work, andnarratives as the site for power struggles.
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Aside from the thought-provoking issues brought up in Chapter 2 of Researching
Multilingualism in terms of research approaches to narrative analysis, this chapter also strucka deeply personal cord with me. I very much identified with the narratives of transnationals
that Baynham and de Fina use throughout the chapter to illustrate the shift in narrative
analysis, as I am an immigrant myself. I was born and I grew up in Romania, but I moved
to Japan at the age of 19, to complete graduate studies at Japanese universities, and I have
lived in Japan ever since. During this time, the transnational experience has shaped myidentity in numerous ways, all of them intertwined with the evolution of my multilingual
repertoire. This is the case with some of the transnationals reported on in Chapter 2, such as
the Moroccan immigrants in the UK in Baynham’s (2003) study, or the immigrants from El
Salvador to the US in Carranza’s (1998) study.
Chapter 2 also gives examples of narratives as the places for identity work done bytransnationals. One such example is that of Ryoko, a flight attendant who refused to bepositioned as a representative of Japan by a rude customer (Piller & Takahashi, 2013). In my
own case, among the first instances of identity work happening after I relocated to Japan,
was the realization that I was in fact a multilingual, something that I had never thought
about myself when I lived in Romania, even though I used Romanian and English on a daily
basis, was studying and using Japanese and to a somewhat lesser extent French, and had alsoacquired Italian and some Spanish from watching TV. However, once I arrived in Japan andbecame part of the community of international students, my identity shifted alongside witha shift in my L1 from Romanian to English (Kirkpatrick, 2007), which became the language
I used (and continue to use) most often on a daily basis. I was also using Japanese much
more often as I adapted to life in Japanese society, and around the same time, I started using
Spanish with my Colombian boyfriend (now husband).
The issues of power struggles that transnationals have to face as they are seen as
representatives of one culture living in another also resonated with me personally. I still
vividly remember how, as my Japanese ability improved during my undergraduate years
in a Japanese university, I started to be perceived as a proficient speaker by the university
administrative staff and my professors. Thus, I moved beyond the stage experienced by many
foreigners in Japan—the nihongo wa jouzu desu ne [your Japanese is so good] stage—when
Japanese people compliment the Japanese spoken by foreigners based on the ability to form
just a few rudimentary sentences. However, as my Japanese ability significantly improved,
Japanese people I was interacting with began expecting my Japanese social pragmatics
abilities to be on a par, even though these abilities require more time to develop. Thus I was
considered too blunt and even rude during certain interactions in Japanese. One such example
would be using the form … shite kudasai [please do] when asking office staff to help me withsomething. However, this form, although polite, it is more often used for requests fromsuperiors, and so I should have used a form more appropriate to my status as a student, like …
shite itadakemasuka, which is the approximate equivalent of [Would you be so kind as to do …
for me?].
A phrase in Chapter 2 of Researching Multilingualism that made a strong impression onme was: “narratives as an essential site for the articulation of subordinate subjects’ own
voices” (p. 32). I firmly believe in the need to bring transnational migrants’ own voices tothe forefront, not only for the wealth of information and knowledge this could bring, but also
as a means of making those migrants feel seen and validated. This is particularly importantin Japan, where, despite some efforts to integrate immigrants (such as Korean, Chinese, orBrazilian communities) into society, much remains to be done, as the general public has
almost no knowledge about the day to day struggles faced by such communities in Japan.

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Riitta Kelly - Chapter 3 Biographical Approaches to Research in Multilingual
Settings: Exploring Linguistic Repertoires
In Chapter 3, Brigitta Busch focuses on the exploration of linguistic repertoires, looking at
the issue from various methodological points of view. In her view, “Biographical approaches
based on the notions of lived experience of language and the linguistic repertoire seemparticularly productive for multilingualism research” (p. 53). Busch highlights the use ofmultimodal methods which provide a creative way of gathering biographical information.
Language portraits have become quite a popular way of gathering data and have beenused for example in the form of participants either drawing themselves or mapping theirlanguages and ways of speaking using a silhouette of a body to draw this information in.
Busch emphasises the importance of the picture in relation to what participants say about
their linguistic repertoires. Elements of the picture directly “structure the interpretation andreconstruction of the narrative in a way that differs from responses to interview questionsorganised around a participant’s language biography” (p. 54). She also draws attention to
the differences in the creation of the meaning: Narrations are linear structures, but the visualmode can “move one’s vision toward the whole and towards the connections between theparts” (p. 55).
I got interested in language portraits whilst teaching English to Finnish university students,
who use Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) as their first language (Kelly, 2009). Our university
is the only one in Finland to offer Finnish Sign Language as a major subject. As their English
teacher, I was hoping to learn more about how they see themselves as learners of English,
and also hoped that using language portraits as a research method would be relevant to themas users of a visual language. I asked them to draw language portraits, which helped me a
lot in understanding how they saw themselves as learners of English, and visualizing theirpractices seemed to come easily for them. I also gained insights into how they felt when
thinking about learning English, and it was interesting to see how different elements such as
motivation, the importance of informal learning, challenges, and teaching were emphasizedin their drawings.
Whilst the language silhouettes have the potential to become powerful images, when thesilhouettes are considered in connection with FinSL signers, they might also occasionallyseem limiting (Kelly, 2021). When I asked two signers to work with a language silhouetteinstead of coming up with a free drawing, both of them had problems with the pre-drawn
hands, which in the silhouette that I used were on the sides of the silhouette pointing down.
One of the signers would have wanted to move the hands of the silhouette up to a position
more natural for signers, whilst the other drew several additional hands to the silhouette toenable communication using various signed languages.
In addition to working with FinSL students, I continued to wonder whether this method
would be useful also for users of other languages who might be more visually oriented thanthose using western scripts. As I also teach exchange students in our university, I have met
many Japanese students and felt that I would like to understand their position as language
learners and their linguistic repertoires better. Together with a colleague, Jussi Jussila, in our
ongoing research we wanted to see if visual methods could be applied in finding out whatkind of learner beliefs Japanese exchange students have. We asked them to draw two pictures,
one using language silhouettes describing the languages in their lives, and the other a freedrawing on how they see themselves as language learners. In addition, interviews in Japanese
were carried out on, for example, what kind of challenges they have in learning English
and what motivates them as learners. Combining these methods has offered us interesting
insights in the views of Japanese exchange students as language learners. For example, thesize and location of languages in the brain in one student’s drawing shows the student’s
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first language, Japanese, literally coming first with a marking of number 1 and the Finnish
language occupying only a small space in the brain. In another drawing, there are multiple
languages located in the silhouette’s head but only one has been located in the mouth, namely
Japanese. Busch’s work has provided an inspiring framework for us, and although these two
extracts of Japanese exchange students’ drawings are just examples of what can be seen in
the drawings, we think that visual methods have a great deal of potential in helping us tounderstand better our students’ biographies, as well as their learner beliefs.

Andy Barfield - Chapter 8 Investigating Visual Practices in Educational Settings:
Schoolscapes, Language Ideologies and Organizational Cultures
In early 2020, with the Olympics in Tokyo on the summer horizon, my attention was drawn
towards Petteri Laihonen and Tamas Peter Szabo’s chapter. I started brainstorming ideas withmy student assistant for doing some joint research into different “scapes” in Tokyo. I wanted
to try different ways of doing research so that I could better support students in different
classes and seminars in carrying out their own research into language issues in society. My
student assistant was keen to help with such research too.
Chapter 8 was particularly useful for developing ideas. The authors look at investigating
schoolscapes, or the linguistic landscapes in schools, their corridors, and classrooms,
and different interactions within these places, through which language ideologies andorganisational cultures are realised. They highlight particular innovative practices andapproaches that others have tried. They report, for example, on fieldwork by Szabo into theschoolscapes in two state schools and two private schools in Budapest, Hungary, which explores
how nation-state discourses are reproduced in texts, displays, and portraits within different
classrooms and spaces. Szabo used the “walking tour methodology” whereby he took photos ofthe signs in one of the schools during an interview with a senior teacher as the teacher guided
Szabo through the school and commented on “the choice of language, texts and other symbols
on display” (pp. 126-127). Laihonen did similar fieldwork in a Hungarian minority school in
Romania, and two other schools in Ukraine and in rural southern Slovakia, where Hungarian isthe dominant language of instruction. In each case they adapted their fieldwork and research
practices to the local site and kept a strong visual dimension to their investigations. The result
is a thought-provoking reflective chapter which enables the reader to (re-)imagine how theymight investigate particular “scapes” (educational, institutional, public, for example) in theirown local contexts.
For doing fieldwork in 2020 in Tokyo our initial idea was to investigate from March
onwards the linguistic landscapes of particular local areas and explore the multilingual
provisions of different public institutions (e.g., city offices, schools, libraries, and so on). We
hoped to try “language walking tours,” perhaps using video to record what we noticed, as
well as to conduct interviews with different public actors to develop a finer sense of changing
official policies and stances towards multilingualism. Then COVID-19 happened, and thefirst lockdown in Tokyo. Our plans shifted to researching online and looking at particular
digital scapes in the Tokyo area. To take one example, with a population of just over 298,000,
Toshima-ku is one of the eight central administrative areas of Tokyo. Through its city
website (Toshima City Office, 2021) we learn that the biggest groups of foreign-born residents
are from China (12,414), Vietnam (2,688), Nepal (2,388), Korea (2,339), Myanmar (1,735), andTaiwan (1,114). Then comes the Philippines (549), the USA (412), France (253), and Thailand(253). Toshima-ku’s foreign population totaled 25,651 in April 2021, or just under 9% of theward’s residents. It is striking that the city website provides information in English, Chinese,
Korean, as well as Burmese, Nepali, and Vietnamese, and in plain Japanese, with furigana

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characters added above Japanese script on pages to make reading easier for both Japaneseand non-Japanese residents. Furthermore COVID-19 guidance and information are provided
multilingually in Japanese, English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Nepali.
Although such “digital municipal-scapes” are certainly different from the schoolscapes that
Laihonen & Szabo investigate in their chapter, exploring them helps us to begin to question
what language ideologies regulate the digital use and display of languages by local government
actors in Tokyo. Policies vary considerably within the city, and local authorities are left todecide their own multilingual provisions themselves despite some recent initiatives announced
by the central government (Menju, 2019; Shoji, 2019). We are now beginning to explore these
digital scapes in more detail, and in the near future, after pandemic restrictions ease, we hope
to visit various city offices to understand better the language policies for these municipalscapes, as well as the language ideologies behind them. Petteri Laihonen & Tamas Peter Szabo’s
chapter, a starting point, was completely absorbing. I thoroughly recommend their work to you.

Yuri Imamura - Chapter 13 Reflexivity in Team Ethnography: Using Researcher
Vignettes
One of the important aspects of researching multilingualism is to understand different
individuals who have various language repertoires and multicultural backgrounds. In Chapter
13, Creese et al. (2017) demonstrate team ethnography as a crucial research method whichallows researchers to interpret different points of views and accept multivoicedness. In teamethnography, reflexivity is a key dimension to negotiate varying points of view as well as
acknowledge the positions each team member embodies. Through the reflexive approach,researchers can enhance their self-reflection and collaboration with other researchers.
In this chapter, Creese et al. used team ethnography to reveal how teacher-researchers position
themselves, as well as their participants, in their research field. They view researcher vignettes,
a part of ethnography, as a means of reflective practice to clarify “how individuals engaged in
the presentation of ‘self’ in the research process, and to understand interactional positioning
within the team” (p. 204). In their research, they collected written vignettes from teacherresearchers investigating community-run language schools in the UK, Denmark, Finland, and theNetherlands. Two teacher-researchers (Takhi and Creese) visited a Panjabi school in Birmingham,
England. They observed classes, kept field-notes, and collected audio-recordings during bothclass time and beyond the classroom. They also kept vignettes “to address teacher positionality,
and to make visible field and team relationships” (p. 206). In the case study, it was shown thatthe two research vignettes from Takhi and Creese were shaped remarkably by social, political, andhistorical forces. For instance, Takhi mentioned her own experiences at primary school, where
she learned Panjabi and felt the classroom was not “‘our space’” (p. 208) because both teachersand students did not have the freedom to use the school building as they wished. These personal
experiences, due to their relatable nature, were beneficial to form a good relationship with theparticipants (particularly children). On the other hand, the team needed to position themselves
as both insiders and outsiders fluidly, which often led to their frustration at not being able toachieve same-level rapport with the participants at the Panjabi school.
This book chapter made me rethink how social forces, particularly educational and familial,
have a large impact on my agency as an English user. In 2002 while I was in secondary
school, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology formulated astrategic plan to cultivate “Japanese with English Abilities” (「英語が使える日本人」の育成のための戦略構想 [“Eigo ga tsukaeru nihonjin” no ikusei notameno senryakukousou]), which emphasised
English communication in schools. In order to achieve this, Japanese teachers were asked tooffer communication activities in English in class, and assistant language teachers (ALTs)
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from overseas often collaborated with them. In addition to this, the number of English
conversation schools increased exponentially around the same time. Thus, it was natural forme to think of English as an important skill to acquire. The thought was also influenced by
my mother too. She highly anticipated the era of English would come in the near future, andthat I should be equipped to make my mark in this era of English. I would say without any
doubts that I was exposed to an English-focused education from various layers of society.
After finishing my MA in the UK, I started working as an English teacher in the primarysector and later as a language learning advisor and lecturer in higher education. I am one of
the Japanese people who benefited from being able to use English. On the other hand, as an
educator, I would like younger generations to see languages with broader consideration rather
than focusing too much on just English, especially under the current multilingual turn. This
complex feeling needs more discussion among educators who have similar backgrounds tomine for the future of foreign language education in Japan.
In this issue of the Learner Development Journal, my colleague and I (Wongsarnpigoon& Imamura, 2021) used duoethnography as a means of reflective practice related to a
multilingual language space in a self-access centre. It was a meaningful experience for me
because I had never reflected on my life trajectory with someone from a different cultural
background as part of a research project. Creese et al.’s research was a large project inEurope, a context vastly different to my own. I believe that a multilingual team approach toresearching multilingual education in East Asian contexts should be developed to discoverpotential areas of inquiry that teacher-researchers may face. Team ethnography can be aneffective research method to reflexively consider our different stories and investigate someof the puzzles that we as researchers and educators face while supporting our students (thefuture generation) in understanding and participating fully in the multilingual turn.

Learner Development Perspectives
Researching Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives provides a wide-ranging
panorama of recent groundbreaking research into multilingual issues, and as such the bookwill be of primary interest to researchers and graduate students in the field of multilingualstudies. In this practice-related review, we have attempted to draw parallels between
particular cases of research presented in the book and our own histories, work, and identities
as multilinguals, language teachers, and practitioner-researchers. We have found thisthoroughly fascinating to discuss as we have developed this review.
So, what is the relevance of this research anthology to exploring the multilingual turn forlearner development? Among the perspectives that Researching Multilingualism brings to thelearner development table, so to speak, the following stand out for us: questions of agency,
ethnography, identity, multimodality, narrative, online communication, power, researcher
positionality, space, visual communication, and voice. These themes run through different
contributions to this issue of The Learner Development Journal. They are, then, already being
taken up in understanding the multilingual turn for learner development. From anothervantage point, that of practitioner-researchers as social actors, reviewing Researching
Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives has helped us start to grasp new, more
complex ways of exploring the changing multilingual social worlds that we and our learners
are part of. We have also become more informed about doing multilingualism research in asocially engaged way. Here, new collaborations have started taking shape for future projects.
We would like to express our appreciation to the editors and contributors of Researching
Multilingualism: Critical and Ethnographic Perspectives for their stimulating work. We warmly
recommend this volume to readers of The Learner Development Journal.

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Andy Barfield, Oana Cusen, Yuri Imamura, & Riitta Kelly

Author Bios
Andy Barfield teaches in the Faculty of Law at Chuo University, Tokyo, where he helps tocoordinate an English curriculum in which students do self-directed research projects intosocial, political, legal, and global issues. His current research interests include multilingualissues in society, critical literacy, and fieldwork.
Andi Barfild predaje na Pravnom fakultetu Univerziteta Čuo u Tokiju, gde pomaže
koordinaciju opsežnog nastavnog plana i programa engleskog jezika u kojem studenti samirade na projektima istraživanja društvenih, političkih, pravnih i globalnih problema. Andijevi
istraživački interesi uključuju višejezične probleme u društvu, kritičku pismenost i rad na
terenu.
Oana Cusen is an assistant professor in the Language Center at Kwansei Gakuin University inJapan, where she designs and implements language courses using a project-based learningand teaching (PBLT) approach. Among her current research interests are multilingualism
and multilingual language acquisition, as well as collaborative online international learning(COIL).
Oana Cusen este profesor asistent în Centrul de Limbi Străine la Kwansei Gakuin University
în Japonia. În cadrul centrului, ea creează cursuri de limbă bazate pe metodologia PBLT.
Printre interesele ei de cercetare se găsesc multilingvismul și achiziționarea multilingvă delimbi, precum și COIL.
Yuri Imamura is a learning advisor at the Self-Access Learning Center (SALC) at Kanda
University of International Studies, Japan. She completed her M.A. in TEFL/TESL at the
University of Birmingham, UK. Her research interests include learner autonomy, learnermotivation, translanguaging in the Japanese context, and language learning spaces.
Yuri Imamura on opintoneuvoja Kanda University of International Studies Self-Access
Learning Centerissä (SALC) Japanissa. Hän suoritti maisterintutkinnon TEFL/TESLohjelmassa Birminghamin yliopistossa Englannissa. Hänen tutkimusintresseihinsä kuuluvat
oppijan autonomia, oppijan motivaatio, limittäiskieleily japanilaisessa kontekstissa ja
kielenoppimisen tilat.
Riitta Kelly teaches English at the Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication (Movi)
and is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her
current research interests include Finnish and Japanese university students’ learner beliefs
and topics in educational technology.
Riitta Kelly opettaa englantia Monikielisen akateemisen viestinnän keskuksessa (Movi)
Jyväskylän yliopistossa, jossa hän on myös soveltavan kielitieteen jatko-opiskelija. Hänen
tutkimusintresseihinsä kuuluvat suomalaisten ja japanilaisten yliopisto-opiskelijoiden
oppimiskäsitykset ja koulutusteknologiaan liittyvät aiheet.

Review ProcessThis paper was open-reviewed by Hugh Nicoll, Shu Hua Kao, and Tanya McCarthy.
(Contributors have the option of open or blind review.)

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