{"id":26,"date":"2024-06-23T11:03:38","date_gmt":"2024-06-23T02:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theronmuller.kinsta.cloud\/?p=26"},"modified":"2024-10-29T15:09:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T06:09:19","slug":"aila-2024-kuala-lumpur-august-11-16-translanguaging-in-a-japanese-research-context-collaborative-autoethnographic-insights-into-language-affordances-and-limitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theronmuller.w.waseda.jp\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"AILA 2024, Kuala Lumpur August 11-16: Translanguaging in a Japanese research context: Collaborative autoethnographic insights into language affordances and limitations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Conference website<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theron Muller, Waseda University Faculty of Human Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John L. Adamson, University of Niigata Prefecture<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

16 August, 14:00-16:00 SYMPOSIUM 5.18 Track 5: Language In Society in MR310, Presentation 3 of 4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Within globalized higher education, there is unprecedented mobility of academic labor, which raises the importance of negotiating language challenges in academic knowledge production. Japanese tertiary education is no exception in presenting issues for internationally mobile faculty. Further, tensions are inherent in the presumed common international language of science, English, and the local lingua franca, Japanese, when negotiating institutional expectations and requirements. In this presentation, we discuss how such challenges go beyond employing language in academic writing, to engage institutional discourses to meet local requirements. This requires translanguaging between Japanese and frequently, but not exclusively, English, as well as understanding local academic norms and researcher positioning within institutional systems of power. By drawing upon jointly narrativized data from collaborative autoethnography between two long-term foreign residents of Japan who are faculty at two regional universities, in this presentation we explore how we negotiated affordances in the process of knowledge production and the limitations encountered. We employed collaborative autoethnography (Chang et al., 2013) to provide textual data for further analysis, identifying emergent themes, or \u201cmacro review\u201d (Chang et al., 2013, p. 103) through cyclical, reflexive analysis of the collaborative autoethnographic text. Our findings concerned the challenges inherent in researcher stances toward bilingual flexibility in grant applications, contrasted with institutional inflexibility regarding the languages required of formal applications for, for example, human research ethics committee approval. This raised ethical concerns regarding the time required to accommodate such requirements against the lack of institutional structures to support researchers to meet them. Further insights were seen in the imbalance between local and foreign faculty about the importance of international research publication. Our conclusions illustrated the importance of considering such occluded aspects of knowledge production in the research and planning process, as well as the added dimension of complexity of negotiating these between languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F.W., and Hernandez, K-A.C. (2013) Collaborative Autoethnography<\/em>. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press Inc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recording<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Following is a prerecorded video of the presentation we gave at the conference:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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