With pushes for "global education," English-medium programs emerged in universities in Japan, creating various effects. Based on fieldwork (2018) and inspired by Foucault's (1972) notion of the truth effect-asking the effects of claiming that something is true rather than asking whether it is true-this presentation examines three ways that nation-state-based linguistic ideology (i.e., one nation matching one language) was subverted at the Institute of Global Education (IGE) where most students have a diasporic upbringing, some with Japanese parentage.
Recognized at IGE was what I call the "immersion effect": the othering effect of labeling an experience as "immersion." It is othering because it involves seeing a person as alien to a place-if he/she considers the place his/her home, his/her experience there does not constitute immersion (Doerr and Suarez 2017). When IGE students refused to label their experiences as "immersion" because they considered Japan their home, they were recognizing this immersion effect.
Non-existent at GEC was the "language effect" (Pennycook 2007): the effect of claiming that certain utterances are of a particular language, which involves viewing language as a discrete unit. IGE students evade this by not naming their linguistic practices that draw linguistic resources from various sources, as of a particular language.
Prevailing at GEC was the "Maruwa effect": repeated experiences of the misrecognition of appearance-linguistic proficiency matches resulting in realizing one's assumption and correcting it-just as assuming everyone at the Maruwa Japanese supermarket speaks Japanese, only to later be corrected (Doerr 2019). Probably from (seeing their friends) being placed on the other side of this effect (i.e., assumed to speak Japanese), many IGE students were "those who know not to assume" appearance-language matches.
IGE students subverted the nation-state ideology through negotiating these effects.
Reference:
Doerr, Neriko Musha. 2019. "Hesitant Response" and "Refueling Japanese": Toward Inclusive Japanese Language Education" Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum, Princeton, May 12.
Doerr, Neriko Musha, and Richard Suarez. 2017. "Immersion, Immigration, Immutability: Regimes of Learning and Politics of Labeling in Study Abroad." Educational Studies.
Foucault, Michel. 1972. Archaeology of knowledge. London: Harper Colophon.
Pennycook, Alastair. 2007. The Myth of English as an International Langauge. In Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages. Sinfree Makoni and Alastair Pennycook, eds. Pp. 90-115. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
