Bringing Forth a World : Engaged Pedagogy in the Japanese University [1 ed.] 9789004421783, 9789004421776

Citation preview

Bringing Forth a World

Bringing Forth a World Engaged Pedagogy in the Japanese University Edited by

Joff P. N. Bradley and David Kennedy

Foreword by Glenn Toh

අൾංൽൾඇ_ൻඈඌඍඈඇ

All chapters in this book have undergone peer review. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

ISBN 978-90-04-42176-9 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-42177-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-42178-3 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BRINGING FORTH A WORLD: ENGAGED PEDAGOGY IN THE JAPANESE UNIVERSITY

“In Bringing Forth a World: Engaged Pedagogy in the Japanese University, the editors, Joff Bradley and David Kennedy, have assembled an insightful collection of chapters that challenge the status quo of teaching in Japanese universities. The forward-looking volume sees the future of higher education pedagogy embracing socially-situated knowledge construction and co-created meaning. The authors contribute in different ways to breaking down generational barriers and developing stronger links with the process of signification in language, literature and literacy. Those interested in innovations and challenges in Japanese higher education will certainly benefit from this volume.” – Jim McKinley, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL, University College London Institute of Education “The work here gets right to the core of important academic problems by situating criticisms deeply inside the Japanese university system, while searching for ways out of the systemic and intellectual constraints students, teachers and even, perhaps, bureaucrats and staff want to escape. The chapters here confront classroom issues that impact individual students. What each of these chapters do is crack different points in the ice that inhibits the discussion that many academics would like to undertake, but too often shy away from.” – Michael Pronko, Professor of American Literature, English Department, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan “This volume tackles the daunting and almost insurmountable problem of apathy among information-addicted students who coast through education systems across the planet at the cost of in-depth and serious engagement with knowledge as such. To break the cyclical, nihilistic passage of nonlearning on the Möbius strip of massproduced and mass-consumed education is a Herculean task but, taking Japan as their cradle for experimentation, Bradley and Kennedy do a commendable job of making ground against the tidal wave of mediated nonsense that bombards our digitised, burnt out senses understood as modern learning. Perhaps there is still hope beyond the tormented shrine of the university lectern?” – David R. Cole, Associate Professor in Education, Western Sydney University, Australia

CONTENTS

Foreword Glenn Toh

ix

Acknowledgements

xix

List of Figures and Tables

xxi

Notes on Contributors

xxiii

1.

Introduction Joff P. N. Bradley and David Kennedy

2.

A Metaphorical Complexity Lens Approach to Researching in the Second Language Classroom Joanne May Sato

1

11

3.

Critical Thoughts on Critical Thinking Michael Hood

4.

Academic Writing as Community of Practice: Peer Ethnography Research in the EFL Classroom David Kennedy

49

An Ecological Perspective of English Language Teaching: Conversations about Conversations Sarah Holland

67

5.

6.

Pinter: Held Incommunicado on the Mobile Joff P. N. Bradley

7.

The Renegotiation of Modernity: On Teaching the Dialectics of -DSDQHVH&XOWXUDO,PSHULDOLVPDV5HÀHFWHGLQWKHRurouni Kenshin Phenomenon Maria Grajdian

8.

Multimodal Literacy Development: Filmmaking Projects in EFL Classes James R. Hunt

vii

31

83

103

123

CONTENTS

9.

Motivating EFL Learners for Engaged Learning: Content-Based Instruction with Music Chiyo Hayashi

10. Feminist Pedagogy in EFL Reiko Yoshihara

141 155

11. (Im)mobilising against Climate Change: Ecopedagogy in a Neoliberal Framework Michael Dancsok

169

12. For a Planetary Education: Neoliberal Education and Its Modes of Subversion Christophe Thouny

187

Index

205

viii

GLENN TOH

FOREWORD

Debates in Japan over matters like internationalization, cultural nationalism, war reparations, environmentalism and education reform are typically vulnerable to the influence of what historian, John Dower, calls “the conservative tripod of ruling party, bureaucracy, and big business” (Dower, 2012, p. 134). Few controversies can be properly understood without reference (or homage) to the tripod’s well-guarded motivations, from which, a “recent emergence of more strident nationalistic voices” must draw the attention of keen observers (p. 121). When the Allied Powers left Japan after a seven-year occupation, the “peculiarly ingrown nature of the U.S.-Japan relationship” (Dower, 2012, p. 121) was already firmly in place. Unequal as it was, this relationship allowed a conservative Japan to thrive with “considerable autonomy”, meaning wryly that the manner in which Japan would remain enigmatic, if incorrigibly victim-conscious, would mark the nation’s “wearying [or wearisome] psychological situation” (p. 121). While the Cold War intruded into memories of the Second World War, the U.S. on its part took care “to suppress certain aspects of Japan’s war responsibility” (Dower, 2012, p. 123). The deliberateness of this suppression eventually resulted in the absence of any “decisive break with the past in defeated Japan” (Dower, 2012, p. 124), while the U.S.-Japan relationship would provide Japan’s conservative leaders “with a clear, fixed [and] almost myopic sense of security and national identity” (p. 120). Shielding the Emperor from blame, moreover, enabled him to become “postwar Japan’s symbol, and facilitator, of non-responsibility and non-accountability” (Dower, 2012, p. 125). Occupation era structures, building on the ponderousness of previous bureaucracies, were “shrewdly perpetuated by the Japanese to protect their new capitalism” (Dower, 1999, p. 546). Understanding America’s hand in Japanese conservatism with its relevance to present-day matters helps explain the intransigent manner in which Japanese institutions may (presently or belatedly) come across as being: (1) resistant to transformational initiatives; and (2) shiftily evasive when it comes to the admission of, let alone assumption of responsibility for, the need for such transformation (see McVeigh, 2006). Frustrating as any experience of such intransigence must be, people in positions of responsibility often turn out to be the very ones denying (or evading) the same, rendering institutional accountability nebulous and chimerical (see McVeigh, 2006).

ix

FOREWORD

Within particular Japanese institutions, the proverbial buck does not get passed unartfully one to another. This buck is instead spirited away from view in etherized form, practically as a deliberate attempt to deny its very existence. For genuine change to take place, potential change agents will first have to accept the task of proving the very existence of this buck. Genuine as opposed to superficial change (see McVeigh, 2006), beginning with honest recognition of a problem, typically requires patient commitment to prolonged struggle. In writing this Foreword, it bears heavily on me to have to look upon the task of individual chapter contributors as one that involves the surfacing of this elusory buck for scrutiny, well before attempting to determine its true nature. Realistically, however, the systems they gallantly set out to critique will not in any likelihood yield obligingly to the sincerest of calls for change—perhaps least of all from writers who are perceptibly non-Japanese (unJapanese). Japanese custodians of power, in general, do not lend a sympathetic ear to foreigners’ (or foreign) cries for change or action (see Hall, 1998; Rivers, 2013). Hashimoto (2007) notes that well into the new millennium, critiques of Japanese tendencies towards maintaining an inward gaze continue to remain relevant. With respect to English, for example, its vulnerability towards being seen as having the “potential to deculturate the Japanese people” (Hashimoto, 2007, p. 34), speaks of a continued guardedness against things deemed foreign or erosive of “an ‘authentic’ national identity” (Aspinall, 2011, p. 129). Meanwhile, the government takes pains “to ensure that the learning of English [does] not undermine Japanese cultural identity and cultural values” (Hashimoto, 2007, p. 34). The ‘foreignness’ of English is further reified by legitimations of English native-speakers as White blue-eyed Europeans (see e.g., Kubota & Fujimoto, 2013; Rivers, 2013). As a way of jettisoning English from the core of Japanese identity, such stereotyping exploits bigoted constructions of language and culture to naturalize Japanese monolingualism and monoculturalism. Ongoing debates, as Aspinall (2011) relates, betray unending concerns about whether notions of Japaneseness may (or may not) be able to withstand external challenges. Yet, almost in self-contradiction, the reified global role of English is routinely “presupposed in policy discourse in Japan” particularly in debates relating (sometimes rhetorically) to “increased international interdependence, global economic competition, environment challenges and participation in the global community” (Kubota, 2011, p. 104). Prevailing contradictions in Japanese society beg the question of what constructive ends or purposes should an earnestly compiled volume on language education like this one be directed towards in terms (hopes) of being beneficial to teachers and learners, or more optimistically, planners and administrators. One is reminded that present-day dilemmas are as deep-rooted as the manner in which the Allied occupation was responsible for perpetuating ponderously conservative institutions and bureaucracies, embodiments of ongoing inflexibilities (Dower, 1999, 2012). Where the ideals of innovation, transformation and teacher-student empowerment are concerned, Japanese higher education with many an ingrained (or ingrown) set

x

FOREWORD

of administrative and curricular practices, has been described as being change averse (see e.g., McVeigh, 2002, 2006; Rivers, 2015; Toh, 2016). Relatedly, in any given circumstance, the challenge of actually determining “what is changing and what is not changing in Japanese educational reform” becomes one that involves a careful teasing out of the assumptions and agendas of different cultural and political brokers (Tsuneyoshi, 2011, p. 110). Notwithstanding aforementioned concerns, this volume presents a rare opportunity for creative and innovative activities at local level to be highlighted for notice. In a post-methods era (Kumaravadivelu, 2006), the uniqueness of happenings in local classrooms must be made-known as positive instantiations (and assertions) of locality, not to mention diversity and reflexivity in meaning-making practices. My own belief in affirming local uniqueness led me to (almost abortively—see below) attempt a similar volume of chapters to encourage reflection and innovation (Toh, 2014). This was when I was EAP (English for Academic Purposes) coordinator in a newly configured liberal arts faculty in the Kanto area which had sought to deliver its core courses in English. Funding for this volume was approved by the acting dean, but problems arose when the office of the General Manager proved unhelpful with the ISBN application which had to be lodged with the national DIET library, saying that the university had no shuppanbu (publication department) to look into such matters (Toh, 2014). Telephoning the DIET library, the person in charge said to me that an ISBN could indeed be issued but a representative from the university, preferably a Japanese person, was needed to follow up on the paperwork. As matters unfolded, a TOEIC instructor who was interested in contributing a chapter offered to communicate with the DIET library. The library then sent this colleague a set of documents, which were in Japanese. On one sheet was a set of numbers, which s/ he said was the newly issued ISBN. As related in Toh (2014), this colleague came by my office some days later. Speaking animatedly, s/he said that the administration was unhappy that the project was going ahead. Not wishing to create further problem, I offered to speak to the various chapter contributors (English teachers from overseas very keen on professional development) and have the project shelved for the moment. On hearing my response, this colleague demonstratively executed a deep bow which s/he held “for about half-a-minute, pleading importunely that the project should continue” (Toh, 2014, p. 309). Excitement filled the air when the EAP instructors were given their complimentary copies of the freshly printed volume. Yet several months later, the faculty librarian contacted me and drew my attention to the fact that ISBN was in fact an invalid one. An ISBN had to have 13 digits and not 11. Surfacing the photocopies of the DIET papers given to me by the TOEIC instructor and showing them to the librarian, I was told that the ISBN was incomplete: “[t]here should have been another two digits to be found in a separate letter sent to the applicant” (Toh, 2014, p. 310). The TOEIC instructor was never to show me that letter. In my commentary on this perplexing turn of events, I noted the following:

xi

FOREWORD

The puzzling anomaly may never be worked out. My guess is that s/he was eager to write alongside the EAP instructors. Yet, being Japanese and knowing the General Manager’s stance against the EAP instructors’ efforts, s/he had to retreat and alas had to somehow fudge on the ISBN number and lie low thereafter. (Toh, 2014, p. 314) It might sound unusual for a university administration not to be supportive of instructors’ keenness to write and reflect. It was possible that the university never thought of the EAP instructors as more than people employed to improve the students’ English scores, and were consequently not expected to write or develop professionally. Perhaps the answer to such setbacks lies in McVeigh’s (2006) observation that the true nature of a Japanese institution might only be adequately made sense of by way of recognizing that each institution consists of an internal face and an external facade. Another observation from McVeigh (2006), may also go some way toward understanding similar institutional intransigencies: “In order to generate fronts, a tremendous amount of informal labor is required within an institution. This may involve keeping secrets, maintaining confidentiality, guarding restricted areas, and in general controlling what is usually not displayed to outsiders” (p. 111)—who in this case were the haplessly foreign EAP instructors. At each stage or layer affected by any change initiative, any number of people involved in guarding any number of secrets could stand to be inconvenienced by such an initiative, however well-meant. Given the fact that I now know that English-medium instruction (EMI) in that faculty was configured to attract student enrolments given the challenging economic environment, and for all intents and purposes was a commercial undertaking (McVeigh’s internal face), it was possible that the General Manager was privy to the university’s prioritization of the balance sheet over professional development. EMI was only a façade to create the impression that the new faculty was a fruitful product of genuine innovation (Toh, 2016). I am, moreover, not unaware that the critically innovative approach taken in this volume may be viewed objectionably in some quarters within the English teaching profession in Japan (or beyond). Rivers (2013) describes the manner in which the English teaching profession is liable to be in collusion with the establishment, pandering to agendas which may not be entirely enamored of equitable pedagogies and student empowerment. In Rivers’ (2013) discussion, Japanese university administrators are capable of suborning foreign employees to do their bidding, “middlemen [who] often perform … acts based upon motives concerning selfpreservation and a sense of obligation” (p. 88). The institution concerned, which Rivers (2013) calls the IU (International University), manages an English Centre (EC) with four foreign professors (from Australia, the UK and the USA) as its Director and Assistants. Practically all 50 of the English instructors are of native English-speaking origin (UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). Instructors are recruited directly from their countries of origin “[a]lmost certainly by design” xii

FOREWORD

when the Director makes his “annual world recruitment tour” of native Englishspeaking countries, the reason being that the new recruits will then “have no point of comparison between the [monolingual] practices espoused within the EC and those espoused within other Japanese institutions” (Rivers, 2013, p. 79). These instructors are only given limited-term once-renewable two-year contracts, part of a “conveyor belt mentality” that ensures that they are replaced regularly by younger native-speakers who must not be suffered to remain too long before their English (supposedly) becomes too Japanized (p. 77). The only staff given longer contracts or tenure are the four ‘middlemen’ in the management (for reasons soon to become apparent). Problems arise when Rivers and a senior colleague embark on research into instructors’ attitudes about the role of students’ L1 (Japanese) in classroom pedagogy. Being apprised of research which supported the use of learners’ L1 as an ‘effective tool for enhancing comprehension and the use of the target language’, their expressed belief was that the project would encourage “the evolution and advancement of EC language education pedagogy” which had been “almost stagnant” since its inception in the 1980s (Rivers, 2013, p. 85). Despite this sincerity, readers are told that the EC Director came to regard the project as an overstepping of the “boundaries of [their] ‘native-speaker’ English teacher role” when he raised the question of ‘where [the two researchers] were going with such controversial research’: the Director also “added that the [Japanese] chairman of the university had worked very hard to build the university’s reputation and … would be very upset if anyone did anything to damage it” (p. 85). Subsequently, when both researchers were writing up their findings which revealed that many EC members were of the belief that students’ L1 was in fact an effective pedagogical tool, they were again summoned to the Director’s office. This time, the Director betrayed nervousness over the publishing of the findings. His fear was that the research would be traced to the EC. Placing the threat of dismissal before one researcher, the Director questioned why, with two children to support, he would risk being dismissed. As a result of the warnings, only a diluted version of the findings was published (see discussion on dilution below). The actual number of participants was omitted while ‘a third decoy author from a different university’ was groundlessly included to “reduce the chance that the research context could be identified” (Rivers, 2013, p. 97). Summoned yet again afterwards, Rivers (2013) relates how the Director on that occasion reminded him that he should “behave as a foreigner” to the Japanese (p. 87). Commenting on his experience, Rivers (2013) notes that the use of short-term contracts is a way of ensuring that teachers “never fully awaken to, or dare speak of, the ideological realities shaping their day-to-day employment experiences” (p. 87), further illustrating a “simmering undercurrent of power and control” which militated against reflection and innovation (p. 88). Real-life situations of asymmetry continue to persist often because attempts at problematizing inequitable relationships and practices through professional reflection

xiii

FOREWORD

are liable to be silenced by incumbent forces of power and control. Such forces, almost always at first instance, assume a masqueraded form typified by a measured and cautionary appearance of benignity and moderation. However, in situations where an open airing of professional issues begins to threaten the establishment, attempts at the same will be coerced into silence. Still on publication, I discuss in Toh (2018) the manner in which journal review(er)s call out innovatively critical pieces for ‘verifiable’ data as so-called ‘evidence’ to thwart or downgrade writings which challenge established status quo. One reviewer had the following to say about an early version of Rivers (2015), an incisive paper problematizing reductionist conceptions of language-learner autonomy within English-only policy regimes: The students of this ‘school’ are portrayed as victims. Yet no effort has been made to gather feedback from these students about why they chose to enroll at ‘the school’ or on their experience there. I’ve visited this school on a number of occasions and gained a very positive impression. I’m prepared to be persuaded that this impression is wrong but only by evidence not by emotive rhetoric. The author of this chapter could present a reasonable, evidence-based argument … Many of the quotations used in the attack on the school are from an ‘Internal Fabrication’ or a ‘Mediated Fabrication’. I don’t know what this means. If these references aren’t verifiable then they cannot possibly be used as evidence. (Reviewer C, in Toh, 2018, p. 273) I am also aware of the manner in which pedantic invocations of academic impartiality and detachment can also be brought on to dilute or silence attempts at exposing inequalities in the distribution of privilege. The following situation concerns a manuscript sent to an applied linguistics journal. I had sought in the manuscript to discuss the power-laden ideologies embedded in the inconsistent and contradictory manner in which an English program was administered at an overseas Japanese elementary school. This school was set up specifically for children of Japanese expatriates. The manuscript was written with clear acknowledgement of my position as both parent of children studying in the school and as an experienced educator of Singaporean-Chinese extract, having taught English in different locations in the Asia-Pacific including Japan. References to nihonjinron (principles of Japaneseness) in the following review pertain to the reviewer’s carefully phrased denial of any objection to my use of the concept (see Befu, 2001, for a description of its divisiveness and bigotries) as a tool to analyze the culturally reductionist way in which English was taught. By denying any objection to my use of nihonjinron, the reviewer seeks to claim (posture) moral high-ground by way of pretentions to a superficial form of openmindedness. The main thrust of my argument was that the teaching of English in the school in question was heavily influenced by bigotries relating to assertions of Japaneseness (nihonjinron), which not only undermined the teaching of English purportedly for international communication, but which also made any claims to the same hypocritical and disingenuous. xiv

FOREWORD

Our view is that this writing is not publishable … as it runs the risk of being interpreted as a vendetta … There are, however, other aspects of the style of the essay that ought to be addressed. We are not necessarily taking issue with the author’s characterisation of nihonjinron … but we think it would have been appropriate to present this concept in a more tentative way … The teaching of English in Japanese educational settings may indeed be mediated by nihonjinron, but the paradoxes and complexities to which this kind of practice gives rise might still be characterised relationally, as an in-between space, however flawed and contradictory it might be … [T]he essay might have used the specific situation that is at its heart as a small window on the state of English as an international language, helping readers to reach a more differentiated view of the role that English actually plays within the contemporary world. (Reviewer, Applied Linguistics Journal, 2019; italics added) In objecting to the critique, the reviewer seeks to diminish (‘small window’) the importance of a key incident in the manuscript in which a Japanese teacher of English from the school had sought to belittle my position as an English-speaking nonJapanese parent, ironically in a school for children of (supposedly cross-culturally adept) expatriates. To achieve this, the reviewer approaches the manuscript in a manner which plays on my vulnerability as a parent and reflexive professional (where praxis is consigned to being at risk of “being interpreted as a vendetta”), a positioning which I acknowledged at the outset. To dilute the situation central to the manuscript, the reviewer also resorts to a pedantic form of neutrality and impartiality in his/her lofty allusion to “helping readers’ attain ‘a more differentiated [read ‘compromised’ or ‘watered-down’] view’”. For any writer to believably (believingly) follow this sort of reviewer advice would require the sort of credulity that assumes that readers of esteemed professional journals would indeed be in need of such ‘help’. While this may well be a regular case of a reviewer’s patronizing view of journal readers, it also suggests a form of academic parochialism which tries in vain to explain away uniquely situated realities by having them understood (alas) as ‘in-between spaces’ (which they inanely are, in the most hackneyed senses of the notion). The clichés in the reviewer’s falsely generous largesse (see Freire, 2000; Dale & Hyslop-Margison, 2010) betray the feeble manner in which partiality and unwillingness come across as hackneyed attention to platitudes like offering a ‘differentiated view’ of the ‘role of English’, in the breathtaking vastness of this ‘contemporary world’ for good measure. By the same token, to view serious critique reductively (e.g., as ‘vendetta’ or ‘emotion’) would be to overlook serious attempts at analyzing social and relational complexities symptomizing power asymmetries. Regrettably, the silencing of whatever seems problematic for a firmly-ensconced status quo often involves essentializing what could otherwise be unique exposés of ideologically-laden situations. My purpose of highlighting the above is to surface for candid discussion the (un) remarkably subtle forms which the non-sanctioning of innovative transformational xv

FOREWORD

work can take, in the aforementioned, through sneak refashionings of dilution (delusion) and repudiation. While no objector to critically reflexive work will want to sound blatantly oppressive on pain of political incorrectness or crassness, dissimulated forms of academic oppression and parochialism are both in existence and available at short notice for the dilution or drowning out of voices of reflexivity (Toh, 2018). Such forms of oppression are typically brought forth in ways that are subtle enough for their hidden forms of crassness to be believed by the credulous and falsely (un)conscious (see Freire, 2000; Dale & Hyslop-Margison, 2010). Thus, as one reads and appreciates the chapters of this collection as sincere attempts to problematize different forms of reductionist and/or regularized practice which the education profession is apparently not immune to, my hope and trust is that different forms of essentialism, regularization and intransigence will be sufficiently denaturalized for more truthful realities and uniquely inspired pedagogies to be allowed some space to emerge. REFERENCES Aspinall, R. (2011). Globalization and English language education policy in Japan: External risk and internal inertia. In D. Willis & J. Rappleye (Eds.), Reimagining Japanese education: Borders, transfers, circulations, and the comparative (pp. 127–145). Oxford: Symposium. Befu, H. (2001). Hegemony of homogeneity. Melbourne: Transpacific. Dale, J., & Hyslop-Margison, E. (2010). Paulo Freire: Teaching for freedom and transformation – The philosophical influences on the work of Paulo Freire. Dordrecht: Springer. Dower, J. (1999). Embracing defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Dower, J. (2012). Ways of forgetting, ways of remembering: Japan in the modern world. New York, NY: New Press. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Hall, I. (1998). Cartels of the mind: Japan’s intellectual closed shop. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Hashimoto, K. (2007). Japan’s language policy and the “Lost Decade”. In A. Tsui & J. Tollefson (Eds.), Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts (pp. 25–36). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kubota, R. (2011). Immigration, diversity and language education in Japan: Toward a glocal approach to teaching English. In P. Seargeant (Ed.), English in Japan in the era of globalization (pp. 101–122). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kubota, R., & Fujimoto, D. (2013). Racialized native-speakers: Voices of Japanese American English language professionals. In. S. A. Houghton & D. J. Rivers (Eds.), Native-speakerism in Japan: intergroup dynamics in foreign language education (pp. 196–206). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2009). Understanding language teaching: From method to post-method. New York, NY: Routledge. McVeigh, B. (2002). Japanese higher education as myth. New York, NY: M. E. Sharpe. McVeigh, B. (2006). The state bearing gifts: Deception and disaffection in Japanese higher education. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Rivers, D. (2013). Institutionalized native-speakerism: Voices of dissent and acts of resistance. In S. Houghton & D. Rivers (Eds.), Native-Speakerism in foreign language education: Intergroup dynamics in Japan (pp. 75–91). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Rivers, D. (2015). The authorities of autonomy and English only: Serving whose interests? In D. Rivers (Ed.), Resistance to the known: Counter-conduct in language education (pp. 94–118). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

xvi

FOREWORD Toh, G. (2014). English for content instruction in a Japanese higher education setting: Examining challenges, contradictions and anomalies. Language and Education, 28(4), 299–318. Toh, G. (2016). English as medium of instruction in Japanese higher education: Presumption, mirage or bluff? London: Palgrave Macmillan. Toh, G. (2018). Anatomizing and extrapolating from “do not publish” as oppression, silencing, and denial. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 15(4), 258–281. Tsuneyoshi, R. (2011). The ‘internationalization’ of Japanese education and the newcomers: Uncovering the paradoxes. In D. Willis & J. Rappleye (Eds.), Reimagining Japanese education: Borders, transfers, circulations, and the comparative (pp. 107–126). Oxford: Symposium.

Glenn Toh School of Humanities Nanyang Technological University Singapore

xvii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been very much a labor of love. It has been a project shared with colleagues and friends with the sense of a real hope of improving the working environment in Japan for students above all, but also for teachers and colleagues. The criticism of some aspects of Japanese education is in no form ‘Japan bashing’ but stems from a deep fondness and concern for this marvelous country and its young people. Joff Bradley: On a personal note, I would like to thank Charles Cabell for his help in the project, and always for his stylistic verve and inspirational rhetoric. To my fellow co-editor, David Kennedy, I thank a great deal as he has held firm in his naturally calm way and has moved the project slowly but surely onwards even when we have been confronted with numerous everyday concerns. To the contributions who you have abided with the book and its long journey to publication, I thank you most humbly. Although I hope that the outcome of our collective endeavors will make some positive change in education in Japan, the faults of the project are entirely my own responsibility. David Kennedy: I would like to put in a word of gratitude to all the students who over the years have taught me more about the practice of education than anyone. Cohorts come and go, and yet (I feel confident in concluding) the wisdom accumulated through our interactions travels with us and spreads to others. And thus we have this book! A very special thanks to Joff Bradley and Charles Cabell, my former colleagues in the Department of English Communication at Toyo University. It was through spirited and good-humored discourse together that the pedagogical vision of the New Tokyo Group and for this book came into view. And, last but not least, I wish to thank all the contributors who believed in this project and worked so hard to make it a reality. May our journey continue together!

xix

FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURES

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 4.1. 4.2. 5.1. 5.2.

An expanded ZPD (“multidimensional activity space”) (from van Lier, 2004, p. 158) Visualization of a Complex Adaptive System for EFL in Japan Visualization of the discourse during a single moment (a potential learning moment) in an EFL class in Japan A multi-agent system reflecting the dynamic, complex nature of a specified single moment (a potential learning moment) in an EFL class in Japan A multi-agent system reflecting one PLM of the Aya Phenomenon in an EFL class in Japan Two main axes of relevant theoretical traditions (adapted from Wenger, 1998) Peer ethnography research as community of practice Examples conversation role assignments—extracts Conversation lesson homework 2—extract

14 15 17 19 27 56 60 75 76

TABLES

2.1. 2.2. 3.1. 8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5.

Van Lier’s description of complexity (2004, p. 196) Traits of a social classroom Topics for a critical thinking course Textual features and modes of kineikonic design (adapted from Mills, 2011, p. 29) Benefits of using drama in the language classroom (simplified from Horstein, 2010, p. 19) The three phases of multimodal design correlated with the NLG’s multiliteracy components List of movies and the social issues they address, which became Available Designs for the students TED talk on music CBI lesson plan Worksheet Project: Talk like a TED speaker Presentation topics

xxi

20 25 41 129 131 133 134 147 148 149 150 151

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Joff P. N. Bradley is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Language Studies at Teikyo University, Tokyo. He is the co-author of Deleuze and Buddhism with Tony See and co-writer of A Pedagogy of Cinema with David R. Cole. He has co-edited Educational Philosophy and New French Thought and Principles of Transversality in Globalization and Education with the same author. Bradley is a visiting professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, India, and a visiting research fellow at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. Michael Dancsok has been teaching content-based language courses in Japan for the past fifteen years. He has a M.A. in Media Studies from Concordia University in Canada and a Masters in Applied Linguistics from the University of Technology Sydney. His research interests include the films of Canadian filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, CLIL, assessing intercultural competency and curriculum development for mobilization. Michael is currently living in Regina, Canada. Maria Grajdian is Associate Professor of Media Studies & Anthropology of Subculture(s) at Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences. Her research and teaching focus on Japanese contemporary culture (Takarazuka Revue, Ghibli Studio, Murakami Haruki, Shinkai Makoto), the history of knowledge (Japanese encyclopaedias) and the dynamics of identity in late modernity. Recent publications include a number of research articles in academic journals as well as books on contemporary Japanese culture such as After Identity: Three Essays on the Musicality of Life and Cyberspaces of Loneliness: Love, Masculinity, Japan (both 2019). Chiyo Hayashi obtained her Ed.D. from Temple University, Japan. She is currently Professor at Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. She has been interested in researching various aspects of individual differences of language learners including motivation, beliefs, and self-regulation. Her recent research topics include Japanese music majors’ intrinsic motivation for learning English, Japanese college students’ beliefs for learning English and EFL learners’ perceptions of choice in the English classroom. Sarah Holland is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and American Literature at Toyo University. She holds an Ed.D. in TESOL from Temple University, Japan. Her research interests include classroom dynamics, especially from an ecological perspective, the teaching of L2 writing and task-based language learning.

xxiii

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Hood is Associate Professor of English at Nihon University, College of Commerce, in Tokyo. His research interests include advanced academic literacy acquisition in a second language, linguistic and affective benefits of short- and longterm study abroad, narrative inquiry and mentoring at the graduate level. James R. Hunt is currently lecturer in the Department of Global Innovation Studies at Toyo University, in Tokyo, where he teaches English and 21st Century Literacy Skills. His research interests include SLA, literacy development, multiliteracies, extensive reading, task-based learning and CLIL. David Kennedy is Associate Professor at Nihon University, College of Commerce, in Tokyo. He has been teaching and creating in Japan for over 25 years. His research interests include social semiotics, philosophy of education, CLIL and media theory. He is one of the founders of the New Tokyo Group, a focal point for higher education professionals who share a social semiotic vision for language pedagogy in Japan and beyond. Joanne May Sato is a lecturer at Toyo University. She is interested in how the metaphor of complexity can help in the semantic research of second language classrooms and the discourses which take place within them. Her greatest desire is to have the research process and findings have immediate positive consequences in the classroom, not only in her own context, but also in that of others who read the research. Christophe Thouny is Associate Professor at Ritsumeikan University. His field of interest covers East Asian media and urban cultures, Japanese literature, ecocriticism and critical theory. He is co-editor of Planetary Atmospheres and Urban Life after Fukushima (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), a collective volume that examines cultural and urban politics of Fukushima Japan in the age of the planetary. He is currently working on a monograph on cartographies of Modern Tokyo (1923–1970) in urban HWKQRJUDSK\.RQ:DMLUǀ DQG-DSDQHVHPRGHUQOLWHUDWXUH Glenn Toh, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has for the better part of three decades taught English as a foreign language, English for academic purposes as well as lectured on language teacher education programs in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Laos, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. He has published widely in various areas in applied linguistics and language teacher education including language, ideology, power and identity, and maintains a keen interest on developments in these areas. Reiko Yoshihara is Professor at Nihon University, College of Commerce. She holds an Ed.D. in TESOL from Temple University Japan. Her research interests include feminist pedagogy in TESOL, teaching gender issues in EFL contexts and teacher identity. She has published The Socially Responsible Feminist EFL Classroom: A Japanese Perspective on Identities, Beliefs, and Practices (Multilingual Matters, 2017). xxiv

JOFF P. N. BRADLEY AND DAVID KENNEDY

1. INTRODUCTION

… if I could sing a song like that. If I could sing a song about the way I feel right now … it’d be a hit. Badlands (1974) *** The protagonists in Terrence Malick’s poignant 1973 film Badlands are two lost and lonely souls looking in vain for a place in a world which appears indifferent to what they will or won’t amount to. The film’s narrator Holly Sargis is an introspective, romantic high schooler with an overprotective widower father and few friends. Bright, albeit naïve in her sense of direction, she runs off with a somewhat older ne’er-do-well greaser, Kit Carruthers (who fittingly resembles James Dean) after he shoots and kills Holly’s father in a dispute over concerns for his daughter’s wellbeing. Malick delivers a uniquely off-kilter fairy tale in which Kit and Holly evade the law by traversing the desolate badlands of South Dakota in the archetypical American vehicle of insular psychic escape: the automobile. Their existential journey is clearly one of desperation. There is no future for them. We realize this long before the movie ends; this is what keeps us watching. Kit attempts to compensate for this hopelessness by imprinting himself on the world, by leaving some kind of personal legacy, in a series of desperate gestures. He records an unconvincing confession onto vinyl record for the law to find, rambles off comically hollow platitudes about life into a dictaphone, sends a hot air balloon up to the heavens, buries a pail of belongings for future generations to wonder at, and builds a makeshift stone memorial to his own imminent capture. In what is certainly the film’s most endearing scene, Kit, upon hearing a song by Nat King Cole on the car radio, seems overcome by the incongruity between his own desire to be recognized as unique—even as an outlaw—and his own inability to connect with an audience that might recognize him. As the music plays in the empty darkness of nowhere, and in a moment of consummate pathos, Kit dances with Holly in the headlights of a stolen car. At the close of the film, the sheriff escorting Kit to what will be his ultimate fate remarks, “You’re quite an individual, Kit”. To which Kit responds rhetorically, “You think they’ll take that into consideration?” Badlands is a quintessential example of 1970s American cinematic art as social commentary. Appearing in the wake of the tremendous cultural and political upheaval

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004421783_001

J. P. N. BRADLEY & D. KENNEDY

of the late 1960s, the televised horror show of the Vietnam War, and the cynical political corruption of Watergate, Badlands is an artistic reflection of a profound societal weariness and despair. Kit Carruthers is one among many indelible antiheroes populating American films of the 1970s—characters who within their own imperfections and limitations nonetheless desire to accomplish something beyond themselves, but whose efforts find no purchase in the wider postmodern landscape. Although the sociopolitical turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s clearly fomented an epochal cynicism toward social transformation, and despite the timeliness of Badlands, Malick’s film resonates even more powerfully today, and even more universally. The ensuing decades since its release would see the cynicism of the 70s gradually and poisonously metastasized into a comfortably numb resignation to a planetary status quo—a resignation to the apparently unstoppable momentum of dominant economic, technological, social, and political movements; more specifically, a resignation to the seeming inevitabilities of global neoliberalism, the unrelenting distractions of the digital screen, and a world bereft of alternative futures or utopian visions. The editors of this volume argue that the particular technicity of the current milieu is ushering society into a badlands of its own making, one historically unparalleled in psychosocial desolation, a landscape in which humanity—especially the young—can find neither belonging nor contribution nor growth. The wanderers of this landscape are, in short, lacking futural hope. Occupationally, the vast majority of us now face a lifetime being regarded as ‘human resources’ in service to the unfeeling machinery of economic growth. In most of the industrialized world, the bottom line—financial profitability—knows best, or at least better than its citizens do. In China, this principle is taking an even more sinister form: a state-controlled ‘Social Credit System’ is being implemented, in which big data algorithms will soon assess not only the economic potential of an individual, but also their sociopolitical pliancy. In either model, our knowing how to do/make (savoir faire) and how to live (savoir vivre) are increasingly being outsourced to the screens into which we invest our souls hour after hour, as the algorithmic forces behind these mirages have also come to know better than we do. The French philosopher Bernard Stiegler frames these problems within the very essence of our humanity and collective culturing: our technicity and historicity (Stiegler, 1998, 2018). They are, ultimately, issues of knowledge and of making. Stiegler’s emphasis is on the making of worlds, the creation of futures. His is a uniquely contemporary interpretation of the foundational questions in philosophy that date back to Plato. In short, the tools that we make as humans make us human at the same time. Our technologies situate us temporally in an eternal moment of incompleteness, in a forever becoming. We are surrounded by the retentions of our past—our ‘knowings-how’ (savoirs)—which also enable us to imagine and anticipate possible futures. These are our protentions, the desires that propel us forward, granting meaning and hope. Stiegler argues, however, that the current epoch presents technological innovation at such a pace that we are unable to comprehend what it is making of us. Our technical becoming is outracing our cultural becoming leading to the experience of disindividuation, separation, alienation, etc. 2

INTRODUCTION

Most of us are not even aware that our very desires are being fed to us through marketing algorithms. For Stiegler, these are not even desires in a strict psychoanalytic sense but a-social drives, delinked from cultural and social mores (Stiegler, 2013). We are being endlessly driven toward solitary consumption, not encouraged to care, to love, or to transform alongside others. The consequences for society are stark. In this lonely wilderness, millennials (especially) are left to seek recognition and acceptance in tweets and Instagram postings. Unlike Kit’s buried time capsule in Badlands, however, these digital inscriptions are not intended for future generations to glean from. They are ephemera in search of immediate response, and in that respect evacuated of import. *** This book is premised on a conviction (after Plato) that it is through education that there must be a radical return to first principles, a recognition of the technical and historical groundings of human culture, i.e., the “play of the world” (Stiegler, 2011, p. 59). Within this framework, education is tasked with nothing less than to be the caretaker of tertiary memory. Hannah Arendt (1961/2006) described the great challenge of progressive education as having to strike a balance between the traditions of the past and the perceived needs of the future. Her analysis is no less true today. However, we must understand that the caretaking role of education extends beyond merely curating, disseminating, expanding, and applying knowledge in service to the current status quo or a future it presents as calculable and inevitable. ‘Taking care’ is more importantly a long-term project of cultivating possible, indeterminate futures that are worth living in and that are worth contributing to. Henry Giroux characterizes higher education in the current neoliberal era as antithetical to such a vision. Instead, it is a “dead zone” where “the future replicates the present in an endless cycle” (2014, p. 31). The chapters in this volume demonstrate a protentional and contributory view of higher education, one in which both educators and students are part of a transgenerational project toward social semiosis, of co-creation of meaning, of what the biologists Maturana and Varela termed “bringing forth a world” (1998, p. 27). Factically situated in the Japanese archipelago, the editors of this book, Bradley and Kennedy, respond to the bleak prospects of the current milieu with not only theoretical suggestions for bringing forth a world but practical considerations for an ecology of contribution (Stiegler, 2015) in Japanese tertiary education. The context of the Japanese university, we feel, serves as an instructive microcosm of the degrading forces—social, cultural, political, economic, and technological—affecting human society everywhere. As professors and lecturers in the liberal arts, as caretakers of tertiary memory, the writers of this book have the responsibility to care for youth and their troubles in an academic environment where such liberal arts are imperiled by the decultivating ethic of business-oriented outcomes. In its own way, the desire to bring forth a world is a response to the blighted landscape of intellectual passivity and indifference in the Japanese university. 3

J. P. N. BRADLEY & D. KENNEDY

Although many of the contributors to this volume are professionally classified as foreign language instructors, the pedagogies proposed in this volume articulate a way forward within a more multidisciplinary liberal arts pedagogy in Japanese tertiary education. They offer a much needed contestation against discourses that are too often impeded by the compartmentalization of knowledge into academic disciplines, reductionism under the guise of ‘efficiency’, ‘competency’ and ‘best practices’, and rigid methodological and content constraints particularly notable in the field of TESOL. Taking a cue from multiliteracy theory, each of the chapters follows the basic stance of the New London Group, i.e. a celebration of “the inherent ‘multiness’ of human expression and perception” (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, p. 211). Japanese tertiary education has for decades both presaged and epitomized the rapid changes which are now affecting universities globally. Because of a plethora of concurrent changes from the 1990s—in demographics, economic globalization in the post-communist era, digital connectivity, and readjustments in education policies based on prioritizations of economic growth and the manufacture of pliant ‘global human resources’ to work on this behalf—education at the highest levels has increasingly become a machine in the service of an unquestioned socio-economic hegemony that maintains and naturalizes ethno-racial, gendered and postcolonial hierarchies. Critical thinking, meaning-making, and creativity have taken a backseat to the seemingly incontrovertible demands of the neoliberal marketplace. Language education in the Japanese university has been one of the standardbearers of this general project of proletarianizing and commodifying knowledge. The calculable is prioritized: a systemic obsession with rankings and standardized testing. The current administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012 –) has made economic competitiveness the central rationale for English language education, and universities—whose ‘customer’ students and their parents are naturally keen to achieve ‘empirically’ measurable results—have largely taken the government’s cue. English as a commodity has become a significant component of the Japanese social mechanism that separates winners from losers. This problem is arguably exacerbated by the excessive eagerness of the foreign language teaching profession to be recognized as a genuinely empirical science, a science whose quest for hard data requires a constant surveillance of human subjects. The very idea of English—as a product—has itself become affixed to the seeming inevitabilities of neoliberal globalism and all of its attendant anxieties. In this environment, it is little wonder that English as a foreign language in Japan is often met with a fair degree of ambivalence. While it is an inescapable ubiquity in daily life (as an curricular requirement and as something of a lingua franca in popular media), it is concurrently a medium in which most Japanese feel they have minimal investment. In its current state, English as a foreign language remains an omnipresent force that offers little in the way of psychic or social transformation. In response, the contributors to this book aim to promote meaning-making and learning as fundamentally social and creative, processes of ‘becoming-other’ that seldom, if ever, follow a predictable trajectory. Van Lier (2004) proposes this as 4

INTRODUCTION

reimagining “the development of the self and identity, not just as growing into an existing social-cultural-historical reality, but constructing such a reality” (p. 19). This book demonstrates pedagogies that revolve around critical engagement with meaning while resisting the ‘culture industries’ and ‘control societies’ that absorb individuals into an aggregate of clichéd ‘globalized’ discourses. This collection stresses the importance of empathy and moral imagination—a holistic view of unsettled identities and their psychological, social, historical, and political contexts. *** Because this project articulates such a variety of approaches and possibilities, the sequencing of chapters has required a good deal of creativity on the part of the editors. We have attempted to establish a sense of both continuity and contrast, reflecting the relationality between the crucial issues at stake in an engaged liberal arts pedagogy, while at the same time eschewing compartmentalization and prescriptivism. Some of the contributions are methodological in character, others more theoretical or philosophical. Naturally, there is a healthy conflict between some of the chapters. As a whole, none of these chapters should be thought of as ‘recipes’ or ‘how-to’s’. Rather, they are all unresolved studies in practice and possibility—of what has been tried or what may be tried, ‘successfully’ or not—with a common intent toward stimulating critical discourse, experimentation, and, most of all, a spirit of hope. The opening chapter by Joanne May Sato aptly sets the tone for all that follows. All social research and praxis, she reminds us, is essentially metaphorical, and a complexity lens allows for a healthy amount of “semiotic fuzziness”, as she puts it, in how we understand knowledge and learning. Her study illustrates how the complex social dynamics of the foreign language learning classroom are not simply ‘noise’ to be filtered out in the search for quantifiable or predictable ‘outcomes’. Rather, these complexities are seen as creating uncertain and volatile learning environments, each one unique from any other. Sato demonstrates how the messiness of peer interaction increases the occurrence of ‘potential learning moments’ (PLM). She exemplifies the ways in which instructors can seize such unpredicted opportunities and cultivate environments that are open to, and expectant of, serendipitous learning experiences. Michael Hood’s chapter applies this same principle of dynamic emergence to the issue of critical thinking in higher education. Despite the recent prevalence of a critical thinking focus in foreign language pedagogy, its practice remains hobbled by the problem of defining what we even mean by ‘critical thinking’. Furthermore, critical thinking pedagogy is vexed by a number of unresolved sociopolitical issues, with significant implications for personal and cultural autonomy. Hood proposes that rather than attempting to reach a consensus on such issues—as if critical thinking could be reduced to a set of fixed and teachable skills—educators should instead view critical thinking as an ongoing social practice. After Lave and Wenger’s (1991) descriptive (and not prescriptive) account of how learning occurs within “communities of practice”, Hood outlines an example syllabus which encourages 5

J. P. N. BRADLEY & D. KENNEDY

engagement with content and peers, and which allows critical discourse to emerge collaboratively in its own unique form. Community of practice is also a theme in David Kennedy’s chapter on academic writing in English as a foreign language (EFL). Kennedy argues that all too often university curricula present academic writing in EFL with scant attention paid to the issues of audience and purpose. For the most part, Japanese university students are taught to approximate a form of written discourse that—’out in the real world’— requires genuine participation in some kind of purposeful academic community. As a result, academic writing easily becomes a demoralizing reaffirmation of the marginalized status of the EFL learner as someone lacking voice, credibility, or authority. In keeping with the theme of this book, Kennedy’s chapter presents an alternative vision for academic writing, one in which learners become co-creators of meaning through researching and writing about their peers. Students consequently archive a living historical record of their own academic community and gain awareness of what academic writing actually means to them. An outline for such a ‘peer ethnography’ project is provided, based partly on the author’s own partial implementation of it, and partly on an imagining of its future potential. Sarah Holland similarly argues for the cruciality of reflection and consciousnessraising in English conversation courses. Just as Japanese university students rarely understand the significance of their own academic writing, they also tend to view English conversation practice as little more than an exercise in language building, and are therefore prone to feel alienated from the making of meaning in the moment. Holland’s chapter, however, demonstrates how discussion in a foreign language can be an appealing activity in its own right. Taking an ecological view of language learning in which cognition resides not only within the brain but in the learning environment itself, Holland presents a sample lesson plan that encourages students to hold what she calls “conversations about conversations”. This emphasis on metaconversational discourse is offered as a way to encourage students to articulate their understandings of the interpersonal dynamics in their own conversations and to thereby recognize the limitless possibilities of spoken interaction. Joff Bradley’s chapter on the profundity of silence presents an entirely different take on human discourse and learning. Bradley puts forward a teaching method that accentuates a reflection on what is deservedly absent in communication: the spaces between the words we utter, the gaps that suggest rather than overtly signify. Through this approach Bradley advocates a resistance to what he sees as the becoming-stupefied of the student demographic, spelling out a “compelling vision” for a critical pedagogy in the foreign language classroom in Japan. His fivefold model rejects a single focus on remedial language needs as it passes towards a final rumination on speculative philosophical content. Bradley insists there is desperate need to counter the lowest common denominator and an anything-goes mentality in language learning. Yet he refuses to merely criticize the perceived parlous state of Japanese higher education. Rather, he sets out why it is important to stimulate learners with challenging poetic and artistic material. His incorporation 6

INTRODUCTION

of Harold Pinter into a lesson plan (here) for second language learners, emerging from Bradley’s broader philosophical endeavors, satisfies a strict set of criteria for a uniquely stimulating pedagogy. In “putting his money where his mouth is”, Bradley offers a boldly unorthodox remedy for the pedagogical failures which abound in so many classrooms. The dynamics of inside versus outside have arguably dominated discourse on pedagogy in Japan for centuries. While Bradley’s contribution rightly challenges Japanese students (and frankly anybody) to confront an often enigmatic otherness from without, Maria Grajdian’s chapter focuses explicitly on the experiences of Western students within the Japanese university. More broadly it suggests ways in which discourses on Japanese culture’s outward radiation might be reframed to avoid a simplistic impulse toward dichotomizing transcultural migrations within a sort of political correctness-versus-incorrectness paradigm. Grajdian navigates the complex dialectics of ‘cultural imperialism’, with all its inherent contradictions, as a way to formulate more empathetic and cooperative ways of culturing. The chapter describes how the author has used the multi-media phenomenon of Rurouni Kenshin to help non-Japanese students uncover the inner and outer workings of Japanese popular culture in late modernity. The multimodal (i.e., multimedial) is also central to James Hunt’s chapter on filmmaking in the EFL classroom. Following the social semiotic pedagogy of the New London Group and other advocates of multiliteracy design, Hunt applies an expanded conception of literacy to the too-often compartmentalized practice of foreign language pedagogy. Because learners have through experience acquired a certain degree of “collective literacy” in the grammar of film and videography, narrative filmmaking serves as a motivating practice that not only enhances language learning but also raises students’ awareness of their own meaning-making potential beyond the verbal realm. Detailing two distinct filmmaking projects, followed by student reflections, Hunt’s chapter illustrates how eminently achievable and constructive multimodal approaches in the language classroom can be. Like film, music is a temporally bound semiotic resource. Unlike film, however, music has a much more distant relationship to language and therefore description. This challenge for multimodal literacy is the subject of Chiyo Hayashi’s chapter on content-based EFL instruction with music. Hayashi’s study involves Japanese students at a music college who are required to learn English but have little extrinsic motivation to learn it. Combining a self-determination theory of motivation with a content-based pedagogy, Hayashi describes the motivational effects of incorporating into the language classroom a variety of TED Talks whose subject is music. What emerges is a serendipitous learning environment in which the ostensible goal of the lesson—language learning—is rendered almost invisible, while the discovery of new content—ideas about music—is brought to the fore. By this point it should be evident that although the majority of contributors to this volume can be classified as foreign language instructors, what they do in the classroom encompasses far more than the teaching of language. At their most 7

J. P. N. BRADLEY & D. KENNEDY

valuable moments, their endeavors pursue the very essence of the liberal arts—of transcendence, liberation, and transformation. Reiko Yoshihara argues this point powerfully in her chapter on the relevance of feminist pedagogy within a foreign language curriculum. Yoshihara explains how the integration of feminist topics through a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach can help to revitalize the purpose for learning a foreign language in the first place: the transformation of self, other, and society. After summarizing various classroom activities that can be used to raise awareness and stimulate empathy, the chapter outlines a unit on domestic violence that Yoshihara herself conducted. Comments by students attest to the inclusivity of this approach. Students come to realize that social justice involves everyone, and that activism begins with a pedagogical engagement with issues of power and empowerment. As Stiegler (2018) argues, the catastrophe of climate change is evidence of a kind of disempowerment, of humanity outsourcing its own noetic power to the forces of blind consumerism, neoliberal economics, and technological determinism. In short, our technicity has vastly outpaced our ability to understand what it is doing to ourselves and our planet. Michael Dancsok’s chapter on ecopedagogy advocates a mobilization of student activism against climate chaos by exploiting the ill-defined administrative structure of foreign language curricula. Dancsok points out how ecopedagogy constitutes a crucial challenge to the power structures inherent in neoliberal education, calling into question the prevailing model of education as a commodity in service to global commodification, and thereby complicit in global destruction. Framing this challenge within Paulo Freire’s (1970/2000) critical and conscientious pedagogy of empowerment, the multiliteracies perspective of the New London Group (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000), and a CLIL methodology, Dancsok lays out an intricate and compelling argument for the transformation of the foreign language classroom in the Japanese university. Christophe Thouny’s chapter on planetary education is a fitting end to this volume as it brings us back to the book’s spatial metaphor of “bringing forth a world”. Thouny offers a vision of higher education as a subversion of the “global university”—an institution which in late modernism has arisen as an extension of the neoliberal project of exploitation, one which promotes an inert and amorphous sense of personal identity (e.g., “world citizenship”) divorced from social relation (i.e., history or politics) or the space of everyday life. The term “planetary” is here contrasted with the term “global”, the latter connotating the policies of preemptive control over future possibility. Thouny proposes a resistance against this capture of critique in the Japanese university by harnessing and recalibrating the subjectivities that exist between the cracks of Japan’s neoliberal education system, i.e., the personal struggles and weaknesses within the everyday spaces of the student body. This does not entail replacing state fascism with ego fascism, however. Taking his inspiration from Tsurumi Shunsuke, Thouny argues for a kind of deconstruction of the ego, a model of education where the individual takes a leap into the planetary, which he describes as “the everyday encounter with alterities, with other modes of being”. The 8

INTRODUCTION

chapter concludes with an innovative teaching method that places a tension between self-ethnography writing and fiction writing that allows students to combine their everyday experiences with fantasy and reinscribe them within a planetary totality. Thouny’s example syllabus may be seen as analogous to this book project as a whole. For while all contributions in this volume are rooted in their authors’ respective teaching experiences within the classroom, they are also transformed by a passionate spirit of imagination, possibility, and hope for education as a vital agency of social creation. We hope the reader finds much here to build on. REFERENCES Arendt, H. (2006). The crisis in education. In Between past and future (Revised ed., pp. 170–193). New York, NY: Penguin. (Original work published 1961) Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Designs for social futures. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 203–234). London: Routledge. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans., 30th Anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Continuum. (Original work published 1970) Giroux, H. A. (2014). Neoliberalism’s war on higher education. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1998). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding (Revised ed.). Boston, MA: Shambhala. Stiegler, B. (1998). Technics and time, 1: The fault of Epimetheus (R. Beardsworth & G. Collins, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1994) Stiegler, B. (2011). The decadence of industrial democracies: Disbelief and discredit, Volume 1 (D. Ross & S. Arnold, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press. (Original work published 2004) Stiegler, B. (2013). What makes life worth living: On pharmacology (D. Ross, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press. (Original work published 2010) Stiegler, B. (2015). States of shock: Stupidity and knowledge in the 21st century (D. Ross, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press. (Original work published 2012) Stiegler, B. (2018). The neganthropocene (D. Ross, Trans. & Ed.). London: Open Humanities Press. Van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

9

JOANNE MAY SATO

2. A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH TO RESEARCHING IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

INTRODUCTION

The recent influence of post-method/post-modern anti-theories, coupled with the rise of socio-cultural perspectives in Applied Linguistics, has created a burgeoning playground for a multitude of socially-located viewpoints from which to describe and research the language classroom. Second language classrooms are complex arenas of social interactions, a maelstrom of semiotic signs, each signifier unique to the context, each interconnected to others, each affecting the classroom through non-linear interactivity in the complex dynamic system which is the classroom itself. To better understand the social dynamics of learning it will be suggested that a complexity viewpoint can help visualize previously neglected social semiotic traits in the intricate processes of learning and teaching in a second language classroom. As the title would suggest, this study employs “complexity” as a metaphorical lens, which is purposefully juxtaposed against the physical glass lens of traditional scientific study. All social research is metaphor, all statistics are metaphors for the messy reality of life; alternatively, complexity and complex dynamic systems allow the inclusion of a certain “semiotic fuzziness” found in teaching and learning into the research process. Within this metaphorical visualization of the classroom the teacher and learners are revealed as experts in negotiating their located identity within the system with a view to collaboratively seeking improvements in critical thinking and language skills. In terms of offering practical advice for readers it will be suggested that identifying “potential learning moments” (PLM) in their own context may help teacher/researchers improve the classroom environment making it more conducive to re-creating more PLM and thus pushing the language skills of the learners into a collective “phase shift”—towards becoming more proficient, adept and confident English speakers and critical thinkers. It will be suggested that PLM may be particularly profound when they occur in learner-to-learner interaction rather than in the more traditionally researched teacher-to-learner interaction, thus arguing for classroom management in which the proliferation of learner-to-learner interaction is fore-fronted, not only within the limited time span of one lesson, but also continuing throughout the entire semester. Examples of how this can be achieved will be included. The examples included will ask teachers to take a leap

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004421783_002

J. M. SATO

of faith in their own knowledge of the context in which they work: to go about the semiotic work of constructing purposeful meaning in the context. Also, to remember that underlying this research is the assumption that, “Meanings construct reality as well as conveying and referring to it. Reality exists outside semiosis, but semiosis constructs versions of reality which guide semiotic agents to act on reality and change it” (Hodge, 2017, p. 229). In a sense it is a semiotics of change within contextual reach for those seeking new ways of looking at the classroom. Firstly, let us consider what complexity is. WHAT IS COMPLEXITY?

The development of computers and the complex networks associated with them, such as the internet, has helped push complexity into our everyday thinking. Furthermore, with the emergence of biology as the preeminent science of the twenty-first century, and the multidisciplinary search for global warming solutions forefronting our collective consciousness comes a rising interest in complexity theories to describe the “social”. The expanding economic networks and increases in human movement due to globalization also contribute to the need for ever more complex social theories capable of understanding multiple components interacting within dynamic systems. The metaphorical “man” of statistics is oft unable to re-present the world in all the brightness and messiness in which humanity exists. Complexity theory has spread from its roots in the natural sciences, to the social sciences, and thus this interest has also begun to gain momentum in recent linguistics and language learning research (Tudor, 2003; van Lier, 2004; Bannick & van Dam, 2006; De Bot et al., 2006; Larson-Freeman & Cameron, 2008; Seedhouse, 2010; Dörnyei, 2011; Mercer, 2013). Complexity as a theoretical viewpoint in the Social Sciences continues to emerge with more new articles and books being published year on year. In the social sciences, researchers have utilized the terminology of how complex multi-agent dynamic systems influence and interact within themselves and with other systems. Researchers posit that the classroom itself can be viewed as a Complex Adaptive/Dynamic System (CAD/CDS). As Urry suggests, “The very division between the “physical” and the “social” is itself a socio-historical product and one that appears to be dissolving. The complexity sciences seem to provide the best means of transcending such outdated divisions, between nature and society, between the physical sciences and the social sciences” (2003, p. 18). The discourse signs and interaction signifiers of the language classroom from a complexity perspective are very much grounded in the socio-cultural research tradition of the last twenty years. THE SOCIAL CLASSROOM: BEGINNINGS OF CLASSROOM COMPLEXITY

In order to view the classroom through the lens of complexity first we must appreciate how the classroom is complex by the very nature of it being a social 12

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

space. In versions of socio-cultural research “the classroom” is described in a variety of ways: as a learning space (Savin-Baden, 2007); as a small unique culture (Holliday, 1994; Breen, 2001); as a community (Wenger, 1998) or from an organic ecological space. Van Lier (2004) describes this ecological approach as a, “study of the relations between language use and the world within which the language is used” (p. 44). Context is absolutely key: the context in this chapter is the social communicative language classroom. These “socially located” viewpoints offer a more holistic approach to researching the classroom after the failure of reductionism to capture the “true reality” (reality as constructed in research and as it actually is) of what is actually happening in communicative language classrooms around the globe. These varied viewpoints have also laid the groundwork for the acceptance of observing language classrooms, thus the discourse taking place within them, through the multi-lens of complexity. In a sense to “restore reality” (Hodge, 2017, p. 145), perhaps all this research can offer is a different way of seeing—yet this in itself can be instructionally liberating, freeing up our pedagogical imaginations and revitalizing our practical daily decisionmaking processes. The true communicative language classroom is fundamentally a social space, not a linguistics laboratory, and the discourse reflects the social nature of interactions. This particular university class culture fits the description by Holliday (1994, p. 37) of a “small class culture”, having less than fifty students. He describes how a “small class culture” is full of “tacit, implicit relationships” (ibid.) There are strong bonds between the members of the class, fuzzy, heady, emotions abound in this realm of “language egos” in the midst of doing language. Linguistics in this context is, “socially constituted linguistics”, (Hymes, 1974, quoted in Sieloff Magnan, 2008) and within this context and way of seeing the classroom, “language is not separated from social action” (p. 353). Perhaps it would be pertinent to add, this is “emotionally constituted linguistics”, where unique selves with powerful voices and identities constitute the human reality of the classroom. What does “learning” and “teaching” mean in this social classroom? How do we negotiate our prescribed identities? The identity of teacher is perhaps best understood as just one of the identities which perform “teaching acts”. However, teaching acts are not only performed by the teacher, but also by students, as van Lier visualized (1996, p. 193). Teaching acts performed by students are important, not only to those taught, but also to those doing the teaching. Van Lier (1996) presents this concept in Figure 2.1. Building on the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky, van Lier presents a multi-conceptualization of an expanded “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD), the cornerstone concept for much Sociocultural Theory (SCT). Vygotsky describes the developmental site of the ZPD as that within which children (and in this case, students) can make more progress (with adult help) based on what they may be capable of, rather than what they are immediately, individually capable of. Vygotsky stated, “what a child can do with assistance today she will be able to do 13

J. M. SATO

Figure 2.1. An expanded ZPD (“multidimensional activity space”) (from van Lier, 2004, p. 158)

by herself tomorrow” (1978, p. 87). van Lier suggests it is useful to see the ZPD as a “multidimensional activity space” rather than as simply an adult/child and teacher/ student scaffolding interaction (2004, p. 158). When interaction is viewed in this multi-dimensional way what becomes important is “the interaction of the planned and emergent—that is the ability of teaching and learning to interact so as to become structuring resources for each other” (Wenger, 2007, p. 267). Scaffolding student talk has been considered an important part of the ZPD, as well as the idea that learning is an “assisted performance”. However, it would be prudent to consider that while the metaphor of a “scaffold is rigid and static … the educational work that goes by its name is dynamic and flexible” (van Lier, 2004, p. 147). The discourse emerges from this interaction base in a social classroom. Why start here? Dynamic and emergent, words we find in these quotes are two fundamental aspects of complexity, this expanded multi-ZPD suggests the relationships in the classroom are not anything like teachers simply teaching and students simply learning. The social classroom is complex. What follows is an attempt to harness the multitudinous semiosis of complexity for the purpose of documenting some of that very “social” complexity, of which the socioculturalists were fully aware of.

14

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

COMPLEX ADAPTIVE/DYNAMIC SYSTEMS (CAS/CDS)

For researching social systems, economies and cultures the metaphors of Complex Dynamic/Adaptive Systems serve as starting points to rethink and reestablish research paradigms that will enable a more “real” look upon the realities of the complex social worlds of classrooms. The properties of Complex Dynamic Systems (CDS) or Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) include change over time in a nonlinear fashion; in this sense the system is always temporary. There is no simplistic change that can be reduced to cause and effect. Every part of the system may affect the system in a small or large way pushing the system into the next state. Sometimes this change is radical, and sometimes it is smooth. Systems are not isolated and systems will influence each other, as will components and agents of each system. Every part of the system is interconnected; there is self-organization and adaptive interaction in between the agents or components. Complex adaptive systems always display emergent behavior, which is behavior developing in the system itself. There is no end state to a system—it is never finished, though it will go through phase shifts. With these properties in mind let us imagine first the Complex Adaptive System in which language learning takes place. VISUALIZING THE COMPLEXITY OF CLASSROOMS

For the purposes of visualizing the metaphorical realms of semiotic complexity, Figure 2.2 represents the Japanese classroom context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) as a CAD.

Figure 2.2. Visualization of a Complex Adaptive System for EFL in Japan

15

J. M. SATO

In this visualization there are only two systems (in reality there would be many more overlapping these two). The larger system (oval) is the context of EFL in Japan and the smaller sub-system (circle) is the communicative language classroom. As De Bot et al. (2007) remind us, “Dynamic systems are nested in the sense that every system is always a part of another system, going from sub-molecular particles to the universe” (p. 8). These diagrams act only as metaphorical visualizations of complexity rather than complex mathematical mapping formulas. Larson-Freeman and Cameron (2001) state of their ground-breaking book on the subject, “we have on the whole avoided the mathematical world” (p. 31). I reiterate what LarsonFreeman and Cameron suggest about Complexity Theory and CAS/CDS applied to the classroom and indeed linguistics, that, in general, it is a “metaphorical bridge”, which, “takes us into a new way of thinking or theoretical framework” (LarsonFreeman & Cameron, 2001, p. 15). It is a metaphorical multi-lens from which to scrutinize the patterns of behavior and perhaps help to understand how students learn a second language, not only at the cognitive level but also at the social. It can challenge us to think of the importance of different signifiers and signs in the semantic work of visualizing learning and classrooms. The very language describing complexity and CDS may already have teacher/researchers thinking of the ways in which the terminology could be applied to the social classroom, and, as Dörnyei notes, “complex dynamics systems perspective makes a lot of intuitive sense” to those practitioners involved in the fuzzy study of second language acquisition (2014, p. 80). As Larsen-Freeman and Cameron suggest, relating complexity theory to the classroom places the emphasis on “action: communicative and speech action, teaching action, language-use, thinking, task action, physical action” (2008, p. 197) and how these elements or components interact. In addition to the components noted in Figure 2.2 other examples of elements/agents/components of the system will inevitably include the contextual realities of the particular classroom: the students, the teacher, the physical classroom set-up (chairs/tables/technology), the textbook, the relationships, interactive strategies, teacher beliefs, the level of the students’ language skills, the aim of the class, the expectations of the students, individual learner histories, cultural learning differences, motivation to study and additional study outside of class. And the list goes on. These examples are merely a few in the myriad of components within the interconnectivity of the system, teachers may very well already have in mind other important components in their own contexts. The larger system would include the wider stakeholder context of the learning institution itself and institutional attitudes towards teaching, learning, testing, collaboration, internationalization, globalization, departmental politics, and financial constraints. Again, these are just some examples of components which influence and interact within the complex systems. These sub-systems exist in the greater system of the educational context of Japan and beyond that the role and use of English in

16

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

the community outside of the institution. All these systems, sub-systems, agents, components interconnect and adaptive change occurs which will push the system through phase shifts (one example may be a change in government or institutional policy). The interconnectivity of all these components foregrounds the discourse of the classroom. The discourse is one element of the system and is in itself a CAS/CDS. As De Bot et al. (2007) put it, viewing classrooms as a CAS/CDS must be approached with “an open mind … Traditional statistics is meant to reveal how a group performs as a whole and may be useful to see the grand sweep of things … if we really want to know what happens in the actual process of language acquisition we should also look at the messy little details …” (p. 8). Some of these ‘messy little details’ may have the propensity to be “Potential Learning Moments”. POTENTIAL LEARNING MOMENTS

It is recognized that moments in class are full of “learning potential”, any moment (potential learning moment—PLM) may be the catalyst to a learning activity (Cameron and Larson-Freeman, 2008, p. 198). In the terminology of complexity, PLM could be the small change that can lead to big results, the iconic semiotic beat of butterfly wings. This is the crux of complexity theory for research on classroom discourse from this perspective; what can the discourse reveal about moments in this system and how is each moment connected? How can we take advantage of these possible learning moments, and how can we produce more?

Figure 2.3. Visualization of the discourse during a single moment (a potential learning moment) in an EFL class in Japan

17

J. M. SATO

The circles, ripples or radar-esque lines represent the significance or influence of elements/agents at a given time as the discourse of the class entails. At this moment in the class the teacher, student, textbook and an event outside the classroom components are all active in the discourse. Imagine the diagram animated to fully appreciate the progression of moments becoming other moments. Imagine the dots expanding and contracting in differing sizes and speeds, representing the significance of elements of the complex nature in the discourse at certain points. The temporal nature of the system is revealed in the never-ending movement of the system. The place where the circles connect (the central oval) is one potential learning moment, what I will term PLM (Larson-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 198). It is considered “potential” rather than monumental, it could be seen as the start of a phase shift, one small move. One word of praise could bring about change in a students’ motivation. It could lead to nothing, but it is worth noting. For teachers each one of these moments are a point at which multi-interactive decisions are made. The importance of the decisions for the teacher may be different to the system—what may be seen as a “eureka” moment for the teacher may just be a fleeting nothingness in the impact it has on the system. RE-PRESENTING THE DISCOURSE OF THE SYSTEM

Through the diagrammatic images of complex adaptive systems I have attempted to visualize how a specific moment (PLM) may appear. A very simple dialogue was chosen in order to be able to reproduce the discourse as a momentary diagram. A student yawns—this is the catalyst—and the teacher responds with a question about the yawn. The student has just been engaged in a textbook activity, in which the students had to answer questions about a cartoon strip featuring a woman having difficulty choosing what to wear. The imaginary woman ends up going out in the same clothes she was wearing before she tried to find a new outfit. This student comments that she too had been having difficulty about choosing what to wear the night before. Here the connection between the textbook/real-life/classroom discourse are the agents interacting and creating a moment both focused on the practice of a specific grammatical form, humor and social interaction. Discourse Extract 1 is the transcribed version. Discourse Extract 1. A short exchange in classroom interaction 1

S1: [yawns]

2

T: Are you sleepy?

3

S1: Yes … because last night I had to chose my clothes

4

S1 + T: [laughter]

What could be codified as a simplistic “display question” (line 2) by the teacher in response to a “non-verbal action” (line 1) by the student is drenched in a multitude of signs when the complex nature of the signifiers in the exchange are included. 18

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

Such a simple discourse extract, mere seconds in length, is full of multi-signifiers interconnected with others. It shows the playful nature of the students’ attempts to practice language within the confines of the institutionally dictated ‘textbook’ classroom, it also hints at emotional signs so oft missed in coded discourse—the desire to make the teacher smile. It is a positive display, showing a need to interact from a student, who, in a teacher-fronted class, may have had her head down on the desk within the first few minutes of class (an often acceptable non-participatory student response in Japanese classrooms). Figure 2.4 shows how this very simple, albeit complex episode may be represented as a diagram.

Figure 2.4. A multi-agent system reflecting the dynamic, complex nature of a specified single moment (a potential learning moment) in an EFL class in Japan

Adapting the discourse to take advantage of potentially useful teaching/learning moments as they arise is a teachers role in this complex classroom; teachers do not control their students learning, they “manage and serve … students’ learning in a way that is consonant with their learning process” (Larson-Freeman and Cameron, 2008, p. 200). Teachers who are aware of the multitude of signifiers working at many levels within their own context will recognize these moments in some cases, analyzing classes after the events can help teachers to discover how they could have better identified PLM in real time. Language viewed in this complex classroom is never static, never scripted, never easily codifiable. It is, as Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008, p. 199) state, “co-adaptive” between all members and between the members and the context. The complex system includes and connects moments to learning, individuals with the group, the group with the classroom context, the

19

J. M. SATO

classroom context with the institution, the institution with the local culture, the local culture to EFL and so forth in one dynamic adaptive web. As Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008, p. 203) notes, “the microgenetic moment of action is nested in multiple sociocognitive systems”, or as van Lier concurs, the classroom “is not located in a vacuum”, it is part of a vast organic ecological set of relationships, and it is important to look at the whole picture (2004, p. 3). This is a view of classrooms, a way of looking, of observing. Van Lier includes the concepts as shown in Table 2.1 when applying the idea of complexity to research in the language classroom. Table 2.1. Van Lier’s description of complexity (2004, p. 196) ‡ A ‘learning act’ never automatically or necessarily follows a ‘teaching act’. ‡ Teaching does not cause learning. ‡ In learning, there are multiple causes and reasons. Some of these are predictable, but there are also coincidences and accidents. ‡ Learning may occur at any time in any place: just as likely between lessons as in lessons, just as likely in the bath as in the classroom. ‡ Causes do not explain complex systems; knowing causes does not equalunderstanding. ‡ Any ‘small’ change may have enormous consequences, or none at all. ‡ The same is true of any ‘big’ change.

While it may seem obvious to teachers that moment-to-moment decisionmaking is fundamentally adaptable, becoming more intuitive with experience, it has often been neglected by theories of language learning as it does not lend itself to quantitative research. Complexity theory or organic ecological theories help teachers locate their “actual” practices in theory, rather than theory dictating an idealized global package of “best practices”. One uniqueness of the Japanese context is that as teachers we must confront the realities of juken eigo (English studied to pass the university entrance exams) in which students have little incentive to actually use English outside of the exam room. The Japanese situation does not fit the context in which much ESL research is carried out —where English is spoken in the wider community. If a view of classrooms is allowed which is localized and situated, the essentialized notions of the context (juken eigo) can be processed and understood in the ‘lived’ reality of the class. If complexity is fore-fronted, then teachers are empowered through local contextual knowledge established across timescales and revealed in singular classroom moments. However difficult describing these might be, research cannot be reduced to simple figures nor given numerical value in simplistic coding systems. Van Lier enunciates this “Chaos, strange attractors, emergence, holons, complex adaptive systems … are relatively new phenomena that look, sound and behave quite differently from the old set of fact, proof, law and causality” (2004, p. 40). Perhaps it 20

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

may be only through the analysis of the discourse from which patterns may emerge of contextually located examples of best teaching practices and the potential multiactivities of learning as described in Figure 2.1 by van Lier (1984). This certainly points to different kinds of research, or different kinds of research questions. Dörnyei (2014) suggests an approach he terms “retrodictive qualitative modelling” be used to trace the emergence of behavior, language learning and identify elements of these which may be conducive to the task of learning to speak in a second language. RETRODICTIVE QUALITATIVE MODELLING AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Discourse Analysis of the language classroom has traditionally focused on the roles of the teacher and learner and what “acts” they perform in the discourse. Traditional DA methods have often ignored those “acts” that could not be coded according to the coding system in use (see Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975, for an example of a classroom discourse coding system). As students language skills become more advanced and more time is spent in collaborative dialogue the ubiquitous IRF model (imitation— response—feedback) becomes less of a defining feature of the discourse and thus coding systems which rely heavily on these sequences of traditional moves in the teacher/student discourse become more problematic when coding the discourse of student to student interactive moves in the social classroom. Viewing discourse through a complexity lens allows a more holistic vision of what is happening. Dörnyei (2014, p. 85) suggests that retrodictive qualitative modelling could be one way in which ideas from complexity can contribute to classroom research. This modeling “reverses the direction by starting at the end— the systems outcomes—and then tracing back to see why certain components of the system ended up in one outcome and not another”. Take, for example, a student returning from a study abroad experience and what influence this has on classroom interaction and language acquisition for other students. We can observe elements of language spreading through the discourse of the classroom, for example an improved pronunciation of certain words. Within the classroom system the students are agents interacting, and emergent language is out of the control of a single agent (perhaps the teacher). To better understand what kind of classroom situation is best to nurture this chance for improvement for all through the initial improvement of one can lead us to adapt our teaching practices. Teacher-fronted classrooms cannot take advantage of positive student-student interaction in which the whole class can achieve a phase-shift in their language skills. The failure of reaching this phase-shift may be traced back to the student feeling alienated upon return and thus shutting down rather than opening up, which brings us back to the idea as the classroom as a social space. As teacher/researchers there is an important job of monitoring the emotional space the students occupy and helping to nudge it into a supportive rather than negative zone.

21

J. M. SATO

RETRODICTIVE QUALITATIVE MODELLING IN ACTION: TEMPORAL RELATIONSHIPS AND CLASSROOM DYNAMICS

Learning is a temporal process. It happens slowly over time, emerging from moments upon moments of the kind visualized in Figures 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. Learning does not happen; it is a process. The process is the complex dynamic system of the classroom and the process is never complete, just as the system has no end state. The metaphor Mercer (2008) chooses to describe this time element is that of an “educational journey”, where learning is a linked web of interactions which cannot be completely separated, much as the interconnectedness of CDS. Interactions are dynamically related to previous interactions, which in turn have been the result of previous interactions. While his research has been conducted in primary schools in England, it certainly has resonance for any learning situation, including language learning in an EFL classroom context. If, as Mercer (2008) suggests, dialogic discourse in the classroom mediates learning, then the study of the dialogue discourse over time is important; dialogue discourse contains “shared history” and shared learning. Mercer found this temporal aspect of classroom talk had been missing from many analyses. This is partly due to the logistical difficulties of researching talk over a long time period and partly due to a lack of theoretical bases for this kind of temporal study. Mercer suggests “There is a gap in contemporary educational theory where there should be a conceptual framework for explaining ‘becoming educated’ as a temporal, discursive, dialogic process” (2008, p. 9). Complexity theory helps to provide this: “By putting time and change back into our applied linguistics systems” (LarsenFreeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 24). Mercer (2008) provides examples of teachers recounting previous classes collectively with the class and some of the questions used are of a temporal nature; they reflect and build on previous talk. This knowledge is displayed in references to commonly shared experiences both in the class and in the lives of the students. Mercer suggests the complexity of shared knowledge is in “a state of flux” (p. 20) and it is difficult to identify such shared knowledge as it is invisible to the researcher. However, it is easy to identify in a teacher’s “recaps”, and as the teacher reviews and relates current interaction to previous interactions we begin to see the temporal nature of learning—to see the communally shared pathway to learning. We begin to be able to visualize the CDS of the classroom and to see how the interconnectivity between teachers and student can help the learning process in a way where the teacher is continually learning of the context as well as the students are of the language. I have selected some extracts that reveal this temporal nature of discourse in this complex dynamic system, the interconnectivity of discourse over time affected by the previous discourse. The discourse is transcribed from an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom at a small college in northern Japan. In this EFL context the chances for using English outside the institutional spaces of the classroom are minimal, and as such this class may be the only chance students have to practice speaking. The class 22

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

data is from a twice-weekly, ninety-minute ‘Communication Skills’ class, taught by a teacher whose first language is English, and was recorded over a period of three months from January to March 2010. The students would be classed as “low level” in this context having TOEIC scores of between 250 and 350 (chosen for the simplicity of the language used). In all, approximately 550 minutes of data was recorded. In the first extract (2) a very traditional teacher-fronted interaction is presented. It would be easily coded in more traditional analysis systems. It starts a very simple discussion warm-up activity about animals before the textbook is opened to a new unit. Here is the first mention of pigs, which will reoccur throughout the week. Discourse Extract 2. The first mention of pigs in whole class interaction 1

T: Do you like cats … could be any animal … Do you like dogs? What else?

2

S: rabbits

3

T: rabbits

4

S1: birds

5

S8: pigs

6

T: pigs? Mmm

7

Ss + T: [laughter]

This next extract (3) occurs after the warm-up, at the moment the textbook is opened on a new unit about food, healthy eating and animal rights. In line five the teacher mentions “conversation style”. This doesn’t raise questions from the students but is a phrase we have talked about a lot in team teaching meetings about this class. The teacher is indicating that the students do not need to follow the textbook conversation but use it as a springboard to an improvised conversation. “Conversational style” has already been taught in a previous class, and consequently indicates the temporal nature of the class/complex system over the semester. It is progressing moment to moment connected through time and interaction. Discourse Extract 3. Introduction of a new unit 1

T: what is a vegetarian?

2

S1: can’t eat meat

3

T: can’t eat meat? Or don’t eat meat? … OK you got it one more time … have you ever met a vegetarian?

4

Ss: have you ever met a vegetarian

5

T: Now … don’t forget conversation style … let’s see

23

J. M. SATO

An example of one of the conversations which followed Extract 3 can be seen in Extract 4. It contains evidence of students expressing their ideas to each other and the teacher. There is clearly a difference between the very simple questions asked at the start of the class in Extract 2. The difference reveals the temporal nature of the class over the course of one class. It is moving moment-to-moment, interaction-tointeraction through a complex pathway of shared talk and teacher management. This is the dynamic system at work. Discourse Extract 4. Students talking about vegetarianism. 1

T: OK me too … so what do you think about vegetarianism?

2

S1: it’s good

3

T: why?

4

S1: healthy

5

S2: but I think vegetarianism is bad because vegetarian just eat just only vegetables … I think it’s unhealthy for the body

6

S1: but

7

S2: yes

8

S1: eer I think it … you eat only meat …

9

S2: yes

10

S1: … so you are early dead

While discussing animals and meat products, the students again mention pigs in this interaction between two students. Here the initial whole class-talk influences and reoccurs in the discourse of student-student interaction. The moments from the start of the class and the middle are interconnected. Discourse Extract 5. The mention of pigs in student interaction. 1

S1: do you like pigs?

2

S2: real pigs is …

3

S1: dirty

4

S2: dirty? Ahh … and … and ko … ko {like this, like this} stinky … stinky

In the next two classes we can see evidence of what Mercer (2008, p. 18) describes as “collective recall”, and in this case “pigs” are mentioned again as evidence of collective humor and offers us an insight into how the class works together to make it enjoyable. This is shared knowledge and would not be evident in research that only analyzed one class. It points the way to longer research projects (such as in Mercer, 2008) which include the classes’ complex changes over time. 24

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

Discourse Extract 5. Collective recall of pigs. 1

T: Do you remember we looked at this page last week? What did we talk about?

2

Ss: Food … animal rights … vegetarianism … pig …

3

T: pigs … yes

4

T+Ss: Laughter Discourse Extract 6. Collective humor related to pigs.

1

T: Now do you remember we talked about this last week … what did we study?

2

Ss: Pigs

3

All: Laughter

Mercer also importantly describes how interaction does not only involve the exchange of information but is a “joint experience” which “shapes what each participant thinks and says, in a dynamic, spiral process of mutually influenced change” (2000, p. 6). Language is, as he describes, how we “think together” (2000). This collaborative thinking is common-place in businesses, schools, communities, politics, and is how we make progress. It is the co-adaption of talk which helps us build relationships in our Community of Practice. Swain (2000, p. 104) describes how this working together through language (“languaging”) is “both social and cognitive activity; it is linguistic problem solving through social interaction”. Complexity theory and can help us map change overtime and help to identify PLM in the context. This may in turn lead to replication of PLM as they are identified and documented. After observing the social communicative language classroom the traits as shown in Table 2.2 were identified as those which kept the classroom ‘social’ in the most general sense of the word. Table 2.2. Traits of a social classroom Multidirectional

Teacher-student, student-teacher, student-student, teacher-all, students-all, teacher-teacher

Social

Humorous, friendly, personal, safe

Dynamic

Unpredictable, reactive, responsive, co-constructed

Conversational and motivating

Unplanned, unscripted, enjoyable, meaningful

Relevant and authentic to the students

Contemporary, age appropriate, contains L1 use if needed, textbook manipulation

Adaptable and co-adaptable

Collaborative

Flowing

Fluent, energetic

Temporal

Built on past classes, planned yet emergent, momentary

25

J. M. SATO

With these traits as the baseline in the classroom learner agency is upheld, and empowerment for both students and teacher, and a relationship between students and teacher which moves beyond the traditional image of teacher as “primary knower” (Berry, 1981, p. 126). In this new relationship students can be the “primary knower”, or more productively, knowledge is shared amongst all the members of the class like other healthy CoPs, and therefore binary oppositions such as input/ output, native/non-native, good/bad learners, researcher/teacher L1/L2 become less influential. Moving away from the computational learning metaphors of input and output of traditional SLA metaphorical constructions can help to look at the class as a culture—a community—within which individuals (both students and teacher) are involved in the complex, dynamic activity of learning (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). The simplistic “pig” discourse was selected because of its very simplicity; let us take a bolder, more imaginary step into complexity. By taking retrodictive a step further, beyond the confines of traditional research with complexity at the very core of this story. As a teacher let me tell you a story, taking you away from the researcher self and including the interconnected teacher self as the writer. Here I describe a phenomenon, unable to be enunciated, yet felt in signs, felt in the potential learning moments of another communicative class. Once upon a time, in a 1st year English discussion classroom, not so far away from here in the snowy north, there was a young woman named Aya. Aya could write well, including descriptive narratives full of humor, she was also very good at listening, catching all her fellow students could say. Yet Aya had one terrible problem: she couldn’t talk. Now this wasn’t the kind of non-talking we have grown accustomed to in some students in this Japanese context. This was the kind of non-talking that was a total inability to speak, as if the goblins had her tongue! She would sit in uncomfortable, cringing silence willing her mouth to move, the physical effort sometimes reducing her to tears. Her group would sit and watch her battle, becoming increasingly frustrated and uncomfortable. The class almost ended in the third week, a fat-tailed ending to the story. Then, one day the little butterfly of chaos raised her hand and asked, “How do you say, Ganabatte minna ouen suruyo?” (You can do it, we support you) … and with this first supportive interaction, this first venture into English as a means to actually do something, rather than just say something (as it in in most realities outside the classroom) a new behaviour emerged, students adapted and co-adapted their discourse to help Aya speak. The students self-organised their discourse, finding ways to include and encourage Aya. Over time the discourse of the class took on interactive, pragmatically intellect, supportive, flowing traits, it was as if this social and dynamic discourse had been the desired situation, an attractor state for all the students as agents of change. The discourse repeated time and time over. The discourse spread smoothly through groups as the complete interconnectivity of the students’ learning

26

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH

became apparent, emerging, growing, adapting and developing with every new interaction. While Aya underwent the most radical change and got her tongue back from the goblins, the entire class encountered a phase shift so shockingly apparent to the teacher and yet so difficult to show, so difficult to catch the beauty and brilliance of a butterfly pinned down on paper, stuck forever in a single lifeless moment. Try as she liked she could not find a way to document this in a linear way, there was no input/output metaphor to describe such a complex and dynamic thing as the Aya phenomenon. So she looked back at emergent behavior, the emergent discourse and this is one tiny example of how butterflies create such massive change. The chaos of the classroom, a chaos of complexity not to be confused with the chaos of some classrooms. And, now where does this story end? Well, like all Complex Dynamic Systems there is no end state. Aya is still phase shifting both linguistically and socially and the teacher … Well, she is here trying to explain complexity in a way others may understand and make use of (see Figure 2.5).

Figure 2.5. A multi-agent system reflecting one PLM of the Aya Phenomenon in an EFL class in Japan

There are thousands of stories such as the Aya Phenomenon every semester in every classroom. As teachers, how we view our classrooms and the semiotic significant of events can help us to feel liberated in our imaginations when restrictions are imposed on what outcomes we should be obtaining. There is no formal English test score designed to measure empathy. Yet, as teachers, we would 27

J. M. SATO

reward such emotional intelligence breakthroughs as an essential part of the journey of “becoming educated”. The next phase shift of this research is to document more examples of PLM, not only of the “pig” kind, but those of the “Aya” kind. CONCLUSION

Complexity and CAS may help to move language classroom research from the codified to the uncodifiable, from the linear to the emergent. In this there exists a space where the teacher/researcher may find pedagogical space to identify the PLM in the social context of their own classrooms. The next step in this research is to find how, in this context, the classroom can become more conducive to learning to speak in English for the learners present, as well as identifying the potential learning moments and phase shifts most needed in this context towards becoming bilingual. I believe retrodictive qualitative modelling is a powerful tool in this search for the complex re-visions needed to create positive change in the learners’ language abilities. Viewing the classroom through the lens of complexity helps grasp the whole classroom, not only the codifable discourse. Again, in the sense that van Lier viewed the ecological approach, this is neither a method nor a methodology; “It is a way of thinking and acting” (2004, p. 3). A different way of thinking and acting in any context may very well be the catalyst teachers need to push them through the next phase shift in their own educational journeys. REFERENCES Bannick, A., & van Dam, J. (2006). A dynamic discourse approach to classroom research. Linguistics and Education, 17, 283–301. Berry, M. (1981). Systemic linguistics and discourse analysis: A multi-layered approach to exchange structure. In M. Coulthard & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studies in discourse analysis. London: Routledge. Breen, M. P. (2001). The social context for language learning: A neglected situation? In C. N. Candlin & N. Mercer (Eds.), English language teaching in its social context (pp. 122–144). London & New York, NY: Routledge. Brumfit, C. J., & Johnson, K. (Eds.). (1979). The communicative approach to language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Bot, K., Lowie, W., & Verspoor, M. (2007). A dynamic systems approach to SLA. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10, 7–21. Dörnyei, Z. (2014). Researching complex dynamic systems: ‘Retrodictive qualitative modelling’ in the language classroom. Language Teaching, 47, 80–91. Hodge, B. (2017). Social semiotics for a complex world. Cambridge: Polity Press. Holliday, A. (1994). Appropriate methodology and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Lantolf, J. P., & Pavlenko, A. (2001). (S)econd (L)anguage (A)ctivity theory: Understanding second language learners as people. In M. P. Breen (Ed.), Learner contributions to language learning: New directions in research. Harlow: Longman. Lantolf, J. P., & Peohner, M. E. (Eds.). (2008). Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages. London: Equinox.

28

A METAPHORICAL COMPLEXITY LENS APPROACH Larsen-Freeman, D., & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Magnan, S. S. (2008). The unfulfilled promise of teaching for communicative competence: Insights from sociocultural theory. In J. P. Lantolf & M. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages (pp. 349–379). London: Equinox. Mercer, N. (2000). Words and minds: How we use language to think together. London: Routledge. Mercer, N. (2008). The seeds of time: Why classroom dialogue needs a temporal analysis. Journal of Learning Sciences, 17, 33–59. Mercer, S. (2013). Towards a complexity-informed pedagogy for language learning. RBLA, Belo Horizonte, 13, 375–398. Savin-Baden, M. (2007). Learning spaces: Creating opportunities for knowledge creation in academic life. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education. Seedhouse, P. (1996). Classroom interaction: Possibilities and impossibilities. ELT Journal, 50, 16–24. Seedhouse, P. (2010). Locusts, snowflakes and recasts: Complexity theory and spoken interaction. Classroom discourse, 1(1), 4–24. Sinclair, J. McH., & Coulthard, R. M. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swain, M (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In L. P. Lantolf (Eds.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tudor, I. (2003). Learning to live with complexity: Towards an ecological perspective on language teaching. System, 31, 1–12. Urry, J. (2003). Global complexity. Cambridge: Polity Press. van Lier, L. (1984). Analysing interaction in second language classrooms. ELT Journal, 38, 160–170. Van Lier, L. (1994). Some features of a theory of practice. TESOL Journal, Autumn, 6–10. Van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language classroom: Awareness, autonomy and authenticity. Harlow: Longman. Van Lier, L. (2001). Constraints and resources in classroom talk: Issues of equality and symmetry. In C. N. Candlin & N. Mercer (Eds.), English language teaching in its social context (pp. 90–107). London & New York, NY: Routledge. Van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

29

MICHAEL HOOD

3. CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, critical thinking has become something of a buzz-term in the Japan EFL context. As part of broader reform efforts, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has called on universities in Japan to develop learners’ ability to think critically and logically as fundamental cognitive skills necessary for a “mature” society (MEXT, 2016). A leading national daily newspaper has deemed critical thinking skills necessary if Japan is to compete in the global economy (Mekata, 2016). At the highest institutional levels, this particular pattern of thinking about and engaging the world has been identified as necessary to solve the problems Japan faces (e.g., environmental, economic, demographic and political) now and in the near future. Virtually at the same time, MEXT has increased emphasis on communicative language teaching at all levels of English education as a means of cultivating a new generation of Japanese people with English abilities (MEXT, 2003). Critical thinking-oriented courses have been seen as a way to respond to both directives. As a result, an increasing number of universities in Japan are offering English language courses that attempt to teach critical thinking explicitly, and publishers have rushed to produce English textbooks for use in such courses. In short, stakeholders in Japanese education have invested in critical thinking as a mode of thought, and English language as its means of expression. The desire for new pedagogy, methods, and outcomes is understandable. Demotivation toward learning English at the secondary and tertiary levels is quite high (Falout, Elwood, & Hood, 2009), and English communicative competence in Japan lags behind other Asian countries (EF English Proficiency Index, 2017). Pedagogical and practical factors are often cited for this state of affairs. The grammar/translation method, marked by rote memorization, translation of decontextualized utterances, and a lack of meaningful input and output continues to dominate instructional practice (Morita, 2015). Practically, there is a disconnect between the lofty communicative goals stated by MEXT and the reality faced by classroom instructors at the secondary level, where preparing students for university entrance exams that typically do not test communicative competence is paramount. Test English, or “ehavi eigo”, demands that teachers who might otherwise be willing to use communicative methods and exploit meaningful content teach to the test. In short, the university entrance exams create a washback effect (Watanabe, 1996; Allen, 2016). This further exacerbates demotivation and depresses communicative English

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004421783_003

M. HOOD

ability, and many students arrive at university as false beginners, with a heightened sense of anxiety toward learning English (Fukai, 2000). Critical thinking, with its emphasis on meaningful input and output, along with a strong communicative focus, might be seen by some as a panacea for the dull content and ineffective approaches that often dominate EFL instruction in Japan. The irony and the danger of Japan’s investment in critical thinking is that its pedagogical promise could easily be frustrated by a lack of deep critical reflection on the term itself—its meanings and uses—whether or not it is indeed appropriate for the Japanese EFL context, and whether or not the term comprises a discreet set of teachable and transferable skills. In the pages that follow, I confront these issues and suggest a pedagogical framework and specific activities for effectively incorporating critical thinking in the Japanese EFL classroom. CRITICAL THINKING IN CONTEXT: A BRIEF HISTORY

The earliest conceptualization of critical thinking can be traced back over 2,500 years to Socrates (Paul, Elder, & Bartell, 1997). Drawing on what would become known as the Socratic method, Socrates entered into dialogues with others in which he would ask probing questions in an attempt to challenge assumptions, reveal contradictions, and force them to examine premises—all the while encouraging his interlocutors to refine the terms under discussion logically and seek better evidence for their positions. The hierarchical notion of teacher as dispenser of knowledge, and the metaphor of student as receptive vessel were set aside in ehavi of a dynamic relationship between the two, marked by dialectical interaction. Successive Greek philosophers (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, and so on) continued and refined the tradition, ever vigilant to the notion that not all is as it appears on the surface, and that only through critical interrogation can we see more clearly. The concept was further developed in the Middle Ages, most notably by Thomas Aquinas, who sought a systematic means of testing the soundness of his ideas. His primary contribution to the development of the concept of critical thinking was the formalization and systemization of critical analysis. In Summa Theologica he used this system to present the reasoning behind the Christian faith and defended it against all criticisms that he could anticipate. Although this study was limited to theology, anchored in a bedrock belief in divine knowledge, it nevertheless built and defended its arguments by means of systematic critical reasoning. With the Renaissance came further refinement of the concept of critical thinking. Emphasizing empiricism (the notion that knowledge is derived from sensory experience), Francis Bacon developed what would be known as the scientific method, which would apply inductive reasoning and observation to all areas of knowledge (see The Advancement of Learning, 1605/2000). Although critical thinking and the scientific method are not synonymous, they do share methodological imperatives, such as the rigorous interrogation of ideas, logical reasoning, and the requirement

32

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

of substantial evidence to support claims. Rene Descartes extended these principles to philosophy, submitting that even the human soul should be subjected to scientific analysis. In Rules for the Direction of the Mind (1628/1985), he argued that everything must be questioned, even our most fundamental assumptions of ourselves and the world. Nothing was out of bounds. Post-Renaissance, the use, refinement, and emphasis on the critical method continued unabated. The American Declaration of Independence (Jefferson, 1776) used it to challenge monarchy; Adam Smith applied it to economics in Wealth of Nations (1776/2008); Darwin to biology in Descent of Man (1871/2008); Marx to society and economics in Capital (1867/2011). Kant even applied it to reason itself in Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1999). Freud (1899/1994) applied critical methods to the study of the unconscious mind. Emerging fields, including anthropology, sociology, semiotics, and applied linguistics drew on critical analytical tools as they gained footholds in the academy. Early in the 20th century, critical thinking became a more explicit topic in educational circles. William Sumner (1906) examined the way schools uncritically indoctrinate learners into socially-prescribed norms and mores, and saw critical thinking as a means of liberation. Education pioneer John Dewey saw critical thinking skills in very practical terms, as a means of defining and achieving human purposes and life goals (Dewey, 1916/2009). He was also an early advocate of student-centered learning (Dewey, 1927), which is a central component of the critical thinking pedagogy outlined below. Modern educators, including John Taylor Gatto (1992), use critical methods to challenge the efficacy and desirability of “assembly line” public education. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972), Paolo Freire advocates critical pedagogy as a means of understanding and resisting cultural, economic, and social oppression. By the early 21st century, critical thinking has become an implicit feature of Western educational practices. From Socrates to Freire, we might delineate a straight and progressive line, a steady shift from received or gut understandings of ourselves and the world around us to a disciplined, dispassionate, and systematic interrogation of ideas and assumptions. Its advocates view critical thinking as a liberating force, both from the internal patterns of thinking that shackle us and from the exercise of external power over us. Surely this is a positive development in human history, right? Perhaps, but this does not mean that we should accept it uncritically in the Japanese EFL context. According to the basic principle of critical thinking, there is always room for critique, despite the demonstrable good that has come of the development and practice of critical thinking over millennia. In this short chapter, I focus not on the past (though my arguments are grounded in it), nor on the philosophy (though it is never far from the surface); rather, I focus narrowly on critical thinking as pedagogy and practice in the EFL context in Japan. My assent for such a pedagogy and practice is contingent on answers to the hard questions that critical thinking demands of us.

33

M. HOOD

VEXING ISSUES

The brief history outlined above might easily be mistaken for a rallying cry in ehavi of critical thinking as a pedagogical basis for EFL instruction in Japan. It is not meant as such. In fact, this outline is intended to point toward several significant and vexing issues that must be addressed before we entertain a sweeping adaptation of critical thinking as a pedagogy in Japan: conceptual vagueness, cultural appropriateness, teachability, and transferability. These interrelated and perhaps intractable issues are ehaviou below. What Is Critical Thinking? A brief perusal of the literature on critical thinking reveals the first and most significant vexing issue: There is no consensus on what actually constitutes critical thinking, either conceptually and pedagogically. There is no concise definition of the term, which makes it difficult to implement critical thinking on the institutional level. But I suggest that this is as it must be: Any serious adherent to critical methodologies must admit that its most basic premises are subject to intense scrutiny, debate, and constant revision. To approach the matter otherwise would be to deny the radical interrogative power of the concept itself. Nevertheless, some basic principles can be outlined in a general way, with the caveat that they are fluid, contested, and descriptive rather than prescriptive. These principles will be revisited later to see how they might be adapted in the Japanese EFL context. The critical stance. If any single principle can be said to be at the heart of critical thinking, it is a mental predisposition to interrogate the objects and ideas that comprise our world. More than the sum of the broad and specific questions critical thinkers pose, this critical stance informs a habit of mind, a way of relating to the world on a continual and unrelenting basis. The critical stance is reflexive scepticism, insistence on reasons and evidence, and an unwillingness to accept anything on face value. The critical stance is the mental conditioning that allows and in fact insists upon critical reflection. Without the critical stance, assumption flourishes, authority rules, and hearsay is the language of the commons. The critical stance focuses the mind on both the ontological (i.e., concerned with the nature of existence and reality) and the epistemological (i.e., what can be known about existence and reality). The critical stance is the backdrop for all critical thinking. The rejection of authority. The critical stance, with its ontological and epistemological focus, predisposes the individual to reject received knowledge, as well as the authority of any individual or institution that makes claims based exclusively in reference to that authority. For early Enlightenment thinkers, this could mean challenging religious dogma—a very brave act indeed at a time when the Catholic church often reinforced its authority by brutal means (e.g., the 34

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

Roman Inquisition). Galileo, for example, was imprisoned on charges of heresy for challenging Church orthodoxy. In the modern world, rejection of authority informs challenges to both secular and religious institutions. Although these challenges are not always successful in the face of unequal power relationships, the rejection of authority based on reason and evidence can be viewed as an essential feature of a more just world, and as a tool for overcoming oppression. The demand for evidence. The requirement of evidence to support any idea or claim is the corollary to the rejection of authority. In the absence of authority, individuals need evidence, a body of facts or empirical data, that can be used to support or validate an idea or claim. Evidence is evaluated for relevance, sufficiency, and currency relative to specific claims. This is not to say that expert opinion is no longer relevant. But credibility is earned, not bestowed, and is easily lost. Critical thinkers learn to detect bias in the sources of evidence they draw upon. They know how to avoid cherry picking, the selective use of evidence to support a predetermined conclusion. They do not allow what they wish to be true to guide their evaluation of evidence. Dispassionate analysis. Critical thinkers are fearless in that they seek the truth (a broad and complicated issue outside the scope of this brief chapter) regardless of where it might take them. The truth, based on available evidence, is the goal. The courage to discard cherished but demonstrably wrong ideas is the hallmark of a critical thinker. It is of course quite possible that a cherished belief with survive dispassionate scrutiny. In such instances, confidence in one’s ideas is reinforced. In other cases, light is shed on a new path. Gender, Culture, and Critical Thinking What should be obvious from the historical overview presented above is that critical thinking is an unambiguously Western convention. In my research on the development of the concept, I have come across no reference to thinkers outside of the Western philosophical tradition. This raises two very important issues: First, does the cultural specificity of critical thinking create blind spots in the concept; and second, does its Western flavor render the whole framework unpalatable or inappropriate in other settings? Answers to these questions are prolegomena to any further consideration of critical thinking as pedagogy in the Japanese EFL context. I am a Westerner male, an American steeped in the critical tradition. From an early age and throughout a long, formal education, I have found myself functioning in communities that take critical thinking for granted, as if it were the best, and perhaps only meaningful way of engaging the world of ideas. I did not even step outside of the US until I was 29, long after patterns of thinking had been deeply engrained and seemed as ineluctable as they did preferable. To me at that age, it was difficult to conceptualize an alternative. Since then, I have lived most of my life 35

M. HOOD

abroad and have learned that alternative patterns of thinking and analysis do indeed exist, despite my culturally-informed predilection for the dominant Western model. But even within the Western philosophical tradition, critical thinking has been critiqued. Walters (1994) sees modern Western conceptions of critical thinking as reductive. For Walters, the critical thinker is detached and exceedingly logical, capable of arriving at the answer to all things if critical questions are pursued with sufficient objectivity and rigor. This version of a critical thinker is a caricature, devoid of the very traits that make us human. As this view is dominant in Western academic institutions, other, perhaps equally valid ways of knowing are marginalized. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) differentiate separate knowing (i.e., the detached robot-like character described by Walters) from connected knowing, which is marked by empathy and subjectivity. Perhaps not surprisingly, the former view has been associated with masculinity, and dominates Western academia, while the latter has been associated with femininity, and is often deemed insufficiently rigorous for the serious work of science (Clinchy, 1994). Tannen (1997) suggests that the dominance of male-oriented ways of knowing in academia gives male students a distinct advantage over their female counterparts in the classroom and the broader society. A more recent study (Kugler, Tinsley, & Ukhaneva, 2017) finds that female college students in male-dominated majors (especially STEM fields) are more responsive to negative feedback than their male counterparts, making it more likely that they will change their major. These studies suggest that we ignore gender differences in a critical thinking-based curriculum at our peril. Dominance of the critical thinking model may also place non-native English speakers at an academic disadvantage in Western settings, regardless of their language proficiency or intellectual ability. Atkinson (1997) focuses on critical thinking in the ESL context and defines three areas where it might create barriers for students from other traditions: a culturally-defined conception and value of individuality; contrasting norms of self-expression; and divergent conceptions of the role language plays in learning. The Western conception of critical thinking privileges both individuality and its expression. Western students are very often asked to formulate their own ideas on various topics based on both learned material and personal experience. The question, what do you think? Is a mainstay in Western classrooms. Japanese culture, however, is marked by collectivism (Kim, Triandis, Kagitcibasi, & Yoon, 1994), which informs what is both possible and permissible in the Japanese classroom (Nisbett, 2003). Japanese students might respond to such questions with questions of their own: Why do you care what I think? Or How is my opinion relevant? Pressure to assert and express individuality can create anxiety in learners who are not accustomed to doing so. Gate keepers, accustomed to their own culturally specific norms, might evaluate such students based not on their actual mastery of subject material, but on their ability to mimic cultural norms. Students from countries where the classroom culture is informed by passive participation, lectures with little or no discussion, and evaluation via exams might find themselves

36

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

at a profound disadvantage. Clearly, critical thinking is not merely a neutral set of tools that anyone can acquire and deploy. Despite these criticisms, not all scholars believe that critical thinking is inappropriate in the Japanese classroom. Kubota (1999) claims that to say critical thinking is inappropriate in a particular cultural is to perpetuate generalities and stereotypes about that culture. Indeed, to say that Japanese do not think critically, or that they cannot practice critical thinking in the classroom because of strict cultural norms is an oversimplification of the matter. In the following section, I make an argument for a pedagogy informed by critical thinking principles. AN ARGUMENT FOR CRITICAL THINKING IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

The preceding discussion of vexing issues shines light on specific problems related to critical thinking without really solving them. We have seen that critical thinking lacks a concise and coherent definition, despite its demonstrated usefulness and ubiquity in Western intellectual life. We have also seen that while it is not the only game in town, it is the dominant game, and that gender and culture are factors in one’s ability to play. Yet these legitimate concerns, in and of themselves, are not sufficient cause to vanquish critical thinking from the EFL classroom in Japan altogether. With a more nuanced understanding of the term, and a circumscribed application of it in the curriculum, a pedagogy informed by critical thinking and appropriate EFL classroom practices might yet prove to be fruitful in Japan. Critical Thinking as Social Practice Critical thinking, as we have seen, is a slippery term. However, this slipperiness does not owe to its inherent complexity, but rather to a common misapprehension of what we typically mean when we use the term. Most often, critical thinking is appended with the word skills. The inclusion of this word informs the assumption that critical thinking comprises a set of discrete skills that can be narrowly defined, listed, measured, mastered, and tested. This is not to say that critical thinking cannot be conceptualized as a set of skills. Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy has long been used to organize progressively higher thinking skills as a basis of classroom goals (Paul, 1993). I suggest instead viewing critical thinking in the Japanese EFL context not as a is a discrete set of skills, but rather as social practice (Atkinson, 1997), learned not through explicit instruction but rather through its implicit practice by means of a classroom atmosphere and dynamic relationship between and among instructor and learners. In such a classroom, we absorb critical thinking skills, through contact with it, immersion in it, and continual exposure to it. Critical thinking, viewed as a set of interrelated social practices, not a list of educational objectives, is thus better understood as ehaviour in a particular setting Thus, if we are to envision a pedagogy and curriculum based on critical thinking, our first task is to dispatch the notion that it can be taught and instead focus our 37

M. HOOD

attention on creating an environment conducive to critical thinking, populate that environment with well-versed practitioners (i.e., instructors who have spent considerable time in such environments and developed that habits of mind reflective of critical thinking) and novices (i.e., students). In short, our goal ought to be to nurture communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and facilitate participatory practices (Wenger, 1998) that help instil the habits and behaviors that inform critical thinking. The Critical (Community of) Practice It should be noted that a community of practice as defined by Lave and Wenger (1991) is not designed and implemented as an explicit means to a specific educational end; rather, the term is used to describe what happens when learning takes place. According to their model, learning occurs when the conditions are right for learning. The first condition is the existence of a community as described above. In the Japanese EFL context, what does such a community look like? First and foremost, learners need to feel that it is okay to behave in a way reflective of communities comprising critical thinkers. They need to feel it is not only acceptable but also desirable to ask questions in class and engage others in discussion. This can be a tremendous challenge. Many Japanese learners have been reared in academic communities where silence is reified by a variety of social and cultural factors (King, 2013). The instructor must change this classroom dynamic. There are several ways to do this. A room of their own. In academic settings, the critical stance described above requires some changes to the traditional classroom to encourage the critical behaviors we seek to develop. Very often in Japanese university classrooms, students sit at long desks (usually affixed to the floor), three or four students per desk, facing the front of the class, where, in most instances, the instructor stands on a platform ten centemeters or so higher than the students below. The message is clear: The instructor is the center of attention, and she has more power than the students below, who are expected to remain docile, even motionless. This setting is almost hostile to the critical stance. Instructors need to mix things up. Get the students out of their seats, or even out of the classroom altogether if that’s feasible. Rearrange the desks, if possible, so students can face each other and interact more readily. Get off that platform and move among the students. Be less of an authority figure and more of a community member. Let the students know that the classroom, and the class, is theirs. No neckties please. It may seem a trivial matter, but our attire sends very strong signals about who we are and our relation to others. I maintain a no necktie policy. This is not merely a matter of personal preference (though I do indeed hate neckties); it serves the very specific purpose of de-formalizing the relationship between the instructor and the students. The necktie is a symbol of power, one that places the 38

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

instructor at a higher level of the social hierarchy. When envisioning a community that is safe for the sort of interaction we wish to encourage, the less social distance between experts and novices, the better. Both male and female instructors should consider how the clothes they wear and their demeanor in class affect not only the tone and mood of the class but also students’ expectations and possibly their willingness to communicate. When we act more like a coach or a mentor, and not some authority figure sitting in judgment of students, we are more likely to elicit the kind of interaction we desire. A first-name basis. To further encourage the classroom dynamic I seek to create, I have students use my first name when they address me (my nickname, actually, Mike). This levels the field even further. Not only have I moved away from a power position, but I’ve also become, in my students’ eyes, something more like an actual person, with ideas and thoughts of his own, and not merely an anonymous knowledge dispenser droning on from the front of the room. At the same time, I go to great pains to learn my students’ names and something about each of them. I am usually able to accomplish this in the very first session of class, often to my students’ amazement. Doing so demonstrates that I am interested in them, invested in them, and willing to get to know them on a level that makes interaction smoother and less stressful. Also on that first day, students are working with partners or groups, learning about the real people they will be working with throughout the academic year. By the end of that crucial first day, a tone and dynamic have been set that make it more likely that students will be willing to share their ideas openly with their peers and instructor. No wrong answers. Another feature of the traditional Japanese classroom that must be overcome is the culturally-informed reluctance to make mistakes. In Japan, the fear of making a mistake and losing face in front of classmates can stifle even the most curious student. It should be noted that this is not just a Japanese phenomenon (Schulz, 2011), but when the cultural tendency is combined with the broader human tendency to avoid error, the silence can be deafening. This is particularly frustrating because as language teachers we understand that errors are an unavoidable and even necessary step in the language learning process. To mitigate this tendency, we need to encourage a classroom atmosphere in which “mistakes” do not carry the same significance as they might in other contexts. First, avoid placing students in a position where a “mistake” is possible. Deemphasize grammatical perfection in expression and elicit ideas from students’ own experiences, which are never wrong in any meaningful sense. Second, deescalate the significance of mistakes in contexts where they are possible and, thus, inevitable. Correct students if necessary, but never shame a student for a mistake. Gently redirect; students should know that mistakes are not going to hurt their scores. These steps alone might not be enough to get every student chattering away in class. Some students, regardless of their academic cultural background, are simply shy. Speaking in class in their second language might be terrifying for them. It is 39

M. HOOD

vitally important to that student and to the class as a whole not to penalize a student for what amounts to a personality trait. For such students, alternative means of classroom participation should be offered (Schultz, 2009, 2013). Online discussion boards, thought journals, and research reports can help such students realize their full potential. Meaning focus. One of the significant weaknesses of the grammar-translation method for language teaching noted above is the absence of meaningful input and output, which have shown to be of critical importance if language learners are to be able to actually use the target language in any meaningful way (Nation, 2013). Translating vocabulary lists and decontextualized sentences is meaningless. To make the famous utterance, “this is a pen” and then translate it into Japanese serves no meaningful purpose other than to complete a dull academic exercise. But when content is meaningful, delivered and discussed at a level appropriate to the students, the words and sentences seem to come alive. They convey something of relevance to the students’ lives. Students are no longer merely learning language; they are learning about the real worlds they inhabit, exploring them, articulating their impressions and reactions, and exchanging their real thoughts with others. There will be mistakes in articulation, but more importantly there will be something to talk about, and this is precisely where critical thinking and the EFL pedagogy intersect. The meaningful content of a critical thinking-based course, practiced within the pedagogical framework outlined here, can help us move past the mind-numbingly dull and ineffective pedagogies and practices that currently dominate the Japanese EFL context at the university level. With these pedagogical imperatives outlined, how do we implement them in an actual classroom. In the next section, I walk us through the syllabus for an English communication course that I recently taught and demonstrate a model unit. The materials piloted in this course became the basis for a textbook (Hood, 2018) I have written with the express aim of putting these principles into practice. THE COURSE

The course objectives were laid out to me in broad and simple terms: help students improve their communicative English abilities across the four skills. With such a broad mandate, I felt empowered to deploy the critical thinking pedagogy outlined above and refine and expand materials I had been developing for years. The Topics Already experienced in establishing an atmosphere and tone conducive to the critical stance, I felt my first task was to carefully select topics that students would feel most comfortable approaching critically. The topics had to meet certain criteria. First, each had to be at least moderately controversial—something about which reasonable 40

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

Table 3.1. Topics for a critical thinking course Study abroad

Women in the workplace

American military bases in Japan

Nuclear power

School on saturdays

Taxes

Immigration

Food labeling

Living together before marriage

The social safety net

Etiquette in the digital age

Animal rights

Global warming

Merit-based pay

Hosting the Olympics

people could disagree. However, they could not be overly controversial. That would contain the risk that the topic would overwhelm our purposes for discussing it. Second, each topic had to be relevant and meaningful vis-à-vis the students own lives. It is a tricky balance: The topics could not be so controversial as to shock or embarrass students (e.g., abortion, explicit sexuality) nor so commonplace as to be boring (e.g., shopping, food). Nor could the topics be too novel or completely beyond the scope of the students’ experiences. Although there are many contexts in which exposing students to totally new concepts is appropriate, in this context I wanted to leverage prior knowledge as a means of easing them into discussion. Having something to say or at least some vaguely developed opinion about a topic is a necessary starting point. With these criteria in mind, the topics given in Table 3.1 were chosen for a 30-week class that would meet once a week for 90 minutes. Some of these topics are naturally more controversial than others; some perhaps not as interesting as others. But they do meet my criteria and were chosen in coordination with my editor from an original list of over 50 potential topics. Critical thinking is practiced throughout the course on three progressively more specific levels. First, the critical stance is established early on and practiced throughout every activity. Second, more specific practices (e.g., recognizing and respecting personal and cultural values, differentiating fact from opinion, evaluating evidence, identifying generalizations and assumptions, and so on) are introduced in successive units and practiced throughout the course. Later units introduce the logical fallacies as a means of deploying a wide array of critical practices to identify, analyse, and respond to fallacious arguments. From the first session of class to the last, this community practices critical thinking. There are no tests or quizzes in this course. Evaluation is based on class participation (variously accounted for, as noted above), written reports, and oral presentations. The Units Each unit is centered on a main text of between 400 and 500 words, drawing on vocabulary from the JACET 3000-word level and below, with occasional exceptions. Syntax is progressively more complex throughout the course. Each text is of a different 41

M. HOOD

type (e.g., letter to the editor, advertisement, office memo, public policy statement) as a means of exposing students to the different sorts of texts that they might encounter and giving them opportunities to practice critical thinking in response to the greatest variety of real-life contexts. Grammar is not taught explicitly, but individual teachers can exploit the texts for discrete structures as they see fit. Vocabulary is reviewed and applied to the immediate context to express students’ own ideas. Each unit also includes a discrete critical thinking skill, despite my earlier description of practices instead of skills. This is partly strategic and partly practical. The skills are merely names for practices, which makes them somewhat more accessible for students and easier for instructors to evaluate if they wish. For example, instructors can develop instruments to test students’ ability to differentiate among fact, opinion, belief, and prejudice. I prefer to base evaluation on students’ articulation of their own ideas in relation to the topics, but the course is designed to be flexible for instructors who prefer to evaluate mastery of specific critical thinking skills. Each unit also includes warm-up discussion questions, a section of useful words and expressions, listening comprehension activities, follow-up discussion questions, and extension activities designed to have students gather more information and present their ideas more formally in written reports or oral presentations. DEMONSTRATION: UNIT 3 ON IMMIGRATION

As a means of demonstrating this pedagogy in practice, in this section I explain minute-by-minute how I approached one particular unit in this course. In doing so, I hope to show other practitioners a path forward. Preview Each unit begins with a preview of the topic, a brief neutral statement that focuses students’ attention, introduces central questions, and elicits students’ background knowledge. In Unit 3, the preview introduces immigration to Japan as one possible solution to the problems created by a declining population. The preview is easily supplemented by instructors with additional questions and outside materials. Time: 5–15 minutes. Warm-up Discussion A To ease students into the topic, low-production warm-up discussion activities are provided. Many of these, as in Unit 3, simply ask students to rate their agreement or disagreement with a short statement on a scale of one to five. There are three such items in Unit 3. Students need only a short time to rate their response, then they can compare their responses with a partner or in a small group. The length and depth of these discussions depends on student level, the effective creation of a communicative

42

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

atmosphere and encouragement of the critical stance, and time constraints identified by the instructor. Time: 5–15 minutes. Warm-up Discussion B Now students are required to step up production, but in a very structured and supported way. Initial opinions on the topic are elicited with the understanding that they are indeed preliminary and subject to refinement and change as their knowledge expands throughout the unit. In Unit 3, students are presented with the following prompt: I think immigration should/should not be encouraged because_________. Students need only circle one word to indicate an affirmative or negative opinion, then provide one reason for their position. Without being explicitly taught, students have just performed the critical thinking practice of supporting opinions with reasons. This is practiced throughout the course. Again, they share their ideas with a partner or in a small group. They are thus exposed to alternative positions and reasons that might not have occurred to them. The critical stance informs all discussion to this point. Instructors might put model answers on the board for discussion and analysis. Time: 5–15 minutes. Critical Thinking Skill At this point, perhaps 30 to 40 minutes into a class session, students are introduced to a critical thinking skill. The skill is explicitly defined, with key terms in bold. This is followed by exercises designed to practice the skill in meaningful terms. In Unit 3, the skill is differentiating between belief (i.e., an assertion that something is true or real without any compelling evidence to support the assertion) and prejudice (i.e., a negative belief, based not on deeply-held and personal conviction but on hatred or ignorance). The distinction between the two is explained, and then students must apply their understanding to a list of assertions, determining which are reasonable but unsupportable beliefs and which ones are prejudices. They check their answers with a partner or in a group. By checking answers in this way, the risk of a wrong answer, should the instructor call on a student as I often do, is dispersed among the group, thus diffusing anxiety. Finally, to increase language production, students are asked to create two assertions of their own, one of belief and one of prejudice, and share with their partner or group. Classmates are then asked to label each. Examples can be modelled for the class. Time: 20–30 minutes. Main Reading Now the students encounter the main text of the unit, which can be used to practice the skill introduced previously. The text in this unit takes the form of a call for public comment on a policy proposal regarding immigration. Readers respond in the comments section, sometimes using beliefs and prejudices to support their positions. 43

M. HOOD

Students practice identifying these types of statements and discuss how they affect the strength of the positions. Each text is followed by a series of comprehension questions. In most instances, the questions require students to infer the correct answer from a limited number of context clues (as opposed to scanning for details). Practicing and developing inferencing skills one of the broadest and most useful activities performed in the is course, as it is central to the critical stance. Time: 30–40 minutes. Vocabulary Review Higher level vocabulary are written in bold in the text. Each unit includes five such words. Because they are almost certainly new words for most of the students, and because they are key words for understanding the text and discussing the topic, we reinforce them through a cloze activity, whereby students use their inferencing skills to understand context and preliminary understanding of the new word to use it to fill in a blank in the sentence. This approach encourages students to infer the meanings of new words by looking at the surrounding context, rather than pulling out a dictionary for every unknown word. This approach to learning vocabulary has been shown to improve vocabulary acquisition (Nation, 1990, 2001). At the same time, students are practicing an implicit critical thinking skill: inferring. After checking their answers with a partner or a group, students increase their language production by writing three sentences related to the topic and expressive of their opinion while using three newly learned vocabulary words. The expressions of their opinions on the unit topic are becoming better supported and more nuanced since they first gave it a go during the warm-up discussion. This also prepares students for a subsequent discussion with others. Time: 15–20 minutes. Useful Expressions Following the vocabulary review, students are introduced to phrases and expressions that are chosen to help them practice the critical skill introduced in each unit. As mentioned, in Unit 3, students learn to differentiate between belief and prejudice. In the Useful Expressions section, students are presented with a list of phrases or expressions that could be used to draw attention to assertions of belief or prejudice. Moreover, students learn to distinguish between polite but subtle expressions that help keep potentially confrontational situation civil, and less appropriate expressions that might lead to confrontation. Students engage each other in pairs or in groups, calling attention to statements of belief and prejudice. Time: 20 minutes. Listening Practice To increase the meaning focus and develop listening skills, students listen to a short (five- or six-turn) conversation that is closely related to the unit topic. The 44

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

conversations are highly colloquial and personal, reflecting the way real people talk about real issues. The instructor might go through colloquialisms with students before or after the initial listening. Students listen and fill in blanks in the transcription with the words and phrases they hear. Multiple listenings are encouraged to build listening fluency. Students check their answers with a partner or in a group. Additional listenings are permitted if they are struggling to fill in the blanks. Once the blanks are filled in, students must answer three highly inferential questions about the conversation, ensuring comprehension and providing practice making inferences. Time: 10–15 minutes. Critical Discussion Next is perhaps the pinnacle of each unit, where students bring together everything they’ve learned and practiced for a critical group discussion on the topic. Two prompts are provided to give students some variety and a sense of control over the direction of the conversation. At this point they are able to articulate their position on immigration, having refined it repeatedly throughout the unit as they have expanded their knowledge base. They are ready to comprehend the positions of others and offer polite critique of those positions, if necessary. Here students have established their very own community of practice, and learning occurs. These discussions should be permitted to continue as long as time constraints allow. Have students report to the class if consensus was reached. If some conflicts were irreconcilable, invite other students to help to resolve them. When this activity is fully realized, it reflects cumulatively everything we have been working to achieve. Time: 20–30 minutes. Critical Reflection The final activity encourages students to further explore outside out of the classroom their ideas on the topic in preparation for a written or oral report. Students are given two prompts, which are intended to send them off in search for more information, allowing them to thoroughly analyse the topic and refine their positions, leading to more nuanced and thoughtful positions. Whether reports are written or oral depends on time considerations and class size. Although oral presentations are perhaps not feasible for every unit, they should be performed several times throughout the course as a means of giving students opportunities to present their positions to an audience. It is a stressful activity that becomes less so with practice. CONCLUSION: THOUGHTS ON TEACHABILITY AND TRANSFERABILITY

At the outset, I claimed that this short chapter would illuminate the teachability and transferability of critical thinking. These are good points to conclude with, as in reference to them we might sum up many of the arguments in favor of a critical thinking-based pedagogy in the EFL context in Japan. First, the arguments outlined 45

M. HOOD

above suggest that critical thinking can indeed be taught, but we must conceptualize it not as discrete skills to be taught explicitly and mastered but as social practice—an overall mood or approach to the world, ideas, and ourselves that is fundamentally sceptical, curious, and logically and empirically oriented. In this context, critical thinking is the platform on which meaningful content is discussed, and English is the medium for that discussion. In this rich environment, students learn to think critically about the important issues of the day while simultaneously improving their communicative English ability. It is a win-win-win learning dynamic. The issue of transferability is somewhat more troublesome, but not fatally so. Two of the three wins identified above most certainly do transfer: The content knowledge stays with students, intertwines with other, newer, and older knowledge as the web of consciousness expands and gains texture. The improved English communication ability transfers to other English classes and to real-life uses of English in each student’s future. But what about thinking skills? According to Atkinson (1997) the literature on transferability in general, and specifically as it relates to thinking skills, has yet to establish clear evidence that transfer does in fact occur. But these research results might not prove that transfer does not occur; rather, they might reflect the fact that we have yet to discover accurate methods and instruments for measuring this slippery concept. In short, the jury is still out on transferability, but anecdotal evidence from my own experience and from other instructors, combined with the myriad and demonstrable benefits of approaching EFL in the Japanese context in the ways outlined above suggest that a critical thinking-based pedagogy, properly practiced in the Japanese EFL classroom, can help get us to where MEXT wants us to be. Discussions about curriculum change are often dominated by the voices of theorists, teachers, and administrators, without sufficient consideration of students’ voices. It is my belief that we will struggle to achieve our objectives if we fail to consider students’ views. While piloting the units comprising the textbook (Hood, 2018) I wrote based on the principles set forth in this chapter, I focused on students’ responses to the materials and approach. I polled them on the relevance and interest they attached to the topics; I asked them to compare the piloted material to other, more traditional materials they had used in class; I noted their level of engagement with the materials and interaction with peers. The voices I heard were very encouraging. Students found controversial topics to be far more interesting and relevant than the “safe” topics (e.g., hobbies or vacation plans) that they had discussed before. They enjoyed the autonomy to approach those topics as they saw fit. Perhaps most importantly, they engaged in much more peer-to-peer classroom talk in English than I typically observe in my EFL classrooms. Student engagement with ideas and language was significantly greater. This is a fundamental feature of successful EFL communities. I believe that a critical thinking-based pedagogy helps establish this feature and leads to improved learning outcomes.

46

CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON CRITICAL THINKING

REFERENCES Allen, D. (2016). Japanese cram schools and entrance exam washback. The Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1) 54–67. Atkinson, D. (1997). A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), 71–94. Bacon, F. (2000). The advancement of learning. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Belenky, M. B., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberg, N. R., & Tarule, J. R. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY: Longman, Green and Co. Clinchy, B. M. (1994). On critical thinking and connected knowing. In K. S. Walters (Ed.), Re-thinking reason: New perspectives on critical thinking (pp. 33–42). Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Darwin, C. (2008). The descnet of man, and selection in relation to sex. London: Folio Society. Descartes, R. (1985). Rules for the direction of the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. New York, NY: Henry Hold & Co. Dewey, J. (2009). Decomcracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY: WLC Books. EF EPI 2017. (2017). EF English proficiency index [Data file]. Retrieved from https://www.ef.edu/epi/ Falout, J., Elwood, J., & Hood, M. (2009). Demotivation: Affective states and learning outcomes. System, 37, 403–417. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Middlesex: Penguin. Freud, S. (1994) The interpretation of dreams. New York, NY: The Modern Library. Fukai, M. (2000). College Japanese classroom anxiety: True and false beginners. Paper presented at the Midwest Conference of Asian Affairs, Bloomington, IN. Gatto, J. T. (1992). Dumbing us down: The hiddent curriculum of compulsory schooling. Vancouver: New Society Publishers. Hood, M. (2018). Think smart: Critical skills in critical times. Tokyo: Kinseido. Jefferson, T. (1776). The declaration of independence. Historic American Documents (Lit2Go ed.). Retrieved from http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/133/historic-american-documents/4957/the-declaration-ofindependence/ Kant, E. (1999). Critique of pure reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kim, U., Triandis, H., Kagitcibasi, C., & Yoon, G. (1994). Individualism and collectivism: Theoretical and methodological issues. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. King, J. (2013). Silence in the second language classrooms of Japanese universities. Applied Linguistics, 34(3), 325–343. Kubota, R. (1999). Japanese culture constructed by discourse: Implications for applied linguistics research and ELT. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 9–35. Kugler, A. D., Tinsley, C. H., & Akhaneva, O. (2017). Choice of majors: Are women really different from men? NBER (Working Paper No. 23735). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w23735 Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marx, K. (2011). Capital: A critique of political economy. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. Mekata, M. (2016, December 19). Japanese in International Organizations. The Japan Times. Retrieved from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/12/19/national/critical-thinking-essential-globalenvironment/-.WnvWooKYMWo MEXT. (2003). Regarding the establishment of an action plan to cultivate “Japanese with English abilities”. Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/english/topics/03072801.htm MEXT. (2016). Summary of Report: “Towards a qualitative transformation of university education for building a new future—Universities Fostering lifelong learning and the ability to think independently and proactively. Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/en/publication/report/title01/detail01/__ icsFiles/afieldfile/2016/12/06/1380275_001.pdf Morita, L. (2015) English, language shift and values shift in Japan and Singapore. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 13(4), 508–527. Nation, P. (1990). Teaching and learning vocabulary. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

47

M. HOOD Nation, P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nation, P. (2013). What should every EFL teacher know? London: Compass Publishing. Nisbett, R. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently. New York, NY: The Free Press. Paul, R. (1993). Bloom’s taxonomy and critical thinking: Recall is not knowledge. In R. Paul (Ed.), Critical thinking: What every person needs to survive in a rapidly changing world (3rd ed., pp. 519–526). Paul, R. W., Elder, L., & Bartell, T. (1997). California teacher preparation for instruction in critical thinking. Sacramento, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking. Schultz, K. (2009). Rethinking classroom participation: Listening to silent voices. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Schultz, K. (2013, February 12). Why introverts shouldn’t be forced to talk in class. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/12/why-introvertsshouldnt-be-forced-to-talk-in-class/ Schulz, K. (2011). Being wrong: Adventures in the margin of error. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Smith, A. (2008). An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations: A selected edition (K. Sutherland, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. Sumner, W. G. (1906). Folkways: A study of the sociological importance of usages, manners, customs, mores, and morals. New York, NY: Ginn and Company. Tannen, D. (1997). Conversational patterns across gender, class, and ethnicity: Implications for classroom discourse. In B. Davies & D. Corson (Eds.), Encylopedia of language and education, Oral discourse in education (Vol. 3, pp. 75–85). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Walters, K. (1994). Critical thinking, rationality, and the vulcanization of students. In K. Walters (Ed.), Re-thinking reason: New perspectives on critical thinking (pp. 61–80). Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Watanabe, Y. (1996). Does grammar translation come from the entrance examination? Preliminary findings from classroom-based research. Language Testing, 13, 318–333. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

48

DAVID KENNEDY

4. ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE Peer Ethnography Research in the EFL Classroom

INTRODUCTION: THE CREATION OF WORLDS

The title of this volume, Bringing Forth a World, is inspired by a section in Maturana and Varela’s (1998) book delineating the biological evolution of thought, language, and social interaction. It locates meaning amid the long-term becoming of the individual self in interrelation with other members of its species (i.e. ontogenesis as co-creation with phylogenesis). This chapter critically applies Maturana and Varela’s perspective of becoming to the discipline of academic writing (particularly in Japanese university settings), which has always—ideally, at least—represented a concentration of creative dynamics in action, of “bringing forth worlds”. What might be called the mainstream tradition of academic writing pedagogy in the university has rested on two fundamental ambitions.1 One has been to ensure that students in higher education acquire a broadly fixed set of rhetorical and formal conventions allowing legitimate and effective participation in scholarly written discourses, primarily as a requirement within the academy itself, and in some cases for membership in future academic or professional circles. The second goal has been to foster—through the explicit teaching of research methodology and rhetoric— cognitive skills that should ostensibly transfer to critical engagement more broadly: to the demands of university coursework and, it is hoped, a lifetime of some kind of reasoned civic discourse and contribution to posterity. Unfortunately, both of these purposes serve to sustain predominant norms and thereby hierarchies of power; that is, they aim to integrate novices into a socio-political structure firmly established by their expert forebears, one in which proper manipulation of the agreed-upon codes differentiates those who can meet institutional criteria and those who cannot. On the surface, such demands for qualification in the academy would seem de rigueur. The very existence of higher education, after all, relies on the maintenance of certain acute standards of discrimination, and “proper” academic writing skills have long been considered a keen measurement tool. Nonetheless, as the pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1877) argued, the legitimacy of standards within “communities of inquiry”—and by extension universities themselves— rests upon a mutual recognition of common investments in the meaning-making discourses that determine the character of such communities and hold them together.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004421783_004

D. KENNEDY

This requires today the reestablishment of standards reflecting a diverse and yet interconnected world that has been complicated by the pressures and inequalities of neoliberal globalism. Such standards must consequently be informed by an updated critical understanding of semiosis (the ongoing processes of meaning-making), and more specifically of social semiosis, of meanings created, shared, disputed, and transformed within discourse communities vis-à-vis academic writing. The prevailing concepts of “discourse” and “literacy” as they pertain to scholastic composition require a similar renovation. Contemporary descriptions of discourse have rightly come to include not only accepted language use—such as so-called Standard Written English (SWE)—but the broader semiotic involvement of individual voices in social settings, i.e. “ways of being in the world” (Gee, 2012, p. 3). The New London Group has helped redefine literacy to include a wider range of multimodal semiotic resources that, along with language, comprise a potential for meaning-making. Literacy in this conceptualization involves a plurality of competencies, or “multiliteracies”. NLG’s seminal inaugural volume applied this redefinition to a pedagogy in aim of “designing social futures”, outlining a project of “full and equitable social participation” for learners (2000, p. 9). These paradigm shifts that Gee (2012) has termed the “New Literacy Studies”—along with other related movements across a plethora of academic disciplines2—have arisen over the last 30 years or so in explicit response to the ways individuals and cultures are being profoundly affected by the simultaneous and rapid intrusion of neoliberal globalization (economic, political, and cultural) and the technologies by which people learn and communicate. Pedagogical approaches that seek to address the rights of individuals and groups whose self-determination and cultural transformation are most threatened by these sudden social ruptures—communities falling outside the historical continuum of majoritarian dominance—continue to gain relevance amid the decidedly anti-utopian and short-term ideologies of neoliberalism (Giroux, 2014), particularly in these ideologies’ emphases on immediately quantifiable outcomes in education, or as the contemporary philosopher Bernard Stiegler puts it, a “commodification of knowledge” (2015, p. 169) within the education industry. Academic writing, as “school literacy”—or in the case of second language education, “English for academic purposes” (EAP) or “advanced academic literacy (AAL)—is itself an inherently loaded term. It is ideological in the authority bestowed it by society and the positioning of those who enter into any approximating orbits of written scholarship (Gee, 2012; Casanave, 2003; Casanave & Vandrick, 2003; Street, 1985). Although the imagined common standard of academic writing (i.e. SWE) suggests an ideology-free platform for expression (Canagarajah, 2013), such an assumption has come under great scrutiny by recent scholars of multilingualism. Because the creation of meaning is intrinsically bound up in the formation of self, community, and culture, it is also a site of struggle, a political equation (Stiegler, 2011, 2015; Freire, 2000; Norton, 2000). What is most relevant for the purposes of this chapter is that the emphases on “competence”, “skills”, and “proficiency” that dominate scholarship, policy, and implementation of academic writing in 50

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

foreign language settings such as Japan serve (wittingly or not) as mechanisms that straightjacket “novices” or “deficient” learners from full and equal participation in critical written discourse in actual practice (Pavlenko, 2002; Bourdieu, 1991). Academic writing in a foreign language is commonly presented as a corrective exercise in service to calculable outcomes and futures. This chapter demonstrates the possibility of re-forming English academic writing in Japanese university contexts through a constructive subversion of the systems in which it is administered. Such a subversion should not be taken as an outright rejection of disciplinarity or normativity in academic discourse in toto. Rather, re-forming these practices can and should take the form of what Harwood and Hadley (2004) propose as a “critical pragmatism”. The practice of critical written composition is here reframed in terms of the tangible, that which is experienced individually and collectively: i.e. community, investment, and psychosocial transformation. Such a focus on writing as a situated community practice is rarely included in tertiary education, particularly in settings where such a reconceptualization would be most helpful: those in which the academic writing skills being taught will likely never be used again. What follows is a proposal—theoretical and practical, critical and criteria-based—of how foreign language academic writers might be repositioned from mere semiotic consumers to legitimate and full-fledged semiosic participants, by granting them greater investment in the exercise of critical engagement with their scholar peers. Through this, they discover for themselves the foundations of how written academic discourse comes into being. ACADEMIC WRITING AS INDIVIDUATION

Peircean semiotics asserts that the very presence of any communication modality such as written or spoken language carries with it an interpretive element, in this case beliefs about its role and status within a particular culture or community. That is, language has an indexical function; as a totality it “points” to something other, an imaginary object beyond one’s actual lived experience (Silverstein, 1979, cited in Seargeant, 2009). In the Japanese social memory and imagination, English as a foreign language is bundled with certain values and beliefs that have come to be associated with it (see Chilton, 2016; Horiguchi et al., 2015; Seargeant, 2009). As is true in many nonEnglish-speaking cultures, English in Japan has maintained its presence not simply through overt political or economic pressures,3 but through the eyes and ears of popular imagination, through the full gamut of very real emotional energies that propagate within social expectation: curiosity, yearning, ambition, optimism, insecurity, and even dread. And although these emotive ideologies present themselves organically through the lived experience of everyday life, they are nonetheless reifications of often unnoticed power structures and power relations. English as a foreign language is thus included in the ongoing, contested, and incalculable processes of “becoming”; it is what Stiegler (2011) calls a “technology of individuation”, part of the machinery that forms self, other, community, and (over the long term) culture. 51

D. KENNEDY

The Normalizing Panopticon: Competence, Status, and Calculable Futures Perhaps more than any other discipline within the Japanese university, academic writing in English has in effect functioned to reinforce a consciousness of a particular psychosocial orientation, i.e. of Japan’s placement in the world vis-à-vis the perceived academic domination of the English-speaking West. True academic writing requires a bona fide purpose and audience in order to be taken seriously, and yet in foreign language instructional settings such as Japanese universities this type of writing is commonly seen as a “solitary, asocial, and decontextualized activity” (Ferris & Hedgcock, 2005, p. 7). There is, in effect, an enormous gap between the pedagogical aims and the realities in the classroom. This leads to a reinforcement of a prominent ideology in which Japanese learners are positioned as being by default in a chronic state of deficiency in contrast to the idealized “native” other—a reminder to students, instructors, and the institutions implementing its practice that the “quintessential” academic community resides elsewhere. And it is further compounded by two perennial but growing trends in Japanese higher education: an excessive focus on measurable outcomes and a preoccupation with university rankings. Despite a so-called “social turn” (Block, 2003) in language pedagogy since the 1990s that has sought to reconceptualize “the learner as a whole person, not a grammar production unit” (Van Lier, 2004, p. 223)—i.e. to recognize the social realities that constitute the subjectivities of individual human beings—other “realities” of neoliberal globalism have tugged pedagogy in yet another direction. Foreign language praxis in Japanese higher education has struggled to contest the practical worries of concerned students and their caretakers, the economic goals of corporations and government bureaucracies, and the survival instincts of universities whose demographic is rapidly shrinking. All of these parties, understandably enough, demand quantifiable results, a numerical score that sets one above one’s competitors. The imagined inevitabilities of globalism and neoliberalism, therefore, encourage a tendency for institutions to subdivide the processes of semiosis (meaning-making) into discrete and empirically measurable modes (e.g. listening, speaking, reading, writing) or purposes (e.g. academic, test-taking, study abroad, professional). These compartmentalizations have ended up determining more and more of language curriculum planning in the Japanese university (as well as the education systems leading to it). The danger of this approach (including in academic writing) is that, by emasculating the social semiotic nature of language learning and use, it more firmly entrenches language education as a policy of little more than persistent monitoring and normalization. Toh sees the so-called “professionalism” of EFL as an instantiation of “reductionism and control” (2016, p. 54), akin to what Freire termed “the praxis of domination” (2000, p. 126). In Japan, students are kept under surveillance by the ever-watchful eye of high-stakes language tests (Toh, 2016; McNamara & Roever, 2006), which together with the juken (“test cramming”) system and four-skills EFL education in the universities, form a symbiotic totality 52

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

that drives an industry of determinism, one that produces states of both hope and despair. Academic writing in the university, too, serves as a potent reminder of the absolute authority of standardized measurement. Growing up in Japan is marked by the tests one takes, the defining moments of one’s existence. Although test-measured “competences” or “proficiencies” have been prioritized in language research and pedagogy for many decades now, this preoccupation has been exacerbated by more recent worries (among leaders in government and industry) about Japan’s apparent lag in global economic competitiveness (Yonezawa, 2014). To address this concern, the government has implemented various initiatives meant to “internationalize” Japanese higher education. While the precise nature of such internationalization has remained unclear (Toh, 2016; Seargeant, 2009), what is apparent is its motivation: a system-wide fixation with rankings—of prestige, status, and economic power. And the primary standard against which Japan has long measured itself is the West, particularly the English-speaking West. In the highly influential Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings (2018), fully 63 of the world’s 100 highest-ranked universities are located in four Anglophone countries alone (the USA, 41; the UK, 12; Australia, 6; and Canada, 4). The eleven Asian countries making the list are disproportionately represented by two former British colonies in which English is either the official language or the de facto language of the educated and professional classes: Singapore (two universities) and Hong Kong (three). Not surprisingly then, education planners in non-Anglophone societies tend to associate academic superiority with English (Piller, 2016), and academic or career advancement with publication in English (Li & Flowerdew, 2009). Japan’s long-serving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012 –) explicitly stated his government’s goal to raise Japanese universities’ worldwide rankings through (among other means) improved academic English proficiency (Taylor, 2014). Sadly, the government’s policy statements make no mention of how this proficiency will contribute to shared states of being that are more reflective, empathetic, critical, diverse, or democratic. The policies are presented strictly in terms of nurturing the (inhumanly titled) “human resources” who are willing to dedicate themselves to the joint goals of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) (Yonezawa, 2014). It is an educational agenda in service to the seemingly ineluctable neoliberal forces of competition, supply and demand, and financial profit. The inclusion of academic writing in English as a curriculum requirement in Japanese universities becomes, in effect, not only another measurement for privileging the privileged (Piller, 2016), but also an institutional legitimization of such practices, however absurdly these practices may manifest in the classroom. For the vast majority of learners, it is not clear what “academic writing” even means, apart from being a curricular requirement. Figuring it out, as many instructors and students alike have observed, is a kind of mysterious game in which the rules are neither clear nor consistent (Casanave, 2002; Lillis, 1999). In addition to there being a plethora of academic discourse varieties across a wide range of disciplines and 53

D. KENNEDY

subdisciplines (Harwood & Hadley, 2004; Hyland, 2000), most university students (including native English speakers, but especially non-native ones) must but attempt to imagine what academic discourse community they might be associated with (Bartholomae, 1985).4 In a majority of cases, naturally, the imagined discourse community is an audience of one: the instructor (Casanave, 2004). It is a reminder of non-membership, of having to play a role in a contest that is already stacked against the outsider, of forfeiting one’s potential to contribute meaningfully to scholastic discourse. As Bartholomae (1985) puts it: “The student, in effect, has to assume privilege without having any … [L]earning … becomes more a matter of imitation or parody than a matter of invention or discovery” (p. 143). Without an application to real-world communities and activity, academic writing becomes but another instantiation of the systematic stratification of socioeconomic inequalities within a neoliberal ecology. These processes amount to an assault on the individual, her placement in the social order, and her contribution to a future world. For those who do not make the cut for inclusion in the club of elite beneficiaries, neoliberal globalism offers instead what Giddens (1991) describes as an anxiety that reaches “through to the very grounds of individual activity and the constitution of the self” (pp. 183–184). Stiegler (2014) extends this into the phylogenetic (or, in his terminology, the “epiphylogenetic”— the exterior technological apparatuses that enable our humanity), portraying our contemporary neoliberal crisis as a “cultural hegemony over retentional apparatuses [i.e. psychosocial memory]” (p. 60) that leads to a self that is unable “to project itself into a world which has become for it an unworld” (p. 62). Such is an environment where in which human investment in community is eroded inch by inch, cutting across all classes and dispositions: gated, patrolled neighborhoods for the rich; meaningless, menial occupations that provide minimal satisfaction or security save for their designers; media platforms and programming that beg for attention but distract endlessly toward the what-else-is-out-there; education industries that prioritize numerical evaluation above the development of critical thought. Foreign language academic writing incorporated into such knowledge industries is fraught with a cynical nihilism. In most university contexts in Japan, academic writing is administered with little thought to its sustainable use among the students who have to learn it. For the vast majority of learners, it is an exercise with indiscernible purpose or meaning. Students often are simply instructed to try to imitate a generic form of academic writing that is disassociated from any past, present, or future discourse community. As such, it fails to provide avenues for incalculable possibility, for imagination and empathy, or for critical discourse about the very institutions that have become the profit-driven producers and caretakers of what Stiegler refers to as social memory, or culture. Rather, it sustains a vicious cycle of quantitative evaluation followed by short-term fixes, thereby “short-circuiting” possibilities for transformation of self and community and impeding the long-term creation of cultures.

54

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

Investment, Transindividuation, and Culturing As should be clear by now, academic writing in foreign language contexts such as Japan stands particularly alienated from the dynamics of engagement and critical thought that are foundational to it. Ultimately, this comes down to the issue of membership and investment in discourse communities. What students too often undergo in academic writing classes in Japanese universities is a rehearsal for an event that never comes. Bartholomae describes the problem in this way: The student has to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a specialized discourse, and he has to do this as though he were easily and comfortably one with his audience, as though he were a member of the academy or an historian or an anthropologist or an economist; he has to invent the university by assembling and mimicking its language … He must learn to speak our language. Or he must dare to speak it or to carry off the bluff, since speaking and writing will most certainly be required long before the skill is “learned”. And this, understandably, causes problems. (Bartholomae, 1985, pp. 134–135) There is much here that can be unpacked, but in essence Bartholomae is implying that the formal conventions of writing are unattainable without membership in a particular discourse community. And, in a strange catch-22, such membership is unavailable to those lacking the requisite formal skills. As Li and Flowerdew (2009) observe, self-perception of belonging to a “stigmatized” group is closely related to self-perception of “deficiency” in written academic English. Anthony Giddens’ (1979) theory of structuration is at this point a useful heuristic in tackling the grand issue of the relationship between self and society, and the even grander issue of the processes of long-term formation of knowledge, or meaning. Giddens rejects structural determination, i.e. the view that social structures (such as, in this case, the accepted language and form of an academic research paper, or the bureaucracies and institutions that impose this norm) altogether dictate human behavior and shape social change. He proposes instead a social model in which individuals have the power, through the everyday use of human resources such as language, not only to reproduce structures, but also to transform them. Sociocultural transformation comes about through the mutually constitutive elements of individual, community, and activity. Lave and Wenger (1991) expanded Giddens’ theory of structuration into the realm of education. Their influential view is a departure from mainstream accounts of learning that tend to dichotomize novice and expert, and that reduce the learner to a mere receptacle for knowledge and skills that are deemed predetermined and unchanging. Lave and Wenger demonstrate how the learning that takes place in communities is not a unidirectional, universal process with predictable or finalized outcomes. Rather, in their model of “situated practice”, such learning constitutes repeated practices leading to “the production, transformation, and change in the identities of persons, knowledgeable skill in practice, and communities of practice” 55

D. KENNEDY

(p. 47).5 That is, learning emerges in the evolving experience of participation. Meaning, then, is the transformation of self, community, and practice which are mediated through each other. Wenger (1998) later integrated various theoretical traditions into a fuller description of community learning. Most importantly, she added a temporal dimension, illustrating it as an axis on which theories of situated experience (i.e. those concerned with the short term, or immediate context) play out alongside theories of social structure (i.e. those concerned with the long term, or historical context and continuity). The other axis represents community-focused theories of practice contrasting with self-focused theories of identity and agency (Figure 4.1). This conceptualization is useful in that it provides both a micro and a macro perspective of how knowledge is trans-formed, across time and across the lived experience of individual participants.

Figure 4.1. Two main axes of relevant theoretical traditions (adapted from Wenger, 1998)

There are two aspects of Lave and Wenger’s description of learning that do deserve critical reevaluation, however. First, as mentioned earlier, in the case of academic writing—particularly in foreign language contexts—the key to activating any practice as transformative is mutual recognition of the legitimacy of a community and one’s own stake in it. For foreign language learners, the existence of such a “community” is seldom clear. Although written scholarship is premised on the assumption that a product will be read and evaluated by an audience, this audience is more often than not the teacher alone. Or in cases where peer feedback is employed, students are unlikely to view themselves and their counterparts as sufficiently qualified to count as a bona fide community of practice. This brings us to 56

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

the other shortcoming in applying Lave and Wenger’s model of learning to academic writing, which unwittingly accentuates the gap between those who have greater say in determining the norms of content and form, and those who participate more “peripherally”. It must be remembered, however, that Lave and Wenger have never endorsed such unequal relationships in the creation and propagation of knowledge; they simply describe political practices as they commonly occur. For a more sustained learning and transformation to take place, all members of a community must be in a mutually respecting dialogue. The literary theorist and philosopher of language Mikhail Bakhtin proposed that both the process of communication and the inherent nature of language itself are “dialogic”. His description of such dialogue is infused with the language of battle: “Within the arena of almost every utterance an intense interaction and struggle between one’s own and another’s word is being waged, a process in which they oppose or dialogically interanimate each other” (1981, p. 354). Utterances are formulated with an anticipation of response. Bakhtin’s theory sees this “double-voiced discourse” as formative not only in the creation of meaning but also of identity. Marchenkova (2008) observes that, as in spoken communication, the substantive goal of a Bakhtininspired approach to writing is “the formation of a person” (p. 47), forming an integral part of a “lived human experience” (p. 56). Written texts and meaning are formed in response to the ideas of one’s community—and in expectation of a response—and are therefore part of an ongoing and forever unfinished dialogue. This dialogic formation of self, community, and meaning is also central to Stiegler’s philosophy. Borrowing from Simondon’s ideas on individuation (i.e. the differentiation of one living thing from another), Stiegler extends the notion of becoming other to the social and to the cultural. Meaning (or knowledge) lies at the juncture where self and other selves emerge through one another, constituting processes of trans-formation, of transindividuation. In his view (which here also echoes Derrida’s ideas of supplementarity), the individual’s psyche and its counterpoint in society are marked by lack of origin, essence, or located subjectivity. And it is because of this lack of essence that humans “are only in as much as they become” (Stiegler, 2017, p. 43). This “default” of the human condition constitutes a space for the incalculable imaginary: a desire for “that which does not exist” (2013b, p. 75) and “the play of permanent revolution” (2011, p. 59). Stiegler applies this principle to the infinitizing potential of education as a particularly potent “modality” of transindividuation (2012, p. 1). In his words, “Logos [knowledge] is always a dia-logos within which those who enter the dialogue co-individuate themselves— trans-form themselves, learn something—by dia-loguing” (2013b, p. 18). Academic writing presents as a potential vehicle for such dialogical transformation. Stiegler’s accentuation of indeterminacy, of the necessity for a lived dream, suggests another, perhaps even more profound, transformation that can result from true engagement in academic discourse: i.e. the posterity of the human. Our current milieu of immediacy has reduced us to states of perpetual anxiety and disaffection; we are addicted to consumption, not only of products, but of digitalized ephemera, 57

D. KENNEDY

of tweets, memes, and snapchats. Stiegler argues compellingly that humanity’s only deliverance from this overwhelming condition can be a redirection of what led us to this point in the first place: the libido (or desire). Our hungers must be somehow refocused away from the short-term fix and toward a cultivation of “long circuits of transindividuation” (2013, 2015)—discourses (circuits) that project into a sustainable future of possibility, discourses that are stronger than the distractions of our digitalized environments. The individual cannot be allowed to be bracketed off from the production of a culture, from the individual’s potential for “worlding” [mondanéisation] (2015, p. 185). Neoliberal capitalism has brought about the current “crisis of spirit” because it has “short-circuited” not only our technical-cultural memory—our ability to remember the accumulation of our collective experience as humans—but also our ability to anticipate or invent alternative futures (2013). Giroux sees the contemporary university as a “dead zone” in which “the future replicates the present in an endless cycle” (2014, p. 31). Undoubtedly one of the most powerful mechanisms for replicating the status quo in education is academic writing pedagogy. In its most common application, academic writing as a discipline reinforces the perception that certain forms of expression and discourse are more worthy of emulation than others, the apex consisting of the academic English used in the world’s most prestigious (Anglophone) universities. To break this cycle in education requires what Stiegler refers to as “attention” or “care” (2015) in the creation of possibility. Stiegler (2011) points out that the very notion of culture derives from that of cultivation—or care—of bringing a world into being. This is a long term project for one and all. Legitimate academic discourse (in the Peircean sense) is not only what occurs between “qualified” individuals within the academy. It is also the accumulation of intergenerational dialogue, the production and inscription of all participating voices across time. Within these processes of transformation our ever-evolving information and communication technologies will continue to play a crucial and problematic role. These technologies are what Stiegler calls a “pharmakon”, both cure and poison. They are “at once what enables care to be taken and that of which care must be taken” (2013, p. 4). For instance, Peters (2015) notes how the current media environment is shifting dominant communication patterns away from a broadcast norm of “oneto-many” back to a more chaotic (and older) landscape in which communication occurs “some-to-some, one-to-few, and even one-to-none” (p. 5). Such a shift may help break down the authoritative nature of academic writing and publishing, and enable greater participation by so-called “novices” by granting them easier access to audiences. At the same time, however, current technologies (as noted earlier) are decimating our technical-cultural memory. Writing has, for most people today, become an exercise in producing ephemera. For students forced to learn how to write essays or research papers for their instructors, the lingering question must be “why”. Amid the ruptures presented by the immediacies of neoliberalism, globalism, and digitalized connectivity, the pressing issue for academic writing is how it can

58

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

be renovated as a vehicle for the transformation of individuals, communities, and cultures over the long term—again, the attentive production of “long circuits of transindividuation” (Stiegler, 2013, 2015). The case of academic writing in the Japanese university is illustrative of the challenge facing instructors who are charged with implementing government and institutional policies that run counter to such transformative ideals. What is presented in the following section is but one imperfect example of how academic writing can be applied as a situated practice that fosters genuine investment, dialogue, and longterm sustainable discourse. This is proposed is an “intergenerational” project of peer ethnography research, a record of a particular community in self-discovery and transformation across time. PEER ETHNOGRAPHY RESEARCH: AN IMAGINED SYLLABUS

The syllabus suggested in this section is based on the theoretical framework described above. The complete cycle of five steps in the syllabus has been implemented by the author in various forms over the past seven years, some in academic writing courses and others adapted for content-based English discussion courses. The students have most often been English language majors, though the syllabus is designed to accommodate university students of any major or proficiency level. The only aspects of the design that have not yet been implemented—and the ones that are crucial in creating long circuits of transformation—are the creation of a permanent archive of students’ writing and the repetition of the cycle among subsequent cohorts. These aspects require longterm commitment by instructors, sustained departmental support, and a dedicated technical infrastructure. Such requirements are certainly not beyond the realm of actualization. The theoretical base of the syllabus can be summarized in the acknowledgement of the following: ‡ Academic writing is an inherently social, semiosic, and transformative practice. It is also inherently normative and discriminative. ‡ Non-native English academic writers have traditionally been marginalized from full participation in such practices. As a result, academic writing for such communities has often remained void of purpose and meaning. ‡ Academic writing for non-native users of English can begin to be revitalized as a vehicle for individual, communal, and cultural change through explicitly focusing content and practice on the community of learners itself. One way to initiate this revitalization is by implementing what I have termed “peer ethnography research”, in which students create an ongoing, dialogical, critical record of the behaviors, attitudes, opinions, and developments of their own community. The benefits of such a pedagogy include:

59

D. KENNEDY

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

a genuine investment in writing as a social practice an inherent element of interest (students are interested in each other) a fostering of critical self-reflection, and critical analysis more generally a capacitating of long-term transformative discourse an deepened awareness of the purposes and potential of academic writing more broadly

Again, this syllabus is designed to be flexible enough to be used among groups in virtually any context, proficiency level, age bracket, or academic department. The syllabus is designed to cover one year of a typical Japanese university course— i.e. 30 once-weekly classes of 90 minutes each—although it could be adapted to fit into one semester. More precisely, one year would cover one cycle of the syllabus, as the overall conception of the project is one of ongoing dialogue over successive years. Each cycle contains five modules, carried out in the following order: query, survey, analysis, dialogue, and inscription (Figure 4.2). In each subsequent year, the cycle begins again, with the query module building on the inscriptions (archives) of the previous years.

Figure 4.2. Peer ethnography research as community of practice

Students work both individually and in groups. In the author’s case, students have done the query module individually, worked together in groups for the survey, analysis, and dialogue, and then worked on the inscription (academic research paper) by themselves. There is, of course, room for flexibility here. Group work can be beneficial when class enrolment numbers are high, or when confidence levels

60

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

are low. Group work also fosters a sense of communal purpose and cooperation, stimulates ideas through discussion, and enlivens the atmosphere. Each module will now be briefly described in turn. Query Students begin, as with any academic discourse, with a question. In this case, students are encouraged to reflect on an aspect of daily life they would like to deeply investigate about their peers (students not only in their class, but in their department, faculty, or university). Questions could be related to academics, work, leisure, future goals, formative experiences, relationships, or any number of facets that are worthy of inquiry. The focus could be on behaviors, attitudes, opinions, ambitions, anxieties, motivations, or even dreams. (Beyond the first year of implementing this syllabus, students peruse previous cohorts’ written research in order to stimulate questions.) Most crucially in this module, students are guided in how to carefully formulate research questions upon which to base an ethnographic investigation of their peers. Research questions are shown to be relational in character, and not simply in search of a set of facts. Some past examples are: ‡ Are students who have clear career goals more likely to study harder? ‡ Do students reflect similar attitudes toward gender that their parents have? ‡ What factors influence changes in fashion over students’ four years of university life? ‡ How does financial independence relate to political interest? Survey After students have a research question (or, preferably, a list of research questions), they share with others in the class. At this point the instructor can opt to have students work independently, or form groups of students who have similar research interests. For the group work option, each group should settle on one central research question. With the guidance of the instructor, this question is then expanded into a set of related research questions and (possibly) a hypothesis. The next step is the development of a questionnaire. Students are shown how to construct questionnaire items designed to elicit information that will shed light on the investigative target. Questions should be clear, concise, and easy for subjects to answer. For ease of answering and analysing, students are encouraged to limit their question types to multiple choice (including Likert scales), list, and ranking. Questionnaires should ideally have between 15 and 20 items. Students are also instructed how to use an online survey tool to administer the questionnaire. There are a variety of online tools available. The author has most recently made use of Google Forms because of its ease of use and universality. 61

D. KENNEDY

The questionnaires are then sent out to the subjects, with a sample of 100 being a fair standard. Analysis Once all of the responses have come in, students are set to start the arduous task of analyzing the data. Because free versions of online survey tools limit their analysis features, students need to go through the responses manually. Nonetheless, this can be (in the author’s experience) a rewarding exercise for students as they are finding confirmation or repudiation of their own hypotheses. Their research designs are at this point “coming to life”. Students are guided in how to analyze data in two ways. One way is to look at how a single questionnaire item was answered by all of the respondents—a crosssectional view. The other way is to find correlative patterns between items, i.e. how a certain subset of respondents who answered a certain question tended to answer another question. This of course is a challenge for students, but it reinforces the relational aspect of their own research project. Dialogue The dialogue module of this syllabus can be carried out in a variety of ways. The essential point is to share the findings of the analysis and stimulate some sort of response from other cohorts, who—as participants in the survey—should by this point have an interest in the results of their peers’ study. One method for doing this is through presentation, either to the whole class at one time, or through rotating poster presentations, both options followed by a time for questions and answers. Another method (though not attempted by the author) might be through digital media: e.g. a restricted and moderated online forum set up by the instructor, or the use of a social media platform. Inscription The term “inscription” is here borrowed from both Derrida and Stiegler, and refers to the formal and technical archiving of thought/knowledge/memory/meaning. As outlined earlier in this chapter, this record-keeping is essential in both forcing an attention to long-term memory, discourse, and the sustenance of culture; and in ensuring future generations ready access to these assets. This module involves writing what we might broadly call an “academic research paper”. What formal conventions to stress at this stage of the syllabus is debatable. Some instructors may wish to follow a more conventional route; others a more avant-garde, convention-challenging one.

62

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

Whatever direction the instructor may take, the more important objective here is the preservation of voices at a particular juncture in the life of a people, a chapter in the ongoing becoming of individuals, communities, and cultures. The recording of such a discourse is dependent on the available technology. At present, the optimal course is a digital database that is carefully archived, indexed, and accessible to future cohorts. CONCLUSION

This chapter has presented a theoretical outline for an academic writing pedagogy for foreign language learners such as those in Japanese universities, a pedagogy that reconsiders how such practices might contribute to the long-term transformation of individuals, communities, and cultures. The focus on peer ethnography research here is not intended as a catch-all solution to the challenges facing academic writing in Japan. As in all discourse, there are no firm conclusions. Rather, this chapter will hopefully stimulate thought and discussion—and raise questions—about the future possibilities for academic discourse amidst the pressures of a globalized, neoliberal, and seemingly anti-human milieu. NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

For the sake of simplicity and brevity, I have had to condense the complex story of academic writing pedagogy into its most prominent and generalizable features. More extensive overviews can be found in Harwood and Hadley (2004), Benesch (2001), and Johns (1997). Scholarship in language acquisition/learning and language pedagogy since the 1990s has, fortunately, continued to exhibit more cross-disciplinarity, now re-embracing such less “empirical” disciplines as semiotics, sociology/social theory, and philosophy that were shunned during the primacy of cognitive/ behavioral linguistics from the 1950s to the 1980s, but which (ironically) were integral to the earliest developments in linguistics. Atkinson (2011), Block (2003), and Van Lier (2004) provide excellent descriptions of these developments. Historically, Japan is unique among Asian nations in that it is one of very few to have escaped outright political colonization by a foreign power. However, as Seargeant (2009) argues, throughout its history of relations with the English-speaking world (particularly since 1853), Japan’s involvement with the English language has consistently followed “a very specific chronology of foreign contact, political coercion and even invasion” (p. 50). Despite these historical ruptures, Seargeant contends that such outside pressures have over time been translated into symbolic values, exerting their influence in the ordinariness of everyday life. The notions of “imagination” and “imagined communities” have achieved some prominence over the past two decades in the field of language learning motivation (see Ryan, 2009; Yashima, 2009; Yashima & Zenuk-Nishide, 2008; Pavlenko & Norton, 2007; Dörnyei, 2005; Norton, 2001). Although the concept has been brought forward to describe psychological states that may potentially be mobilized to enhance learner motivation in contexts geographically removed from “target language communities”, it simultaneously reconfirms the ambivalent emotions that accompany the physical distances remaining between people in an otherwise connected world. Lave and Wenger adapted their term “community of practice” from C. S. Peirce’s “community of inquiry”, mentioned in the first section of this chapter.

63

D. KENNEDY

REFERENCES Atkinson, D. (2011). Introduction: Cognitivism and second language acquisition. In D. Atkinson (Ed.), Alternative approaches to second language acquisition (pp. 1–23). London: Routledge. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans., M. Holquist, Ed.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bartholomae, D. (1985). Inventing the university. In M. Rose (Ed.), When a writer can’t write: Studies in writer’s block and other composing-process problems (pp. 134–165). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Benesch, S. (2001). Critical English for academic purposes: Theory, politics, and practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power (G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. London: Routledge. Casanave, C. P. (2002). Writing games: Multicultural case studies of academic literacy practices in higher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Casanave, C. P. (2003). Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship (But should it be called post-process”?). Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(1), 85–102. Casanave, C. P. (2004). Controversies in second language writing: Dilemmas and decisions in research and instruction. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Casanave, C. P., & Vandrick, S. (2003). Introduction: Issues in writing for publication. In C. P. Casanave & S. Vandrick (Eds.), Writing for scholarly publication: Behind the scenes in language education (pp. 1–18). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Chilton, M. (2016). Reconfiguring English literary studies in the Japanese academy. In M. O’Sullivan, D. Huddart, & C. Lee (Eds.), The future of English in Asia: Perspectives on language and literature (pp. 224–239). Abingdon: Routledge. Dörnyei, Z. (2005). The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ferris, D. R., & Hedgcock, J. S. (2005). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans., 30th Anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Continuum. (Original work published 1970) Gee, J. P. (2012). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (Fourth ed.). London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Giroux, H. A. (2014). Neoliberalism’s war on higher education. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Harwood, N., & Hadley, G. (2004). Demystifying institutional practices: Critical pragmatism and the teaching of academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 23, 355–377. Horiguchi, S., Imoto, Y., & Poole, G. S. (2015). Foreign language education in Japan: exploring qualitative approaches. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. London: Longman. Johns, A. M. (1997). Text, role, and context: Developing academic literacies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

64

ACADEMIC WRITING AS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE Li, Y., & Flowerdew, J. (2009). The globalization of scholarship: Studying Chinese scholars writing for international publication. In R. M. Manchón (Ed.), Writing in foreign language contexts: Learning, teaching, and research (pp. 156–182). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Lillis, T. (1999). Whose ‘common sense’? Essayist literacy and the institutional practice of mystery. In C. Jones, J. Turner, & B. Street (Eds.), Students writing in the university: Cultural and epistemological issues (pp. 127–147). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Marchenkova, L. A. (2008). Toward a Bakhtin-inspired view of oral and written discourse. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), The oral-literate connection: Perspectives on L2 speaking, writing, and other media interactions (pp. 46–62). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1998). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding (Revised ed.). Boston, MA: Shambhala. McNamara, T., & Roever, C. (2006). Language testing: The social dimension. Malden, MA: Blackwell. New London Group. (2000). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 9–37). London: Routledge. Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow & New York, NY: Longman. Norton, B. (2001). Non-participation, imagined communities and the language classroom. In M. P. Breen (Ed.), Learner contributions to language learning: New directions in research (pp. 159–171). Harlow: Longman. Pavlenko, A. (2002). Poststructuralist approaches to the study of social factors in second language learning and use. In V. Cook (Ed.), Portraits of the L2 user (pp. 277–302). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Pavlenko, A., & Norton, B. (2007). Imagined communities, identity, and English language learning. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), International handbook of English language teaching (Vol. 15, pp. 669–680): New York, NY: Springer US. Peirce, C. S. (1877). The fixation of belief. Popular Science Monthly, 12, 1–15. Retrieved from http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html Peters, J. D. (2015). The marvelous clouds. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic diversity and social justice: An introduction to applied sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ryan, S. (2009). Self and identity in L2 motivation in Japan: The ideal L2 self and Japanese learners of English. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, language identity and the L2 self (pp. 120–143). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Seargeant, P. (2009). The idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the evolution of a global language. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Silverstein, M. (1979). Language structure and linguistic ideology. In P. Clyne, W. Hanks, & C. Hofbauer (Eds.), The elements of a parasession on linguistic units and levels (pp. 193–247). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Stiegler, B. (2011). The decadence of industrial democracies: Disbelief and discredit (Vol. 1, D. Ross & S. Arnold, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press. (Original work published 2004) Stiegler, B. (2013). What makes life worth living: On pharmacology (D. Ross, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity. (Original work published 2010) Stiegler, B. (2014). Symbolic misery: The hyperindustrial epoch (Vol. 1, B. Norman, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity. (Original work published 2004) Stiegler, B. (2015). States of shock: Stupidity and knowledge in the 21st century (D. Ross, Trans.). Malden, MA: Polity Press. (Original work published 2012) Stiegler, B. (2017). Philosophising by accident: Interviews with Elie During (B. Dillet, Trans.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. (Original work published 2004) Street, B. V. (1985). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, V. L. (2014). Japan’s universities reach for global status. East Asia Forum Quarterly, 6(3), 38–40. Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/world-ranking- !/ page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

65

D. KENNEDY Toh, G. (2016). English as medium of instruction in Japanese higher education: Presumption, mirage or bluff? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yashima, T. (2009). International posture and the ideal L2 self in the Japanese EFL context. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, language identity and the L2 self (pp. 144–163). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Yashima, T., & Zenuk-Nishide, L. (2008). The impact of learning contexts on proficiency, attitudes, and L2 communication: Creating an imagined international community. System, 36(4), 566–585. Yonezawa, A. (2014). Japan’s challenge of fostering “Global Human Resources”: Policy debates and practices. Japan Labor Review, 11(2), 37–52.

66

SARAH HOLLAND

5. AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Conversations about Conversations

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter I set out to demonstrate that an ecological perspective can provide an innovative conceptual framework to analyse an English language classroom. An ecological framework is used to frame the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language. In particular, an ecological perspective frames a conversation lesson, Conversations about Conversations. The lesson was designed for use in various year groups in Japanese university English conversation classes that are taught solely in English. The lesson represents a novel way to give students a live, contextualized demonstration of what it actually is they are learning to do. In the first section, I give a brief theoretical overview of what an ecological perspective means, paying special attention to the aspects relevant to the example of engaged pedagogy presented here. In the second part, I go on to describe the pedagogical activity in detail, explaining the lesson procedures and illustrating some of the actual, often surprising, outcomes. AN ECOLOGICAL METAPHOR

In this first section, I explain what an ecological perspective means, with a particular emphasis on the language classroom. Key aspects of an ecological perspective that are relevant in the classroom, environmental structure, learning and timescales, are also discussed. The study of such aspects from an ecological view reveals the complexity, variety and interplay of relations in a classroom. An ecological perspective is an analytical stance that emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between the environment and an individual. The central concept in this view is the nature of the relations between entities (Heft, 2001). According to van Lier the term ecology was introduced by a German biologist, Ernst Haeckel, in the middle of the 19th century. Ecology in this sense refers to “The totality of relationships of an organism with all other organisms with which it comes into contact” (van Lier, 2004, p. 3). This original meaning of ecology, with its roots in biology, is relevant to how the term is used in other disciplines, for example in anthropology and psychology (Bateson, 1972), and in developmental psychology (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). More

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004421783_005

S. HOLLAND

recently, in relation to SLA (second language acquisition), Larsen-Freeman and Cameron stated that complexity theory “embraces ecological approaches” (LarsenFreeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 201). Although different disciplines and writers have developed the ecological metaphor and its insights after their own fashion, environmental relations always remain central. The environment conceptualized from an ecological perspective includes biological, physical, temporal, social, philosophical and psychological dimensions. Ecological psychology looks at the world as “[a] dynamic realm of thoroughly natural, co-evolved entities functioning in a web of environmental interdependencies” (Heft, 2001, p. 13). Bowers and Flinders (1990) wrote that thinking of the classroom as an ecology was the best way of understanding the interconnection of behavior and learning. It seems to me that interactive relationships and patterns in English conversation classes necessarily relate to language learning. For students in general, the better their interactive relationships are, the bigger their efforts to communicate, and thus, the greater their opportunities for learning. And, as importantly, the more enjoyable the experience is for all. In relation to language acquisition, Kramsch (2002) described ecological views of language learning in this way: The ecological metaphor is a convenient shorthand for the poststructuralist realization that learning is a nonlinear, relational human activity, co-constructed between humans and their environment, contingent upon their position in space and history. (p. 5) Her comprehensive definition hints at ideological orientations that are variously emphasized in contemporary writing from an ecological standpoint. Van Lier (1997) characterized an ecological perspective thus: A conception of the learning environment as a complex adaptive system, of the mind as the totality of relationships between a developing person and the surrounding world, and of learning as the result of meaningful activity in an accessible environment. (p. 783) Furthermore, in relation to second language learning in particular, Leather and van Dam (2003) emphasized the importance of interactions between a language learner and the environment and claimed that an ecological approach was an effective way to deal with the contemporary, global diversity and complexity of second language acquisition. For example, an ecological framework has been used to broaden the interpretation what is involved in language learning (Kramsch, 2008), and to describe the rich personal details in an ecology of effort in learning Japanese as a foreign language (Casanave, 2012). An ecological perspective of English language teaching is not yet widely familiar among language educators and researchers in the Japanese teaching context.

68

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Elsewhere, SLA has adopted and adapted an ecological view from other disciplines. In SLA the focus is on the multiplicity of relations between various dimensions in the learning environment (van Lier, 2004). In the classroom, language is only a part of the action, and language learning is a part of a relationship to the whole. Levels of Organization in Sociocultural Environments In an ecological view, as well as in natural systems, there are levels of structure in the environment. Clearly, the classroom is a sociocultural environment, which is considered to exist within multiple, broader levels of sociocultural organization. Sociocultural systems operate in an organized hierarchy of nested levels; each level has distinctive functional properties and there are on-going interrelations between levels (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Heft, 2001; van Lier, 1988). A classroom cannot exist in isolation; on the contrary, it connects to and is influenced by higher, macrocultural, political, economic and historical levels of organization (Smith, 2001; van Lier, 1997), Globalization, educational policies, financial dictates, and current pedagogical theories are examples of higher levels of organization that impact on activity in the classroom. In terms of participation in a classroom, an ecological view emphasizes multiple within-level influences. Bronfenbrenner (1979) stressed that the interconnections between settings were decisive for development as well as relationships within a setting. At a functional level of analysis, many writers express the importance of context for its crucial influence on behavior, use of language and the interpretation of meaning (e.g., Carspecken, 1996; Duranti & Goodwin, 1992; Gee, 2005; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008; Kramsch, 1993). Environment is the term used in an ecological perspective to include the physical, space and body, as well as the cultural and interpersonal dimensions. Crucially, the unit of analysis is always the person-inthe-environment. Not only is the environment essential in an ecological perspective, but significantly, the relationships between individuals and the environment are considered reciprocal. An individual agent simultaneously shapes, as well as being shaped by, the environment. What this means for a fuller understanding of interactions in the classroom is that the behavioral and learning processes of an individual also need to include a simultaneous consideration of the properties of the classroom environment, because such structure reciprocally influences the actions of the individuals involved. Goffman’s (1981) concept of footing, or participation framework, highlights similar, although more limited, socio-ecological relations. A participation framework includes all participants in the perceptual range of a spoken word, and thus they have some kind of participation status relative to it; however, from an ecological view, this idea over emphasizes language in face-to-face-interactions. Goodwin (2000) recognized that participation frameworks are additionally constituted through 69

S. HOLLAND

various situated semiotic systems, including displays of mutual orientation made by the actors’ bodies. Furthermore, Larsen-Freeman (2007) also recognized how context is fashioned by the interdependence of the participants; she wrote that context can be transformed by volitional language users and learners, and that context does not only mean physical space; “[i]t includes the intersubjective space between interlocutors” (p. 783). An ecological concept encompasses ecological structures “[o]perating at a higher level of organization than the actions of individuals” (Heft, 2001, p. 258). A classroom joke, for example, could create personal, interpersonal, and extra-individual environmental feelings of amicability, familiarity or even tension. In simple terms, in the classroom, actions or words by one participant affect the actions of others, thus creating a certain class ‘atmosphere’, which in turn can affect learning. The classroom environment is seen as a nested entity made up of multiple, dynamic, complex, interconnected relationships. Affordances in the Classroom A further key concept in an ecological perspective is affordances. An affordance refers to a means by which an individual relates to the immediate environment. “[a] n affordance is the perceived functional significance of an object, event or place for an individual” (Heft, 2001, p. 123). James Gibson (1986), an American psychologist working during the 1960s, originally coined the term affordance to imply the complementarity between the animal and the environment. In the classroom, potentially available affordances are perceived and actualized by the participants. The utilization of affordances is partly relative to an individual’s intention and perspective; so the same affordances can be utilized in multiple and sometimes creative ways depending on the selective purposes of individuals in the environment (Heft, 2001; van Lier, 2000). Artifacts are examples of affordances and inherent in artifacts is ecological knowledge. Ecological knowledge is society’s inherited knowledge. Heft (2001) claimed that “[m]uch of what we know, and what we need to know and need to share with each other, is woven into the public fabric of our sociocultural world” (p. 330). Virtually all students in Japan are accustomed to the ubiquitous classroom blackboard. They are probably not so aware of the history of this artifact. From clay tablets, individual slates, blackboards, ‘greenboards’, and beyond to modern whiteboards and state-of-the-art digitally interactive boards, the blackboard has developed. Students have ‘inherited’ the effect this cultural knowledge in so far as they know how to adapt their behaviour to the blackboard’s situational demands and pedagogical efficiency. Other examples of typical, potential environmental affordances that contribute to make the classroom meaningful include pencils and chairs; representations, textbooks and posters; social patterns of actions such as the IRF (initiation-responsefeedback) sequence; even the layout of classroom. The uses of such artifacts are precisely specified to extend the possibilities of the intended teaching and learning 70

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

activities. The point is that the classroom environment is steeped in taken-forgranted affordances. The concept of affordance selection offers a way to theoretically conceptualize how environmental properties of the classroom become interactional resources that generate mutual, but differing, participant-engagement in classroom actions and pertinently, in conversational interactions. All aspects of the classroom setting, affordance selection and discourse, emerge from the interaction of the components, and potentially affect learning processes within that environment. An ecological perspective points to a concurrent relevance of affordances in classroom interactions at both an individual and group level. An Ecological Perspective for Language Learning An ecological view has consequences for models of cognition and language teaching and learning. A core premise of an ecological view, one that distinguishes it from a traditional dualistic view, is that the environment is directly perceived by an individual; it is not a representation in the mind. From an ecological view, “[m] ind is the active integrative process of coordinating organism with environment, by seeking for, interpreting and responding to adaptively significant forms of order in the world” (Fettes, 2003, p. 33). This implies that in the language classroom where the medium of instruction is English, to profit maximally, students need to freely immerse themselves in the ‘English’ environment to integrate thought and active speaking. Traditionally, cognition is considered an abstract individualized mental process, however, from an ecological view, cognition is a “[c]oncrete and collective process in which individuals participate to varying degrees” (Reed, 1996, p. 141). Heft explained that there is a functional relation between a knower and the object known and that perceiving is a cognitive process; it is not pre-cognitive. Pre-cognitive means, “To view perception as being subordinate to cognition and not as a mode of knowing in its own right” (Heft, 2001, p. 37). Experience, however, is not limited to precepts; a person has a cognitive capacity to select and abstract from the immediate perceptual flow and form concepts. Concepts can become interwoven into immediate experience, becoming part of what is immediately experienced, and thus, they allow the person to adapt more effectively to the environment. One way in which this idea differs from the more standard Cartesian view is on the primacy of direct experience over conceptual knowledge. An ecological perspective does not theorize cognition as an exclusively intraindividual process; the concept of extended cognition, also referred to as distributed or embodied cognition, questions the boundaries between the individual and the world (Atkinson, 2010, 2011; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Goodwin, 2000; Heft, 2001; Robbins & Aydede, 2008; Watson-Gegeo, 2004). Put simply, distributed cognition relates to an individual’s use of features of the environment, other individuals, affordances, such as tools, artifacts and representations for thinking. In Atkinson’s (2010) words: “The environment is part of cognition itself, at least 71

S. HOLLAND

when fundamentally abetting on-board cognitive resources” (p. 601). In a classroom setting, where there is a degree of interdependence among the individuals’ actions, the English lesson, ecologically speaking, is a socially distributed cognitive activity. Or at least, it probably should be to be most effective; willing co-operation between the participants in the use of affordances as interactional resources for thinking is probably the most constructive means to share and develop knowledge. If cognition is regarded as a shared process, in Goodwin’s (2000) words, “[t]he analytic boundaries between language, cognitive processes, and structure in the material world dissolve” (p. 1517). More radically, in an ecological approach embodied communication also helps structure thinking. People often think in conjunction with their bodies and with others and socially construct cognition through collaboration (Watson-Gegeo, 2004). Watson-Gegeo (2004) stated that all cognitive processes are embodied: “Linguistic concepts, like all other cognitive processes, arise from the embodied nature of human existence and through experience” (p. 333). However, the significance of the body, neither the students’ nor the teacher’s, is rarely mentioned in foreign language classroom research (see Atkinson, 2010, for an exception). An example of the embodied nature of discourse can be seen in the often subconscious adjustments speakers make in their physical posture or position in response to other people; this “[k]inaesthetic mirroring illustrates how physical systems are active in conversations as well as systems of language” (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 170). The video recordings, as used in the lesson described in the next section, captured visible aspects of students’ embodied actions as the speakers used their bodies as an interactional resource (Heath, 2011). The recordings helped to provide the students with an understanding of how the speakers physically collaborated (or not) in the accomplishment of their social interactions. Aspects of the embodied nature of discourse in interactions, like physical positioning, (Goodwin, 2000), gesture (McNeill, 2000), and gaze (Derry et al., 2010) reveal qualities of communication that would not be possible in audio recordings of speech alone (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Lazaraton & Ishihara, 2005). In an ecological perspective learning is also conceived differently (Heft, 2001; Leather & van Dam, 2003; Reed, 1996; van Lier, 2004). Learning from an ecological perspective can partially be explained as guided participation. Learning as guided participation is not an idea unique to an ecological perspective, for example, Lave and Wenger (1991) explored the concepts of situated and apprenticeship learning with a focus on the person-in-the-world; they discussed the relationship between learning and participatory social situations. Lave and Wenger considered that learning involved understanding and experience in constant interaction; “Participation is always based on situated negotiation and renegotiation of meaning in the world” (p. 51). Wenger (1998), in developing the idea of communities of practice, set out a broad conceptual framework for thinking about learning as social participation, where he emphasized that learning is “[i]n its essence, a fundamentally social phenomenon” (p. 3). 72

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

In addition to the environment, a further important level of structure recognized in an ecological approach is that of timescales. Interactions in the classroom are conceptualized as being related to different timescales as well as to different levels of social organization. An ecological perspective focuses on a functional timescale at the level of individual experience, yet it also recognizes connections through other multiple interconnecting timescales. “Connection across timescales implies that the historical and the neurological, and all timescales in between, are connected into the moment of activity” (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 162). When a student contributes something to ‘the moment of activity’ in an English conversation class it is short-lived relative to the lesson as a whole. However, momentary conversational interactions can contribute to prospective learning when related on different time scales. Thus, in ecological theory, conversation can be relevant to the conceptualization of learning because learning is a temporally extended process. Perception occasions a continuous stream of experience over time as individuals explore the environment (Reed, 1996). The key word here is continuous; it is difficult, if not impossible, to demarcate boundaries in the perceptual present. Given the difficulties in precisely specifying what has been learned, what is being learned, and what will be learned next, it is conceivable that in a microgenetic moment of language-using (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008), the user experiences micro-learning moments. According to Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008), each interaction, however short, contributes to change in the longer ongoing class discourse. Furthermore, participation in an interaction contributes to some change in the individuals involved (Lemke, 2000). In other words, an interaction within a lesson represents a cross-sectional view; consequential learning is not likely to be instantaneous, but considered connected to development through interconnecting timescales. Summary of the Key Concepts in an Ecological Perspective To sum up, an ecological perspective of university English language conversation classes necessitates considering the reciprocal relationships between the following: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

the classroom environment and wider levels of organization participants and the immediate environment participants and affordances participants’ language and learning in social participation learning and interconnected timescales

Moreover, significant in any analysis is how all these various aspects dynamically interrelate. The point for engaged pedagogy is that by viewing the classroom environment through an ecological lens new insights into important relationships can be brought into focus.

73

S. HOLLAND

ENGAGED PEDAGOGY FOR CONVERSATIONS ABOUT CONVERSATIONS

The idea for the Conversations about Conversations activity came from two sources. Firstly, the students’ explicit and oft-repeated desire to speak English fluently and yet their simultaneous frequent reluctance to participate freely in conversation lessons. Secondly, there was the realization that the language classroom is a situational goldmine for interactional analysis that is readily accessible to students. An ecological view of the university classroom suggests that there is a paradox at the heart of teaching English conversation in an institutional setting. Both students and teachers are functioning in a formal instructional environment in which behaviour is engineered to be constrained, yet the goal is friendly, equitable conversation. Added to which, the “quietness” of Japanese university students in English oral classes is often a compounding factor. Whether students are inhibited by the environment, their own modesty, low motivation, fatigue, laziness, or lack of confidence and/or experience in speaking English, such rationalized “quietness” can make speaking goals seem unattainable. While this mismatch of conversational goals and situational restrains is unlikely to be totally resolvable, the point of the conversations lesson was to demonstrate to students that conversation is not just about language. The demonstration was also to show that being overly tense about inhibiting situational and individual restraints was not only unsatisfying but also counter-productive to conversational fluency. A deeper awareness of the essence of conversation could facilitate the students’ abilities to adapt. Simply, the lesson was an attempt to showcase English conversation not just as a language exercise, but rather as an appealing social practice, and one well within their capabilities. In brief, during the lesson four different kinds of “conversation” were enacted; a scripted, a guided, and two unscripted, one in English and one in Japanese. Various student-roles were allocated and then the conversations were conducted, while some other classmates recorded the conversations on a hand-held video camera. Lesson Procedures Here I explain the lesson procedures in some detail so that some of the interesting features the lesson generated, including some of the amazing things the students said, can be understood clearly, especially in the context of an ecological perspective. 1. As homework before the actual lesson I gave students a worksheet and asked them to write notes to answer two questions; “What is conversation?” and “What is fluent conversation?” 2. At the beginning of the actual the lesson, students had time to compare their homework ideas. In a whole-class feedback session, keywords from their various ideas were written on the board. If the ideas were not developed at this point, it was not a concern. 3. I explained that because we were studying conversation we were all going to do a lesson about conversation to enable us to understand more deeply what is 74

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

was we were actually studying. I explained that some students would be having various kinds of conversations and their classmates would listen and make notes. I also explained that the conversations would be video-recorded so that we could subsequently watch them again. 4. Students randomly selected a paper that detailed their role assignment (see Figure 5.1). Everyone was involved in some way; either as a speaker, observer, note-taker, or cameraperson. Students with similar roles formed groups of three or four. Note-taker groups were given a printed worksheet to record any observations. Camera people joined a group or formed a group of their own. 5. Students with conversational roles had a short time (a few minutes only) to prepare their parts. 6. Students acted out the conversations one by one, while the others watched, collected ideas and made notes. The demonstration conversations are videoed by student-camerapersons. After each conversation, in groups students exchanged ideas and then a spokesperson from each group reported their ideas to the whole class. During the feedback stage, students could add to their personal notes. As

Figure 5.1. Examples conversation role assignments—extracts1

75

S. HOLLAND

teacher, I supplied relevant vocabulary, paraphrased or developed the ideas when appropriate. 7. After that, we watched the video of Conversation 1. Students noted any additional ideas, which were then discussed again, first in their groups and then reported to the whole class. As before, I supplied relevant vocabulary, paraphrased or expanded ideas when necessary. The same procedure was repeated for the video recordings of Conversations 2–4. 8. For homework each student was given a worksheet and asked to write up their own thoughts about the lesson and any new ideas they had about what good or fluent conversation might mean (see Figure 5.2).

Figure 5.2. Conversation lesson homework 2—extract COMMENTS ON THE LESSON PROCEDURES

If a teacher were interested in conducting a Conversations about Conversations lesson there are several general points to consider. The lesson is adaptable to any 76

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

year group and almost any level; I have conducted similar lessons with classes of 30 first- and second-year university students and with a mixed-year class of eight. The timing of such a lesson is a key consideration. Whether to jump in right from the start of a course or do the lesson after gaining a feel for the students’ willingness to communicate should be considered. However, it seems advisable to find out the collective needs of a class first before attempting the lesson. Communicative intent should be the driving force during the lesson; therefore, apart from supplying relevant vocabulary and boarding apt words provided by the students, in order not to stall the oral flow, few, if any, corrections of grammatical errors need to be made during the lesson. The written homework, rather than oral contributions, can be corrected for language errors. Examples of the different types of conversation are shown in Figure 5.1. The topic is this example was talking about events of the previous evening. The scripted conversation, as the name implies, is simply read verbatim by the student-pair. The exaggerated textbook-feel is deliberately intended to encourage students to think about the differences between language practice exercises and real conversation. The guided conversation, Conversation 2 gives some leading questions to help structure the conversation. Conversation 3 and 4 were open to the students’ own inspirations, the former being conducted in English, while the latter was in Japanese. The intention of having a conversation in Japanese was to demonstrate any similarities and differences in conversational styles. Incidentally, it also had the original appeal of classmates having an official conversation in Japanese in an English class. During one class session there was time for a fifth conversation when three students went outside the classroom, two to have an unguided conversation in English sitting on comfortable seats, while the third student videoed their conversation. The point being to see to what extent, if at all, a change in environment would change the nature of the conversation. Using a video camera in the classroom can possibly have both positive and negative effects. A camera could be an intimidating factor that might cause awkwardness for some students. Of course, the lesson can be conducted without using a camera (and in some teaching situations the required technology might not be available), but a certain zing would be lacking. The recordings are what enabled students to have a closer scrutiny at the complexity of conversation, as well as enjoying the novelty value of seeing and hearing (repeatedly, if necessary), themselves and/or their classmates speaking English on the big screen. Furthermore, allocating roles to students randomly is risky because a shy or reticence student may receive a videoed speaking role; however, this is not only ‘realistic’, but also fair; what is more, the students see it as such. Assigning roles in a random fashion allowed students to see it was by chance that the video stars, and the other roles, were allocated. Naturally, if a student genuinely objects, some negotiation or sensitivity would be required; no one should be forced. No such negotiation was ever called for in my classes as no one objected.

77

S. HOLLAND

The second homework was for students to further reflect on their class experiences and to write up their individual reflections. After collecting the written homework, I produced and printed a summary of each class’s written ideas and distributed copies so that everyone could share and build on each other’s ideas. Lesson Outcomes All the Conversations about Conversations lessons I had were successful; in fact, the outcomes far exceeded my expectations. To give a sense of the students’ ideas, some example comments about each conversation type are presented below; all are given in the students’ own words. The average English level of the students was between CEFR B1-B2; so how the students expressed their ideas in English was generally noteworthy. Conversation 1—scripted: ‡ The conversation was like a mission. ‡ The conversation was smooth, but expressionless. ‡ It is easy to speak with scripted, but they read their lines in a monotonous tone. Conversation 2—guided: ‡ Speakers used stiff gesture. ‡ It was limited by the question[s]. Conversation 3—English, unguided: ‡ In a real conversation a mistake is a reflection of nature. ‡ It is natural that means mutual conversation. ‡ I think this conversation needs more reaction, for example, ‘Wow!’, ‘Really?’ Conversation 4—Japanese, unguided: ‡ It is carefree to be able to speak mother’s tongue. [The] Word “carefree” means that speakers don’t worry about being at a loss for talking. ‡ Could talk long time and use a lot of Japanese words. When a student critiques a conversation as ‘expressionless’or ‘limited’the observations hopefully promote a desire to avoid such features in their own conversations. The point being, the enacted conversations and the conversations about the conversations served as means to develop an awareness of conversational quality. The outcome from the homework was astounding; both in the atypical amount the students wrote but also in the depth and skill they showed in expressing their ideas. For instance, in answer to ‘What is conversation?’ students wrote: ‡ For me, it is necessary to live on earth. ‡ The most important thing is the intention to talk. ‡ I think [making] eye contact is good and showing some reactions is also good. 78

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

‡ It is also important not to hurt other people when we communicate with them. ‡ Conversation is fun but sometimes troublesome. ‡ Of course, it’s important to say our opinions or thoughts, but listening is much more important to make a conversation. ‡ I think fluent conversation will not be born unless it is ambitious. Furthermore, without any prompting, but considerable satisfaction on my part, the students came up with their own ecologically nuanced insights about the nature of conversation. Body language was mentioned frequently, as in ‘talking with our bodies’. These comments acknowledged the embodied nature of conversation. ‡ I do a gesture and help a partner. ‡ Both (Japanese and English) speak with my/your body. ‡ Expression and posture is a kind of conversation. The students also made comments, while not directly stating that knowledge generated in a classroom depends on the contributions of the participants, did at least implicate a notion of distributed cognition: ‡ Conversation is to share our ideas. ‡ The conversation in Japanese was ‘funny’ because the speaker—was borrowing the power of [the] classmate. Observations about the conversational setting did not feature frequently in the students’ comments; however, the following observation was insightful. “I think [a] natural comfortable environment is important”. When pressed the student who made this remark explained that a conversation is natural when: ‡ The speakers [are] near each other and sit down. I think that the speakers should have a conversation in a place like a café, that place is comfortable. Although all the students’ comments were interesting, not all were a cause for celebration, especially when students compared conversing in English and Japanese: ‡ My image[s] about English reactions are more exaggerated and bigger volume. ‡ I think there is also influence of culture. I have an image that the Japanese are quiet and foreigners have boldness. ‡ English conversation has the division of rules. Mostly one person asks a question. But another doesn’t ask a question too much. Japanese conversation has not the division of roles. This last comment seems a surprising and even shocking idea, but perhaps understandable in terms of a language learning context where questions are often overused. Certainly, these student-thoughts are ones that a teacher needs to be aware of. Indeed, it is exactly this kind of idea the Conversations about Conversations lesson was intended to counter by demonstrating that ‘good’ conversation should be a reciprocal and cooperative endeavor. 79

S. HOLLAND

Another benefit of the conversation lesson is that it provided a shared, comprehensible, co-constructed frame of reference within which talk in subsequent lessons could be referred to or built upon. In general, students do not have extensive systematic theoretical knowledge of the structures of conversation. On the other hand, they obviously do have their own foundational everyday experiences, which, as shown here, they can, with suitable encouragement, articulate. Moreover, the lesson was significant in that many students had probably not previously verbalized their understandings of the essence of conversation, specifically, not in English. The Conversation about Conversations lesson offered an example of engaged pedagogy that could not only generate fruitful talk but also develop a shared metaconversational discourse, and thereby, extend the interactional parameters of the classroom environment. CONCLUSION

The ecological metaphor described in this chapter is an analytical framework used to understand the English language classroom in new ways. As with any metaphorical conceptualization through which teachers and researchers try and understand experiences in the classroom, the metaphor cannot be taken as literally fitting an objective reality (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Nonetheless, an ecological perspective is a constitutive part of understanding the interplay of environmental, social, cognitive, and emotional relations in a language classroom. I hope that having read this account of an ecological perspective, the Conversations about Conversations lesson, but above all, the students’ own comments, language teachers will be inspired to adapt the lesson ideas to suit their own teaching situations. With an ecological view of timescales, as well as being valuable in themselves, small, transient steps in an English conversation class, could also lead to huge, enduring impacts in a global society. In a complex world of powerful, often conflicting global, national and institutional discourses, cross-cultural, person-to-person interactions could help build a fresh, inclusive world-view, one conversation at a time. NOTE 1

Figures on the worksheet refer to the number of the student’s role assignment. The number of roles assigned can be adjusted to fit the number of students in a class.

REFERENCES Atkinson, D. (2010). Extended, embodied cognition and second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 31(5), 599–622. doi:10.1093/applin/amq009 Atkinson, D. (2011). A sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition: How mind, body, and world work in learning additional languages. In D. Atkinson, (Ed.), Alternative approaches to second language acquisition (pp. 167–180). London: Routledge. Bannink, A., & van Dam, J. (2006). A dynamic discourse approach to classroom research. Linguistics and Education, 17, 283–301. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2007.01.001

80

AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. London: University of Chicago Press. Bowers, C. A., & Flinders, D. J. (1990). Responsive teaching: An ecological approach to classroom patterns of language, culture, and thought. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–42. doi:10.3102/0013189X018001032 Carspecken, P. F. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and practical guide. New York, NY: Routledge. Casanave, C. P. (2012). Dairy of a dabbler: Ecological influences on an EFL teacher’s efforts to study Japanese informally. TESOL Quarterly, 46, 642–670. doi:10.1002/tesq.47 Derry, S. J., Pea, R., Barron, B., Engle, R., Erickson, F., Goldman, R., Hall, R., Koschmann, T., Lemke, J., Sherin, M., & Sherin, B. (2010). Conducting video research in the learning sciences: Guidance on selection, analysis, technology, and ethics. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19(1), 3–53. doi:10.1080/ 10508400903452884 Duranti, A., & Goodwin, C. (Eds.). (1992). Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fettes, M. (2003). Critical realism, ecological psychology, and imagined communities: Foundations for a natural theory of language acquisition. In J. Leather & J. van Dam (Eds.), Ecology of language acquisition (pp. 31–48). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers Gee, J. (2005). Discourse analysis theory and method (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Gibson, J. J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (First published in 1979) Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Oxford: Blackwell. Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489–1522. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00096-X Heath, C. C. (2011). Embodied action: Video and the analysis of social interaction. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 250–269). London: Sage. Heft, H. (2001). Ecological psychology in context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the legacy of William James’s radical empiricism. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (2008). Conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kramsch, C. (Ed.). (2002). Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives. London: Continuum. Kramsch, C. (2008). Ecological perspectives on foreign language education. Language Teaching, 41, 389–408. doi:10.1017/S0261444808005065 Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. New York, NY: Basic Books. Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2007). Reflecting on the cognitive–social debate in second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 91, 773–787. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00668.x Larsen-Freeman, D. (2011). Complexity theory approach to second language development acquisition. In D. Atkinson, (Ed.), Alternative approaches to second language acquisition (pp. 48–72). London: Routledge. Larsen-Freeman, D., & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lazaraton, A., & Ishihara, N. (2005). Understanding second language teacher practice using microanalysis and self-reflection: A collaborative case study. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 529–542. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2005.00328.x Leather, J., & van Dam, J. (Eds.). (2003). Ecology of language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

81

S. HOLLAND Lemke, J. L. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(4), 273–290. doi:10.1207/S15327884MCA0704_03 McNeill, D. (Ed.). (2000). Language and gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reed, E. (1996). Encountering the world: Toward an ecological psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Robbins, P., & Aydede, M. (2008). The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, P. (2001). Cultural theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Toolan, M. (2003). An integrational linguistic view of coming into language. In J. Leather & J. van Dam (Eds.), Ecology of language acquisition (pp. 123–139). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Tudor, I. (2003). Learning to live with complexity: An ecological perspective on language teaching. System, 31(1), 1–12. doi:10.1016/S0346-251X(02)00070-2 van Lier, L. (1988). The classroom and the language learner: Ethnography and second language classroom research. London: Longman. van Lier, L. (1997). Approaches to observation in classroom research observation from an ecological perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 783–787. doi:10.2307/3587762 van Lier, L. (2000). From input to affordances: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 245–259). Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Lier, L. (2002). An ecological-semiotic perspective on language and linguistics. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives (pp. 140–164). London: Continuum. van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Watson-Gegeo, K. (2004). Mind, language, and epistemology: Toward a language socialization paradigm for SLA. The Modern Language Journal, 88, 331–350. doi:10.1111/j.0026-7902.2004.00233.x Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

82

JOFF P. N. BRADLEY

6. PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

Keep your mind in hell and despair not. Gillian Rose, Love’s Work (1995) Life is beautiful but the world is hell. Harold Pinter (Billington, 2009) [In] both Bangkok and Tokyo, teenage boys and girls value texting as a means to communicate without having to voice feelings and thoughts. Sadie Plant, On the Mobile (2001) You know that I love words … What I do with words is make them explode so that the nonverbal appears in the verbal. Jacques Derrida (2010) INTRODUCTION

The intent of this chapter is to set out a compelling vision for a critical pedagogy in the foreign language classroom in the tertiary education sector in Japan. I am committed to the view that there is a desperate need to rethink language learning in the Japanese university to better foster critical thinking. With this in mind, the chapter sets out a critical thinking model which can be migrated, adopted and applied to a wide variety of settings. The model is comprised of five elements: (1) Language; (2) Linguistics; (3) Intercultural or Cross-cultural understanding; (4) Critical thinking and (5) Speculative philosophical problem. All elements are necessary to meet the goals articulated in the compelling vision of this book. This chapter is consistent with the principles of Multiple Literacies Theory (Masny, 2013; Masny & Cole, 2014), in the sense that there is an emphasis on placing language learning within a social and political context while considering how it may be alternately impeded or liberated by media and technology. As such the chapter mounts a critique of the mobile phone as an instance of so-called “industrial temporal objects” (Stiegler, 1998). Pharmacologically, the mobile phone acts as both a means and impediment to frank communication. The thoughts of a range of continental philosophers are used to consider the problem of how people are increasingly in a permanent state of hibernation and held incommunicado.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004421783_006

J. P. N. BRADLEY

The chapter reflects on silence, understood as not simply the absence of speech, but as something profound, menacing, unsettling, haunting: a silence that threatens to erupt, a becoming-wild (devenir-inculte) (Stiegler, 2011, p. 15). The first part of this chapter addresses Roman Jakobson’s and Jean Baudrillard’s work on phatic communication. We will then look at the use of language and silence in the short sketch Apart From That (2006/2011) by 20th century dramatist and Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. The chapter asks in what sense it is possible to say that Pinter moved from the unspoken or unspeakable to the “must be said”. The inspiration for this chapter stems from two sources. It emerged through a reading of the Japanese translation of Pinter’s Apart from That by Tetsuo Kishi (2009) in which chinmoku (⊸唉) is used to express the equivalent meaning of the Pinterian pause or silence. When I first thought about this, I wondered whether it was possible to translate such aching silences into a culture that at first glance and for the most part embraces the tranquillity of the unsaid. Thoughts on silence were also stirred by Alphonso Lingis’s 2013 lecture “Communication and Silence” at the FRQIHUHQFH RQ ³/LIH DQG 3KHQRPHQRORJ\ &HOHEUDWLQJ $OJLV 0LFNnjQDV DW ´ DW Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania, in which he spoke of the heavy silences that one must endure in life. The chapter aims to show that communication cannot be reproduced effectively in vacuo in the classroom without exploring its other affective dimensions, which is to say, foregrounding the culturally-defined power relations which inhere or envelop language. As such, in acting as a pedagogic and literacy tool, the dialogue Apart from that guides students through language, linguistic and intercultural analysis to wider issues of critical and philosophical content. I am making the case that if the latter elements fail to be incorporated then communication is left decontextualized and desensitized, stripped of political and social significance, and reduced to the lowest common denominator benefiting neither student nor teacher, nor society as a whole. But more than this, the model I am proposing is positioned contrary to the commodification of language of such. It is by turning to literature and the literary and by combining and utilizing literacy and linguistic tools that we can begin to offer another model of doing things, another way of doing language. Amid the comparison of Pinter, Beckett and Lingis, the discussion of silence in Japan is central to the chapter because of the problem of how to discuss controversial issues in the language classroom. The chapter has much to do with pedagogy or language learning because it offers a lesson plan and theoretical model demonstrating how language takes place within a definite social, cultural, political and economic context. Moreover, it demonstrates a compelling way to passing from apart from that to Parrhesia, which is to say, the act and risk of the telling the truth.

84

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

LESSON PLAN ON HAROLD PINTER’S APART FROM THAT

1. Hand out the Japanese translation of Apart from That and have students read aloud the text. Have them discuss the strangeness of the Japanese and the context before giving feedback on the translation. 2. Have a few pairs read the text aloud to the whole class. Again discuss the need to understand the context. 3. Students translate the text from Japanese into English. Teacher checks possible translations from Japanese into English and gives a few hints. Students discuss the use of interjections (aizuchi) in Japanese. 4. We hear the unique translations of the text from several pairs. Students discuss the problems of translation. 5. The original text of Pinter (his name is removed) is distributed to the students who practice the text before comparing the original and their translation. Finally we hear the original text as read by a few student groups. 6. Students discuss the possible meaning of the text, its context, why the language appears strange or unfamiliar and so on. 7. With hear and watch two versions: (1) the original text read by Harold Pinter and Rupert Graves on BBC Newsnight, 23 June 2006, and (2) a version made for the stage included in Pinter’s People, a collection of sketches and short prose works by Pinter, performed in early 2007 at the Haymarket Theatre in London. 8. Students discuss the possible meaning of the text, for example, how silence is used in English and Japanese. 9. We then critically contextualize the short sketch by looking at communication technologies and ask if mobile technologies effectively destroy or impede communication. 10. Teacher leads the comments on Pinter’s remarks about the structure of silence etc and gives other examples from Pinter’s works. 11. We conclude by looking at the wider implications of the short sketch referring to Roman Jakobson’s work and phatic communication. We then discuss the possible meanings of apart from that which Harold Pinter might have meant— namely, death, illness, the Gulf War, the collusion of the British government in war atrocities, Fukushima, American soldiers in Japan, North Korean nuclear weapons and so on. 12. Students write on the apart from that specific in their context and time. PART 1: LANGUAGE

Apart from That GENE: How are you? LAKE: Very well. And you? Are you well?

85

J. P. N. BRADLEY

GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: Silence. GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: GENE: LAKE: Silence. GENE: LAKE:

I’m terribly well. How about you? Really well. I’m really well. I’m so glad. Apart from … oh you know … I know. Apart from … oh you know … I do know. But apart from that …? How about you? Oh you know … all things considered … I know. But apart from that …? Sorry. I’ve lost you. What do you mean? I … I lost you. No, you didn’t … I’m right here where I was. Anyway, where were we? Sorry? I mean … apart from all that … how are you really? Terribly well. Well you certainly sound well. I am … apart from … oh you know … Yes, I know. But you’re well … anyway. I’m wonderfully well, to be honest. I’m really glad. Apart from … you know … But apart from that … What? Apart from that … how are you really? … Apart from that?

Pinter and Phatic Communication At first glance and for the most part, Pinter’s (2006) Apart from That is a short, scathing sketch lambasting the way people say little, almost nothing, in everyday utterances on the mobile. It is well known that Pinter was highly critical of mobile phones and held considerable disdain for the way people use them to communicate. Pinter’s Apart from That is also clearly influenced by Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, in which Vladimir and Estragon are compelled to prolong their conversation. Yet, whereas the phatic interjections appear vacuous in Apart from That, in Beckett’s play the characters do indeed hold some form of minimal exchange of content. While Beckett’s silences intimate the disintegration of language, Pinter’s silences are infused with affect and a pregnant transmission of meaning (Chiasson, 2017). 86

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

Briefly summarised, in the exchange above two characters Gene and Lake are found communing via mobile phones, saying little almost nothing apart from that seems like banal concerns. Although repeated references are made to an “apart from that”, the precise content is left unsaid. The discussion continues despite interruptions and communication breakdowns and ends, left hanging in the air. It concludes with the unsaid yet to be uttered and for good reason because Pinter often ends his dialogues in silence. He has, as he says, no answers to afford us. This is our lot. When the sketch was included in “Pinter’s People” in 2007, which was comprised of sketches and monologues, circumstances were changed to present the communication between two patients in hospital (Phillips and Kevin Eldon)—one patient in traction, the other on an intravenous drip. In this version, the spectre of decay and death is silenced through phatic communication. When we look at Apart from That again and consider the role of mobile telephony we can imagine Gene and Lake wrapped up close to their mobile phones, hibernating incommunicado. One imagines Gene and Lake alone, staring into the abyss, amidst the chaos and noise of a bustling city, with their shared silence insinuating various affects such as confusion, uncertainty, and sadness. Although facing the abyss through terminal illness, the patients remain steadfastly focussed on the mundane. In this instance, when Gene inquires into Lake’s well-being what he is really doing is establishing a phatic relation to Lake with the sole intention of ascertaining if the means of communication is working—as Jakobson explained above. Taken in this way, it would seem Pinter’s point is that the medium itself rids the message of content, despite the efforts to convey messages with existential content. Phatic communication thus pertains to the channel: it is found in the expression, “I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up”, uttered in the middle of a conversation. Lake asks Gene “How about you?” to wit Gene replies “Oh you know … all things considered …”. Lake sympathises with this and adds: “I know. But apart from that …?” In inquiring into something other than the apart from that one can infer that Gene is uttering the conative or imperative function, which dominates the structure of the speech event—since the dialogue is clearly directed to Lake. As Jakobson insists the intended message of an exchange cannot capture the full meaning of the verbal event because the content of the communication is dependent on the context, the code, the means of contact, and other configurations. The meaning of a message is enclosed in the total act of communication, with the semantic elements of the message insinuated amidst other extra-linguistic factors. Critics of such a model point to the argument that the number of distinct parts constituting a total communicative event cannot be decomposed so readily. On this line of reasoning, this is so because the communicative event is continuous and dynamic. The Jakobson model is criticised precisely for its linearity and sequencing of relation: from the addresser to the addressee, an unalterable “unidirectional sequencing” (Chang, p. 177). What is extracted from the message, from the absurd, phatic exchange of the inessential between Gene and Lake is an element that challenges Jakobson’s model of phatic communion. Although the language passes 87

J. P. N. BRADLEY

for communication, there is something unsettling about the dialogue too. There is something that jars or sticks in the throat, an economy of affect (affects such as anxiety, confusion, bewilderment), an event and performance of power as puissance, a stammering and stuttering (begaiement de la langue, as Deleuze and Guattari say) or an in-between. For Chiasson (2017), interpreting Brian Massumi and Deleuze, the role of affect fundamentally informs Pinter’s work, as it is through “the direct, mutual involvement of language and extra-linguistic forces” (Massumi, 2002, p. xix) that meaning can be construed as a material process, an “expression of forces acting upon each other”. We can say that an ordinary conversation and the everyday are seldom just that, because spoken language is replete with the unsaid, the unable to be said at that time, the unspoken: it is in this silence that a dark sense of foreboding leaks out cancerously. Pinter’s work explores such contortions of language to the nth degree: expressions are hammered and bent out of shape, no longer transparent, no longer signifying what they usually mean. In Apart from That, what is lurking underneath the clichés in daily conversation is the ever so slight hint of an unwelcome “elephant in the room” or “weasel under the cocktail cabinet”, a certain malignant presence pregnant with misfortune and foreboding. On the other side of the phatic spectrum, and taken in a phenomenological sense, it can equally be argued that an affective relation exists, a showing of empathy, a determination to simply be there for the other (Lingis, 1998): in other words, the simply saying of something is as equally important as the content of the said. In Levinisian language, and applied to Pinter’s dialogue, and despite the apparent lack of explicit meaningful communication, Gene and Lake show each other that they are present and for the other. Cliché Yet the lines in Apart from That are simple enough. They are packed with everyday interjection words: the same kind of chat one hears often on the train, bus or in the street. But in-between Pinter’s lines there is something that hints at the unsaid. He has a knack for ostranenie—the making strange of ordinary patterns of linguistic representation—a point picked up by Jakobson who urges artists to make the ordinary uncanny in his famous definition of the artist’s task, “to make the ordinary strange” (Bruner, 1983). In the mobile phone dialogue, it would seem the topics of death, disease, illness and the horror of war are too traumatic to confront directly. Such topics are not part of the game of the everyday. Matters of the hell of the world are better blocked from transmission. Yet, in the sketch underneath or behind the empty words, there is the hint of our throwness, an uttermost impossibility welling up; a final last laugh. It is there in every word and utterance. More than this, it is that which envelops and nestles itself in every gasp, vibration of sonic matter, in every breath. It is that thick black melancholy which hovers above every interlocution. Listening in every dormant, brooding silence, it is enmeshed in the subtext and shadows shrouding silence. The quiet repose is deafened by rowdy, unwanted guests. It is a terse and 88

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

austere form of expression in which all is denuded. In the masterful use of a poetics of silence in the dramas of Pinter and Beckett is a silence that pours like water into “a sinking ship”. Apart from That is apart from one’s mortality. The unsettling part is that I’m speaking on the mobile but apart from that I have nothing meaningful to say. PART 2: LINGUISTICS

Roman Jakobson How can we understand the short sketch Apart from That? Roman Jakobson’s philosophy of communication (1956) makes great strides in explaining the role of phatic utterances in conversation. At first glance, the model is commonsensical. The addresser sends a message to the addressee. The message, in need of a context, attaches to a verbal or otherwise “referent”, something referred to by the addressee. As such, the code must be common and shared between the addresser and addressee as the message operates through a dyad of encoder and decoder. Lastly, there must be a means of contact to sustain the chitchat, a physical channel and psychological connection between the addresser and the addressee. Although verbal messages must include all of the aforementioned functions, for Jakobson (1960) some functions dominate others. Jakobson’s functionalist model of universal representation of communication—part of the formalist-functionalist commitment of the Prague school—is structured around six components: addresser, context, message, contact, code, and addressee. The six functions are orientated towards one or another factor. These functions correspond to the following: the emotive (expressive), the referential (cognitive, denotative, ideational), the poetic (aesthetic), the phatic, the metalingual (‘glossing’), and the conative (appellative). As one might expect, the emotive function expresses the addresser’s attitudes or feelings, though this need not be through an explicit statement. It can manifest in an exclamation, such as “oh no” or “wonderful”. According to Jakobson (1960), referential communication is the “real or external situation in which the message occurs”. It is used when we state a fact or describe a situation. The poetic function focuses on the message itself, although in itself it pertains not only to poetry. For Jakobson, the poetic function of language challenges the referential function in terms of the fundamental ambiguity of messages. Ambiguity alters the referential function. We can use it when we decide how to say something—for example, changing wordorder, or choosing specific words to say something. Several paronomastic1 images used by Jakobson are illustrative of the poetic function. On this matter of phatic speech, Burgess (1965) views this as speech to promote human warmth. It is the small talk between people, whether that is face-to-face or otherwise, for example, via electronic means. While the metalingual communication pertains to discussion about grammar, pronunciation or the giving of instructions (Leeds-Hurwitz, 1992), the conative function consists of the effect the message has on the addressee’s feelings 89

J. P. N. BRADLEY

or attitudes. It is also assumed that the conative involves some degree of imperative or vocative language, such as “leave me alone”. In any communicative event, it is claimed one of the functions takes precedence to a greater or lesser extent over the others. As Jakobson says the verbal structure of a message depends primarily on the “predominant function”. Therefore, the full meaning of the illocutionary act is dependent to a significant degree on the context, code, or means of contact, and the resultant combinations which ensue. Importantly, the meaning of a message is grasped in the total act of communication, which entertains distinct extralinguistic factors. While in Saussure’s work there is a distinction between langue and parole, with langue taken as the systematic homogeneous aspect of language, and parole the individual use and variation, in Jakobson, we find the link between signifier and signified loosened to take better account of the role the latter plays. In his 1960 paper “Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics”, Jakobson acknowledges the LQGHEWHGQHVVIRUKLVPRGHORIFRPPXQLFDWLRQWR%URQLVáDZ0DOLQRZVNL¶VFRQFHSWRI phatic communion (see Ogden et al., 1923). In the latter, the use of language sustains a social relation through ritualised formulas such as greetings, chit-chat or small talk. Despite the apparent vacuity of utterances, the emptiness of contact serves as a technical function, to test the system itself, to test the medium not the message, as Marshall McLuhan (2005) famously put it. For example, the uttering of the question: “Hello, do you hear me?” is devoid of content as it merely tests that the system is working. We find this explanation hints at the emptiness of such content because in the very act of prolonging dialogue there is an implicit demand for the interlocutor’s constant attention. What is left is the sense of constant contact without content. The phatic function is akin to the metalingual function in that the former checks the efficiency of the channel, while the latter is used by interlocutors to assess whether the same code is used. It is viewed by Jakobson as “an indispensable element of concerted human action”.2 Baudrillard Contra Jackobson Writing in the tradition of surrealism and Situationalism, Jean Baudrillard (1929– 2007) formulates a thought-provoking, albeit ultimately pessimistic, critique of mediated communication (Genosko, 2012). His theoretical model resonates a great deal with Pinter’s dramas and the disquieting problems of the isolated, mediaintoxicated individual of our age—the current focus of Stiegler’s philosophy of media and communication. Contra Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication (1949), Baudrillard (1981) writes that communication is something essentially other than “the simple transmission-reception of a message” (p. 169). Baudrillard insists that simulacra have won out. In an extreme sense, there is nothing other than phatic communication. In Seduction (1990, pp. 163–166), Baudrillard outlines his view of the zero degree of contact or tele-phasis and claims that the phatic function of language is used to establish contact and sustain speech’s formal dimension. This is relatively straightforward except that it is taken in a hypertrophied sense, sited 90

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

in the tele-dimension of the communication networks. Psychoanalytically, contact for contact’s sake is the deceptive empty form—akin to Lacan’s parole vide— through which “language seduces itself when it no longer has anything to say” (Federici et al., 2005). For Lacan, empty speech occurs when the subject appears to be talking in vain about someone who, “even if he were his spitting image, can never become one with the assumption of his desire” (Lacan, 1977). Put another way, information for information’s sake obliterates the prospect of transparent or unmediated communication. The function of phatic communication is irremediably tied to the simulacrum’s systemic dysfunctionality. In short, it dominates the channel and undermines transparent communication. There is mention of this in Alain Badiou’s notion of the reign of opinion or phatic discourse and echoes of it are found in Giorgio Agamben’s motif of “communication without having anything to communicate” (Heron, 2008, p. 48). Within such a motif, pure communicability is viewed as that which dissolves the received differences between “man” and “animal” in the pure opening of voice. Writing against the terror inherent in the code—which Jakobson’s model of communication grants primacy to—a code that privileges the sender over receiver and the refrain that maintains their relation, and translates the univocity and legibility of messages—Baudrillard bleakly critiques the way such a code excludes ambivalence and domesticates signs. Here the phatic function is a “simulation pact” based on tele-phasis or “contact for contact’s sake”—nowadays found in texting, email, chat, etc.3 Omnipresent and vapid, tele-phasis symbolises a veritable implosion of meaning and communication.4 Baudrillard rejects the claim that the semantic content of a message is always legible and univocal. In a sense, this is what one finds in Pinter’s dialogues and amidst the menacing, sinister, full of ill-intent silence, in the ambivalence of exchange. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. It lies. Steiner, in his Language and silence: Essays on language, literature, and the inhuman, discusses the matter clinically and decisively, insisting: Something of the lies and sadism will settle in the marrow of the language. Imperceptibly at first, like the poisons of radiation sifting silently into the bone. But the cancer will begin, and the deep-set destruction. The language will no longer grow and freshen. It will no longer perform, quite as well as it used to, its two principal functions: the conveyance of humane order which we call law, and the communication of the quick of the human spirit which we call grace. (1967, pp. 150–151) PART 3: INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

Silence Texting for its own sake is the phatic function of language par excellence: it is the maintenance of an affective bridge. Think of the button on Facebook or other social networks which is used more often than not to reply viscerally, however 91

J. P. N. BRADLEY

trivial, inane or inconsequential, to convey at least that one is present and understands that other people are too in front of their luminescent screens, isolated, communing incommunicado. The mobile phone becomes the device through which short, phatic communications sustain social contact and convey affects, however virtual, rather than the means to confront, challenge and exchange fundamental ideas and beliefs. Mobile communication is therefore affective and phatic by its very intentionality. It is this which Pinter picks up upon to show how phatic language can play a pivotal, albeit deleterious, role in human relations. People use communication devices not to conceal their thoughts but to hide the fact from themselves that there is a deficit. This criticism is not new, and it is not merely an attack on the stupidity of everyday talk, the talk of the they (Heidegger’s Das Man, 1996). It is found in Voltaire, who claims we have language to conceal thoughts from each other. Voltaire is usually attributed as saying: Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. While for Hermann Melville (1852/1971) “all profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence”, as silence is deemed a general consecration of the universe, the voice of God; or for Pico Iyer for whom silence is a divine voice, an eloquent sound, one that envelops words; for Pinter, silence is not so much a response to the ineffable: it is something more mundane, less other-worldy and more concrete. It is the mirror opposite of divine solitude and communion. It makes a racket. Earlier in his career, Pinter insisted there were two different principal forms of silence. The first is the straightforward case of when no word is spoken. It is the absence of content. The other is when one finds “a torrent of language” precisely in the initial absence. As he says (1977): This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is its continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don’t. In this sense, Pinter seems to be dramatising the unsaid behind the platitudes of small talk. Despite the clichés propagated by hearsay, there is also something else pertaining to alterity, the undecidable; there is something more to be gleaned. The point is that conversations are invariably laden with a crust of meaning of a much more existential register and cadence. Behind everyday dialogue—salutations, talk of the weather—there is a desire for a deeper level of cultural and intercultural communication—which sometimes indirectly intimates at being-towards-death. Meaning is buried deep within a “language cloud” of chatter, nonsense, evasion, with silences engaged in power games, political statements, refusals, grudging consents. At the limit of the spoken word, there is the agonized silence: intimidation itself. Sceptical of the literal denotations of words, Pinter says one should look deeper for the implications and what is left unsaid. There is clearly a preoccupation with silence throughout Pinter’s corpus: it is the incommunicable that is always intimated. In a very important sense, Pinter suggests we communicate in the three following full 92

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

stops … “in our silence”. Underneath the conveyance of unadulterated information is a deliberate use of orders, responses, solicitations, silences to express unsavory power relations. The obverse of this is a masquerading of dialogue to conceal one’s true thoughts, a point which Victor L. Cahn (1993) picks up upon in insisting that language is infused with the unanswerable. To ward off this confrontation, we deploy questions, awkward, intermitted pauses, silences, and repetitions to hold on to power. Pinter’s characters in plays such as The Caretaker (1960) rely on colloquialisms, professional jargon, and convoluted word patterns as they twist and spasm in ever complex power relations. In Mountain People (1988), Pinter critiques the oppression of governments against the populace, in particular the suppression of the Kurds in Turkey in the 1980s. The following monologue of the officer taunting his prisoners is instructive, as it plays on the idea that even orders laden with the threat of violence and reprimand are seldom transparent and communicable. It would appear even the brute nature of such language fails to get its intended message across. Pinter (1988) attacks the abuse of power in this monologue, affirming the right of the victims to silence: Now hear this. You are mountain people. You hear me? Your language is dead. It is forbidden. It is not permitted to speak your mountain language in this place. You cannot speak your language to your men. It is not permitted. Do you understand? … It is outlawed. You may only speak the language of the capital. That is the only language permitted in this place. You will be badly punished if you attempt to speak your mountain language in this place. This is a military decree. It is the law. Your language is forbidden. It is dead. No one is allowed to speak your language. Your language no longer exists. (pp. 255–256) Here taking the perspective of the abused, silence is not a failure of language per se but a refusal to use language as a communicative conduit to those in power. For Pinter, it would seem, the structures of domination and power in dialogue often keep truth-statements at bay. Silence functions through this very domination. In this respect, to learn to speak in one’s own name is no easy task. Pinter seems to suggest that it is not up to the master to legislate when the oppressed are at liberty to speak. Towards the end of Mountain Language (Pinter, 2001), the following dialogue is heard. Silence is present. Yet on its own taciturn level, it refuses to budge, conform, to be complicit in wrongdoings. Guard:

Oh, I forgot to tell you. They’ve changed the rules. She can speak. She can speak in her own language. Until further notice. The Old Woman remains still. Sergeant: Look at this. You go out of your way to give them a helping hand and they f**k it up. (p. 22)

Language here is used performatively to sustain power structures. Between words, silence means something has happened and it is not yet the time to speak. To return to Apart from That, there are two obstacles which block unmediated communication. 93

J. P. N. BRADLEY

The first is the existential problems of silence; the second, the technical problem of transmission of meaning via mobile phones. The interlocutors are close yet so far away. Pinter seems to be saying that the claustrophobic closeness to the other qua other makes one convulse. Echoing Wittgenstein’s claim (1922/2010) that: “what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence”, Pinter (1998) describes the function of speech as a deceptive “stratagem to cover nakedness”. In 1962, in a discussion on the poverty of communication, we find Pinter thinking deeply about the terror of silence. He writes (1998, p. 24): I think we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else’s life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility. We seldom hear speech as it is a “violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen” which invariably controls the other. The obverse of this is that in true silence we come closer to vulnerability. In Writing for the Theatre, Pinter (1998) insists that it is from silence that language struggles to emerge: You and I, the characters which grow on a page, most of the time we’re inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, evasive, obstructive, unwilling. But it’s out of these attributes that a language arises. A language, I repeat, where under what is said, another thing is being said. (p. 23) Underneath what is said, for Pinter, other matters are uttered. Words obscure silence. Silence is therefore akin to a minor tongue; it is the foreign language within language; it contorts and strains language and forces it to stutter and stammer (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Stammering occurs in this form of silence. It is generative of new grammatical or syntactic powers: it makes language delirious. In similar ways, the philosopher David Wood (1990) considers indirect communication a perlocutionary act—the carrying out of an existential perlocution. He writes (1990, p. 110): “To understand how indirect communication is possible we must grasp what it is about ordinary communication that is being changed”.5 Silence propels language to the limit of what can and cannot be uttered. As words create silence, the latter suspends meaning and exhausts language. At the limit of what can be said there is a confrontation with silence. Silence is both a dramatic and rhetorical strategy, a “desperate rear guard attempt to keep ourselves to ourselves”, as Pinter says. Language is a fragmentary and incomplete medium to express anxiety and incompleteness, a way to stall conversation. Silence and Japan The silence found in communicative behaviour in Japan is defined largely by Confucian traditions. The chin (⊸) of chinmoku (⊸唉) signifies a moving in, 94

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

a meaning which differs from the original meaning to hang down. The moku (唉) suggests a mixing of black and dog, a silent dog. Silence and speech form a continuum of communication. For example, silence communicates through reticence, ambivalence and situational logic. Several interesting senses of silence are found in Japanese proverbs (see Nakane, 2007; Loveday, 1986; Fischer & Yoshida, 1968, pp. 37–39) such as “if there are many words, there will be much shame”, “close your mouth and open your ears”. Others include “one treats one’s mouth like a guarded jar”, “mouths are to eat with, not to speak with”, “the tiger in one’s mouth destroys oneself”, “a person of many words has little refinement”, “those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know”, “honey in the mouth, a sword in the belly”, speech is silver, silence is golden. Such proverbs indicate the cultural role and philosophical import silence has in Japanese communication strategies.6 On this account the Pinter pause seems at odds with the intended meaning encapsulated in “iwanu ga hana” (“to say nothing is a flower” or “silence is wisdom when speaking is folly”). Indeed, Yamada (1997, p. 17) notes that the proverb “only the belly speaks the truth” suggests the ideal communication model is one among interlocutors precisely without talk. In Silence, the Phenomenon and its Ontological Significance (1980), Bernard P. Dauenhauer considers discourse as precisely arising out of silence. It is the latter that prepares the way for discourse to appear and “allots it room in which to appear”. Before the word there was silence. And according to Tannen (1985, p. 94), shared between intimates, silences are shared as an interpersonal bond. This is the silence of that “sweet silent thought” found in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30, that perfect rapport between intimates without words. All of this seems very far from the existential dread looming in Pinter’s plays and prose. PART 4: CRITICAL THINKING

The philosopher Alphonso Lingis suggests that “genuine” communication takes place on a much deeper level of social relation. If the spoken word ossifies thought, congeals relations, stratifies and blocks the conveyance of meaning without explicit articulation, and despite the feverish desire for instant communication (as we are always enshrouded by the “clangor of the world” according to Pico Iyer), Lingis (2013) claims that in our vast urban technopoles, there is indeed a need to withdraw, to go incommunicado as it were, from the clamour of being with others. He writes: Today one half of humanity has assembled in cities where whenever people are talking to others, facing them, they talk into cell phones, there exists a powerful drive for solitude. In his 2013 lecture “Communication and Silence” Lingis insists that one travels well when we one leaves language behind. Without words, without a common tongue, one encounters the other and is other for the other. Alone in a foreign land, without the comfort of a shared tongue, one appeals to the other for help in one’s very bare and elemental self. The nakedness or vulnerability before the other unmasks the 95

J. P. N. BRADLEY

false identities of constructed personhood and reveals one’s essential singularity. On this account, silence is singular. It is mine and yours: sometimes a prison, a home, sometimes violent, a torture house. Language conceals thoughts fabricated in silence. In his lecture, Lingis contends: “Words do not attach to the singular, apparition or event, but designate (sic) what is common to a succession of past and future apparitions of events”. If silence is a sanctuary, conversation pulls us from the possibility of insight, and from the uneasiness, attractions, desires, lusts, anxieties, mounting pleasure of bodies, as Lingis puts it. Discussing the web of closed relations enmeshing the subject, he writes: We subject ourselves to demanding words, oppressive, words, abrasive words, stinging words, biting words, cutting words. Words that construct us, lacerate us, humiliate us, sicken us, mortify us. For the phenomenologist (Lingis, 1994), noise is that which is internal to and disruptive of rational discourse. For it is in voices which tremble with emotion, and crack with tears, which expose shame, sorrow and anger, that the speaker is rendered present and knowable to the listener. One imagines Lingis analysing Pinter’s plays and agreeing that the noise of the world is so very alien from the humanist rational discourse of philosophy and science (Lingis, 1994, p. 80). Contra Serres’ notion of rational communication (1992), Lingis insists language is much more than the ideal speech communities erected by linguists and philosophers. Behind abstract meaning, there is a gamut of idiosyncrasies undermining the abstract message in and for rational communication. Background noise must be repressed. As Lingis says: “the particular timber, pitch, volume, and tonal length of the words being uttered, the particular color, penmanship, and typeface, of the visible patterns” (Lingis, 1994, p. 77). In this notion of noise and the murmur of the world, there is something above and beyond the idle talk in everyday discourse and communication. It is not so much that the message is lost in the interference and confusion of background noise, as murmur and the background noise are both essential to the total speech act. Writing against the ideal city of communication maximally purged of noise (Lingis, 1994, p. 12) and contra Serres, Lingis critiques the view that the “maximal elimination of noise would produce successful communication among interlocutors themselves maximally interchangeable” (1994, p. 78). In silence, for Lingis and indeed for Pinter, there is evidence of a character’s will to communicate. Even as no words are spoken, in other silent spaces there is a torrent of language: the expectant silence of waiting. The Pinter pause … represents such a subtle or elliptical form of dialogue. In this way, silence is an escape from cliché as it disrupts the flow of narrative and provides an unsettling pause, an absence of communication laden with meaning. It is an example of a circuit breaker, the vacuoles of non-communication of which Deleuze and Guattari speak of in their critique of order-words. On this point, Deleuze and Guattari write: “We do not lack communication. On the contrary, we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance to the present’ (1994, p. 108).

96

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

In his masterful Language and Silence (2010), Steiner discerns a trend towards the retreat from the word in modern literature as the violence of war makes mankind speechless. As Kazuyoshi Oishi (2007, p. 111) puts it: “With the death of Logos, we have lost the traditional order of language and the authoritative mode of communication”. Steiner claims the world of Auschwitz lies outside speech because it is outside reason. One cannot utter the truth of it because “to speak of the unspeakable is to risk the survivance of language as creator and bearer of humane, rational truth. Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity do not easily resume life” (p. 182). On this account, language is dethroned, is no longer sovereign, no longer the repository of humane rationality, value and truth. In poetry, Steiner finds the limits of the expressible and therefore the threshold of meaning. But even poetry itself is contaminated; its composure and comportment to the world, affected by modern technology, is “organically linked”. Discussing portable technology such as mobile phones or the Walkman and its effects on young people, he explains (Cerf, 2011): You and I are sitting here, in this house surrounded by a garden, where there is no other noise other than the sound of our conversation. Here I can work. Here I can dream and try to think. Silence has become a huge luxury. People are living in a constant din. There is no more night in cities. Young people are afraid of silence. What will become of serious and difficult reading? Is it possible to read Plato while wearing a Walkman? I find this very worrying. Beckett Silence, yes, but what silence! For it is all very fine to keep silence, but one has also to consider the kind of silence one keeps. (Beckett, 2010, pp. 302–303) In the July 9th, 1937, letter to Axel Kaun, Beckett describes English as “a veil that must be torn apart in order to get at the things (or the Nothingness) behind it” (1983, p. 171). The Irish poet imagines a literary technique to get at the things themselves. The mask must be torn off, dismantled, drilled into, until the point that something starts to emerge. The craft of the writer is to bore hole after hole into the materiality of language until what lurks beneath and behind begins to seep through. In this respect, the writer is a seer, a hearer. Although later dismissing the letter, describing it as “German bilge”, he nevertheless admits he cannot imagine a higher goal for a writer (1983, p, 172) than the boring away at language until the incommunicable enters into words. In Dream of Fair to Middling Women (1923/1993), Beckett suggests that semantic content is found between phrases, in the silence, communicated in the intervals and not always in the terms of the statement. For Beckett it would seem that silence is used as an alternative to language as he views language as always excessive. There is no repose “in the forest of symbols” (1983, p. 172), as he insists.

97

J. P. N. BRADLEY

For Beckett, behind the veil of language lies silence as that absolute zero to which all communication is sent. I imagine Pinter, too, burrowing his way into the silence that lurks under the superficial meniscus of meaning. Having found it, he grants it a menacing perlocution. As he can’t simply liberate the incommunicable from that “terrible materiality of the word surface” of which Beckett speaks; he cannot simply give it air, resuscitate it, let it speak, or force it to deliver utterances. More than this, he cannot simply represent it in a game of exact equivalence. Responding to the shame of our lot, and the complicity in letting power hold sway without resistance, one tears at the veil which conceals and compromises, one rips oneself to bits. Pinter sets the record straight on his attitude toward language in his Nobel Prize speech Art, truth and politics. We hear the insistence that language is a kind of regime of order-words, cliché and hearsay, often deployed to keep thought at bay and to maintain the status quo. Thoughts and counter-thoughts happen but language hides them from unbridled exposure. It is a question of truth and the maintenance of power. The public, for Pinter, are acquiescent in the maintenance of this status quo. What surrounds us, he insists, “is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed” (Pinter, 2005). Pinter concludes his speech by discussing the role of the writer, suggesting the metaphor of the mirror bears close examination to Beckett’s veil. He writes: When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror—for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us. Thinking the dignity of man, as that which is nearly lost to us, he adds: “I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory”. PART 5: SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM

The mobile phone is a heuristic trope to think the way in which interlocutors are simultaneously in constant contact and yet completely torn apart from one another. In Apart From That interlocutors talk about nothing as such but it is the fact of being together that wards off the discussion of ominous horror waiting on the horizon. Facing alterity, it is as if in talking, we crouch and quail through communication, to conceal—disingenuously—the angst of our lot. It has been suggested that Apart From That indirectly points to the Iraq war and the horrors taking place in the ancient kingdom to this day, to the heinous acts committed at Abu Ghraib prison and the overall betrayal of her citizens by the British government—in the apart from that. Indeed, scathing in his criticism of the British and American governments, Pinter in his Nobel prize lecture—in what seems tantamount to an act of Parrhesia—an act of telling the truth and taking a potentially 98

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE

fatal risk in doing so—seems to decide to utter precisely what “must be said”. Yet is not the explicit “must be said” also indelibly tarred by dissimulation? Is not the act of Parrhesia—or speaking candidly—the conceit of Pinter who considers his own words as bearers of truth while his characters toil in their menacing silences? This point is instructive as it raises the question of how one passes from the implicit, from strained articulation, from speaking in one’s own name, to issuing a clarion call to those attacked in manifold ways by those in power. This is in Pinter’s view principally former British prime minister Tony Blair in collusion with the US government and George W. Bush who rode roughshod over United Nations resolutions in the build up to the Iraq war. Transposing the apart from that to Japan, it is hard to see the apart from that as anything other than reference to the continuing danger of radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant. The silence around this issue is—as they say—deafening. Bringing the matter back to linguistic concerns, we can say this: that a fundamental imperative is heard even in the phatic fact of speaking, in the very being-there, inthe-accompanying-the-other-towards-death. In the prior sayable there is something more fundamental that the said. In the saying, there is the essential and weight of the imperative; something distinct from the said. Communication is thus founded at the limit of communication when one must speak, when one’s simple presence is sufficient to speak volumes. It is in listening to the soundless imperative of the other’s presence, that the subject in directed and compelled to respond. Ending on a positive note, while modern technology may effectively jam communication between interlocutors, one can indeed isolate the desire to say something above and beyond the everyday and the banal. From a cursory analysis of Pinter’s aversion to the mobile phone, we can demonstrate that there is something lurking around the banal passage of noise. Underneath such everyday chatter amidst the ominous sense of violence, full of dark warnings and reprisals, there is also a faint, lingering hope, a desire for authenticity. Silence is another battlefield for humanity. Although the ever present disruption of communication is in need of deconstruction, the desire for authentic talk is an element which makes us rise above our animality. The conclusion is therefore affirmative in the Deleuzian sense, as it asks of the forces of silence which intensify not diminish life. NOTES 1 2

3

A recurrent trope of substitution and play on words, sometimes reduced to assonance and alliteration. Moreover, for Jakobson, ‘eloquent silence’ plays a central role in all communicative functions, especially in illocutionary speech acts. Part of the fabric of the conative function, eloquent silence operates as a direct or an indirect speech act and as a discourse marker: it calls on the addressee to lead the discourse, to decide whether to continue or terminate it. As well as being the first verbal function acquired by infants, Jakobson contends that the phatic function of language is the only one which humans share with the animal kingdom (see Ephratt, 2008). Pierre Guiraud (1975, p. 8) contends that phatic communication has a key role in all forms of communion from “rites, solemn occasions, ceremonies; speeches, harangues to family conversations or

99

J. P. N. BRADLEY

4

5

6

amorous exchanges”. Agreeing with Baudrillard, Guiraud suggests that content of the communication is less important than the fact of being there and “of affirming one’s membership of the group”. In the essay ‘Requiem for the Media’ Jean Baudrillard (1981) criticizes Jakobson’s model of communication precisely because it excludes the reciprocity and antagonism of interlocutors, and the ambivalence of exchange—the noise resistant to codification. In other words, it excludes the quintessential otherness of the other. One recognises the imperative of silence, but one goes on speaking anyway. Exhausted with speech, and discovering one has nothing else to say, one seeks a way to say precisely that. Susan Sontag (1983, pp. 187–188) lamented the constant chatter also: “One recognizes the imperative of silence, but goes on speaking anyway. Discovering that one has nothing to say, one seeks a way to say”. For Sontag, silence can be aesthetic, philosophical, preparatory, meditative, or an ordeal. It is articulated in a decision, indecision, or hesitation before deciding. It might be serious, dangerous, or devious. But it is rarely as it is—silent—as it is not simply a breakdown in communication as such but is used to convey some form of meaning. As Sontag’s point out, silence is inescapably a form of speech. Indeed, as well as having perlocutionary effect (Austin 1962), silent communicative acts possess illocutionary force in the sense that it may “question, promise, deny, warn, threaten, insult, request, or command, as well as to carry out various kinds of ritual interaction” (Saville-Troike, 1985, p. 6). As a communicative strategy, silence has a positive phatic function—used as an effective tool for emotional defence. It serves as a useful politeness strategy to avoid the confrontation that a verbal expression may ensue. Silence is not merely the opposite of speech, but in Japanese also antonymic to “noise, motion, and commotion” (Hedges, & Fishkin, 1994, p. 113). Hedges and Fishkin claim that silence traditionally in Japan signifies “pensiveness, alertness and sensitivity” (p. 113). Through channeling and backchanneling, active listening (‘sasshi’ or guesswork) and ‘haragei’ or belly art—that subtle use of visceral silent communication—“a mutually satisfactory outcome” can be achieved (Kenny, 2011, p. 56). There is also the phenomenon of ‘isshin-dotai’ (one mind and body) between close couples, or ‘ishin-denshin’ (a kind of intuition or telepathy), enshrouded by ‘aizuchi’ or phatic communication. One could say following Akiba Reynolds (2000) that the Japanese language is hyper-phatic in this respect. The other side of this can be equally true. Silence can also signify resistance (Yoneyama, 1999).

REFERENCES Akiba Reynolds, K. (2000). Phatic aspect of language: Channeling and back-channeling in Japanese and English. Hawaii: Pacific and Asian Communication Association Convention. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Badiou, A. (2001). Ethics: An Essay on the understanding of evil. London: Verso. Baudrillard, J. (1981). For a critique of the political economy of the sign. St. Louis: Telos Press. Baudrillard, J. (1990). Seduction. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Beckett, S. (1993). Waiting for Godot. London: Sceptre. Beckett, S. (2010). Three novels: Molloy, Malone dies, The unnamable. New York, NY: Grove Press. Beckett, S., & Cohn, R. (1983). Disjecta: Miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment. New York, NY: Grove Press. Beckett, S., O’Brien, E., & Fournier, E. (1993). Dream of fair to middling women. New York, NY: Arcade Publications (In association with Riverrun Press) Billington, M. (2009). Harold Pinter. London: Faber & Faber. Bruner, J. S. (1983). A tribute to Roman Jakobson. Berlin: Walter de Grujter. Burgess, A. (1965). Language made plain. New York, NY: T. Y. Crowell. Cahn, V. L. (1993). Gender and power in the plays of Harold Pinter. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Cerf, J. (2011, December 30). George Steiner, a certain idea of knowledge. Telerama, Paris. Retrieved from voxeurop.eu/en/content/article/1320071-george-steiner-certain-idea-knowledge Chang, B. G. (1996). Deconstructing communication: Representation, subject, and economies of exchange. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

100

PINTER: HELD INCOMMUNICADO ON THE MOBILE Chiasson, B. (2010). Harold Pinter and the performance of power: Considerations of the affect in select plays, screenplays and films, poetry and political speeches (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Leeds University, Leeds. Chiasson, B. (2017). The late Harold Pinter: Political dramatist, poet and activist. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G., Guattari, F., Tomlinson, H., & Burchell, G. (1994). What is philosophy? New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Derrida, J., Amelunxen, H., Wetzel, M., Richter, G., & Fort, J. (2010). Copy, archive, signature: A conversation on photography. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ephratt, M. (2008, November). The functions of silence. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(11), 1909–1938. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2008.03.009 Esslin, M. (1987). Language and silence. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Harold Pinter (pp. 139–163). New York, NY: Chelsea House. Federici, C., Boldt-Irons, L. A., & Virgulti, E. (2005). Images and imagery: Frames, borders, limits: Interdisciplinary perspectives. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Fischer, J. L., & Yoshida, T. (1968). The nature of speech according to Japanese proverbs. The Journal of American Folklore, 81(319), 34–43. Genosko, G. (2012). Remodelling communication: From WWII to the WWW. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Guiraud, P., & Gross, G. (1975). Semiology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hedges, E., & Fishkin, S. F. (1994). Listening to silences: New essays in feminist criticism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Heidegger, M., & Stambaugh, J. (1996). Being and time: A translation of Sein und Zeit. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Iyer, P. (1993, January 25). The eloquent sounds of silence. Time, 141(4). Jakobson, R. (1960a). Linguistics and poetics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jakobson, R. (1960b). Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in language (pp. 350–377). Oxford: John Wiley. Jakobson, R., & Halle, M. (1956). Fundamentals of language. ‘s-Gravenhage: Mouton. Kenny, C. (2011). The power of silence: Silent communication in daily life. London: Karnac. Lacan, J. (1977). The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis. In Ecrits: A selection (pp. 30–113, A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York, NY: Norton. Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (1992). Communication in everyday life: A social interpretation. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Lingis, A. (1994). The community of those who have nothing in common. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lingis, A. (1998). The imperative. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lingis, A. (2013, June 13). Communication and silence, life and phenomenology: Celebrating Algis 0LFNnjQDVDW. Conference at Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania. Loveday, L. (1986). Explorations in Japanese sociolinguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Masny, D. (2013). Cartographies of becoming in education: A Deleuze-Guattari perspective. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Masny, D., & Cole, D. R. (2014). Mapping multiple literacies: An introduction to Deleuzian literacy studies. London: Bloomsbury. Massumi, B. (2002). A shock to thought: Expressions after Deleuze and Guattari. London: Routledge. McLuhan, M. (2005). The medium is the message. Corte Madera: Gingko Press. Melville, H. (1971). Pierre: Or, The ambiguities. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Nakane, I. (2007). Silence in intercultural communication: Perceptions and performance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

101

J. P. N. BRADLEY Ogden, C. K., Richards, I. A., Malinowski, B., Crookshank, F. G., & Postgate, J. P. (1923). The meaning of meaning: A study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of symbolism. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Oishi, K. (2007, March). The silence of Abraham’s God: Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter Revisited. The Journal of the Open University of Japan, 25, 109–116. Pinter, H. (1977). Complete works. New York, NY: Grove Press. Pinter, H. (1988). Mountain language. London: Faber and Faber. Pinter, H. (1998). Various voices: Prose, poetry, politics. New York, NY: Grove Press. Pinter, H. (2011). Plays four. London: Faber and Faber. Pinter, H., & Kishi, T. (2009). +DURUXGRSLQWƗ7RN\R+D\DNDZDVKREǀ Plant, S. (2001). On the mobile: The effects of mobile telephones on social and individual life. Schaumberg, IL: Motorola. Rose, G. (1995). Love’s work. London: Chatto & Windus. Saville-Trokie, M. (1982). The rthnography of communication: An introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Saville-Trokie, M. (1985). The place of silence in an integrated theory of communication. In D. Tannen & M. Saville-Trokie (Eds.), Perspectives on silence (pp. 3–18). Norwood: Ablex. Serres, M. (1992). Hermes. Berlin: Merve-Verl. Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Sontag, S., & Hardwick, E. (1983). A Susan Sontag reader. London: Penguin Books. Steiner, G. (1967/2010). Language and silence: Essays on language, literature, and the inhuman. New York, NY: Atheneum. Stiegler, B. (1998). Technics and time. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Stiegler, B., Ross, D., & Arnold, S. (2011). The decadence of industrial democracies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tannen, D. (1985). Silence: Anything but. In D. Tannen & M. Saville-Trokie (Eds.), Perspectives on silence (pp. 93–111). Norwood: Ablex. Tannen, D. (1990). Silence as conflict management in fiction and drama: Pinter’s betrayal and a short story, ‘great wit’. In A. D. Grimshaw (Ed.), Conflict talk: Sociolinguistic investigations of arguments in conversations (pp. 260–279). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, D. (1990). Philosophy at the limit. London: Unwin Hyman. Yoneyama, S. (1999). The Japanese high school: Silence and resistance. London: Routledge.

102

MARIA GRAJDIAN

7. THE RENEGOTIATION OF MODERNITY On Teaching the Dialectics of Japanese Cultural Imperialism, as Reflected in the Rurouni Kenshin Phenomenon

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS POLITICALLY CORRECT ABOUT CULTURAL IMPERIALISM?

The idea of this chapter emerged gradually during the four years in which I have been teaching modern and contemporary Japanese culture and society for exchange students at Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies and Media Studies, Phenomena and Representation, Culture as a Mirror Society and various Introductory Seminars for Japanese students at Nagasaki University, School of Global Humanities and Social Sciences. While interacting with a great variety of students, it became increasingly clear that they struggle to cope with my theoretical terms and pedagogical standards, due not so much to their educational or cultural backgrounds, but to conflicting— and sometimes, straight-out contradictory—concepts of how far the freedom of speech and the duty to rightfully serve as a responsible role-model are allowed to go. The bigger, more encompassing question was: how are politically sensitive topics, such as “cultural imperialism” and “military supremacy” supposed to be mediated, without challenging too much the boundaries of inter-cultural diplomacy in the process? After plenty of trial and error, I found the answer in a cultural phenomenon, which carries the weight of an undisputed inter-generational icon that conveys beyond political borders a local message strongly infused with ethnocentric undertones of resistance, empowerment and liberation. The goal of this chapter is to highlight the colorful dynamic undertones of Japanese cultural imperialism, with its idiosyncrasies and contradictions, as dealt with in courses that target Western students (mainly US-American, Canadian, Australian and European citizens). In order to illustrate the main characteristics of Japanese cultural imperialism, its reflection in domestic media as well as its international ramifications as seen especially in the strategy of simultaneously absorbing and resisting the West expressed in the slogan “Japanese spirit, western technology” (ZDNRQ\ǀVDL), the multimedia phenomenon of Rurouni Kenshin is taken as a practical example. There are two main reasons that Rurouni Kenshin eventually turned out to be the most suitable tool to bring out the characteristics and functions of media narrative within the complex—and at times, all-encompassing—project of employing culture

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004421783_007

M. GRAJDIAN

as a means to attain a leading role within the world community. The first concerns Rurouni Kenshin’s construction of masculinity and masculine role models. As I argue elsewhere (Alternative Realities, Alternative Masculinities: An Empiric Inquiry into Japan’s Video Game Culture and Its Global Impact, forthcoming, 2018), unlike classical masculinity (also labelled as “toxic masculinity”, see Kimmel, 2012, 2015; Hooks, 2002, 2004), late-modern masculinity is patterned upon three fundamental paradigms: the “Luke Skywalker” paradigm, the “Harry Potter” paradigm and the “Rurouni Kenshin” paradigm. Apart from generational and cultural-geographical differences, these three new masculinity paradigms commonly raise three major questions about the late-modern masculine man as a response to the increasingly empowered and liberated late-modern woman (feminine or not; Butler, 1993, pp. ±*UăMGLDQSS±.ULVWHYDSS±VHH+DUDZD\ p. 45). They also highlight two necessities for envisioning how such masculinity is consolidated. The paradigms are thus useful in comprehending the changing dynamics of late modernity—and with it, the flexible dynamic among nations, dictated by new patterns of political awareness and inter-relatedness. These are the five elements of concern: a. the questioning of the traditional image of an almighty hero who challenges—and eventually defeats the enemy—the irreversibility of death b. the questioning of (physical) strength, aggressiveness and ruthlessness as inevitable tools for attaining supremacy and total control c. the questioning of sexuality and material wealth as defining characteristics of an accomplished man d. the necessity of vulnerability, of feeling, understanding, accepting, respecting and showing emotions within the process of progressing from childhood to adolescence, to young adulthood and through the challenges of an exceptional life e. the necessity of acknowledging and respecting others—friends, family, enemies— in their radical otherness, and thus following one’s path through life, not as a solitary individual, but as a social, loving human being. Later on, I shall delve more deeply into these five elements while referring to the two major dimensions of classical imperialism based on patterns of masculine perception and development (provide and protect, on the one hand, and overcome and achieve, on the other). The elements lead to fresh structures of identification and communication based on cooperation and compassion rather than competition and efficiency (see Bauman, 2001a, 2001b; Castells, 1997a, 1997b). Moreover, the male characters embodying these elements call for action here and now, critically counter-reacting to current tendencies to mechanize, virtualize and digitalize human interactions. The second reason resides in Rurouni Kenshin’s powerfully cross-medial presence. An emblematic case of “media transfer” or cross-mediality (starting as a popular VKǀQHQ manga by mid-1990s with sequels in early 2010s, including an additional light novel in 1996, evolving to a cult TV anime series and six 104

THE RENEGOTIATION OF MODERNITY

OVAs targeted at the same VKǀQHQ audience from 1996 until 2001, and three live-action movies in 2012 and 2014), the “Rurouni Kenshin” brand remains in the consciousness of 1990s’ teenagers as a symbol of faith and empowerment in strong contradiction with the reality of Japan’s so-called “lost decade” (see Drazen, 2003, pp. 97–103; Furuhashi, 1996–1998; Watsuki, 1994–1999). Conversely, as analyzed below, Takarazuka Revue Company’s staging of Rurouni Kenshin (in 2016, from February 5–March 14, at Takarazuka Grand Theater in Takarazuka, and from April 1–May 8, at Takarazuka Theater in Tokyo, by the snow troupe, with top star otokoyaku Sagiri Seina and Himura Kenshin and topstar musumeyaku as Sakihi Miyu as Kamiya Kaoru) had to overcome two major challenges—the (predominantly) female audience and the limitations of the theatrical genre— while maintaining the aesthetic-technical details of its performance standards and complying with the prevalent ideology of “Japanese spirit, Japanese technology” (wakon wasai) of present-day Japan. Overcoming the latter challenge allowed the production to be aligned to similar ardent efforts within the Japanese entertainment industry and media landscape (see Iwabuchi, 2015, pp. 422–424; Robertson, 1998a, p. 175; Valaskivi, 2013, p. 489; see Nye, 2004). Throughout the course, (Western) students are guided through the complex dialectical representation of the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods, the major historical background of the “Rurouni Kenshin” franchise, as they become aware of the power of popular cultural artefacts on the processing of reality in an increasingly interconnected world dominated by information that is delivered by mainstream media after having been previously carefully selected and geopolitically adjusted. In accordance with these two elements, which make the Rurouni Kenshin franchise a powerful tool for mediating the dialectics of Japanese cultural imperialism, I have structured the current chapter into three main parts: 1. A presentation of the research field as an ethnographic endeavor, followed by an in-depth explanation of applied methods and theories (in the section “The research field, theoretical background and methodological approaches”); 2. The analysis of the fallacies in mainstream media of the Rurouni Kenshin topic as a VKǀQHQ genre targeting a specific demographic group of adolescent males between 12–20 years old that statistically was the most affected by the loss of faith in the technocratic visions of the leading elite, which occurred during the “roaring 1990s” in Japan: (in the section “The Rurouni Kenshin phenomenon and its cross-medial malleability”); 3. The preoccupation with the subtle transition of the Rurouni Kenshin motive towards the VKǀMR demographic as a live-action performance with specific standards, and the answer to the question of why latent cross-mediality (or media transfer) might be the solution towards a more compassionate, more profound communication between human actors within the same society and among different societies (in the section “Rurouni Kenshin as a message of peace and mutual understanding”).

105

M. GRAJDIAN

From my experience with non-Japanese and Japanese students in various courses related to Japanese culture and society and to media studies, the easiest and safest way to address such sensitive syntagms as “cultural imperialism”, “military supremacy”, “worldwide domination” is by bringing up a topic which is accessible in its message and relevant in its popularity. “Safe” refers here to the ability to make the audience— or group of students in this case—listen long enough for the major points of the argumentation to be made before the room is open to discussion; “popularity” is inevitably connected to a topic’s success at the box-office (see Hendry, 2000, pp. 26–49; Mathews, 2000, pp. 27–31; McGray, 2002, p. 48; Tobin, 1992, pp. 11–16). As it will be highlighted in the Conclusion: towards a new paradigm of the human condition, the renegotiation of modernity as a geopolitical act in its late stage begins in the classroom, with teachers and students alike questioning the prevalent ideologies as well as the aesthetic status quo. PEDAGOGY, CULTURAL IMPERIALISM, MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND IMPACTFUL MESSAGES

During my courses on modern and contemporary Japan and the dialectics of cultural imperialism (Japanese or not), in which the Rurouni Kenshin phenomenon was taken as a practical example, I have dealt mainly with the TV anime series and the OVA (Original Video Animation) first, and with the Takarazuka Revue performance and merchandizing second. The reason for this selection lies in the popularity these two aspects of the franchise have among non-Japanese fans. “Cultural imperialism” refers here to the process by which nation-specific cultural elements and structures are propagated and implemented via cultural assets in and outside geographical borders (see McGray, 2002; Nye, 2004). The basic difference between cultural imperialism and classical soft-power endeavors consists in the stress on culture, rather than nation, which contrasts with Japanese wartime (cultural) imperialism. The Research Field, Theoretical Background and Methodological Approaches My ex-girlfriend [from college] loved Kenshin, and we binge-watched after exams … even after we broke up, I watched episodes of it, again and again … and somehow, it made me miss her. (TK, male, 23, California) I was part of an online community which translated anime [works], and I was assigned Kenshin. We worked in teams of two, an American and a Japanese, so that we translated the contents in proper English. It was fun. (HK, male, 20, Minnesota) The way you put it, it makes sense. Back then, my [elder] brother showed it to me, and I couldn’t really understand why they didn’t look like Japanese. (EB, 19, female, Washington)

106

THE RENEGOTIATION OF MODERNITY

My research took place over a time-span of 42 months (between October, 2014 and April, 2018) while teaching as an associate professor within the School of Global Humanities and Social Sciences at Nagasaki University and Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies. The students were partly Japanese, but the classes were mostly targeted at non-Japanese students, with the vast majority (over 95%) coming from the USA as participants in locally managed exchange programs. Due to my interaction with US students, I was directly exposed during this period for the first time in my life to US citizens and their worldview as well as existential values, which very much differ from anything I had encountered previously in my educational and professional life as a middle-class Romanian citizen who has been living since 2000 mainly in Germany and Japan. The main difficulty in my attempts to mediate contents related to contemporary and modern Japan to US students consisted in fundamentally different visions of life and human nature, with them focused on the individual as the very centre of the society, and me regarding the individual as indissolubly connected to a greater whole. At some point, by accident, I bumped into one of the female students preoccupation with Rurouni Kenshin and the depiction of traditional Japan in popular artistic forms. Inadvertently, in that period, I had also started to pursue a form of so-called “applied anthropology”, as promoted, among many others, by Anne Allison (1994) and Christine Kondo (1990) and more recently Simon Sinek (2011): It involves a combination of everyday life and research in which the investigator serves as the main subject of their own research endeavor while keenly observing their counterpart (in this case: the US exchange students, and to a certain degree, nonJapanese exchange students). The major difference with classical “participatory observation” is that in the later case, the observed phenomena occur usually in groups of humans belonging to a cultural circle or geographical sphere different from that of the researcher, and the research is conducted without a prior theoretical formulation of the expected results or impact on further areas. In the case of “applied anthropology”, the point of departure serves as a clear orientation entity and incorporates considerable amounts of preparation, theoretical and methodological, so that the result, while not being entirely predictable, is to a certain extent estimated in terms of its relevance for larger segments of human life and activity. Parallel to this phenomenological approach, I pursued what might be described as an empirical study, which refers to informal discussions with the students about what interests and moves them, and a close observation of their reactions to my lectures during classes. As it turned out, introducing Rurouni Kenshin with its basic graphic design and its plain retelling of history employing simple characters with whom students can easily identify, held much greater potential to make comprehensible the intrinsically complicated dynamics of the Japanese geopolitics of generating financial gains via its entertainment media under half-hearted governmental surveillance (usually known under the more generous label of “cultural imperialism”) while promoting soft power as a new means to climb the ladder of international recognition than

107

M. GRAJDIAN

explaining elaborate theories of cultural analysts. I became genuinely curious as to why this was happening. Parallel with this fieldwork consisting of applied anthropology involving participatory observation characterized by phenomenological experience and the empirical collection of data, I intensively researched recent work in anthropology and post-colonial studies and media studies, which led me into the less chartered territory of anthropology of media and how humans interact with media on a daily basis. On a deeper level, the research meant starting to think on how people give in unconditionally to the overwhelming temptations and delusions of instant gratification created by mainstream media (Fuchs, 2017; see Azuma, 2001, p. 64; Böhme, 1995, p. 25), or, in less common cases, on how they resist the almighty media and its infiltration of all domains of life. The major challenge when teaching media studies is to keep an objective focus while warning the students of the dangers of relying on messages conveyed by massmedia. Rurouni Kenshin’s cross-mediality, especially after its Takarazuka Revue live performance, served as an important turning-point in highlighting the advantages of live experiences over recorded ones or of real-life events over virtual ones, on the one hand, and the power of community as the driving force behind individual excellence RQWKHRWKHU%HUOLQSS±*UăMGLDQSS±.DZDVDNL S.DZDVDNLSVHH(WǀHWDO+DVKLPRWR,ZDKRUL Kobayashi, 1955; Tsuganesawa, 1991). Funnily enough, explaining the strictly collective-oriented hierarchical structure of Japanese society—and its impact in a changing world in which the individual feels increasingly isolated and lonely in spite of a progressively permanent connection to the others due to largely available and affordable digital media was easier to do once the animated characters and actors in live-action movies turned into actresses working hard to empathize with thousands of spectators expecting catharsis, relief from inevitable obligations and escape from quotidian disappointments. Furthermore, asking questions about fundamental values (loyalty, responsibility, trustworthiness, hard-work, discipline) and ethical coordinates (reliability, stability, kindness) which seemed natural in my worldview, became less complicated once the fantasy world of anime spanning dozens of hours on TV or cinema broadcast turned into a live theatrical show limited to a 3-hour immediate experience (see Bauman, 2000; Eagleton, 2003; Miegel, 2007). Focusing on the theatrical production also made possible the addressing of such important daily concerns as: how to protect oneself from narcissists and psychopaths/ sociopaths and toxic human interactions; how to be happy and content alone; how to build durable friendships; how to thrive professionally or in school; how to setup boundaries, especially with family members; how to manifest compassion and healthy self-esteem (as self-evaluation and self-respect) without coming across as bossy and intimidating. The extended discussion of these topics revealed in time how profoundly wounded the society these students came from was and how fragmented in its essential humanity, and how much Rurouni Kenshin can serve as a steady, reliable lifestyle model. 108

THE RENEGOTIATION OF MODERNITY

Finally, the hermeneutic interpretation based on fieldwork and literature research allowed for a nuanced analysis of the interaction between students and teachers, which overcomes the traditional mentor-disciple paradigm. To start with, there was the microlevel of interaction in the classroom, with Rurouni Kenshin as the mediating element of Japanese culture and its impact on international audiences. Furthermore, there was the macrospace of mainstream media and online platforms whose very existence depends on the sheer number of subscribers, fighting for commercial supremacy. Between the microexperience with immediate humans and the instant validation, which comes from directly relating to fellow consumers, and the macroindustry of capitalist merchandizing and advertising, the humanity of the social actors involved is mercilessly negotiated. This is why, at this point, I strongly believe that Rurouni Kenshin’s main contribution to making the world a better place is in creating, and mediating, powerfully relatable contents while still following the rules of the entertainment market—and thus, finding a path to reach global audiences. The Rurouni Kenshin Phenomenon and Its Cross-Medial Malleability When I was a teenager, I felt very isolated. I had online friends, and they told me about Kenshin. I watched it, and I wanted to become like him. Even now, when I feel sad, or lonely, or I don’t know what to do, I watch it, especially episode 1, 19, and 30. (MH, male, 25, Montana) I discovered it in highschool, a friend showed it to me, and copied it for me, and also explained me more about it. I also found the manga [version], and I have a [female] friend who cosplays as Kenshin. Because of that [Kenshin], I am now in Japan, and I am planning to stay here for the long haul. (CG, male, 21, California) I play it as video-game. It’s fun. I like it more than the anime or manga [versions of it]. (JQ, 19, male, Atlanta) When originally published as a manga series, Rurouni Kenshin: Romantic Folk Tales of a Meiji Swordsman ±  YROXPHV E\ 6KnjHLVKD¶V ZHHNO\ 6KǀQHQ -XPS), written and illustrated by Watsuki Nobuhiro, turned out to be a huge financial success, mainly because it reflects the confusion of the Japanese society after the big economic disenchantment in the early 1990s. It confronted large segments of the Japanese readership with the visualization of history as a negotiated process among social actors living in the present, rather than the fixed monolith perpetuated by schoolbooks (see Köhn, 2005; Havens, 1970; Foucault, 1966). During the “roaring 1990s” in Japan, precisely male youth, so-called VKǀQHQ, group, at which this manga series was targeted, were by far the most affected by the loss of faith in the elite with their technocratic visions. In the series, Himura Kenshin (also known as “Hitokiri Battosai”, Himura the Manslayer), the former 109

M. GRAJDIAN

mercenary assassin with incredible fighting skills who had helped bring about the Meiji Restoration by siding with the pro-imperialist ishin-shishi (nationalist patriots) against the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate, including the elite swordsmen of the shinsengumi (newly selected corps), has become a wandering samurai who protects the people of Japan with a vow to never kill again in order to repent for his previous crimes. The TV anime series directed by Furuhashi Kazuhiro included 95 episodes, was produced by Studio Gallop (episodes 1–65) and Studio Deen (episodes 66–95) and released originally by Fuji TV between January 10, 1996 and September 8, 1998. A further six OVA (Original Video Animation) movies by the same director were released in 1999 and 2001 by Studio Deen, focusing on Himura Kenshin’s life against the background of the historical turmoil of the at the end of the Tokugawa period. Among the six OVA, only the first four were comparably impactful for non-Japanese audiences, as they explain the traumatic past of the protagonist, Himura Kenshin. The final two OVAs, which tell the story of the main character years later, when he is haunted by the memories of those he had killed and gradually loses contact with his current life, especially his wife (Kamiya Kaoru, the female protagonist of the series) and their son, Kenji, weren’t particularly popular among fans, as they present the late Himura Kenshin as a fallible hermit, broken by regrets and nightmares and unable to tackle his responsibilities as a mature citizen, husband and father. The dark, highly combative OVAs are a strong contrast to the light-hearted episodes of the TV series, which contain hilarious moments of silly fun in spite of the seriousness of the topics. The inclusion of specific elements that teach viewers important lessons about life and history while providing non-judgmental entertainment is probably the main reason that the TV anime series captured the hearts of Western audiences. Eleven years after the Meiji Restoration, Himura Kenshin lives in the stress ratio between a nomad and a pilgrim (see Bauman, 2000), painfully aware of the corruption and violence that dominate the world he once helped create. Strictly faithful to his vow to never kill again, he experiences the hardships and injustices of ordinary people and does his best to help them, while making new friends, including kendo master .DPL\D .DRUX 0\ǀMLQ