By applying an online ethnography of Japanese English learners/users, the present research explored the young participants’ English use in the extramural environment. The researcher conducted an extensive period of online observation of Social Network Services (SNS) and multiple semi-structured interviews. The analysis illustrates that their language practices online are shaped by multiple and intertwined discourses of online peer surveillance, English language learning, and Instagram as a site for expressing idealized selves .The analysis of online posts and narratives reveals that while the participants remained highly conscious of their Japanese followers. The findings emphasized peer-power formation without the physical presence of power actors such as a teacher in a classroom. For example, they fear the potential perception by their peers as eigo ikiri (English show-off), a term commonly used among Japanese youth to refer to someone who shows off their English proficiency without noticing linguistic errors. Internalizing such power dynamics, they become the “watched” anticipating their peers’ evaluation and simultaneously the “watcher”. The findings of the study contribute to our understanding of how learners’ investment in English outside classrooms is influenced by language ideologies held by learners and their peers and the emerging power relationships among the learners themselves. 

By applying an online ethnography of Japanese youth language practices on social network services (SNS), the present research explored the young adults’ translingual repertoire, in which linguistic and non-linguistic semiotic resources are interwoven. The researcher conducted an extensive period of online observation of Instagram, questionnaire surveys, and multiple semi-structured interviews. The analysis illustrates their capability to exploit their available linguistic resources, including English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and German. They utilized these languages not only due to their comfort but also because of their desire to exhibit their local identities or express intimacy to their potential target audiences of numerous followers. Their language practices demonstrate their intricate identity formation in an online space where geographical boundaries transcend. Furthermore, they utilized diverse semiotic resources, including photographs, emojis, and hashtags intertwined with “named” languages. Their online language practices question conventional formal categorizations of what language is.Furthermore, the interview revealed that their online practices are intertwined with their offline experiences, including their friendships, language experiences, and language ideologies spread in the domestic society. For example, their language practices reflect linguistic beliefs such as language as an emblematic role and an asset to thrive in globalization. Furthermore, the participants are constrained by language prescriptivism, constructed through personal experiences, such as the entrance examination.The present research sheds light on translingual practices by Japanese youth, which has received limited attention by embossing the Japanese participants’ capability of using their repertoire ad hoc in an online space to express their translocal identities. Furthermore, it shows a complex interrelationship between their online language practices and their offline experiences and beliefs associated with languages.The research progress and outcome were/will be presented in the following academic conferences as an individual or co-authored papers: IAWE (International Association of World Englishes) in New York, U.S. in June 2023; Asia TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) in Daejeon, S. Korea in August 2023; JACET (Japan Association of College English Teachers) ELF SIG International Workshop in Tokyo in January 2024; Youth Media Conference in Vienna, Austria in March 2024; AAAL 24 (American Association of Applied Linguistics) in Texas, U.S. in March 2024. Two chapter contributions (one co-authored) to edited books, published from Akashi Shoten and DeGruyter respectively, are current in press.

In the present research, the researcher applied only ethnography as a methodology to explore young adults’ translingual practices in online English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication. To do so, the researcher conducted an extensive period of online observation of Instagram, questionnaire surveys, and semi-structured interviews. The ongoing analysis illustrates the translingual capacity of the Japanese participants, who express themselves in front of their transnational friends. Their translingual resources become a vehicle through which the young adults expand and identify their potential audience and align identities with them.The analysis of creative translingual practices in the online ELF communication was presented in the following; Sociolinguistics Symposium 24 in Belgium in July 2022; the International Conference of English as Lingua Franca in Taiwan in November 2022; JACET (Japan Association of College English Teachers) ELF SIG International Workshop in December 2022; JASEC (Japanese Association for Studies in English Communication) Kansai Forum in January 2023; LINGUAPAX ASIA 2023, 11th International Symposium, International Christian University, Tokyo. My contribution to JASEC Bulletin Volume 30 was also published.

Over the period, the researcher conducted a few months of online observation of the SNS platform, namely Instagram, questionnaire surveys, and interviews with online users. The ongoing analysis reveals that Japanese participants using social media exploit their translingual capacity creatively, expressing themselves using rhymes, metaphorical expressions, and other language plays. The analysis of questionnaires and interviews suggests that they often provide different identities depending on the languages. This research in progress embosses the Japanese participants’ creative capacity of using English for self-expressive purposes in the transnational online context.The textual analysis of Japanese undergraduate students’ creative English use, which is the core of this study, was presented at the Japanese Association for Studies in English Communication (JASEC), The 30th Annual Conference in October 2021. The manuscript of the contribution for JASEC Bulletin Volume 30 on this presentation is currently in progress. In addition, a book review on an edited book about creative writing in the digital age was published in Journal of Literature in Language Teaching volume 11(1). Finally, the abstract for the poster presentation on creative language use and self-presentation in social media was accepted and will be presented at Sociolinguistics Symposium 24 in Belgium in 2022.