This article was downloaded by: [36.77.93.

32]
On: 17 March 2015, At: 16:02
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Classroom Discourse
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcdi20

Contrasting identities: a language

teacher’s practice in an English for
Specific Purposes classroom
a
Yusuke Okada
a
Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka University,
Toyonaka, Japan
Published online: 29 Sep 2014.

Click for updates

To cite this article: Yusuke Okada (2015) Contrasting identities: a language teacher’s
practice in an English for Specific Purposes classroom, Classroom Discourse, 6:1, 73-87, DOI:
10.1080/19463014.2014.961092

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2014.961092

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
 Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015
 Classroom Discourse, 2015
Vol. 6, No. 1, 73–87, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2014.961092

Contrasting identities: a language teacher’s practice in an English

for Specific Purposes classroom
Yusuke Okada*

Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Japan

For language teachers who are concerned about referring to their own and stu-
dents’ identities other than in the roles of ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ in the class-
room, this conversation analytic study aims to give insights into the use of
identity. Detailed analysis of the data of English for a Specific Purpose (ESP)
classrooms indicates that contrasting the teacher’s and students’ non-default situ-
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

ated identities, such as senpai (‘senior’ in English) with kohai (‘junior’ in Eng-
lish) and sociologist with scientist, is a way for the language teacher to perform
the role of ‘teacher’ effectively in ESP classrooms: the practice constructs an
epistemic gradient among the teacher and the students and makes some actions
accountable by the participants, who is ascribed a superior epistemic status with
an identity. The study concludes with a discussion of the contribution the use of
identity can make to ESP/LSP (language for specific purposes) and suggestions
for ESP/LSP course development.
Keywords: identity; epistemics; English for specific purposes; conversation
analysis; teacher training

Introduction
In language classrooms, where a target language is taught, learned and assessed, the
identities of teacher and student are relevant to all the participants, and classroom
interaction is normatively managed through the actions affiliated with such identi-
ties. The most notable example is the initiation-response-feedback/evaluation (IRF/
E) pattern, which consists of a sequence of role-specific actions, namely the tea-
cher’s initiation of an action, the student’s response to the action and the teacher’s
feedback or evaluation (Mehan 1979; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975). However, such
situation-relevant roles are not the only features of the participants’ identities in
language classrooms. For example, the teacher might be identified as old man,
Canadian or linguist; a student might be categorised as a boy, Japanese or psycholo-
gist. The question arises as to whether such non-role specific identities can play any
part in the language classroom.
Employing a conversation analysis (CA) framework, Richards (2006) analysed
the talk of English as a second language (ESL) classrooms in order to determine
whether it is possible to produce an ‘authentic conversation’ in a language class-
room, where turn-taking is managed by identities other than those of teacher and
students. Such a situation would contrast with the traditional teacher-led lesson in
which turn-taking is governed by the roles of teacher and students. He found that

*Email: okada@lang.osaka-u.ac.jp

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 74 Y. Okada

the teacher and students could indeed move out of their situated roles, which were
associated with the language classroom, by orientating toward other features of their
identities, and that authentic conversations were possible in such a classroom con-
text. One of Richards’ examples involved a student and teacher orienting to their
identities as a member of a Taiwanese war model-making group and a westerner,
respectively, through displaying their knowledge on the topic of the swastika and
having an authentic conversation in the language classroom. In this interaction, the
student explained to the teacher and other students what a military model-maker is,
and what he understood the swastika to mean. Richards’ findings suggested that the
non-default identities of both teacher and students can have pedagogical value in
language classrooms.
However, while the value of orienting toward non-default teacher and student
identities is recognised as an interactional and educational resource for language
classroom discourse, language teachers remain concerned about orienting to identi-
ties other than the role of teacher (e.g. Braine 1999; Clarke 2008; Nagatomo 2012;
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

Varghese et al. 2005). Teachers may be concerned that such an identity switch may
lead to a loss of control over the classroom, or that disclosure of their own personal
beliefs or values associated with an identity may be an obstacle to teaching
(Richards 2006, 72–73). At the same time, practitioners in the field of language for
specific purposes (LSP) express concern with regard to the roles teachers should
play and what identities they should exhibit in the LSP classroom. This concern
arises as the nature of the LSP classroom differs from that in an ordinary language
learning classroom, in that the teacher may be less knowledgeable than the students
on the specific subject material (see Belcher 2009 for a review). It follows that it
would be informative to document whether and how teachers can use participants’
different identities for pedagogical purposes while remaining in the role of teacher
in the language/LSP classroom. A need for research in this area has been identified
by language educationists (Varghese et al. 2005, 39), as well as practitioners of LSP
courses and programmes.
The present study aims to provide insight into the potential value of incorporat-
ing identities other than the situated role-specific identities of teachers and students
by documenting the practice in interactional teaching activities in an actual English
for Specific Purposes (ESP) classroom. The following section offers an illustration
of the CA approach to identity on which this study is theoretically and methodologi-
cally based. Following this, the data to be analysed are described. The analysis of
the data is then set out, showing how the teacher used his own and his students’
identities in an ESP classroom. The paper concludes with a discussion of: (1) how
participants’ identities can be used in the language classroom; (2) what contribution
such use of identity can make to the language classroom; and (3) suggestions for
ESP/LSP course development.

A CA approach: identity as a cultural and interactional phenomenon

From the CA perspective, any identifications or categorisations that may be applied
to a participant are regarded as resources for interpreting and (re)producing the par-
ticipant’s identity. However, any such orientation toward one’s identity must be visi-
ble to and reportable by co-participants in the relevant interaction. Zimmerman’s
(1998) idea of ‘identity-as-context’, later employed by Richards (2006), is a means
 Classroom Discourse 75

of documenting the details of a participant’s orientation toward his/her own and

others’ identities in an interaction. Zimmerman (1998) proposes three types of iden-
tity. The first is ‘discourse identity’, which emerges in the action at each interac-
tional turn (e.g. current speaker, listener, questioner, answerer). The second is
‘situated identity’, which reflects a situation-specific role (e.g. teacher or student).
The third is ‘transportable identity’, which is reflected by physical and cultural fea-
tures visible or audible to others, and which accompanies the person across contexts
(e.g. Japanese, Canadian, old man, young girl, disabled). The term ‘culture’ here
refers to ‘a recoverable, reproducible stock of knowledge and skills available in
daily, routine, mundane ways of talking and acting’ (Lee 1991, 225). It should be
noted that discourse and situated identities, as well as transportable identities, are
‘worked up’ (Antaki and Widdicombe 1998, 14) by participants’ cultural knowl-
edge. Thus, a participant’s display of cultural understanding of what actions are
appropriate in the language classroom (e.g. correcting a syntactic error in a class-
mate’s speech; answering a question on a grammatical point) reveals how s/he per-
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

forms his/her situated roles as teacher and student. While it can be said that the
situated identities of teacher and student, as well as a set of discourse identities asso-
ciated with these roles, are normatively exercised (Richards 2006, 60), every identity
is constructed through participants’ enactment of cultural reasoning, and no fixed
identity is established prior to an interaction.
Participants’ cultural reasoning around identity is clarified by another CA con-
cept, namely the membership categorisation device (MCD; Sacks 1972a, 1972b,
1992). An MCD comprises a collection of identities (i.e. a set of identities that go
together) and some rules for their application. One such rule of application is the so-
called ‘economy rule’ (Sacks 1992 vol. I, 246) which suggests that participants
understand an identity in terms of its relationship to other identities in the collection.
For example, if a participant is referred to in a conversation as a teacher, this leads
the participants in the conversation to invoke the collection School, which includes
student as another participant. From that point, the teacher’s future, current, and past
actions, and other predicates1 associated with the identity teacher, are understood
and expected in relation to the student (and other identities co-categorised in the
collection School). Considering the same example from a different angle, if a
participant comes to the front of the classroom and starts to speak to the rest of the
participants, the former participant is understood to be a teacher and the latter partic-
ipants are understood to be students. These assumptions are made according to the
so-called ‘viewer’s maxim’ (Sacks 1992 vol. I, 259), which states that a (co-)partici-
pant’s performance of predicates associated with a particular identity suggests the
participant is implementing one identity from a collection.
Combining these two CA notions related to identity, namely identity-in-context
and MCD, it appears that discourse identity is reflected by predicates associated with
a particular category within a collection. A particular category may be either a situ-
ated identity or a transportable identity.2 Whereas a participant’s execution of a dis-
course identity constitutes his/her situated or transportable identity, what a
participant is supposed to do is predicted by the way s/he is understood by the other
participants in the interaction. Such cultural reasoning around identity-in-context and
MCD proffers two procedures for a participant in a conversational interaction to
work up or make relevant his/her own situated and transportable identity, as well as
those of other participants. The first is a (co-)participant’s execution of identity
 76 Y. Okada

predicates; the second is a (co-)participant’s direct reference to an identity, such as

‘You’re Japanese’ or ‘I’m a native speaker of English’.
The indirect implementation of a participant’s identity through his/her
performance of an identity-predicate suggests that a participant’s identity may be
understood through the predicate(s) demonstrated. Mori (2003) documented how an
inter-cultural communication interaction between Japanese students and American
students was constructed in a language classroom through their asking each other
particular culture-related questions, and code-switching according to the hearers.
Note that the direct identification of a participant’s identity not only instructs
other participants how to understand the identified participant’s conduct in terms of
the predicates associated with the identity; it also validates expectations regarding
how the participant is supposed to behave towards other participants. Hauser (2011)
demonstrated that, in conversational interaction, participants use such direct identifi-
cation to proffer or even to negotiate implications derived from the identity. Con-
sider a statement made by a Japanese student in a university English classroom:
‘Fukushima people don’t think they speak dialect. They think they speak standard
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

Japanese’ (Hauser 2011, 192). This reflects a direct identification of certain individu-
als originating from Fukushima, a north-eastern part of Japan, according to one par-
ticular transportable identity. The direct identification of Fukushima people instructs
the other participants on how to understand the predicate (i.e. being unaware of
speaking a dialect) of individuals from Fukushima in terms of this transportable
identity. The point of Hauser’s (2011) study is that direct identification is a way to
generalise a single individual into a category of people in terms of one or more
shared features. On this basis, participants can negotiate the level of generality of a
person’s identity to suggest a different implication. For example, in the above case
of Fukushima people, another participant offered a further identification later in the
conversation, namely ‘Many people who speak dialect think so’ (Hauser 2011, 192).
This identification many people who speak dialect refreshes the co-participants’
understanding – they move from an assertion that only Fukushima people who
speak a dialect think they speak standard Japanese to an assertion that many people
who speak a dialect, including those from Fukushima, think they speak standard
Japanese.
As is clear from the discussion above, CA treats a participant’s identity as pri-
marily an interactional phenomenon which is made relevant by participants both
directly and indirectly through their cultural reasoning. Furthermore, participants
illustrate their understanding of (co-)participants’ orientation to relevant features of
their identity through their action at a subsequent turn. This visibility and availability
of each participant’s own understanding warrant further analysis (see Bilmes 1985;
Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974). CA is an emic analysis, achieved not by
interviewing participants but by investigating ‘participant orientations, relevancies,
and intersubjectivity, [which] are not treated as states of mind that somehow lurk
behind the interaction, but instead as local and sequential accomplishments that must
be grounded in empirically observable conversational conduct’ (Markee and Kasper
2004, 495). Detailed transcription is used as a way to make the participants’ orienta-
tion toward features of the interaction visible and available to both the researcher
and his/her readers. Such detailed transcription allows the reader to follow the
analysis of data segments, promoting the reliability and validity of the analysis
(Seedhouse 2005). In the analyses presented below of a teacher’s use of identities
other than teacher and student in ESP classrooms, the focus is on how participants
 Classroom Discourse 77

themselves treat their own and co-participants’ identities in conversational interac-

tion. The guiding questions for the analysis are:

(1) Does the teacher employ non-role-specific identities for himself and his stu-
dents for pedagogical purposes while maintaining the roles of teacher and
students?
(2) If so, how is this done successfully?

The data
The data analysed in this study come from a corpus of 720 minutes of video-
recorded classroom interaction of an ESP course at a Japanese university. The course
was an elective for junior and senior students in a chemistry department. Three
junior students registered for the course, and one senior student voluntarily partici-
pated. The course was taught by means of team-teaching by a Japanese English lan-
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

guage teacher and a scientist. The English teacher was expected to teach the
students how to use English as scientists, while the scientist taught the course con-
tent. The students were aware of the roles each teacher was supposed to fulfil. In
two-thirds of the class sessions, the English language teacher taught the students
mainly through discussions on scientific topics chosen by the students from a variety
of sources. The remaining one-third of the sessions were taught by both the English
teacher and the scientist, and each session included presentations by the students on
scientific topics, as well as the teachers’ feedback to the students. The English
teacher had majored in sociology.
Initial investigation of the corpus revealed six cases in which the English teacher
explicitly invoked identities for himself and the students other than teacher and stu-
dent. As is clear from the discussion above, several possible identifications of a per-
son exist at the same time. Participants in an interaction may choose a particular
identification to communicate a particular implication of a person(s). The focus of
the present analysis is on: (1) the reason(s) why a particular identification is
employed; (2) how such an identification is treated by co-participant(s); and (3) what
pedagogical goal is achieved by the identification. Two excerpts from the data,
selected as being perspicuous cases (Garfinkel 2002), are analysed below. The
excerpts were transcribed in detail according to standard CA conventions (see
Appendix), making participants’ displays of their understanding clear to both the
researcher and the reader. Pseudonyms are used for all participants in these
segments.

Analysis
In the segment below, three junior students (Murata, Ikeda and Beppu), one senior
student (Fujino) and the English teacher (Asano) are engaged in a classroom discus-
sion. Murata has selected an article and prepared discussion questions about the
applicability of a new method of cross-coupling reaction3 shown in the article. He
summarises the article he selected, and poses some questions to the class. The seg-
ment begins with Asano (A) asking Murata (M) a question. The participants are
seated as in Figure 1.
 78 Y. Okada
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

Figure 1. The seating chart for Segment 1.

Segment 1

To the question asked by Asano in lines 499 and 501, Murata answers positively by
nodding, but soon adds the uncertainty marker ‘maybe’ in line 503. While Fujino
 Classroom Discourse 79

(F) acknowledges Murata’s response in line 504, Asano gives no uptake, remaining
silent for 0.5 seconds in line 505. With his subsequent actions (i.e. ‘h::m’ in line
506, a further 2.0-second long silence in line 507 and the repetition of ‘maybe’ in
line 508), Asano seems to indicate his dissatisfaction with the ambiguity expressed
by Murata, who is supposed to be knowledgeable on the issue. Murata then gives
his own interpretation, starting his turn in lines 511–512 with ‘but’, which indicates
he is negating Asano’s expectation that he should be knowledgeable about the cross-
coupling method. Murata explains that understanding all the issues regarding the
method is beyond his capability. Thus, his turn presents an excuse for his ambiguity.
Asano then acknowledges Murata’s position in the subsequent turn (‘hm’ in line
513). Overlapping Asano’s ‘hm’, in line 514 Murata further comments on his posi-
tion, starting with ‘so’, which seems to suggest ‘so I don’t know whether or not the
method is easy to use’. However, before Murata finishes his turn, in lines 515–516
Asano interrupts with an utterance reflecting a direct identification of Fujino as
senpai (‘senior’), which is a situated identity other than student.4
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

Note that Asano does not merely ascribe the situated identity of senpai to Fujino.
He contrasts Fujino’s identity with that of Murata. Considering Murata’s declaration
that he is not knowledgeable about all the issues regarding the new cross-coupling
method, Asano points to Fujino and poses an epistemic stance (Heritage 2012),
namely that she as a senpai understands the method, while attaching the epistemic
mitigation marker ‘maybe’. The Japanese word senpai refers to a person who is
senior to the other members of a group, who are referred to as kohai (‘junior’).
However, the distinction is not simply a matter of age, but rather entails the idea that
a senpai is more knowledgeable than a kohai. Fujino is therefore categorised as a
more knowledgeable participant than Murata. This contrast in terms of their situated
identities other than students exerts a rhetorical force on Fujino. She is required to
express whether she affiliates or disaffiliates with the teacher’s stance that she
(Fujino) has epistemic primacy (Stivers, Mondada, and Steensig 2011) derived from
the identity. If she affiliates with the identity, she should talk about her understand-
ing of the cross-coupling method. If she disaffiliates with the identity, she should
explain the reason(s) why she rejects the epistemic status (Heritage 2012) imposed
on her by Asano’s use of senpai.
In line 517, Fujino takes the latter position. By waving her hand horizontally in
front of her face, she denies that she knows much about the method. However, Asano
gives no uptake of Fujino’s denial and Murata keeps his eyes on Fujino. These actions
indicate that they are still waiting for Fujino’s response. Fujino then takes another turn
to explain her position (lines 519–522). This turn contains many intra-turn pauses,
reflecting Fujino’s difficulty in producing the appropriate utterances. She explains that
she knows there are many ways of synthesising, but she does not know much about
cross-coupling methods. In this account, she individualises her lack of knowledge with
‘I think’ (line 519) and ‘I don’t know’ (line 521). She does not directly reject the iden-
tity of senpai, but claims that she as an individual person does not have thorough
knowledge on the matter. She does show that she has some knowledge, by saying there
are ‘many’ ways of synthesising that could be used by someone in the field. However,
she avoids being asked further questions by her claim to not know ‘very much’, which
invalidates the other participant’s expectation of her as a particular category of a person
(i.e. an ideal senpai) who can inform the ongoing discussion. After a short silence in
line 523, Murata shows sympathy with Fujino by saying ‘me too’. Asano acknowl-
edges Fujino’s account in line 525 and then assigns the next speaker in line 527.
 80 Y. Okada

Segment 1 illustrates how a teacher might accomplish a task by contrasting fea-

tures of students’ identities. The classroom activity is a discussion, and one of the
teacher’s aims is to facilitate students’ engagement. With his questions, Asano dis-
tributes turns and keeps the topical discussion going. In Segment 1, Asano’s iden-
tity-bound predicate is to manage the interaction. It is in this capacity that he solicits
a response from Fujino by invoking her identity as senpai. It would be possible for
the teacher to select a different identification for Fujino, e.g. ‘maybe she under-
stands’ in lines 515–516. However, such an identification may not have obtained her
account when she disaffiliated with the epistemic status, as there is no moral discrep-
ancy if an individual person is not knowledgeable about a matter; no individual is
expected to know everything. However, senpai and kohai is a type of MCD, a stan-
dard relational pair ‘that constitutes a locus for a set of rights and obligations con-
cerning the activity of giving help’ (Sacks 1972a, 37). Thus, there is a cultural
expectation that a senpai should be more knowledgeable than a kohai, and in Japa-
nese culture a senpai is obliged to help a kohai. When a senpai fails to be more
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

knowledgeable than a kohai, s/he becomes accountable for his/her lack of knowl-
edge. After Fujino accounts for her lack of knowledge, Asano does not disaffiliate
with her position, but moves the discussion along by nominating another student.
Their actions reflexively and interactionally (re)produce their cultural knowledge on
the relevant identities. Contrasting a feature of Fujino’s identity with one of Mura-
ta’s, Asano makes relevant Fujino’s contribution to the ongoing activity, regardless
of whether she affiliates or disaffiliates with the proposed epistemic gradient
(Heritage 2012) between herself and Murata, in which she is more knowledgeable
than Murata in the field of science.
The second segment will further illustrate how identities other than teacher and
student can be useful in the ESP classroom context. The participants are the same as
in the first segment, but this second interaction occurred in a different session, in
which Beppu (B) had prepared an article and discussion questions. The segment
begins with Beppu asking a discussion question to the whole class. The participants
were seated as in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The seating chart for Segment 2.

 Classroom Discourse 81

Segment 2
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

No one replies to Beppu’s question, and he attempts to solicit a next speaker by

looking at Ikeda (I) and the teacher Asano in line 135. After a 3.0-second silence
in line 136, Beppu again glances at Ikeda, and then looks at Asano for 3.8 sec-
onds at line 139. Asano notices Beppu’s gaze and asks for clarification as to
whether Beppu is asking the question of him in line 140, pointing to him. Beppu
confirms this by nodding and then laughs.5Asano then answers Beppu’s question
with a reason in lines 145–146 – he does not know because he is a sociologist.
By referring to himself as a sociologist, Asano retroactively justifies his lack of
knowledge of the plants and implies that Beppu’s asking of such a question of
Asano is inappropriate. In other words, the direct identification of sociologist
accounts for Asano’s legitimate epistemic inferiority, thereby defending Asano’s
situated identity as teacher; Asano is not expected to have specialised knowledge
in the field of science.
On seeing Beppu’s acknowledgement, Asano takes another turn to refer to the
students as scientists (lines 148–149), pointing one by one to Ikeda, Beppu, Murata
and Fujino. This identification contrasts sharply with Asano’s sociologist and
 82 Y. Okada

refreshes the participants’ relationships in terms of the epistemic responsibilities

derived from their identities: scientists are supposed to have epistemic primacy over
sociologists in the domain of science. Beppu shows an understanding of Asano’s
utterance in the next turn with ‘hm’ in line 150. Asano’s lengthy silence in lines
151–154 seems to indicate that he is awaiting a response from one of the scientists
to Beppu’s question, but no scientist offers one. With the words ‘so you might have
come across such plants’ in line 155, Asano explicitly makes relevant the students’
epistemic status concerning a scientific topic, while mitigating their status by the use
of the epistemic mitigation marker ‘might’, thereby leaving room for the students to
declare their lapse of knowledge on the particular scientific topic. Furthermore, the
phrase ‘coming across X’ characterises X as something one encounters accidentally,
rather than seeking it out purposefully. This formulation also serves to reduce the
students’ obligation to know. Reflexively, it constructs Asano as someone who is
not in a position to have any firm assumption about what these student scientists
should know. Fujino turns to Asano in the middle of this utterance in line 156, and
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

after a 0.4-second pause at line 157 she confesses that even she did not know that
the sunflower absorbs radioactive materials. In lines 158–160 she apologises for her
lack of knowledge.6 The act of apologising displays Fujino’s understanding of her
epistemic responsibility as a scientist. A feature of her identity as scientist is thereby
discursively co-constructed.
In the turn immediately following Fujino’s utterance in line 161, Beppu offers
no reaction but looks at Asano and Fujino. This lack of feedback might be due
to the low volume of the last part of Fujino’s utterance (‘sorry I don’t know
any’) – Beppu may not have heard it. Beppu’s staring at Asano and Fujino leads
to Asano’s repair of Fujino’s response for Beppu (‘so she doesn’t know’ in line
162) and Beppu recognises Fujino’s response by nodding in the next turn in line
163. However, Beppu does not offer any further uptake, remaining silent for
1.4 seconds (line 164). Asano then further clarifies Fujino’s answer by adding an
object noun phrase (‘any of such plants’ in line 165), and Beppu firmly acknowl-
edges Asano’s clarification by nodding twice (line 166). Asano then moves on to
a further action, allocating a turn to Ikeda by pointing to him in line 167. In line
168, Ikeda takes a turn and apologises for his lack of knowledge. As in the case
of Fujino above, Ikeda’s apology reflects his orientation to his offending the
cultural expectation derived from his identity as scientist. Beppu acknowledges
Ikeda’s response in the next turn (line 169). Beppu’s audible inhalation in this
turn seems to indicate his orientation to holding a turn, and no one attempts to
nominate him- or herself as the next speaker. However, after Beppu’s second
inhalation and a 1.9-second silence, Asano takes a turn and nominates Murata as
a next speaker (line 170).
In this second segment, the teacher contrasted the participants’ situated identities
other than teacher and student by formulating himself as a sociologist and the stu-
dents as scientists. That formulation achieved the pedagogical task of facilitating a
student’s participation in an ongoing discussion activity. Although the students’ con-
tributions to the discussion were unhelpful in terms of content, as they were unable
to provide the name of a plant that absorbs radioactive materials, they could at least
verbalise their answers to a discussion question as scientists. The teacher may be
regarded as somewhat inept, since he himself did not proffer any plant name, dodg-
ing epistemic responsibility by identifying himself as a sociologist while demanding
a response from the students. However, this practice is considered a legitimate way
 Classroom Discourse 83

of teaching in an ESP course. One of the aims of such a course is to socialise stu-
dents as members of a specific community. Thus, demanding that students take on
the epistemic responsibility of the scientist as opposed to the sociologist should be
recognised as an effective act of teaching. Most importantly, the students themselves
accepted the teacher’s identity as a sociologist, and acted as scientists in a science
discussion. In other words, through performing the situated identity of scientist, each
is being socialised as a scientist, irrespective of his/her position on the novice–expert
continuum of scientist.

Discussion and conclusions

The teacher in the two segments analysed here apparently did not hesitate to employ
the students’ and his own identities other than teacher and students. This contrasts
sharply with teachers’ concerns about such use of identity reported in previous stud-
ies. The difference may well stem from differences in the activities expected of lan-
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

guage teachers in ESP and other ESL classrooms. In the ordinary language
classroom, the language teacher is knowledgeable about the content of the lesson,
i.e. the target language. In such a context, the teacher can provide the required
knowledge and check whether or not the students have gained it by asking a ‘known
answer question’ or ‘display question’ (see Lee 2006; Macbeth 2003). Such a prac-
tice creates an IRE/F three-turn sequence. However, the language teacher in an ESP
classroom is not necessarily knowledgeable about the content of the lesson, as may
be the case when the specific knowledge domain is science. The lack of content
knowledge typical of language teachers in such contexts is reflected by the preface
to the teacher’s question in line 493–494 of segment 1 above: ‘I have a question’ is
a typical introduction to a ‘genuine’ question asked by a less knowledgeable partici-
pant of a more knowledgeable participant. Furthermore, the teacher acknowledged
the students’ responses with tokens (variants of ‘hm’, ‘mm hm’) but did not evaluate
their responses or provide feedback, such as answering the question in order to con-
vey new information to the students. These actions on the part of the language tea-
cher show how the actions of language teachers in an ESP classroom differ from
those of language teachers in an ordinary or language-focused classroom. In this
ESP classroom, the language teacher is not aiming to teach the subject of science;
he is teaching the students how to use the target language as scientists. The teacher
does this by maintaining the interaction, distributing turns and keeping the discus-
sion going. The present data show that the teacher’s and students’ identities other
than teacher and student were a useful resource for the teacher to perform the predi-
cates associated with his role of teacher in this ESP classroom.
The detailed analysis of the two interactional segments from an ESP classroom
revealed that the English teacher achieved certain teaching goals by contrasting his
own and students’ identities. This practice enabled the teacher to facilitate the
students’ engagement in a discussion activity and the process of socialising them as
scientists. Both segments were organised by the teacher performing his role as an
interactional pivot (Hauser 2003). Contrary to concerns among language teachers
about orientation toward identities, the teacher did not lose control of the classroom
or bring about unpleasant results by invoking identities other than the roles of tea-
cher and student. Rather, the teacher used such identities effectively in doing his
job. Such utilisation of students as a teaching resource is recommended by ESP
practitioners (Benesch 2001), and the present study shows how students’ expertise
 84 Y. Okada

can be incorporated in ESP teaching. The practice may be considered a part of the
teacher’s classroom interactional competence (Walsh 2006).
A participant’s situated identity or role and its predicates are determined in rela-
tion to other participants’ situated identities in a given situation. What a senpai is
supposed to do in a situation is determined by how other participants are identified
within the interaction. If other members are constructed as kohai, the member identi-
fied as senpai is expected to have and exhibit more expertise on the subject area.
When one participant is referred to as a sociologist and the others as scientists in a
conversation on a science domain, the scientists are supposed to be more knowl-
edgeable than the sociologist. Contrasting such situated identities enables the ESP
teacher to establish an epistemic gradient where epistemic statuses of the participants
are positioned according to their identities. Furthermore, this obligates the more
knowledgeable party to contribute to the ongoing topic. It is possible for the more
knowledgeable participant to deny this obligation, but such a norm-breaching action
requires the participant to account for his/her refusal, as was illustrated in Segment
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

1. By contrasting a feature of a participant’s situated identity with a teacher’s or

other student’s identity, the teacher can impose an obligation on the identity-ascribed
student to account for the proposed action (such as answering a question), irrespec-
tive of whether or not s/he affiliates or disaffiliates with the identity and its predi-
cates. Sert and Walsh (2013, 561) suggest that ‘managing turn distribution in
language classrooms is … a skill [of the language teacher], which should be
explored further on its own right’. The present study showed that one way to man-
age turn distribution in language classrooms is to contrast identities of participants
to make relevant the participants’ epistemic statuses.
Long (2005) proposed that all language courses should be developed with spe-
cific purposes, rather than for a general purpose in a ‘one-size-fits-all approach’
(19). However, one of the problems in developing LSP courses is the role the lan-
guage teacher should or can play in the classroom. The present study indicates that
the language teacher can facilitate and support students’ identity-formation and soci-
alisation process by exploiting the students’ knowledge, despite lacking expertise on
the course content. At the same time, the findings suggest that, if there is a member
who is supposed to have more expertise on the subject matter, like the senpai in this
data, it is helpful for LSP classrooms to develop the contents of the lesson through
the interaction. Therefore, an LSP course should be taught not solely by a language
teacher, but rather by a team consisting of a language teacher and a participant who
is more knowledgeable in the subject area than the students are, such as a specialist
or a senior student. Such a course will provide a more productive and learning-rich
environment for the students.
The question as to whether or not the practice of contrasting situated identities
other than teacher and student can be employed without bringing any unwelcome
results is beyond the scope of this study. To answer such a question, more
knowledge is needed on teachers’ use of identity in a variety of language
classrooms. The importance of the present study lies in its detailed description of
actual classroom interactions. Further studies should examine whether teachers’ use
of non-default situated identities, as well as transportable identities, is useful for
performing teaching tasks in both ordinary language classrooms and subject-specific
language classrooms.
 Classroom Discourse 85

Notes
1. These other predicates include ‘rights, entitlements, obligations, knowledge, attributes,
and competences’ (Hester and Eglin 1997, 5).
2. In some situations, the situated identity and the transportable identity of a participant can
be one single category. For example, if a Japanese person is introduced as a representa-
tive of Japan at an international conference, Japanese is regarded as both the person’s
transportable identity and situated identity.
3. A cross-coupling reaction in organic chemistry involves synthesising reactions of two
different organics with the aid of a catalyst.
4. In that senpai is not a visible or audible feature of Fujino, it is not her transportable iden-
tity. Rather, it is a situated identity that she is supposed to perform within the context of
the university or the department in which the class is offered.
5. Beppu’s laughter occurs after his confirmation, by nodding, that he is asking Asano to
reply to his question about the plant absorbing radioactive materials. It may be that his
laughter is triggered by an interactional problem caused by Asano, specifically by
Asano’s (re)action to being asked a question by Beppu. Asano is the teacher but his
request for confirmation as to whether Beppu is asking him the question is inconsistent
with his situated identity teacher. Thus, Asano’s categorical contradiction may be the
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

cause of Beppu’s laughter. Ikeda’s and Fujino’s laughter in lines 143 and 144 occurs
almost simultaneously with Beppu’s, suggesting that they also share the understanding of
the problem caused by Asano’s (re)action. However, without concrete interactional evi-
dence, it is impossible to determine whether the laughter is due to the problem, or simply
due to embarrassment.
6. It may be that, since Asano pointed to Fujino last, Fujino interprets this as a turn
allocation and takes the turn. On the other hand, it may be that Fujino is performing her
identity as senpai, fulfilling the associated epistemic obligation by providing the kohai
participants with an answer.

References
Antaki, C., and S. Widdicombe. 1998. “Identity as an Achievement and as a Tool.” In Identi-
ties in Talk, edited by C. Antaki and S. Widdicombe, 1–14. London: Sage.
Belcher, D. 2009. “What ESP Is and Can Be: An Introduction.” In English for Specific
Purposes in Theory and Practice, edited by D. Belcher, 1–20. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Benesch, S. 2001. Critical English for Academic Purposes: Theory, Politics, and Practice.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bilmes, J. 1985. “‘Why That Now?’ Two Kinds of Conversational Meaning.” Discourse
Processes 8: 319–355.
Braine, G. 1999. Non-native Educators in English Language Teaching. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Clarke, M. 2008. Language Teacher Identities: Co-constructing Discourse and Community.
Clevedon Hall: Multilingual Matters.
Garfinkel, H. 2002. Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working Out Durkheim’s Aphorism.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hauser, E. 2003. “Corrective Recasts and Other-correction of Language Form in Interaction
among Native and Nonnative Speakers of English.” PhD diss., University of Hawai’i at
Manoa.
Hauser, E. 2011. “Generalization: A Practice of Situated Categorization in Talk.” Human
Studies 3: 183–198.
Heritage, J. 2012. “Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge.”
Research in Language and Social Interaction 45: 1–29.
Hester, S., and P. Eglin. 1997. “Membership Categorization Analysis: An Introduction.” In
Culture in Action: Studies in Membership Categorization Analysis, edited by S. Hester
and P. Eglin, 1–23. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
 86 Y. Okada

Lee, J. 1991. “Language and Culture: The Linguistic Analysis of Culture.” In Ethnomethod-
ology and the Human Sciences, edited by G. Button, 196–226. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lee, Y.-A. 2006. “Respecifying Display Questions: Interactional Resources for Language
Teaching.” TESOL Quarterly 40: 691–713.
Long, M. H. 2005. “Methodological Issues in Learner Needs Analysis.” In Second Language
Needs Analysis, edited by M. H. Long, 19–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Markee, N., and G. Kasper. 2004. “Classroom Talks: An Introduction.” The Modern
Language Journal 88: 491–500.
Macbeth, D. 2003. “Hugh Mehan’s ‘Learning Lessons’ Reconsidered: On the Differences
Between the Naturalistic and Critical Analysis of Classroom Discourse.” American Edu-
cational Research Journal 40: 239–280.
Mehan, H. 1979. Learning Lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mori, J. 2003. “The Construction of Interculturality: A Study of Initial Encounters Between
Japanese and American Students.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 36:
143–184.
Nagatomo, D. H. 2012. Exploring Japanese University English Teachers’ Professional
Identity. Clevedon Hall: Multilingual Matters.
Richards, K. 2006. “Being the Teacher: Identity and Classroom Conversation.” Applied
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

Linguistics 27: 51–77.

Sacks, H. 1972a. “An Initial Investigation of the Usability of Conversational Data for Doing
Sociology.” In Studies in Social Interaction, edited by D. Sudnow, 31–74. New York,
NY: Free Press.
Sacks, H. 1972b. “On the Analyzability of Stories by Children.” In Directions in Sociolin-
guistics: The Ethnography of Communication, edited by J. J. Gumperz and D. Hymes,
325–345. New York, NY: Basil Blackwell.
Sacks, H. 1992. Lectures on Conversation, Volume I & II. Edited by G.Jefferson. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Sacks, H., E. A. Schegloff, and G. Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organi-
zation of Turn-taking for Conversation.” Language 50: 696–735.
Seedhouse, P. 2005. “Conversation Analysis as a Research Methodology.” In Applying
Conversation Analysis, edited by K. Richards and P. Seedhouse, 251–266. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Sert, O., and S. Walsh. 2013. “The Interactional Management of Claims of Insufficient
Knowledge in English Language Classrooms.” Language and Education 27: 542–565.
Sinclair, J. M., and R. M. Coulthard. 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Stivers, T., L. Mondada, and J. Steensig. 2011. “Knowledge, Morality and Affiliation in
Social Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, edited by T. Stivers,
K. Mondada and J. Steensig, 3–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Varghese, M., B. Morgan, B. Johnston, and K. A. Johnson. 2005. “Theorizing Language
Teacher Identity: Three Perspectives and Beyond.” Journal of Language, Identity, and
Education 4: 21–44.
Walsh, S. 2006. Investigating Classroom Discourse. New York: Routledge.
Zimmerman, D. H. 1998. “Identity, Context and Interaction.” In Identities in Talk, edited by
C. Antaki and S. Widdicombe, 87–106. London: Sage.
 Classroom Discourse 87

Appendix
Transcription conventions
(.2) Time gap of about 0.2 second
(1) Time gap of about 1 second
(.) Brief time gap
= "latched" utterances
[ The beginning of overlapped talk
() Unintelligible stretch
(( )) Transcriber comment
- Cut-off
: Elongated sound
? Rising intonation
. Falling intonation
, Continuing intonation
↑ Marked rise of immediately following segment
↓ Marked fall of immediately following segment
under Emphasis
££ Smiled voice
Downloaded by [36.77.93.32] at 16:02 17 March 2015

°° Decreased volume
>< Increased speed