PROFILE

YASHIMA Tomoko

Professor of Applied Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

Education

M.A.(Kobe City University of Foreign Studies)
Ph.D.(Okayama University)

Research Interests

  My main research interest comprises broadly two areas; communication behaviors and second language (L2) use in intercultural contact situations on the one hand, and motivation and affect in L2 learning on the other. Both of these areas of research relate to applied linguistics, social psychology, and communication studies. Thus, my research necessarily becomes interdisciplinary. Some of the specific studies I have conducted in intercultural communication include: 1) Analyses of how intercultural communication competence helps learners construct interpersonal relationships in intercultural contact situations such as study abroad; 2) the effects of intercultural contact on the intercultural competence of participants in international volunteering; and 3) how the performance of social skills and social support relate to the sojourners' intercultural adaptation to a host culture. My studies in the area of second language acquisition include: 1) Analyses of how various affective variables, including motivation, attitudes such as international posture, and proficiency in an L2 interact and influence learners' Willingness To Communicate (WTC) in the L2, and 2) the effects of intercultural contact (e.g., study abroad) on L2 learners' motivation and affect. Recently, I also have embarked on research in L2 learning motivation and WTC using Complex Dynamic Systems theory as a theoretical framework. This is a challenging but exciting undertaking that gives me a new lens through which to look at motivation and WTC as they emerge in context on different time scales.

  Over the past ten years, I went through an epistemological crisis as a quantitative researcher. To resolve this difficulty, I have been exploring qualitative research methods including KJ (developed by Jiro Kawakita), Grounded Theory Approach, micro-ethnography, and narrative inquiry in an attempt to find out how I can use these methods in order to conduct more profoundly human empirical research and to understand people embedded in their living contexts. One solution I came up with after a great deal of struggle was what Martin and Nakayama call a "dialectic approach," or being open to all of positivistic, interpretive, and critical perspectives to research. Although no one can be an expert in every method, I decided to be flexible and to use whatever method worked in order to closely examine the phenomena enfolding before me and to understand people better. My current aim is to merge qualitative and quantitative methods in order to approach people as they are situated in sociocultural contexts.

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