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Classroom Discourse
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Contrasting identities: a language

teachers practice in an English for
Specific Purposes classroom
Yusuke Okada

Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka University,

Toyonaka, Japan
Published online: 29 Sep 2014.

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

Vol. 6, No. 1, 7387, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2014.961092

Contrasting identities: a language teachers practice in an English

for Specic Purposes classroom
Yusuke Okada*

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

For language teachers who are concerned about referring to their own and students identities other than in the roles of teacher and student in the classroom, this conversation analytic study aims to give insights into the use of
identity. Detailed analysis of the data of English for a Specic Purpose (ESP)
classrooms indicates that contrasting the teachers and students non-default situated identities, such as senpai (senior in English) with kohai (junior in English) 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 specic purposes) and suggestions
for ESP/LSP course development.
Keywords: identity; epistemics; English for specic 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 afliated with such identities. The most notable example is the initiation-response-feedback/evaluation (IRF/
E) pattern, which consists of a sequence of role-specic actions, namely the teachers initiation of an action, the students response to the action and the teachers
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 identied as old man,
Canadian or linguist; a student might be categorised as a boy, Japanese or psychologist. The question arises as to whether such non-role specic 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 classroom, 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

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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 context. 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 ndings 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 identities other than the role of teacher (e.g. Braine 1999; Clarke 2008; Nagatomo 2012;
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, 7273). At the same time, practitioners in the eld of language for
specic 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 specic 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 identied
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 incorporating identities other than the situated role-specic identities of teachers and students
by documenting the practice in interactional teaching activities in an actual English
for Specic Purposes (ESP) classroom. The following section offers an illustration
of the CA approach to identity on which this study is theoretically and methodologically 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 identications or categorisations that may be applied
to a participant are regarded as resources for interpreting and (re)producing the participants identity. However, any such orientation toward ones identity must be visible to and reportable by co-participants in the relevant interaction. Zimmermans
(1998) idea of identity-as-context, later employed by Richards (2006), is a means

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75

of documenting the details of a participants orientation toward his/her own and

others identities in an interaction. Zimmerman (1998) proposes three types of identity. The rst is discourse identity, which emerges in the action at each interactional turn (e.g. current speaker, listener, questioner, answerer). The second is
situated identity, which reects a situation-specic role (e.g. teacher or student).
The third is transportable identity, which is reected by physical and cultural features 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 knowledge. Thus, a participants display of cultural understanding of what actions are
appropriate in the language classroom (e.g. correcting a syntactic error in a classmates speech; answering a question on a grammatical point) reveals how s/he performs 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 associated with these roles, are normatively exercised (Richards 2006, 60), every identity
is constructed through participants enactment of cultural reasoning, and no xed
identity is established prior to an interaction.
Participants cultural reasoning around identity is claried by another CA concept, 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 socalled 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 teachers 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 participants are understood to be students. These assumptions are made according to the
so-called viewers maxim (Sacks 1992 vol. I, 259), which states that a (co-)participants 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 reected by predicates associated with
a particular category within a collection. A particular category may be either a situated identity or a transportable identity.2 Whereas a participants execution of a discourse 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 rst is a (co-)participants execution of identity

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Y. Okada

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

Youre Japanese or Im a native speaker of English.
The indirect implementation of a participants identity through his/her
performance of an identity-predicate suggests that a participants 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 identication of a participants identity not only instructs
other participants how to understand the identied participants 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 identication to proffer or even to negotiate implications derived from the identity. Consider a statement made by a Japanese student in a university English classroom:
Fukushima people dont think they speak dialect. They think they speak standard
Japanese (Hauser 2011, 192). This reects a direct identication of certain individuals originating from Fukushima, a north-eastern part of Japan, according to one particular transportable identity. The direct identication 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 Hausers (2011) study is that direct identication 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
persons identity to suggest a different implication. For example, in the above case
of Fukushima people, another participant offered a further identication later in the
conversation, namely Many people who speak dialect think so (Hauser 2011, 192).
This identication 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 participants identity as primarily 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 participants 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 orientation 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 teachers use of identities
other than teacher and student in ESP classrooms, the focus is on how participants

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themselves treat their own and co-participants identities in conversational interaction. The guiding questions for the analysis are:

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(1) Does the teacher employ non-role-specic identities for himself and his students 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 videorecorded 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 participated. The course was taught by means of team-teaching by a Japanese English language 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 content. The students were aware of the roles each teacher was supposed to full. In
two-thirds of the class sessions, the English language teacher taught the students
mainly through discussions on scientic 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
scientic 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 student. As is clear from the discussion above, several possible identications of a person exist at the same time. Participants in an interaction may choose a particular
identication to communicate a particular implication of a person(s). The focus of
the present analysis is on: (1) the reason(s) why a particular identication is
employed; (2) how such an identication is treated by co-participant(s); and (3) what
pedagogical goal is achieved by the identication. Two excerpts from the data,
selected as being perspicuous cases (Garnkel 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 discussion. 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 segment begins with Asano (A) asking Murata (M) a question. The participants are
seated as in Figure 1.

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Y. Okada

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

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(F) acknowledges Muratas 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 511512 with but, which indicates
he is negating Asanos expectation that he should be knowledgeable about the crosscoupling 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 Muratas position in the subsequent turn (hm in line
513). Overlapping Asanos hm, in line 514 Murata further comments on his position, starting with so, which seems to suggest so I dont know whether or not the
method is easy to use. However, before Murata nishes his turn, in lines 515516
Asano interrupts with an utterance reecting a direct identication of Fujino as
senpai (senior), which is a situated identity other than student.4
Note that Asano does not merely ascribe the situated identity of senpai to Fujino.
He contrasts Fujinos identity with that of Murata. Considering Muratas 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 afliates or disafliates with the teachers stance that she
(Fujino) has epistemic primacy (Stivers, Mondada, and Steensig 2011) derived from
the identity. If she afliates with the identity, she should talk about her understanding of the cross-coupling method. If she disafliates with the identity, she should
explain the reason(s) why she rejects the epistemic status (Heritage 2012) imposed
on her by Asanos 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 Fujinos denial and Murata keeps his eyes on Fujino. These actions
indicate that they are still waiting for Fujinos response. Fujino then takes another turn
to explain her position (lines 519522). This turn contains many intra-turn pauses,
reecting Fujinos difculty 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 dont know (line 521). She does not directly reject the identity 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 eld. However,
she avoids being asked further questions by her claim to not know very much, which
invalidates the other participants 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 acknowledges Fujinos account in line 525 and then assigns the next speaker in line 527.

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Segment 1 illustrates how a teacher might accomplish a task by contrasting features of students identities. The classroom activity is a discussion, and one of the
teachers aims is to facilitate students engagement. With his questions, Asano distributes turns and keeps the topical discussion going. In Segment 1, Asanos identity-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 identication for Fujino, e.g. maybe she understands in lines 515516. However, such an identication may not have obtained her
account when she disafliated with the epistemic status, as there is no moral discrepancy 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 standard relational pair that constitutes a locus for a set of rights and obligations concerning 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 Japanese culture a senpai is obliged to help a kohai. When a senpai fails to be more
knowledgeable than a kohai, s/he becomes accountable for his/her lack of knowledge. After Fujino accounts for her lack of knowledge, Asano does not disafliate
with her position, but moves the discussion along by nominating another student.
Their actions reexively and interactionally (re)produce their cultural knowledge on
the relevant identities. Contrasting a feature of Fujinos identity with one of Muratas, Asano makes relevant Fujinos contribution to the ongoing activity, regardless
of whether she afliates or disafliates with the proposed epistemic gradient
(Heritage 2012) between herself and Murata, in which she is more knowledgeable
than Murata in the eld 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 rst 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.

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Segment 2

No one replies to Beppus 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 seconds at line 139. Asano notices Beppus gaze and asks for clarication as to
whether Beppu is asking the question of him in line 140, pointing to him. Beppu
conrms this by nodding and then laughs.5Asano then answers Beppus question
with a reason in lines 145146 he does not know because he is a sociologist.
By referring to himself as a sociologist, Asano retroactively justies his lack of
knowledge of the plants and implies that Beppus asking of such a question of
Asano is inappropriate. In other words, the direct identication of sociologist
accounts for Asanos legitimate epistemic inferiority, thereby defending Asanos
situated identity as teacher; Asano is not expected to have specialised knowledge
in the eld of science.
On seeing Beppus acknowledgement, Asano takes another turn to refer to the
students as scientists (lines 148149), pointing one by one to Ikeda, Beppu, Murata
and Fujino. This identication contrasts sharply with Asanos sociologist and

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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 Asanos
utterance in the next turn with hm in line 150. Asanos lengthy silence in lines
151154 seems to indicate that he is awaiting a response from one of the scientists
to Beppus 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 scientic 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 scientic 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. Reexively, it constructs Asano as someone who is
not in a position to have any rm assumption about what these student scientists
should know. Fujino turns to Asano in the middle of this utterance in line 156, and
after a 0.4-second pause at line 157 she confesses that even she did not know that
the sunower absorbs radioactive materials. In lines 158160 she apologises for her
lack of knowledge.6 The act of apologising displays Fujinos 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 Fujinos 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 Fujinos utterance (sorry I dont know
any) Beppu may not have heard it. Beppus staring at Asano and Fujino leads
to Asanos repair of Fujinos response for Beppu (so she doesnt know in line
162) and Beppu recognises Fujinos 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 claries Fujinos answer by adding an
object noun phrase (any of such plants in line 165), and Beppu rmly acknowledges Asanos clarication 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, Ikedas apology reects his orientation to his offending the
cultural expectation derived from his identity as scientist. Beppu acknowledges
Ikedas response in the next turn (line 169). Beppus 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 Beppus 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 students as scientists. That formulation achieved the pedagogical task of facilitating a
students participation in an ongoing discussion activity. Although the students contributions 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, dodging epistemic responsibility by identifying himself as a sociologist while demanding
a response from the students. However, this practice is considered a legitimate way

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of teaching in an ESP course. One of the aims of such a course is to socialise students as members of a specic 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 teachers 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 noviceexpert
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 studies. The difference may well stem from differences in the activities expected of language 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 practice 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 specic knowledge domain is science. The lack of content
knowledge typical of language teachers in such contexts is reected by the preface
to the teachers question in line 493494 of segment 1 above: I have a question is
a typical introduction to a genuine question asked by a less knowledgeable participant 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 convey new information to the students. These actions on the part of the language teacher 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 discussion going. The present data show that the teachers and students identities other
than teacher and student were a useful resource for the teacher to perform the predicates 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 teacher 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

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Y. Okada

can be incorporated in ESP teaching. The practice may be considered a part of the
teachers classroom interactional competence (Walsh 2006).
A participants situated identity or role and its predicates are determined in relation 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 identied
within the interaction. If other members are constructed as kohai, the member identied 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 knowledgeable 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
1. By contrasting a feature of a participants situated identity with a teachers or
other students identity, the teacher can impose an obligation on the identity-ascribed
student to account for the proposed action (such as answering a question), irrespective of whether or not s/he afliates or disafliates with the identity and its predicates. 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 manage 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 specic purposes, rather than for a general purpose in a one-size-ts-all approach
(19). However, one of the problems in developing LSP courses is the role the language teacher should or can play in the classroom. The present study indicates that
the language teacher can facilitate and support students identity-formation and socialisation process by exploiting the students knowledge, despite lacking expertise on
the course content. At the same time, the ndings 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-specic
language classrooms.

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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 representative of Japan at an international conference, Japanese is regarded as both the persons
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 identity. 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. Beppus laughter occurs after his conrmation, 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, specically by
Asanos (re)action to being asked a question by Beppu. Asano is the teacher but his
request for conrmation as to whether Beppu is asking him the question is inconsistent
with his situated identity teacher. Thus, Asanos categorical contradiction may be the
cause of Beppus laughter. Ikedas and Fujinos laughter in lines 143 and 144 occurs
almost simultaneously with Beppus, suggesting that they also share the understanding of
the problem caused by Asanos (re)action. However, without concrete interactional evidence, 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, fullling the associated epistemic obligation by providing the kohai
participants with an answer.

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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

Decreased volume
><
Increased speed

87