What is it about?
This study looks at the use of English and Japanese by students in an English foreign language classroom at two Japanese universities. The data were recorded using video cameras, which allows the analysis to focus both on what the students say and their use of gestures, facial expressions, gaze, etc. The study looks first at how the students try to solve problems with finding a word or phrase in English, sometimes going to great lengths to solve such problems without resorting to Japanese. There is then a digression to look at a phenomenon related to the focal phenomenon, which is that the students sometimes use Japanese words for things that can be considered Japanese. This includes, for example, using the English word "dialect" and the Japanese translation of this word ("ben") for different levels of specificity. The study then moves on to the focal phenomenon. This involves initially solving a problem with finding an English word by using a Japanese word. It is shown that this solution is done as a solution of last resort. Through using this solution, the students are able to establish a shared understanding of what they are trying to say, which is referred to as "intersubjectivity." However, the students do not treat establishment of this shared understanding as sufficient and proceed to translate the Japanese word back into English. It is argued that this shows the students' orientation to English as the "proper" language to use in the English classroom.