This book explores the gendered construction of discourses on the West and its effects on the English learning and lived experiences of female Japanese adults studying abroad in Australia. For nearly four years, the author collected ethnographic data from five primary participants and a score of secondary participants, and analyzed the media discourses circulated in the language education industries. Specifically, the research focuses on the discourse of akogare, a Japanese term that literally means ‘desire’ but is associated with a way of imagining the West in modern Japanese history.

This book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 begins with the author's encounter with Japanese women studying abroad, who talked about longing for Western men. This then developed into a research topic that takes language desire as its theoretical framework. Chapter 2 locates the stereotypical representations of Japanese women's akogare in promotional and learning materials used in the Japanese English education market. These materials describe ideal English teachers as native speaking, white, heterosexual, and sexually appealing Western men. Chapters 3 through 6 trace the participants' study-abroad trajectories, from coming to Australia to returning to Japan or departing to another destination. Chapter 3 shows that the participants' decisions to study abroad are linked not only to their akogare but also to the family, generational, and socioeconomic conditions that contemporary Japanese women face. Chapter 4 examines how the participants construct a ‘successful’ study-abroad experience in terms of romantic relations with white, native English-speaking men. The linguistically and racially idealized interlocutors are more valuable when they have good looks and high social status. Chapter 5 demonstrates that the participants often negotiate their desire for ideal Western males in their everyday lives, for example, when they choose their accommodation or workplaces. Rather than blindly search for good-looking, white English speakers, the Japanese women consider what is most beneficial to the improvement of their English skills and emotional stability, or best suited to their sexual or professional identities. In chapter 6, the issue of returning to Japan is examined in relation to the identities of participants, who have become more cosmopolitan through the experience of living abroad. They are particularly anxious about the prospect of living in a nationalist and patriarchal society and losing their arduously acquired English skills upon returning to Japan. Thus, the participants continue, or hope to continue, their transnational experiences by building new intercultural relationships and finding working opportunities overseas, even if, in some cases, their partners are not white native speakers or their destinations are not English-speaking countries. Revisiting language desire, chapter 7 concludes that the concept of desire ‘is continually shaped and reshaped in relation to experiences of negotiation of identity in the communities in which language users are located’ (p.146). The chapter also suggests several implications of language desire for English education and Japanese society.

This book clearly shows that the desire for language and culture can mediate language use and learning by encouraging certain images of idealized speakers and cultural artifacts. This study offers a meaningful framework for future research into transnational flows and transformations of linguistic and cultural resources in an era of globalization, arguing that practices based on desire interact with social conditions and ideological components.