An analysis of online reviews regarding eigo mura（English villages) using text data mining techniques

This study overviews how and in what terms people talk about their experiences at a new type of English language educational institution in Japan, eigo mura （English village）. User-generated online reviews about an English village were quantitatively analysed using text mining techniques that employed KH Coder software. The reviews were retrieved from the Google review page and comprised 804 comments consisting of 27,487 characters （excluding spaces）. I analysed highfrequency words and co-occurrence networks, which showed the relationship between a specific word and others used in the data, and performed a hierarchical cluster analysis that identified the combinations or groups of words with similar appearance patterns, following Higuchi’s （2016） methodology. Although the English village functions as an English language educational institution and a resort hotel, the results showed that people strongly perceive it as an English education institution. Additionally, they believe in the efficacy of being immersed in British culture and situations that require the use of English in order to learn the language.　This study is part of a larger multifaceted ethnographic research in the context of the English village to explore the ideological nature of the English language, including how it is learnt or taught, in contemporary Japanese society. Text mining can be applied for exploratory research and this study is part of a triangulation in a qualitative exploratory research, providing an overview on people’s perceptions of English villages, as a preliminary project for further research. The investigation suggested additional topics that can be examined to gain a deeper understanding of how the English language and the learning/teaching of it are perceived, as well as the reasons behind people’s negative feelings about their own English language skills. Then, these insights can be extrapolated to the study of how other cultures, foreign language education and （education of） intercultural communication are represented and perceived. In the same manner, beliefs on language use and language choice can be explored.

NCID:AA12704345