ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores some dilemmas of self-representation in scholarly writing, focusing on an article she wrote over a three-year period about her experiences learning some Japanese informally. The author distinguishes between two kinds of self-representations in published writing. The first concerns tales of the self, as in autoethnographic or autobiographical work, or more limited self-presentational genres such as bios and home pages. The second type concerns the transparency with which authors write about research or writing processes, even when the study is not about themselves. Some academics may continue to ask why we need to represent ourselves honestly in our writing, or, indeed, why we have to represent ourselves at all. Yet the author made every effort to justify, honestly, the activity of dabbling in another language, not as evidence of failed language learning but of continued curiosity.
