ABSTRACT
Japanese ethnic churches typically practice a glocalized “Christianity made in Japan”, where Japanese language and cultural practices influence their church practices. While exposure to English and Western cultures will certainly continue to impact Japanese society and Japanese ethnic churches abroad, in this study there seems to be a correlation with the language policy de facto of each church and the potential beliefs about English proficiency and being bilingual. In short, from a language and cultural perspective, Japanese ethnic churchscapes are characterized by transcultural flows to the extent that the language practices de facto of church members are monolingual, dominant bilingual, and balanced bilingual. While meso-level policies on church websites explicitly state that Japanese churches facilitate the Japanese language, pastors and church members also believe that such language policies are understood in terms of “everybody knows” or “covert” characteristics of language policy de facto, as suggested by H. Schiffman.
