Researcher positionality statements in applied linguistics

This study investigates how reflexive positionality is enacted in researcher positionality statements (RPSs) across twenty-two applied linguistics (AL) and language education journals (all SSCI Q1), focusing on how researchers articulate their positionality in relation to other dimensions of reflexivity, including disciplinary knowledge, relationships with research participants, methodological choices, and textual representation. Guided by methodological scholarship on self-reflexivity, we analyze 387 empirical articles to examine how reflexivity is rhetorically constructed and interrelated in RPSs, describing overall trends and patterns of reflexive positioning. Based on these patterns, we present our findings as a continuum of reflexive enactment, illustrating variation in the depth, relationality, and dynamism with which positionality is taken up in published research. We discuss that approaching researcher positionality through the lens of enactment shifts attention away from whether reflexivity is present and toward how reflexive work is made visible within AL research. Therefore, RPSs are not simply sites of disclosure, but rhetorical and relational spaces in which scholars negotiate disciplinary norms, ethical commitments, and understandings of knowledge production.