Negotiating professional identity at the periphery of medical academia: ambivalence and institutional power among English instructors in Japanese medical education

English instructors in Japanese medical universities may occupy peripheral positions despite English’s strategic importance for internationalization and medical communication. This interview-based study examines how three instructors discursively negotiate professional identity within hierarchies of clinical and biomedical authority. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis, ambivalence, and Bhabha’s Third Space, the analysis reveals differing responses to peripheral positioning and misrecognition. One emphasized pedagogical commitment despite limited recognition; another responded pragmatically, finding meaning in supportive relationships; and a third described English education’s varying status across institutions. These accounts suggest ambivalence can function not merely as a psychological state but as a discursive site for negotiating professional value and legitimacy. Findings indicate the Third Space is institutionally contingent, shaped by organizational structures, evaluation practices, and assumptions about legitimate academic work. The study contributes to language teacher identity research in Asian higher education by showing how institutional conditions in medical universities mediate marginality, recognition, and agency.