Abstract
Use of English as the international language of educational research can mask the nuanced meanings of constructs that researchers working in languages other than English originally employed in framing their practice and their theories. Cross-cultural comparisons are framed in terms of constructs expressed in the language of publication, usually English.
Attention has been drawn to the significance of the resulting validity-comparability compromise (Clarke, 2013). The Lexicon Project investigates the pedagogical naming systems used by educators in nine countries (eight languages).
Drawing on examples from the Australian, Chinese and Czech lexicons, this paper outlines the project's research design and addresses the implications of distinctive lexical features for comparative classroom research between communities employing different lexicons to describe the phenomena of middle school mathematics classrooms.