Doing residence abroad in a globalising world: Real, virtual and imagined communities

Ros Mitchell

Language Futures, Edinburgh, July 2012

The landscape for study/residence abroad• A growing global phenomenon – 3.7 million students

annually

• British Anglophone students are reluctant to engage – just 17,000 students studied abroad in 2009-10

• ERASMUS scheme aims for 20% of students to study abroad yet only c 2% of British students do so

• Spread of English plus economic migration makes for complex language and cultural mix in many settings abroad (including HE settings)

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The landscape for study/residence abroad • UK student recruitment in 2012 affected by funding

changes:

– Total applicants down by 7.4%

– European languages applicants down by 11.2%

– Non-European languages applicants down by 21.5%

• HEFCE aiming to support study/ work abroad from 2014:

– some central funding for students studying and working abroad

– Fees capped at 15% of full fees

– BUT loans still needed and 4-year programmes expensive

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So …. Why would you go?

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Claimed benefits of study/ residence abroad• Language learning

• Integration and intercultural learning

• Employability

• Adaptability and problem-solving

• Self-confidence and autonomy

……….. But what is the evidence?

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Aims of talk• To problematise/evaluate some of these claims, in light of

the ‘social turn’ in second language learning research

• To examine key concepts: motivation, language, identity, community

• To present preliminary evidence from a Southampton project:

LANGSNAP - Social networks, target language interaction and second language acquisition during the year abroad

• To revisit goals of residence abroad for language and for intercultural learning

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Classic motivation theory: integrativeness• students who are most successful when learning a target

language are those who like the people that speak the language, admire the culture and have a desire to become familiar with or even integrate into the society in which the language is used (Falk, 1978)

• Integrativeness:

– the “individual’s willingness and interest in social interaction with members of other groups” (Gardner and MacIntyre, 1993)

– “an open and accepting orientation toward the other language community and other communities in general” (Gardner, 2010)

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Revisionist motivation theory: the ideal or imagined self• Process oriented and dynamic re-conceptualisations of

motivation (Norton, 2001; Ushioda, 2009)

• The idealised L2-speaking self:

– “a member of an imagined L2 community whose mental construction is partly based on our real-life experiences of members of the community/ communities speaking the particular L2 in question and partly on our imagination” (Dornyei 2005, p 102)

• A two-tier approach to L2 motivation? (“world language learning vs non-world language learning”: Dornyei & Csizer, 2002)

Revisionist motivation theory, investment, and agency

‘Agency is crucial at the point where the individual must … decide on whether to initiate a long, painful, inexhaustive and for some, never-ending process of self-translation’

(Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000)

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Language and language learning target(s) • ‘Native speaker’ and ‘standard language’

ideologies (Holliday, 2006)

• Oracy, literacy, digital literacy (Thorne et al., 2009)

• Formal, informal and vernacular varieties (Regan, 1996; Dewaele, 2004; Mougeon et al., 2010; Li, 2010)

• L2 pragmatics (Cohen & Shively, 2007; Kasper, 2009; Schauer, 2009, Bardovi-Harlig, 2012)

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Learner multilingualism

• Language selection (Kurata, 2011)

• Translanguaging (Garcia, 2007)

• Multicompetence (Cook, 2008, Mitchell et al., 2012)

• Learner varieties and lingua franca usage (Jenkins, 2006)

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Example acquisition study 1: the Chinese optional marker de

De as genitive marker

De as attributive marker

De as nominalisation marker

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Li (2010) recorded sociolinguistic interviews with 20 learners of L2 Chinese and 12 native speakers

Use of ‘de’ in different contexts was statistically analysed

Frequency of de use (Chinese L1 and L2 users)

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Li, 2010

Optional de use by different speakers

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Li, 2010

Example acquisition study 2: Japanese honorific masu forms (Cook, 2008)• masu forms can be verbal, adjectival, nominal

• Choice of masu vs ‘plain’ forms indexes (a) insider/outsider status; (b) self-presentation among insiders as a knower/ an authority/ a teacher

• Cook (2008) tracked 8 case study L2 Japanese learners during year-long homestay with Japanese families, mealtimes were videorecorded

• Learners made progress with use of masu

• Learners’ ambiguous identities affected use of masu by both host families and themselves

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Classic identity theory

• In 1970s sociolinguistics, identity = a list of factors: age, gender, social class, ethnicity…

• For Tajfel (1974):

– Connection with a social group;

– emotional ties with that group;

– meanings of the connection for the self;

– Social categorisations, social distinctiveness, awareness of self vs other

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Revisionist identity theory

“How a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future” (Weedon, 1997)

“A dynamic and shifting nexus of multiple subject positions or identity options” (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004)

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Example identity study: Hong Kong students in Canada (Pon et al, 2003)• Ethnography of HK students attending an academically

ambitious high school

• Inter-group stereotyping :

– Everyone in that class just sits there like this. They [= HK born students] are really quiet, they don't do nothing like you know what I mean. In other classes I have other people that are on the same level in the same way as I am, so I have something to conflict with me. Seriously, I don't think half of those people in that class should be in a Grade 12 Advanced class ... They shouldn't, they can't speak proper English. (p. 116)

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Identity example (Pon et al. 2003, contd)• Symbolism of language choice

– Resentment among non HK students concerning use of Cantonese

– For HK students, informal use of English would affect relations with HK peers: “they would think I am whitewashed”

• Conflicting behaviour norms and expectations

“I mean, yeah, I know the questions right? I know it, that's good, I can keep it in my heart. But then, if I put my hand up and then say, 'Sir, I understand' and then answer the questions, right? They [other Hong Kong peers] will, they may think I am showing off. So it's really hard.” (p121)

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Visions of community• The ‘speech community’:

– "A community sharing rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech, and rules for the interpretation of at least one linguistic variety... A necessary primary term...” (Hymes, 1967)

• ‘communities of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991)

• Digitally mediated communities (Lam, 2008; Thorne, 2009)

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Critique of ‘community’: Bowling alone?_“collective activity among migratory, multilingual

and diasporic populations may not readily align with CoP’s idealized scenario of long term apprenticeship within stable social formations ……

“everyday constructions of social identity, which are always bound to multiple individuals, groups, and activity systems, are now mediated by the use of Internet communication tools, web environments, and online gaming spaces” (Thorne, 2009)

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Example virtual community study (Lam, 2004)• Case studies of two cousins, high school students from

China

“We don't know how to speak and we don't dare to speak. And even though some of them are also Chinese, they are ABC [American Born Chinese] and their educational background is different from ours. We have different feelings, so even when we get together, we feel that they're like white people or other people. So even though they have a Chinese face, we don't feel like they are Chinese.”(Yu Qing, February: Lam , 2004)

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Virtual community (Lam 2004 contd)A transnational chat room as alternative community

– Hong Kong based but English medium

– Translanguaging

– Creativity and language play

“I didn't dare to speak English before because my English was poor … people would laugh at me, and I would feel embarrassed. After talking more in the chat room, I feel like making mistakes is, well, people joke a lot there, and if I don't know a word, I would just sound it out. I use a lot of wrong words there too, so I feel maybe it's ok to say something wrong ... After you've been going to the chat room for a while, you get used to talking” (Yu Qing, April)

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LANGSNAP Project: Methodology• Tracking Anglophone students before, during and after Year

Abroad in France, Spain and Mexico

• Range of language tests on 6 occasions (Pre-Test, Times 1-3 Abroad, Post-Test and Delayed Post-Test)

• 3 Questionnaires:

– Language engagement

– Social networks

– Personality

• Qualitative data: interviews and shadowing (selected case study students)

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Elicited imitation results (LANG-SNAP French group)

Group mean scores for language engagement (French LANGSNAP)

Most frequent activities in French, Time 1 and Time 2 Abroad(group mean scores)

Least frequent activities in French, Time 1and Time 2 Abroad

Social networks: preliminary findings• Out of 29 French students surveyed at Time 2 Abroad:

– 26 speak French regularly with 2+ people at work or university

– 16 speak French regularly with 3+ people during leisure time (organised leisure activities or free time)

– 14 meet at least one French speaker regularly in more than one context (excluding home)

– 13 have at least 2 “strong” French ties

– 8 name at least 3 French speakers, among their “top 5” contacts

• Family and home networks are sustained by internet and phone

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Conclusions: doing RA in the 21st century • Students will belong to fluid alternative communities and may

remain marginal to local networks

• problem-solving skills and self reliance develop greatly

• Language and intercultural learning do happen

• Ties with home will remain strong

• For anglophones, translanguaging and bilingual use are normal

• Some sites and practices favour L1 (e.g. phone and chat), others favour L2 (e.g. organised leisure)

• It matters who you live with!

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Thank you!R.F.Mitchell@soton.ac.uk