ERIC Number: EJ1307229
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Aug
Pages: 28
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-6001
EISSN: N/A
History in Person: A Longitudinal Study of a Language Learner's Experience at Home and Abroad
Applied Linguistics, v42 n4 p692-719 Aug 2021
This study explores the longitudinal pathway of social identification traveled by a US learner of Chinese, Tom. Focusing on the historical production of persons, I analyze interactional recordings, instructional artifacts, and participant interviews collected over three years of qualitative inquiry. The analysis articulates how Tom's narrative of intercultural encounters was reframed, rekeyed, and recycled at home and abroad. Along the way, Tom was identified as (i) an avid learner of Chinese in a language classroom in the USA; (ii) an ignorant foreigner while studying in China; and (iii) a political outcast upon his return to the USA whose intercultural experience abroad, nevertheless, afforded his classmates an opportunity to appreciate a more ethno-relative perspective. The consonance and dissonance of identification are results of interplay between history in person and history in institutionalized struggles. This interplay must be considered to understand the (re)making of language-learning identities across historical time, social space, and communicative modes. The findings illustrate how history, social identification, and engagement in intercultural communication mutually inform each other in and beyond transnational mobility.
Descriptors: Longitudinal Studies, Study Abroad, Second Language Learning, Chinese, Foreign Students, Cultural Awareness, Intercultural Communication, Self Concept, Identification, Student Experience
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A