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Across Borders

Cultural and Linguistic Shifts in the 21st Century

by Ewa Rusek (Volume editor) Władysław Witalisz (Volume editor)
©2020 Edited Collection 246 Pages

Summary

Intercultural encounters accompanying the movement of individuals and groups receive a variety of expressions and call for a debate in an interdisciplinary context. The present volume brings together articles investigating aspects of culture, language, media and literature in the context of a world made more mobile than ever before. The authors cover a wide range of areas in humanities and social sciences, esp. literature, translation and interpreting, communication and health communication, media studies, cultural studies, and teaching methodology.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Titel
  • Copyright
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Contributors
  • Language and Translation
  • Students’ L2 Motivational Self-System and Ethnocentric Attitudes across Three Levels of Education (Agnieszka Habrat)
  • Regional Varieties in Shakespeare’s Plays – a Challenge for Translators (Grzegorz Cebrat)
  • Speech Disfluencies in Simultaneous Interpreting – Shifting Perspectives (Joanna Ziobro-Strzępek)
  • Intralinguale Übersetzung am Beispiel des Sprachkonzeptes Leichte Sprache (Anna Hycnar)
  • Litearture
  • Chaucer’s Paraprosdokian Rhetorics and the Reading of the “Prioress’s Tale” (Władysław Witalisz)
  • Return to Jewish Roots and Religion – the ba’al teshuvah Phenomenon as Reflected in Contemporary American Jewish Female Literature (Dorota Mihułka)
  • Home in England? Identity Shift and Cultural Dilemmas in Anita and Me by Meera Syal (Dorota Rygiel)
  • The Question of Identity in Modern Beur Fiction on the Example of L’art de perdre by Alice Zeniter (Julia Habrat)
  • Tokayan Wine at the Crossroads of Russian Poetry (Vadim Olegovich Vozdvizhensky)
  • Im Labyrinth der Bürokratie. Die Darstellung des Alltags der Asylbewerber in Deutschland am Beispiel von Abbas Khiders Roman Ohrfeige (Estera Głuszko-Boczoń)
  • History, Culture, Communication
  • Cultural Adaptation and Localization: The Case of Jing Jiao, Early Christians in China (Fritz König & Yali Li König)
  • Scottish Immigrants in Polish Cultural Memory: Robert Wojciech Porteous de Lanxeth on the 400th Anniversary of the Scotsman’s Arrival in Poland (Piotr Łopatkieiwcz & Władysław Witalisz)
  • Analysis of the Attitudes toward Refugee Resettlement among the Residents of the Economically Distressed Rural Regions of the United States (Sachiyo M. Shearman, Susan S. Husson & Madeline F. Fleishman)
  • Mobile ad Framing for Online Type 2 Diabetes Education: A Test of Collectivistic versus Individualistic Message Frames East Carolina University (Erika Katherine Johnson, Mary Tucker-McLaughlin, Ann Rafferty & Nancy Winterbauer)
  • Geofencing: Health Service Awareness Communication in an Indigenous Community (Mary Tucker-McLaughlin, Nancy Winterbauer, Wanda Wright & Ann Rafferty)
  • Essential Cultural Values in Spontaneous Texts by Erasmus Students (Ewa Rusek)
  • Walddeutsche. Rolle der deutschen Ansiedler im Mitteleuropa und im europäischen Handel (Leszek Habrat)
  • From Learning from Las Vegas to “Transparency” and Back: Two Ironic Readings of Architectural Form (Katerina Zacharopoulou)
  • Series index

←10 | 11→

List of Contributors

Grzegorz Cebrat

University of Applied Sciences in Tarnow

Estera Głuszko-Boczoń

University of Rzeszów

Madeline F. Fleishman

Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland

Agnieszka Habrat

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Julia Habrat

Pedagogical University of Kraków

Leszek Habrat

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Susan S. Husson

Interfaith Refugee Ministry Inc.

Anna Hycnar

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Erika Katherine Johnson

East Carolina University, School of Communication

Fritz König & Yali Li König

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Piotr Łopatkieiwcz

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Dorota Mihułka

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Vadim Olegovich Vozdvizhensky

Lajos Kossuth Secondary and Vocational School of Sátoraljaújhely

Ann Rafferty

East Carolina University, Department of Public Health

Community Partners: ECU

Lumberton Community Service

Learning Center Advisory Board

(community members), Robeson

County Public Health Department

Ewa Rusek

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Dorota Rygiel

Carpathian State College in Krosno

Sachiyo M. Shearman

East Carolina University, School of Communication

Mary Tucker-McLaughlin

East Carolina University, School of Communication

Nancy Winterbauer

East Carolina University, Department of Public Health

Władysław Witalisz

Jagiellonian University

Wanda Wright

East Carolina University, School of Dental Medicine

←11 | 12→

Katerina Zacharopoulou

The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, United Kingdom; Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, United Kingdom

Joanna Ziobro-Strzępek

Carpathian State College in Krosno

←14 | 15→

Agnieszka Habrat

Students’ L2 Motivational Self-System and Ethnocentric Attitudes across Three Levels of Education

Abstract Learners’ motivation has been capturing Second Language Acquisition researchers’ attention for over four decades, since Gardner and Lambert (1972) proposed the ground-breaking distinction between instrumental or integrative motivation, that permeated the realm of Second Language Acquisition. Over the years, the concept of ‘integrativeness’ has broadened its meaning, as in the globalizing world the status of English has changed from the language spoken solely by the communities, which Kachru (1988) referred to as the Inner Circle, to the means of communication with a non-specific global community. The motivation to learn global English often stems from aspirations towards an international posture, viewed as an interest in international affairs, willingness to study/ work abroad, etc. (Yashima 2002). Such a stance may increase cross-cultural understanding and decrease ethnocentric approaches represented by ethnic hostility, social distance or stereotyping (Shakeebaee et al. 2017). An important conceptual shift in thinking about L2 motivation was effected by Dörnyei’s proposal of a model of the L2-Motivational Self System, which showed L2 motivation as directed towards linguistic, professional or cultural identity, not necessarily restricted to a specific ethnographic community (Ushioda & Chen 2011). One of the dimensions of learner’s future self-concept is the Ideal L2-Self perceived as a cluster of characteristics one would ideally like to possess, while another, referred to as the Ought-to Self, comprises characteristics that one is expected to possess. This chapter investigates the relationship between future self-guides (L2-Ideal Self and L2 Ought to-Self) and attitudes towards the culture of L2 communities as well as L2 speakers among students representing three levels of education in Poland (late primary, secondary and tertiary).

Keywords: Ideal-L2self, L2 Ought to self, ethnocentrism, L2 learner identity

Identity in SLA

The significant role of learner identities in the process of second language acquisition (SLA) was first recognized over two decades ago, when SLA expanded beyond its former roots in linguistics and cognitive psychology (Firth & Wagner 1997). Since then there has been a remarkable increase in the volume of publications proving that the interrelationship between the constructs really exists (Kramsch 2003, Norton 2000, Pavlenko & Blackledge 2004). More specifically, it was asserted that language learning involves identity construction ←15 | 16→(Pavlenko & Lantolf 2000). Identity, defined as the way learners see themselves and are seen by others is likely to be influenced by one’s relationship with the target language and culture. According to Block (2018), the linkage needs to be viewed in three different learning contexts, i.e. naturalistic (when the learner is surrounded by the L2-speaking community), foreign language (FL) (the learner is placed in surroundings where the language is not the common means of communication), and study abroad (FL students live for limited periods in environments where L2 is the primary medium of communication).

In the ever-changing, modern world, the identity is subjected to the impact of a conglomerate of factors of diverse nature. The process of globalization, the end of communism in Europe, economic and political transformations, migration, increased mobility, rapidly expanding media technologies have resulted in the emergence and expansion od so-called global English, or world Englishes (varieties of English). Hence, identity needs to be interrogated in the face of such profound changes. It is inevitable that when individuals transgress geographical and psychological borders and start to function in new sociocultural environments, they are prone to destabilization of their sense of self and they may find themselves in a state of struggle for balance.

The geo-political and social processes mentioned before have led to increasing multilingualism in schools and society and the emergence of so-called millennium identities, i.e. the mechanisms that account for linguistic and cultural hybridity in the modern times (Higgins 2015). Learners can assume transnational identities that were not socially imaginable until the 1990s (De Costa & Norton 2016). It is only natural that by using social media, multiple channels of communication and digital resources, such transnational learners can access the past and present achievement of English language teaching methodology.

There is quite a bulk of studies into identity issues of learners in immigrant contexts (surrounded by the target language community), but only a small proportion of investigations into FL contexts, in which the learner is not situated in the target community and L2 is not the main language of the country (Romo 2015). Instead, the immediate classroom environment and the educational culture that backgrounds it are the most ubiquitous mediating factors in the FL contexts (Block 2018). Broadly speaking, learners have three types of base FL learning motives, i.e. social (the desire to communicate with others); self-related (a drive toward self-fulfillment) and cognitive (gaining knowledge). The diverse motives merge in an individual learner, and their proportions vary among individual learners, as a result of which, learners are different. What is more, they can transform into different learners as their motives fluctuate with time (Lantolf & ←16 | 17→Genung 2003). Thereby, learner identity is prone to constant changes depending on the underlying motives that drive them to action.

Identity and motivation

Since L2 learner motives, or motivations (which is more of a household name) have been recognized as factors of marked importance in SLA, a short review of literature is presented below to provide an overview of the developments in the study of the construct and its impact on learning processes. Motivation is a multifaceted construct comprising cognitive, affective and behavioral components. Hence, it cannot be captured by straightforward definitions. Five decades ago, before the importance of the factor was recognized, Corder (1967) propounded that it is inevitable that a human being will learn a second language if he is exposed to the language data. Since then extensive research and heated discussions on the complex nature of language learning motivation and its impact on the process have changed the picture radically. It needs to be mentioned that the famous distinction into integrative and instrumental motivation made by Gardner and Lambert (1972) has lost some of its legitimacy due to important changes that the world has been going through. According to Pawlak (2016) research into the construct has largely become process-oriented as motivation is perceived as a dynamic feature undergoing ongoing change due to a range of factors. The linguistic and sociocultural diversity and ongoing fluctuations have given rise not only to new visions of linguistic identity but also reconceptualizations of L2 motivation. What Gardner defined as integrative motivation referred to the desire to integrate with (or into) the target language culture, i.e. a particular Anglophone culture. This day the construct loses its explanatory power as learners may aspire towards an identity which involves a global English-speaking version of themselves (beside their L1-speaking self). Presumably, changes in learner motivation may be explained through references to processes of identification, particularly during the dynamic period of adolescence (Lamb 2004). For some individuals their identity is connected with their position in the global economy. The way they position themselves will influence their learning. Dörnyei (2005) proposed a new way to look at the globalizing identity by introducing the concept of the L2 Motivational System, which amalgamates theories of motivation with a psychological view of identity. The L2 Motivational Self System comprises three dimensions of motivation, namely the Ideal L2-Self, the Ought to- Self and L2 learning experience (which is concerned with situation-specific motives). The Ideal L2 self is the “L2-specific facet of one’s ‘ideal self ’ ” (Dörnyei 2009: 29). It conveys the ideal image a learner would like to represent in the future. Thus, ←17 | 18→if one would like to become a fluent L2 speaker who interacts in international millieu, the image of oneself as a fluent speaker that s/he would create is bound to act as a potent motivating factor, since it would reduce the discrepancy between the actual and the ideal self (Papi 2010).

Language globalization has changed the relationship between the Ideal L2 self and the L2 native speakers. The construals of the Ideal L2 Self are no longer based on the native speakers of the L2 but on all (including non-native) speakers of English as an international language (Calvo 2015). Many learners hold an “international posture”, which means that they envisage themselves in the future as belonging to an international community and the English language works as a passport to the community (Yashima 2009).

The attitude to the L2 users seems to be inextricably related to the way learners view the culture of L2-speaking communities. Attitudes toward L2 speakers are presumed to be marked with openness to them that might be interpreted as more favorable attitudes toward the L2 group, or as lower L1 group affiliation such as ethnocentrism and fear of assimilation. While deepened cultural awareness is important for communicating and interacting in today’s multilingual communities, cultivating this concept in FL learning can be a long-lasting process. Cross-cultural awareness develops through a process of learning in which learners experience an internal transformation because they start to recognize themselves and others as culturally situated. The cross-cultural awareness is important in a transformation process in FL learning as it is centered on the relational aspects of language learning. In other words, cross-cultural awareness focuses on helping learners to understand culture as guiding their views of themselves and of the world around them (Mitchell 2016). Gardner (2001) emphasized that integrativeness did not mean that one wanted to become a member of the other cultural community, but referred to an individual’s openness to take on characteristics of another cultural-linguistic group. Individuals for whom their ethnicity is not a major characteristic of their identity and who are interested in other cultural-linguistic communities would possess high levels of integrativeness: “thus the individual’s openness to other cultures will influence his/her motivation to learn the language” (Gardner 2001: 7). So, this positive attitude and openness towards other L2 group plays a big role in developing a strong L2 motivation (Matušin 2014).

Learner identity and age

Learner age has been a central theme in SLA research. It needs to be reminded that adolescence is considered as a particularly dynamic and difficult stage in the ←18 | 19→development of social identity and formation of self. Consequently, the L2-self is also under transformation (Csizer & Kormos 2009). The obvious conclusion is that the notion of adolescent L2 learner possessing a stable ethnolinguistic identity is elusive. There is also unanimous agreement that L2-learner identity is a construct of complex nature, situated at the intersection of social interaction, individual psychological processes, and broader institutional contexts. All three perspectives—interactional, psychological and contextual must be adopted in order to obtain a comprehensive view of the phenomenon (Harklau 2007).

Based on the theoretical considerations presented above, the study was set out to address the following research questions:

1. What is the relationship between the Ideal L2-Self, Ought to-Self, the attitudes to foreign cultures and native speakers of English in Polish learners?

2. Does the relationship change with the age of learners?

Method

In the current study, I employed a quantitative approach to investigate the relationship between different dimensions of L2-Self and attitudes to foreign culture or native speakers of English.

Participants

In the research I surveyed 70 language learners from Krosno, a town in southeastern Poland, with the population of 47 000. I focused on the three major language learning contexts in Poland: primary, secondary and tertiary with four-year intervals, thereby there were class 7-primary school students, class 2-secondary students and year 3-college students. All of the participants followed intensive courses of English in state schools, which meant that they had at least five lessons of the language in a week, and their proficiency level ranged from pre-intermediate to upper intermediate levels.

As for the primary school students (N=26), they were all from the same class that had an extended course of English and some Content and Language Integrated Learning in two Science subjects. They were approximately at the age of 14, in the seventh class, so they had been learning English at school for seven years, and the language was a compulsory subject. The level of proficiency in the cohort was near B1 according to CEFR.

In selecting the secondary school students (N= 24) special attention was paid to the intensity of the L2 course, so they attended an extended, compulsory ←19 | 20→course of English likewise (5 lessons a week). The class specialized in humanities. Their level of English can be labelled as B2.

The participating tertiary education students (N = 20) were recruited from Carpathian State College in Krosno, the English Philology Department. They were majoring in English, which means that the majority of their classes were in English, which amounted to approximately 20 lessons of practical English or content subjects in a week. The level of English is C1.

Instruments

The questionnaire used in the study consisted of 20 six-point Likert scale items aimed at measuring the Ideal L2-Self, Ought to Self as well as the attitudes to foreign cultures and native speakers of English. It also contained a brief demographic section about the type of school attended and the gender of the participants. The factors that were explored by the questionnaire were measured by means of the following instruments:

Details

Pages
246
Publication Year
2020
ISBN (PDF)
9783631833988
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631833995
ISBN (MOBI)
9783631834008
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631829974
DOI
10.3726/b17515
Language
English
Publication date
2021 (June)
Keywords
literature cultural studies translation communication health communication
Published
Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2020. 246 pp., 8 fig. b/w, 8 tables.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Ewa Rusek (Volume editor) Władysław Witalisz (Volume editor)

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