‘I am Italian in the world’: a mobile student’s story of language learning andideological becoming

Abstract

This article theorises the relationship between language and intercultural learning from a Bakhtinian dialogic perspective, based on the language learning story of Federica, a mobile student in UK higher education (HE). I first outline the context of UK HE and its internationalisation agenda, discussing how research in this field has conceptualised language, intercultural communication (IC), and international students in terms of a totalising boundary between self and other. I link this to current concerns in IC regarding the philosophical underpinnings of the field, specifically the aporia created as a result of the totalising self/other relation in prevailing IC discourse (MacDonald & O ' , 2013). I then present a means of addressing this aporia through a Bakhtinian theorisation of the relationship between language and intercultural learning. This theorisation offers a relational perspective on the self and the other in which intercultural learning is a process of ideological becoming (Bakhtin, 1981) with the other, enacted in, with and through language F learning English. The article concludes with a call for language and communicative practices to be placed at the heart of HE internationalisation agendas and for HE practitioners to recognise shared responsibility for intercultural communication.Questo articolo teorizza la relazione tra lingua e apprendimento interculturale dalla perspettiva dialogica bachtiana, basato sulla storia di apprendimento di Federica, una studentessa universitaria transnazionale. In primis contestualizzo il percorso formativo universitario del Regno Unito e la sua internazionalizazione, spiegando come gli studi in questo settore possano concettualizzare la lingua, la comunicazione interculturale (IC) e il confine tra sé stessi e gli altri, in particolare degli studenti internazionali. Queste trovano spazio negli ultimi studi di IC in termini filosofici, specificatamente la aporia creata come risultato della relazione totalizzante sé stessi/altri nel suo discorso (MacDonald & O ' , 2013). In seguito presento come indirizzare questa aporia attraverso la teorizzazione bachtiana della relazione tra lingua e apprendimento interculturale. Questa teorizzazione offre una prospettiva relazionale del sé stessi e degli altri di divenire ideologico (Bakhtin, 1981) con gli altri, attivato tra, con e nella lingua, come dalla F L onclude col discutere la necessità di posizionare la lingua e le pratiche comunicative al centro settore possano riconoscere una responsabilità condivisa sul tema della comunicazione interculturale.

Editorial

“…There is nothing especially new about the role of narrative in our fieldbut we do seem to be seeing an intensification of concern and a refinement of narrative approaches to intercultural research developing in the work which contributors are carrying out; not only in this issue, but I now also sense its prominence has been building up in the journal through from LAIC 2016 (see e.g. Harvey, 2016). The second theme, which has more recently arrived in these pages and indeed in the intercultural field and applied linguistics more broadly, is that of 'translanguaging'.…”

Adapting intercultural research for performance: Enacting hospitality in interdisciplinary collaboration and public engagement

“…Having written in detail elsewhere about my participants' intercultural learning (Harvey, 2016(Harvey, , 2017, this article first explores my own interdisciplinary learning through the enactment of hospitality in the collaboration with Cap-a-Pie, and then the (potential for) audience intercultural learning through the enactment of hospitality in the performance. I therefore use hospitality as theoretical nexus in this paper in order to analyse the connection between my original research, the interdisciplinary process of adapting it for public performance, and the potential for learning through this form of public engagement.…”

“…The collaboration still had to be enacted, and enacted hospitably. It is at this interpersonal level that I found the process of interdisciplinary working could be understood in Bakhtinian terms, through the framework I used to theorise language learning motivation (Harvey, 2014(Harvey, , 2017 and the relationship between language and intercultural learning (Harvey, 2016). It is my understanding of intercultural learning that I wish to elaborate here, in order to theorise the enactment of hospitality within the interdisciplinary collaboration with Cap-a-Pie and within the performance of Up and up and up towards itself.…”

“…The research took a Bakhtinian theoretical and methodological perspective to analyse six English-language learners motivation for learning English, understanding this as a process of ideological becoming (Harvey, 2014, 2016, 2017, following Bakhtin, 1981). The following analytical vignette, based on Harvey (2017), highlights an illustrative story from one of the participants:Dmitry was a very successful English learner in Russia, was highly proficient in English when he came to the UK to study for his PhD, and did not expect any particular difficulties with language or social life as a result of the move.…”

Translanguaging engagement: Dynamic multilingualism and university language engagement programmes

“…These large-scale projects demonstrate the growing dialogue between and among 'linguists' (applied, socio, modern, inter alia) that mirrors the kinds of questions my research has raised (for me) in terms of my previous practice. Hutchings and Matras (2017) refer to the dialectic between the intellectualisation of these challenges (similarly to the ongoing discussions of international/home student categories as 'borders', see also Badwan, 2015;Harvey, 2016;Collins, 2017) and the institutional structures within which these discussions take place. We can, following Sinfree…”