identity and language learning in study abroad · disrespect for university professors as the...

Identity and Language Learningin Study AbroadCeleste KingingerThe Pennsylvania State University

Abstract: Identity, and related conflict, can influence both qualities of languagelearning experiences in study abroad settings and learners’ choices of language toappropriate or reject. The article offers an overview of research examining the role ofidentity in student sojourns abroad. This research includes (1) holistic, qualitativestudies of the ways in which identities shape language learning opportunities, and (2)studies examining the development of specific, identity‐related pragmatic abilities. Afterdefining identity and study abroad, the researcher organizes this article in terms ofsalient demographic categories represented in the literature: nationality/“foreigner”status, gender, linguistic inheritance, age status, and ethnicity. Where possible, examplesof both holistic and pragmatics‐oriented research are included for each category. Theconclusion suggests implications for language education and the design of study abroadprograms along with some avenues toward greater ecological validity in research of bothkinds.

Key words: conflict, identity, pragmatics, qualitative research, study abroad

IntroductionAs a 22‐year‐old American study abroad participant in France, “Bill”(Kinginger, 2008) enrolled in courses at a local university in Dijon, anticipatingno doubt that the social organization of a classroom in a classical French universitywould resemble that of the academic institutions he had frequented in the past. To hisastonishment, the norms for interaction in this new environment were quitedisorienting:

B: I don’t get it. people talk during class, they don’t pay attention to theprofessors, […] it blew my—it blew my mind. it still does.

I: what else have you noticed? since you’re in class with French students.

B: they always talk. like they don’t pay—they don’t pay attention to professors,the professor doesn’t really engage the class. he kinda just presents material, umand he says what he has to say, he needs to fit it all in, whether or not his studentslearn it. um it’s up to¼

Celeste Kinginger (PhD, University of Illinois) is Professor of Applied Linguisticsand French at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.Foreign Language Annals, Vol. 46, Iss. 3, pp. 339–358. © 2013 by American Council on the Teaching of ForeignLanguages.DOI: 10.1111/flan.12037

Foreign Language Annals � VOL. 46, NO. 3 339

I: ¼ it’s up to them to learn it right? ¼B: ¼ yeah he just presents the materialand that’s it. […] the biggest thing islike just talking and not paying atten-tion to the teacher. like blatantly. likehaving a normal conversation, and theteacher not even caring, like you youcould tell where the internationalstudents are like especially the Germansand the Americans. they’re in the frontrow, cause you can’t sit in the backcause you won’t hear anything, andespecially if it’s in French. (Kinginger,unpublished interview data; emphasisin original)

Like many of the other students in hiscohort, Bill observed an apparent display ofdisrespect for university professors as thestudents in the class pursued their privateconversations during the lecture. Mean-while, the professor’s failure to engage thestudents and to monitor their comprehen-sion of the material also struck Bill asevidence of that professor’s indifference tothe well‐being of the class. Bill’s dramaticrepresentation (“it blew my mind”) attestedto the depth of his emotions as he recalledthis scene.

Patron’s (2007) case study of a cohort ofFrench students sojourning for a year inAustralia recounted similar unpredicted andinitially inexplicable academic practices.These students were shocked to find class-mates and professors socializing on a first‐name basis. An invitation to tea from a maleprofessor prompted one female student toquestion the nature of the professor’smotives. In the classroom, the students’dress and demeanor could only be inter-preted as blatant lack of respect. Accordingto “Brigitte,”

En classe [en France] on va être trèsformels … on va essayer de s’habillerformellement, on va pas venir en short àl’université. On se tient droit, on s’asseoitbien dans sa chaise, pas avec les pieds surla table, allongés sur la table, en savatteset avec des trous partout. C’est dégueu-

lasse! En France les profs feraient desremarques. … C’est vrai qu’au début çam’a un peu agressée, je dois l’avouer.J’avais envie de lui dire: “Pour qui ils seprennent? Se tenir comme ça en classe!”(Patron, 2007, p. 113)

[In class [in France] one is very formal… one tries to dress appropriately, onedoes not come in shorts to university.One sits up straight, correctly in thechair, not with feet on the desk, lying onthe table, wearing thong sandals andwith holes in one’s clothes. It’s disgust-ing! In France, the lecturers wouldcriticize this. … It’s true that initiallythis really irked me. I must admit. Iwanted to say to [an Australian student]“Who do you think you are? To behavelike this in class!”]

Brigitte’s reaction, like Bill’s, was to look onthe scene with disgust and to recoil intodiscourses of national superiority (Block,2007b).

In comparing these experiences, itbecomes clear, on one level, that the speak-ers had encountered unfamiliar academic“face systems” (Scollon & Scollon, 1995).Bill was accustomed to American universityclassrooms where hierarchical asymmetryis expressly muted, classmates competewith each other for the good graces ofthe instructor, and knowledge is publiclyco‐constructed (Poole, 1992). Brigitte, onthe other hand, had been socialized toanticipate that academic hierarchies wouldbe explicitly marked through the use offormal address terms and attire, and thatstudents would construct relations ofsolidarity with each other as they assumedprimary responsibility for their ownlearning.

On another level, these students en-countered challenges to their moral sense ofwhat is right and good or wrong and bad.That is, they met with practices runningcounter to the “more or less permanent waysof being and behaving” that Bourdieu (1991)called habitus (Kramsch, 2009, p. 112). AsKramsch further explained, the durability of

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the primary habitus, acquired at home,emerges from the “historical sedimentation… of attitudes, beliefs, and worldviews thathave been reinforced over time” (p. 113).Thus, in secondary socialization, as in cross‐cultural encounters, an individual’s personalhistory may come into conflict with thehistory of another society’s institutions orother social structures, and this conflict may(or may not) prompt destabilization of thehabitus, and thus, of identity.

Identity and Language Learning

in Study AbroadAmong language educators, students, policymakers, and the public, study abroad hasbeen routinely interpreted as a context forlanguage learning. A broad overview of theresearch (Kinginger, 2009) indeed paints anencouraging picture of this phenomenon.Particularly in areas related to social inter-action, such as awareness and use ofsociolinguistic variants or command ofpragmatics, the research has providedconcrete and convincing evidence to sub-stantiate the claim that students learnlanguages while abroad. In fact, studyabroad has the potential to enhance lan-guage learning in every dimension, whetherit is defined in terms of general constructssuch as proficiency or fluency, in terms ofskills, or in terms of components ofcommunicative competence, such as strate-gic or discourse abilities.

However, research on outcomes hasconsistently revealed striking individualdifferences; some students thrive whileothers founder. In light of these findings,applied linguists have embarked on a questto understand the study abroad experiencein relation to language learning. In order toclarify this relationship, scholars preferringa quantitative orientation have attempted tospecify precisely how students use their time(e.g., Freed, Segalowitz, & Dewey, 2004),or to trace the development of in‐countrysocial networks offering access to learningopportunities (Mitchell et al., 2013). Whilecorrelations between language contact or

social networks and language developmentcan sometimes be established, these do notnecessarily explain why some studentsbecome more engaged in language learningthan do others. Other scholars have exam-ined the qualities of study abroad experi-ences, showing that these experiences arehighly varied. Their success depends bothupon how the students are received in thecontexts they frequent (e.g., classrooms,homestays) and upon how these samestudents choose to interpret the social,cultural, and linguistic practices of theirhost communities. In this way, the chal-lenges that students face in study abroadsettings can be seen as related to identity.

In documenting the rise of identity as aconstruct relevant to second language (L2)acquisition, Block (2007a) highlighted thepotential “negotiation of difference” thattakes place in immersion settings. Blocksituated his argument in reference topoststructuralist accounts of identity as acontested site of struggle involving chal-lenges to one’s habitus. Specifically, Blockdefined identity as follows:

Identities are about negotiating newsubject positions at the crossroads ofpast, present, and future. Individualsare shaped by their sociohistories butthey also shape their sociohistories aslife goes on. The entire process isconflictive as opposed to harmonious,and individuals often feel ambivalent.(p. 27)

The negotiation of identity, he noted, oftentakes place in contexts of unequal powerrelations and can be interpreted in terms oftraditional demographic categories such asnationality, gender, or social class. ForBlock, this definition seems particularlywell suited to immersion environmentswhere identity is destabilized and peoplemust strive to achieve a new emotional andmoral balance. Exposure to unfamiliarpractices can upset taken‐for‐granted world-views, but the outcome is more than justadding new perspectives to the old. Rather,what emerges is now famously known as the


“third place” (Bhabha, 1994; Kramsch,2009), where “there is what Papasteragiadis… called a negotiation of difference duringwhich the past and the present ‘encounterand transform each other’ in the ‘presence offissures, gaps, and contradictions …”’

(Block, 2007a, p. 864; emphasis in original).Crucially, the negotiation of difference ischaracterized by ambivalence:

Ambivalence is the uncertainty offeeling a part and feeling apart. It isthe mutually conflicting feelings of loveand hate. Moreover, it is the simulta-neous affirmation and negation of suchfeelings. … Ambivalence, it wouldseem, is the natural state of humanbeings who are forced by their individ-ual life trajectories to make choiceswhere choices are not easy to make.However, a natural state is not neces-sarily a desirable state and in studies ofindividuals’ life stories, there are at-tempts to resolve the conflicts thatunderlie ambivalence. (Block, 2007a,pp. 864–865)

Key to understanding the emergence offoreign‐language mediated identities is ap-preciating the work that people do to craft athird space and the pain that peopleexperience as the durability of their habitusis questioned and old identities lose theirrelevance and transparency, especially incases where these transformations are notvoluntary. Negotiation of difference requiresaccess to new sociocultural environmentsand willingness to participate activelywithin these environments. It requires agenuine investment in learning. It can yielddiscomfort, ambivalence, anxiety, evensorrow, but it can also generate insightsand capabilities of the type that are routinelyattributed to programs of education orstudent mobility abroad: interculturalawareness, empathy, global civic engage-ment, and multilingualism.

Block devoted one chapter of SecondLanguage Identities (2007b) to the literatureon study abroad, a phenomenon on acontinuum between tourism and migration

that has been defined as “a temporarysojourn of pre‐defined duration, undertakenfor educational purposes” (Kinginger, 2009,p. 11). In this chapter, Block reviewed anumber of research projects in light of theconstructs outlined above, questioningwhether students become sufficiently en-gaged in local communicative settings toexperience the ambivalence necessary forthe formation of target language identities.As Block observed, this literature hassignificantly overrepresented the experien-ces of American students for whom studyabroad does not typically represent asignificant investment of time or effort. Asa result, Block’s review suggested thatnegotiation of difference is a rare occurrencein study abroad: When confronted withchallenges to their habitus, or sociallypositioned in unfavorable or unfamiliarways, American students typically recoilinto a sense of superiority, invoking dis-courses of national identity or representa-tions of the gender equity that supposedlyreigns in their country.

Block did allow for exceptions. Forexample, he cited the case of “Alice”(Kinginger, 2004) as demonstrating thatAmerican students can develop foreign‐language mediated identities. Alice’s situa-tion was unusual in that she imaginedbecoming a speaker of French as a way toreinvent herself as a cosmopolitan, multi-lingual person whom she could admire. Herworking‐class background influenced bothher struggle to study in France in the firstplace, and then the nature of her experience.In comparison with the other members ofher cohort, she was older, less privileged,and more experienced in the travails ofadult life. Because she was determined tolearn French, and distanced from hercompatriot students, Alice persisted indeveloping a local social network andeventually acquired a large and diversecommunicative repertoire.

Half a decade after Block’s review,the pages of the qualitative literature onlanguage learning in study abroad havecontinued to be populated mainly by

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Americans, perhaps because language is arelatively apparent learning goal of studentsfrom the United States, where the signifi-cance of foreign languages has historicallybeen downplayed in both policy andeducational practice in general (Lantolf &Sunderman, 2001). As outlined elsewhere(Kinginger, 2009, 2010a), a number offorces are at work to constrain the negotia-tion of difference by American studentsabroad. These include a steady but dramaticdecrease in the amount of time studentsspend abroad, now typically a “short‐term”

program of three to six weeks. The propor-tion of foreign language specialists goingabroad has also decreased in favor ofstudents choosing business or social science–related major fields. Globalization andthe triumph of English as a lingua mundihave constrained the language learningopportunities of Anglophone students,even as mobile European students mayavoid conversations with native speakers ofEnglish, paradoxically, because they donot master English as a lingua franca andfail to accommodate to their interlocutors(Dervin, 2013; Kalocsai, 2009). Surround-ing all of this have been explicit prejudicialattitudes in the academy at large, devaluinginternational education and framing studyabroad as a feminized, elitist, and decora-tive pursuit (Gore, 2005).

Thus, five years after the appearance ofBlock’s critique, the qualitative literature onlanguage learning in study abroad continuesto portray American students as theyencounter, but may refuse to engage with,cultural differences—a phenomenon char-acteristic of American students but by nomeans their exclusive province, as studentsof other backgrounds have also displayedthis tendency, particularly in short‐termstays or the early phases of longer‐termstays.

Identity and L2 PragmaticsIn addition to examining new evidence fromethnographic and other narrative or qualita-tive studies portraying students’ evaluations

of study abroad experiences, this articleexplores some linguistic dimensions ofidentity negotiation in study abroad. InBlock’s account (2007b), the developmentof a foreign‐language mediated identity is anall‐or‐nothing affair. However, given thatmost academic sojourns abroad are bydesign temporary, and usually involvevoluntary engagement with host communi-ties and languages, it is in some waysunsurprising that study abroad does notnormally pose serious challenges or threatsto a young person’s identity. Yet it may betrue that more modest changes occur andthat students are offered glimpses of identi-ty‐related possibilities through their expo-sure to the practices of their hosts.

In a recent article entitled “StudyAbroad and the Development of SecondLanguage Identities,” Benson, Barkhuizen,Bodycott, and Brown (2012) suggested thata sojourn abroad can, in fact, lead toidentity‐related development on a relativelymodest scale. Specifically, they pointed tothe potential for development in threedomains: (1) identity‐related proficiency,or pragmatic competence; (2) linguistic self‐concept, which can include such attributesas self‐esteem, confidence, or communica-tive autonomy; and (3) L2‐mediated per-sonal development, or the ability to getthings done, e.g., to successfully navigate aservice encounter. Although all three cate-gories are worthy of consideration, the mostrelevant for this article is the first, identity‐related proficiency, whose significance Ben-son et al. described as follows:

The development of pragmatic compe-tence in the study abroad setting mayalso have an impact on second languageidentity by influencing the student’sability to do things with words, tofunction as a person, and [sic] expressdesired identities. Language compe-tence is a pre‐requisite for the projec-tion of identities in a second language,but more importantly students’ acquisi-tion and use of pragmatic competencepartly depends on the kinds of identities


they want to project and the responsesthey receive to them. (pp. 182–183).

These authors make the important—and, inthe study of L2 pragmatics, infrequentlyacknowledged—point that learners exerciseagency in selectively adopting local prag-matic norms according to the identitiesthey wish to display. Their choices depend,on one level, upon the pragmalinguisticresources at their command, i.e., mastery ofspeech acts, routines, or address forms;strategies such as directness or indirectness;and the like. On another level, these choicesdepend on the student’s awareness ofsociopragmatics, or the perceptions inform-ing the interpretation and performance ofcommunicative action. It is one thing toknow what functions are served by differentlinguistic features, and quite another to

determine how to behave “properly,” as“proper” behavior is to some extent a matterof personal preference (Kasper & Rose,2001, p. 3). The recent literature includes anumber of studies showing that studyabroad enhances both pragmalinguisticresources and sociopragmatics awareness,but that here, too, identity‐related conflictcan arise.

Identity in the Study Abroad

LiteratureThe remaining sections of this articleexamine studies highlighting the salienceof identity categories best represented inthe literature, including national identity,“foreigner” status, gender, linguistic identi-ty, age status, and ethnicity (see Table 1).The sources for the article have been

TABLE 1

Demographic Identity Categories in Selected Research on Language

Learning in Study Abroad

Categories Qualitative studiesResearch onpragmatics

Nationality Patron (2007) Shively (2011)Kinginger (2008)Jackson (2008)Perrefort (2008)

“Foreigner” identities Siegal (1996) Brown (2013)Iino (2006)

Gender Polanyi (1995) Masuda (2011)Twombly (1995)Talburt & Stewart (1999)Isabelli‐García (2006)Kinginger (2008)

Linguistic heritage Riegelhaupt & Carrasco (2000) N/APetrucci (2007)

Age status Wilkinson (1998) Iwasaki (2013)Pellegrino‐Aveni (2005)Kinginger (2008)Perrefort (2008)Spenader (2011)Tan & Kinginger (2013)

Ethnicity Talburt & Stewart (1999) N/AAnya (2011)

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selected for their particular relevance toquestions of identity from research ofvarious focus and methodology, includingcase studies of individual learners, ethno-graphic studies of cohorts, and research onthe development of pragmatic abilities. AsColeman (2013) has recently remarked,neglect of the dimension of historical timein accounts of language learning in studyabroad is problematic given the changingnature of international experience in an eraof globalization. For example, ready accessto travel and to technology‐enhanced socialnetworking (e.g., Facebook or Skype) haschanged the nature of study abroad to thepoint where today’s experiences are funda-mentally different from those of earlier eras.Therefore, where possible this review em-phasizes relatively recent projects.

National IdentityIn Block’s (2007b) chapter focusing princi-pally on the reported experiences of Ameri-can students, as noted above, a repeatedfinding was that these students preferred toavoid negotiation of difference, aligningthemselves instead with discourses of na-tional superiority. In a case study of thecohort and six case studies of individualAmerican students in various semester‐longprograms in France, Kinginger (2008)reported that many of the students displayedthe preference noted by Block. One case inparticular stood out: “Beatrice,” a Caucasianmiddle‐class participant, was among themore serious language students in thecohort and began the study with relativelyhigh documented proficiency and a stateddesire to improve her speaking ability.Although her original ambition was tobecome a French teacher, her parents hadintervened to insist that she select abusiness‐related university specializationinstead. Thus, Beatrice was enrolled in aParisian business school offering special,segregated courses for foreigners.

In the early phases of the program,Beatrice realized that her efforts to befriendFrancophone students at the university werenot yielding the desired result and that her

principal opportunities to engage in infor-mal conversation in French would be withher host family. This family was in someways ideal for a language learner, withhost sisters of Beatrice’s age and a regularpractice of family dinner table conversation.However, also early on, Beatrice expressedreservations about living with a left‐leaningFranco‐Tunisian family in a highly diverseneighborhood. As the semester progressed,so did the conflict in Iraq, leading to theU.S.‐led invasion of that country. As asupporter of U.S. foreign policy, Beatricewas offended when her hosts requested thatshe explain her point of view, invokingdiscourses of French‐bashing that werecirculating in the American press at thetime. Based on American collective remem-bering of World War II, in which the FrenchResistance was invisible and the UnitedStates single‐handedly saved France from itsNazi occupiers, these discourses predis-posed Beatrice to accuse her hosts of anti‐American sentiment. Eventually, a series ofmisunderstandings about proper behaviorin classrooms cemented Beatrice’s belief inthe family’s general hostility toward Amer-icans, and she distanced herself from theonly people willing to interact with her on aregular basis, having improved her speakingability very little.

An interesting study of the salience ofAmerican national identity in relation topragmatics is a recent investigation byShively (2011) on Spanish language sociali-zation in service encounters. Shively’sparticipants were seven students in asemester‐long program in Toledo whoaudiorecorded their interactions with ser-vice providers in an array of settings, such asshops, restaurants, and cafes. Research onservice encounters involving expert ornative speakers of Peninsular Spanish hasshown that these interactions are typicallyhearer‐oriented and direct, and can berealized as imperatives (e.g., Dame un café,“Give me a coffee”) or as elliptical forms(Tres barras de pan, “Three loaves of bread”).The norms for U.S. service encounters arequite different and can involve greetings,


politeness markers such as “please,” how‐are‐you question‐response exchanges, and aspeaker orientation (e.g., “I need/would likea cup of coffee, please”).

Shively’s findings showed that in addi-tion to approaching service encounters fromthe point of view of the U.S. norm, somestudents had learned in Spanish classes toexpress politeness using the conditional orthe past subjective (e.g., Quisiera compraruna pila para este reloj, “I would like to buy abattery for this watch”). Thus, for example,in the early weeks of the semester, “Greta”attempted to buy medicine in a pharmacy:1

Greta: hola

Pharmacist: hola

Greta: cómo estas?

(two‐second pause)

Greta: uh::::

(2.4‐second pause)

Greta: uh‐ you necesito:: (.) medicina?

(Adapted from Shively, 2011, p. 1825)

Shively’s data showed that most of thestudents began to perform service encoun-ters according to Spanish norms by the endof the semester. However, although Gretastopped using how‐are‐you routines, shenever learned to interpret this aspect ofinteraction from the Spanish point of viewand never noticed that small talk sometimesoccurs at the end of a service encounter inSpain. Instead, she persisted in “viewing theinappropriateness of how‐are‐you greetingsas unfriendliness on the part of Spaniards”(p. 1832).

As noted above, some recent researchhas suggested that the tendency to recoilinto a sense of national superiority is not anexclusively American phenomenon. In ad-dition to Brigitte’s initial negative assess-ment of Australian classroom interaction, inthe initial phases of their time abroad otherFrench students in Patron’s (2007) studyfound fault with many aspects of Australiansociety. They were appalled by the local

youth culture, particularly the practice of“bring your own bottle” parties and, likeBeatrice, retreated from defense of theircountry’s nuclear testing program in thePacific. In Jackson’s (2008) ethnography ofChinese students from Hong Kong on ashort‐term intensive language program inBritain, some students developed closerelationships with their host families andlearned to value English for communicationand not just as a utilitarian object of study,but others never emerged from their initialethnocentrism. “Ada,” for example, strug-gled throughout her stay with her ownhostility toward British cultural practices,worrying about how British food wouldaffect her health and at one point evensuspecting her host family of deliberatelyundermining her well‐being with a constantflow of sandwiches and burnt breakfasttoast. She tended to interpret others’ curios-ity about her as racism. Her interactions withher host family, in particular when theyrepeatedly mislabeled her as Japanese, onlyheightened her awareness of her ownnational identity. Finally, in examininghow German Erasmus (a program spon-sored by the European Union called theEuropean Community Action Scheme forthe Mobility of European Students) partic-ipants represented their experiences inFrance, Perrefort (2008) found that thesestudents categorized themselves as “specta-tors” in much the same way that Americanstudents have recently been portrayed(Ogden, 2007). Their main point ofcontact with French peers was the Germanclassroom, where they were received asintimidating interlocutors to be avoided.Frustrated and disappointed in their inabili-ty to engage in significant local interaction,these students tended to condemn theirFrench counterparts, based on Germanstereotypes, as passive and immature incomparison to Germans.

Overall, then, the evidence has sug-gested that, regardless of their nationality,when some students encounter challengesto the habitus associated with their nationalidentity, their reaction is to withdraw from

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the negotiation of difference. Particularly iftheir sojourn is short term, they may neverovercome the tendency to interpret thecultural practices of their hosts in terms oftheir own sociocultural history. Further,Shively’s (2011) findings demonstrated thateven when students learn to perform speechacts in locally appropriate ways, they havenot necessarily learned to value or appre-ciate the local meanings of these acts.

“Foreigner” IdentitiesIn contrast to conflict involving nationalidentities, which emerges when studyabroad participants retreat into familiarstances, conflict surrounding “foreigner”identities tends to emerge when studyabroad participants are positioned as suchby their hosts. This dimension of identitywas signaled in the applied linguisticsliterature by Siegal (1996) in a studyshowing how Western women learningJapanese struggled for access to advancedlanguage competence, including honorificlanguage considered to be beyond theircapabilities as non‐Japanese. A more recentstudy, Iino (2006), documented how Amer-ican students were positioned in interactionwith their Japanese host families. Iinoidentified a continuum of approaches onthe part of families. On one end was a two‐way enrichment ideal, where the familiessaw the homestay as a learning opportunityfor themselves and family interactions overdinner became settings for interculturalexchange. On the other was an approachthat Iino called “cultural dependency,” inwhich student guests were construed asfundamentally helpless and in need ofmassive assistance for managing everydaylife in Japan. In its extreme form, thisapproach yielded situations in which thestudent guests were positioned as exoticgaijin (“foreigners”) and complained thatthey were treated like “pets” (p. 162). Iinonoted that regardless of the approach taken,the Japanese host families tended to avoidcorrection of both grammatical errors andinstances of inappropriate language use.When one student, upon arrival, used an

appropriate formulaic expression to accom-pany the presentation of a gift (tsumaranaimono desu kedo douzo, “this is a uselessthing, but please accept it”), the family’sreaction was to laugh, in part because thestudent’s utterance violated their assump-tion that the humble demeanor conveyed bythe expression is unique to the Japanese andcannot be learned by foreigners.2

It follows that being positioned as aforeigner will have consequences for thelearning of pragmatics, particularly at ad-vanced levels, as Siegal (1996) predicted.Brown (2013) examined the learning ofhonorific forms in Korean by four malestudents of varied national origin (British,Japanese, Austrian, and German). Contay-mal (“respect speech”) and panmal (“half‐speech”) are strongly associated with theperformance of Korean identity and areessentially unavoidable: “In every singleKorean utterance, the speaker is forcedinto choices between different honorificverb endings and lexical forms”(Brown, 2013, p. 270). The students enteredthe study with advanced proficiency inKorean and a strong understanding of thehonorific system as demonstrated in adiscourse completion task. However, Brownfound that understanding of the system anddesire to speak Korean authentically was notsufficient for the learners to actually usehonorifics in native‐like ways.

As documented in recordings of natu-rally occurring conversation outside theclassroom, the students’ status as foreignerssignificantly influenced both their receptionby Korean interlocutors and their ownstance toward honorifics. In many cases,the students were positioned as outsiders towhom strict rules for marking hierarchywithin interactions did not apply. Thestudents themselves were not always willingto adopt native‐like patterns of use whenthese patterns clashed with their Westernpreference for egalitarian language use.Brown also pointed out the significance ofindividual reactions to imposed “foreigner”identities. “Richard,” who was frequentlypositioned by female friends as a “cute”


younger brother, viewed his outsider iden-tity as an advantage, allowing him toestablish intimate relationships, using pan-mal outside the boundaries of the localnorm. “Patrick,” on the other hand, wasdetermined to show that he could useKorean appropriately and that he deservedcorrect degrees of respect and intimacy, tothe point that he would take his inter-locutors to task for failing to observe theproper use of honorifics with him.

Thus the literature has demonstratedthat the negotiation of difference in studyabroad is constrained not only by students’own interpretive framing of their hostculture in terms of their own nationalidentity, but also by “foreigner” identitiesimposed on students within host communi-ties. In this latter case, interlocutors caninterpret students’ foreigner status asexempting all parties from observance oflocal norms for politeness. In this situation,some students will insist that their hostsprovide opportunities for the learning anduse of these norms, and others will acceptand perhaps even enjoy the exceptionalstatus and freedom from constraint con-veyed by their foreigner status.

GenderGender is among the most salient of identitycategories in the study abroad literature. Asnoted in Block (2007b), this is largely due tothe widespread belief, on the part ofAmericans, that sexual harassment is char-acteristic of foreign societies throughout theworld. To take just one example, Polanyi(1995) analyzed narrative journals pro-duced bymale and female American learnersof Russian. The research was prompted inpart by the statistically robust findings ofa parallel study (Brecht, Davidson, &Ginsburg, 1995) seeking to pinpoint factorspredicting gains in scores on a standardizedtest of speaking (the ACTFL’s Oral Profi-ciency Interview [OPI]). Among the find-ings of the quantitative study was asignificant effect for gender, with mendemonstrating a significant advantage. Fo-cusing on gender‐related incidents reported

in the students’ journals, Polanyi found thatmen were frequently positioned as capablespeakers when their Russian proficiency wasonly rudimentary and that they recounted,in glowing terms, numerous romanticadventures. In contrast, the women oftenfound themselves fending off undesiredsexual advances and had fewer opportuni-ties to develop their speaking ability.According to Polanyi, the women in thisstudy were at a double disadvantage. Havingbeen subjected to humiliating sexual harass-ment during their sojourns in Russia andhaving relatively limited access to learningopportunities, they were then tested on theirability to perform speech acts, such asproposing a toast, that had at the timebeen a culturally unacceptable use oflanguage for females.

Since the publication of Polanyi’s(1995) research, American researchershave detected the perception of sexualharassment in Argentina (Isabelli‐García,2006), France (Kinginger, 2008), Spain(Talburt & Stewart, 1999), and Costa Rica(Twombly, 1995). These practices are alsonoticed by the American male students onstudy abroad with the women who are thenauthorized to celebrate their own heterosex-ual identities as defenders of women,enlightened by their origin in a countrywhere gender equity is an avowed, if not yetrealized, ideal (Kinginger, 2008). What islargely missing from all of this discussion ofgender‐related conflict is any exploration ofthe local meaning of the practices criticized.In Patron’s (2007) study, the gender‐relatedpractices of Australians were also portrayedin unflattering terms and also had negativeconsequences for the students’ self‐concept,but for very different reasons. For “Arlette,”for example, the absence of sexual innuendoand flirting in informal social settings“struck at the core of her identity as awoman” (p. 62):

La drague, j’ai trouvé ça vraimentbizarre. Parce que c’est presque politique-ment incorrect de draguer. Au bout d’unmoment je me suis dit: “Bon, il doit y avoir

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un problème avec ma personne. Voilà jedois pas être belle ou je dois avoir pris dupoids, ou ya quelque chose parce que yajamais personne qui me drague. Personneme fait des compliments”… les gens ne seregardent pas en fait… C’est désagréableparce qu’on se sent moins bien et en mêmetemps on se sent plus en sécurité.(Patron, 2007, p. 62)

[Picking up, I found this very weird.Because it’s almost politically incorrectto pick up people. After a while, I said tomyself: “OK, there must be a problemwith me. There, I must not be beautiful,or I must have put on weight, or theremust be something because no one evertries to pick me up. No one gives mecompliments.” … In fact, people don’tlook at each other. … It’s reallyunpleasant because you don’t feelgood about yourself but at the sametime you feel much safer.]

In the domain of pragmatics, gender‐related conflicts have emerged in studies ofJapanese as an L2. TheWestern women whoparticipated in Siegal’s (1996) study, forexample, found some of the self‐effacing and“humble” language use associated withfemininity to be inconsistent with theirself‐images as competent professionals andrefused to appropriate these practices. Aninteresting twist on this phenomenon ap-peared in a recent study of developinginteractional competence in L2 Japanese.Masuda (2011) examined the developmentof ability to express alignment with inter-locutors and to assess utterances using therather ubiquitous discourse marker ne.Masuda recruited six English‐speakingundergraduates with intermediate proficien-cy and paired them with Japanese counter-parts to audiorecord conversations at thebeginning and end of a six‐week sojourn inJapan. The findings revealed that both maleand female students with adequate initialinteractive competence developed theirability to use ne in pragmatically appropriateways. However, one male student did notuse ne at all; based on his familiarity with

Japanese popular music and anime, heperceived ne as marking a feminized identitythat did not appeal to him. Thus, percep-tions that elements of language are them-selves gendered can limit the developmentof proficiency.

Linguistic IdentityAs described in Block (2007b), followingLeung, Harris, and Rampton (1997), lin-guistic identity can involve several dimen-sions, including expertise in language use,affiliation with users of the language, andlanguage inheritance. The latter dimension,inheritance, figures in research on theexperiences of heritage learners abroad. Aheritage language learner is a student withsome degree of communicative ability in thelanguage and a familial or cultural affiliationto the language. Often, such learners areraised in a home where the heritagelanguage is spoken, but schooling, andtherefore literacy development, takes placein the majority, or official, language of thecommunity.

In examining the experiences of heri-tage language learners abroad, Petrucci(2007) recounted how the descendants ofimmigrants to Peru from Okinawa weresuccessfully integrated into the Okinawancommunities hosting them. However, Pet-rucci also cited a study by Riegelhaupt andCarrasco (2000) in which heritage learnerswere received with suspicion, at best. Theseauthors recounted the plight of Lidia, asecond‐generation Chicana student fromArizona who participated in a five‐weekSpanish immersion program in Mexico.Lidia spoke Spanish fluently, but Lidia’shost family clearly favored their other guest,a novice user of Spanish of Europeanheritage. Specifically, the family condemnedthe variety of Spanish that Lidia spoke,reacted negatively to her presence in theirhome, and interpreted her as a less‐than‐ideal representative of the United States:

… the family felt that a “Mexican”person … who spoke Spanish in such amanner was not really welcome in their


home. Yet the Euro‐American guest inthe same home, although she commit-ted far more errors, was accepted andwelcomed with open arms. We recallthe documented comment byone member of Lidia’s family: “AyDr. Carrasco! Mándenos la próxima vezuna rubia, con ojos azules (Oh,Dr. Carrasco. Next time send us ablond with blue eyes).” (Riegelhaupt& Carrasco, 2000, p. 336, cited inPetrucci, 2007, p. 287)

Petrucci did not provide details aboutthe specific features of Lidia’s Spanish thatdrew criticism. However, the study didsuggest that a return to the ancestralhomeland does not necessarily guaranteethat heritage learners will be received aswelcome guests and persons of consequencein host family settings.

Age StatusOne of the most widely circulated truisms ininternational education is the belief thatliving with a local host family offers asignificant advantage for language learners.In research on the qualities of homestaysettings for language learning, anotheridentity category has emerged as salient:the age‐related status of the participants and,more specifically, whether they are highschool or university‐level students. Themajority of this research focused on theexperiences of university students—mosttypically individuals or cohorts from re-searchers’ own institutions—for whom, asyet, it had not been possible to prove theexistence of a homestay advantage. In arobust quantitative study, Rivers (1998)found that living in a Russian home asopposed to a dormitory did not predict gainsin speaking ability. Magnan and Back (2007)were unable to establish any correlationbetween living arrangements and the devel-opment of proficiency in French.

The qualitative literature has shown thathomestay experiences for older studentsare quite variable (Pellegrino‐Aveni, 2005;Wilkinson, 1998). For example, in addition

to the negative outcome documented forBeatrice, the case studies inKinginger (2008)included both successful and less engaginghomestay experiences. For Bill, who arrivedin Dijon with the lowest documentedlanguage proficiency in the group, the hostfamily proved crucial to the overall success ofhis sojourn. Bill was regularly invited toextended family dinners during which muchof the focus was on him, his activities andimpressions. The family patiently assisted hisperformance as he gradually developed bothspeaking ability and considerable languageawareness. By contrast, “Ailis” was housedwith a single woman whose time wasconsumed by a stressful job and whopreferred to dine, every night, in front ofthe television set. Finding little companion-ship and few learning opportunities in thehome, Ailis quickly joined a group ofcompatriots for a modern‐day Grand Tourof Europe, collecting Hard Rock CaféT‐shirts but no language proficiency. Basedon the measures taken in the study, Ailisseemed to have forgotten some of what sheknew of French before her stay in France.

Although the literature has been some-what sparse, studies have suggested thatthere may be important differences betweenstudying abroad as a legal adult over the ageof 18 in comparison with parallel experi-ences of high school students. Spenader(2011) presented case studies of four U.S.‐based precollegiate students involved in ayear‐long study sojourn in Sweden. Al-though none of these participants had priorknowledge of the language, by the end of theyear, three of them had reached the Superiorlevel on the ACTFL OPI. Spenader attribut-ed this remarkable achievement to supportfrom host families and institutions, and topersonality traits such as assertiveness andsense of humor. Perrefort (2008) comparedthe representations of sojourns abroad byhigh school exchange students (ages 15–17)and German university students studying inFrance through the Erasmus program. Asnoted above, the Erasmus students repre-sented themselves as marginal “spectators”(p. 77). By contrast, in the high school

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students’ comments, language‐related epi-sodes were highly salient and reflected theirdaily interactions with host communitymembers of all generations. These studentstypically overcame feelings of linguisticinsecurity through extensive local engage-ment and in so doing became more autono-mous and motivated language learners.Tan and Kinginger (2013) provided evi-dence from student narratives that U.S.‐based high school students of Chinese aretypically received in the mode described byIino (2006) as “two‐way enrichment.” Thestudents in question were participants in asummer intensive program with shorthomestays in Beijing and Chengdu. Likethe high school students described byPerrefort (2008), these students enjoyedextensive opportunities to interact in a rangeof everyday communicative settings and tobuild lasting relationships that furthersupported their learning of Chinese in lateryears.

A recent study by Iwasaki (2013)suggested that age can also influence thelearning of pragmatics. Iwasaki examinedthe learning of hedges in Japanese by fivemale Anglophone learners before and after asojourn in Japan. Hedges are vague expres-sions such as “like,” “just,” or “sort of” usedin conversation to socially package mes-sages, establish rapport, and create a bufferzone where interactants’ emotional reac-tions may be carefully monitored. Iwasakitallied the hedges used in the participants’pre‐ and post‐sojourn OPIs and also hadyoung first language speakers of Japaneseevaluate samples from these data for thesociability of the speaker. Her findingsshowed that while all the learners signifi-cantly increased their use of hedges, theparticipants who were given high ratings forsociability used the hedging forms associat-ed with a youthful identity: nanka (“some-how, well, like”), toka (“or something”), anda recent innovation, the prenominal mitaina(“like”) as a sentence‐final particle. This usereflected the more “sociable” students’history of considerable interaction withyouthful age peers as well as their desire

to emulate the practices of their Japanesecompanions.

Age clearly plays an important overallrole in the process of language learning. Inthe study abroad literature, the role of agehas surfaced in studies of the qualities ofhomestay sojourns, where the experiencesof older, legally adult students can be verydifferent from those of participants inter-preted by all parties as “children.” Iwasaki’s(2013) study also offered a glimpse of theinfluence that age‐related identity can exertin the shaping of students’ communicativerepertoires.

EthnicityThe role of race or ethnicity has been veryinfrequently visited in the literature onlanguage learning in study abroad. Whenthe topic has surfaced, it has usually beenframed as a source of difficulty for theparticipants. Talburt and Stewart (1999), forexample, recounted the plight of “Mishiela,”the lone African American participant in acohort of Americans in Spain. Mishiela’sexperience was strongly influenced by herhypervisibility and the extent to which shewas subjected to a humiliating emphasis onrace and sexuality, includingmanyunwantedsexual advances, in her interactions withSpaniards. In recounting the experiences ofa cohort of British students in Senegal,Coleman (2013) similarly noted that thewhite females in the group learned to copewith sexual approaches and spontaneousoffers of marriage: “[s]ome took to wearingwedding rings and referring to non‐existenthusbands” (p. 34).

A very different picture emerged fromAnya’s (2011) case studies of four AfricanAmerican learners of Portuguese duringtheir sojourn in Salvador, Brazil. In thiscase the students were, often for the firsttime, living in a place where they were partof the racial majority. This status had directconsequences for their enhanced sense ofsafety and belonging in public because theydid not stand out as foreigners, callingattention to themselves and becomingtargets of harassment. More significant,


however, these students’ learning of Brazil-ian Portuguese took place on a backdrop ofshared sociohistory. “Nina,” for example,

did not need to learn from scratch howit was and what it meant to be a blackmember of the African Diaspora in asociety within the Americas fundamen-tally shaped by a history of humanenslavement and racial hierarchy. Shehad only to decipher the socioculturalcodes, cultural significance, and lin-guistic practices associated with black-ness in Brazil—a process akin toworking toward native‐like pronuncia-tion and pragmatic competence in alanguage one already speaks fluently.(p. 59)

For Nina, this deciphering of sociocul-tural codes led through some degree ofconflict as she encountered both the myth ofBrazil as a race‐free democracy inwhich onlyclass‐based inequalities exist, and episodesshe interpreted as overtly racist. However,her positive ethno‐racialized identificationwith Afro‐Brazilian people and culture led tosignificant investment in learning the lan-guage in the classroom and in a variety ofother contexts.

DiscussionAs demonstrated in this article, identity andrelated conflict can have significant con-sequences for both the overall quality oflanguage learning experiences abroad andfor the development of a specific domain ofcommunicative competence, namely prag-matics. Although American students areespecially prone to rejecting local world-views or practices based on discourses ofnational superiority, they are not alone inthis tendency. “Foreigner” identities as-cribed to language learners by their hostscan limit students’ access to high levels oflanguage proficiency. Gender‐related con-flict has been reported in numerous studiesseeking the perspectives of American womenabroad but was also noted in Patron’s(2007) research with French students; inthis case, practices that may in part be very

similar are interpreted in radically differentways. The very sparse research on the roleof linguistic heritage suggests that theselearners’ experiences can be just as variablein quality as those of other groups. There issome evidence that the age status ofparticipants influences the ways in whichthey interpret their experience as well asthe extent to which their host families actin loco parentis and oversee learners’opportunities to become engaged in localcommunicative settings. Finally, currentresearch suggests that ethno‐racializedidentities can exert both negative andpositive influences on students’ dispositiontoward language learning abroad.

Implications for Language Educationin the Classroom and in Study AbroadThe research outlined in this article has clearimplications for classroom teaching, assess-ment, and the design of study abroadprograms. Most obviously, language educa-tors should recognize that study abroad isnot a magical formula making possible aneffortless process of “easy learning”(DeKeyser, 2010, p. 89). Nor does it providea rationale for curricular neglect of students’language‐related needs (Polio & Zyzik,2009). What language students learn duringstudy abroad depends upon the kinds ofaccess to learning opportunities that they areable to negotiate, how they evaluate theperformance of identity in the contexts theyfrequent, and which elements of languagethey choose to attend to and/or incorporateinto their own communicative repertoires.

The ACTFL Standards for ForeignLanguage Learning provide guidance forlanguage educators contemplating theirstudents’ present or future experiencesabroad, especially in their emphasis oncommunication (Standard 1), cultural prac-tices (Standard 2.1), linguistic and culturalcomparisons (Standard 4), and commu-nication across communities and time(Standard 5). Meanwhile, several authorshave suggested strategies to prepare stu-dents for effective sojourns abroad and tosupport them as language learners while

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abroad as they attempt to communicate,understand local sociocultural practices, andmake useful comparisons. For example,Jackson (2008) described a program inwhich students are provided pre‐sojourntraining in ethnographic techniques of ana-lytic participant‐observation, and Kinginger(2010b) proposed a number of language‐based projects designed to facilitate students’interactions with their local hosts. In discus-sing study abroad in relation to the Commu-nities Standard, Allen and Dupuy (2012)outlined a number of related suggestions,from the use of telecollaborative courses andother social networking resources to linkstudents with peers abroad before andafter they go to explicit links betweenclassroom and community in the studyabroad curriculum.

While both general advice and specificstrategies to engage learners in host com-munities are certainly useful, the currentreview of the literature suggests that thisengagement can be daunting in ways that areinfrequently examined and that generallyattract little pedagogical focus. When stu-dents encounter challenges not only to theirlanguage skills but also to their sense of self,that is, their identity, simply enjoining themto become more engaged or less judgmentalmay not be sufficient. Rather, students canbenefit from explicit instruction on thepragmatic aspects of language and therelationship between these aspects and thepresentation of self.

Van Compernolle (2012, in press) illus-trates how a “sociolinguistically responsivepedagogy” (van Compernolle, 2010) aims toacquaint students with the notion thatstylistic variation (in this case, the Frenchvariable use of tu versus vous, nous versus on,and the presence or absence of ne) serves as aresource for the construction of socialmeaning and identity. Pedagogical ap-proaches to these important forms havetraditionally relied on informal rules ofthumb or have assumed that the forms areonly learnable through repeated exposure innaturalistic contexts. Inspired by Vygotsky’s(1986) understanding of scientific, as op-

posed to everyday, concepts as the focus ofteaching, van Compernolle organized acourse of instruction beginning not withthe forms but with the concepts that theyindex: self‐presentation, social distance, andpower. As a consequence of this instruction,which included both overt instruction andopportunities for assisted performance (vanCompernolle & Kinginger, 2013), thestudents developed their sociolinguisticagency:

Sociolinguistic agency … consists of anunderstanding of how the use of onelinguistic variant or another simulta-neously reflects and creates the contextin which it is used, is a performance ofone’s social identity at the time ofutterance, and affects one’s environ-ment and interlocutor(s). (van Com-pernolle & Williams, 2012, p. 237)

The notion of sociolinguistic agency issignificant not only for pedagogy but also forassessment. Knowing, for example, thatstudents may perform in a native‐like waywithout appreciating the local meaning oftheir utterances, as illustrated in Shively(2011), or that they may avoid certain formsfor more‐or‐less well‐informed personalreasons, as demonstrated by Masuda(2011), then it is quite clear that assessmentsbased on performance alone are not suffi-cient. Assessing student knowledge of L2pragmatics should take into account notonly what students can do, but also whatmotives and meanings are assigned to thisperformance, and the degree to which thesereflect a sophisticated interpretation of theiruse in the local contexts the students haveexperienced.

Implications for ResearchThe research on identity and languagelearning abroad is extensive, such that thisarticle can only claim to represent a selectedsample of investigations. However, thereare several major limitations and gapsin the research base. Most obvious isthe continued overemphasis on Americanstudents, though some important


correctives have appeared since Block’s(2007b) contribution in the form of studiesabout different populations. Less obviousbut just as regrettable has been the tendencyof researchers to limit the scope of theirstudies to the perspectives of students,leaving the host communities’ point ofview out of the picture. Novice participantsin any community are by definition unawareof the local meanings of social phenomena,including language use. When researchersreport only what students have to say, theresult is a body of literature about what isperceived to be wrong with the rest of theworld.

Apart from these, another problem in theliterature has been the inattention to socialclass, race, and sexuality. As Block hasrecently claimed (2012), social class can beinterpreted as the key variable influencinglanguage learning, yet it is virtually absentfrom applied linguistics research. Historically,study abroad has clearly been a class‐inflectedactivity, involving class‐related aspirations,and a population overwhelmingly of middle‐class origin (e.g., Levenstein, 2004). Studyabroad is also a commodity marketed specifi-cally in response to those aspirations, whetheror not they involve learning, and should bestudied as such. In reviewing the literature, itappears that the only research in which socialclass background plays a role has been Anya’s(2011) consideration of the interaction of raceand relatively privileged social class forAfrican American learners of Portuguese,and Kinginger (2004), a case study of anAmerican working‐class woman’s quest foran enhanced, French‐mediated identity.3 Asfor the influence of race on study abroad,again there have been few studies, namelyAnya (2011) and Talburt and Stewart(1999). The role of sexuality has recentlyattracted some attention, specifically inTakahashi’s (2013) ethnographic study ofJapanesewomen’s pursuit of desire (akogare)for English through intimate relationshipswith English‐speaking men in Australia.There is also Anya’s (2011) case study of“Didier’s” struggle to understand the ambig-uous performance of gender among Afro‐

Brazilian men on a backdrop of rigidheteronormativity in his African Americancohort. Otherwise, the research has revealedvery little, although in Coleman’s study onthe experiences of British students inSenegal, participants were asked about theirintimate relationships. Twenty‐one of the 45participants formed a new intimate relation-ship during their sojourn abroad, and ofthese, 10 involved Senegalese partners. InColeman’s words, “if seen less as an indexicalcharacteristic and more as a languagelearning strategy, sex perhaps deservesmore attention in study abroad research”(Coleman, 2013, p. 35).

In terms of the research on pragmatics,the understanding that human agency, thuspersonal choices, are involved casts ashadow on the interpretation of studiesexamining only the differences betweenlearners’ performance and that of nativespeakers. If researchers do not probe thelearners’ reasoning and intentions in choos-ing particular forms, there is simply no wayto discover whether the forms are dis‐preferred or simply unknown to them.

It follows that future research shouldattempt to address these gaps, representingthe experiences of a broader range ofstudents, questioning students’ motives forparticular language‐related choices, andattending to aspects of identity that are ofclear relevance but have remained unexam-ined. Research on the qualities of studyabroad experiences should at the very leastbe interpreted with sensitivity to hostcommunities and would be very muchenhanced if research designs became collab-orative across the contexts under study.

AcknowledgmentThis research was supported by a grant fromthe U.S. Department of Education (CFDA84.229, P229A020010) to the Center forAdvanced Language Proficiency Educationand Research at The Pennsylvania StateUniversity. However, the contents do notnecessarily represent the policy of the U.S.Department of Education, and one should

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not assume endorsement by the federalgovernment.

Notes1. As Dewaele (2012) observed, the how‐

are‐you routine has been the subject ofprevious research on cross‐cultural en-counters:Un locuteur, natif ou non‐natif, peut sesentir momentanément incapable d’identi-fier un script si l’ouverture n’est pasprototypique dans la L1 ou si l’identifica-tion est erronée à cause d’une similaritéapparente avec l’ouverture dans une autrelangue connue par le locuteur. Béal …

présente un exemple d’une telle situation: le« How are you? » (Comment allez‐vous?)prononcé par des marchands australiensn’est pas véritablement une requête d’in-formation, comme elle pourrait l’être enfrançais, mais simplement une salutation.Une Française remarqua: «J’avais re-marqué chez les commerçants, on vousdemande comment ça va, ils s’en foutent!»(Dewaele, 2012, p. 201)[A native or nonnative speaker may feelmomentarily incapable of identifying ascript if the opening is not prototypical inthe L1 or if identification is erroneousbecause of a surface‐level similarity to anopening in another language known tothe speaker. Béal… presents an exampleof such a situation: the “How are you?”pronounced by Australian merchants isnot really a request for information, as itcould be in French. A French womannoted: “I had noticed that, in stores theyask you how you are but they don’t give ad–‐!]

2. Some evidence to the contrary waspresented in Dewaele’s (2012) datafrom “Anne‐Marie,” a British womanwho had spent three years in Japan:Anne‐Marie (L1 anglais, L2 japonais,dominante en anglais): As I lived in Japanfor three years I feel that I have adopted alot of Japanese characteristics. In fact Isometimes feel that I fit more comfort-

ably into Japanese society than British.…Collectivist cultures tend to place moreemphasis on encouraging harmony with-in a group and favour indirect verbalcommunication to direct. While in JapanI got used to the concept of indirectverbal communication, which was finewhile I lived in Japan, but causedproblems when I returned to work inthe UK. … The first was when I firstjoined the company (in Newcastle) andmany colleagues would say “Wow, youcan speak Japanese. That’s fantastic. Youmust be really clever!” To which I wouldsay, “No, actually I’mnot very good at all.In fact I have a lot to learn and shouldhave studied harder.” In Japan this wouldbe considered normal, but in England itresulted in people thinking that I couldnot speak Japanese very well. I have triedto be excessively humble when talkingabout my Japanese ability, but feel that itis too ingrained in my way of thinkingnow. (pp. 210–211)

3. Social class also emerged as relevant tothe case of “Benjamin” in Kinginger andFarrell (2004). An American student ofFrench, Benjamin was housed in Paris atthe home of a baron and baroness,spending weekends at the family châteauand participating in dinner table con-versations about philosophical topics.Benjamin developed considerable aware-ness of the pragmatics of address forms(tu versus vous) and, presumably havingobserved similar practices in the home-stay, chose vous in deliberate violation ofconvention in order to index his conser-vative values and higher class affiliation.

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Submitted January 28, 2013

Accepted May 23, 2013

358 FALL 2013

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited withoutpermission.

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