The impact of language socialization in the context of family, education, and sojourn on emotional, psychological, and identity responses to language learning

Abstract

The paper examines the impact of language socialization in the context of family, education, and sojourn on multilingual learners’ emotional, psychological, and identity responses to language learning and use. Since language and culture are interwoven in second language acquisition (SLA) (Kramsch, 1998), learners respond to language learning and use on the levels of language and culture, shaping learners’ linguistic, cultural, and social identities on the individual and on the collective levels alike. This classroom research is a qualitative case study involving four cohorts of learners in a multicultural classroom: 1) students having learned English only in the formal context of education, 2) learners having grown up in a multicultural and multilingual environment speaking several languages including English, 3) a learner raised bilingually by a non-native second language (L2)-speaking parent, and 4) a multilingual learner learning languages in formal contexts but also experiencing sojourn. Data were collected via a linguistic autobiography (an unstructured essay) written by the fourteen participants. The findings point out that negative experiences associated with unfavorable teaching methods, discriminative educational practices, or bullying lead to negative emotional, psychological, and identity responses to learning. Learners experience ‘language socialization shock’ when a sudden change occurs in their language socialization processes – irrespective of whether the change is positive or negative. In an effort to attain positive experiences and self-fulfillment via language learning and use, learners rid themselves of the old socialization context haunted by negative experiences by moving on to a new socialization context or by learning a different foreign language through which they can ‘start over’. The findings also point out some of the long-term psychological and social effects of raising bilingual children by non-native L2-speaking parents and the impact of multilingual and multicultural socialization contexts on learners’ linguistic and life choices that transform their lives. / Keywords: language ecology, language socialization, identity, emotions, bilingualism, multilingualism, multicultural classrooms, psychological well-being, language learning, sojourn, classroom research