Becoming/being a care worker: personality in a language training for migrant job seekers in Flanders

IF 1.1 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS
S. Nyssen
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Abstract

In this article I will describe how personality was mobilized during a Dutch language course that prepared job seekers for the care sector. I show how more than language competences, what was valued was who someone was as a person. While the emphasis on job seekers’ personality in the context of a language course that prepared for an education and subsequent job in the care sector, is, on the one hand, in line with the general attention for the worker as a person and more specifically for what is generally referred to as soft skills, I show that the understanding of personality in the course also differs from how soft skills is generally understood: personality was seen as a stable essence, where potential for improvement was deemed to be limited. This view on personality can be associated with the history of care work and the morality attached to it, for which selection of workers is deemed necessary. Moreover, as I have shown, while personality is thought of as an abstract term that can be applied to categorize individuals separately from the specific context or from cultural or political influences, the type of personality that was required for a care worker was coded as feminine and associated with certain types of people along racialized lines. As such, there is an unequal distribution among which people are deemed suitable for care work. By demonstrating the effects of this specific understanding of personality, I also argue that it is important for language scholars to pay attention to such notions themselves, rather than to focus merely on their communication.
成为一名护理人员:佛兰德移民求职者语言培训中的人格魅力
在本文中,我将描述在为护理行业求职者准备的荷兰语课程中,人格是如何被调动起来的。我将向读者展示,除了语言能力之外,求职者的人格是如何受到重视的。一方面,在语言课程的背景下强调求职者的个性,是为在护理行业接受教育和随后的工作做准备,这与对工人作为一个人的普遍关注是一致的,更具体地说,是对通常所说的软技能的关注,但我要说明的是,在课程中对个性的理解也不同于对软技能的普遍理解:个性被视为一种稳定的本质,改进的潜力被认为是有限的。这种对个性的看法与护理工作的历史及其所附带的道德观念有关,因为人们认为有必要对护理人员进行甄选。此外,正如我所表明的那样,虽然人格被认为是一个抽象的术语,可用于将个人与具体环境或文化或政治影响分开进行分类,但护理工作者所需的人格类型被编码为女性化,并与种族化的某些类型的人联系在一起。因此,被认为适合从事护理工作的人群分布不均。通过展示这种对人格的特定理解所产生的影响,我还认为,语言学者必须关注这种观念本身,而不是仅仅关注其传播。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
International Journal of the Sociology of Language Arts and Humanities-Language and Linguistics
CiteScore
2.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
66
期刊介绍: The International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL) is dedicated to the development of the sociology of language as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches – theoretical and empirical – supplement and complement each other, contributing thereby to the growth of language-related knowledge, applications, values and sensitivities. Five of the journal''s annual issues are topically focused, all of the articles in such issues being commissioned in advance, after acceptance of proposals. One annual issue is reserved for single articles on the sociology of language. Selected issues throughout the year also feature a contribution on small languages and small language communities.
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