The lived experience of becoming a user of a foreign language
Perez Cavana, M.L. (The Open University)
Learning a foreign language is a complex and challenging process that affects the whole person. A significant number of studies have researched the relationship between language and identity, in particular in naturalistic contexts such as migrants; this topic has been scarcely studied in the field of formal language learning. This study is part of a larger longitudinal project to explore the experiences, attitudes and changes of those learning a foreign language in higher education from its beginning and following the learners as they progress for a period of seven years. Within this project I aim to explore the lived experience of students learning a second language. The aim is to gather rich detailed lived descriptions around the following questions: What sort of feelings does a person experience when starting to learn a foreign language? How does their body feel inhabiting a new language? How does the sense of self feel? How does the response of others influence the learners?
Based on lived experience descriptions and phenomenological reflection this paper presents the insights from the first interviews and discusses the challenging aspects of this project: working with and around language and the longitudinal character of this investigation.
Learning a foreign language is a complex and challenging process that affects the whole person. A significant number of studies have researched the relationship between language and identity, in particular in naturalistic contexts such as migrants; this topic has been scarcely studied in the field of formal language learning. This study is part of a larger longitudinal project to explore the experiences, attitudes and changes of those learning a foreign language in higher education from its beginning and following the learners as they progress for a period of seven years. Within this project I aim to explore the lived experience of students learning a second language. The aim is to gather rich detailed lived descriptions around the following questions: What sort of feelings does a person experience when starting to learn a foreign language? How does their body feel inhabiting a new language? How does the sense of self feel? How does the response of others influence the learners?
Based on lived experience descriptions and phenomenological reflection this paper presents the insights from the first interviews and discusses the challenging aspects of this project: working with and around language and the longitudinal character of this investigation.
WE give life to: An existential approach to metaphor understanding
Salehi Kahrizsangi, F. (University of Ottawa)
Informed by Gadamer’s metaphor of homecoming (Gadamer & Silverman, 1991), this paper proposes an existential approach to metaphor understanding in second language. Rooted in the concept of Bildung (Gadamer, 1975), homecoming involves understander’s excursion from the familiar (self) into the alien (other). Familiarity, a condition of being at home in the world, and strangeness, an experience of disorientation, are considered as our modes of existing in the world (Gadamer & Silverman, 1991). This liminal situation in the world, our existential tension between our feeling ‘at home’ and feeling ‘in exile’, makes understanding possible (Gadamer, 1975). All understanding thus leads to self-understanding, so that understanding metaphors is twined with our existential understanding. Homecoming or understanding, the reversal from the initial alienness of the home into a familiar home, happens when the understander feels at home, or identifies an unrecognized possibility of himself (Gadamer & Silverman, 1991). Using Gadamer’s philosophy, I investigate students’ existential understanding of metaphors. As part of my PhD project, I investigate how university students from different linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds understand English metaphors. I look at students’ self-understanding as incorporated in their interpretations for metaphors. To do so, I invite students to interpret a metaphorical poem The Road Not Taken (Frost, 1916). The liminal structure of the poem helps me to track students’ self-understanding in their interpretations for metaphors. I will illustrate the existential aspect of metaphor understanding using data from my ongoing research project.
Informed by Gadamer’s metaphor of homecoming (Gadamer & Silverman, 1991), this paper proposes an existential approach to metaphor understanding in second language. Rooted in the concept of Bildung (Gadamer, 1975), homecoming involves understander’s excursion from the familiar (self) into the alien (other). Familiarity, a condition of being at home in the world, and strangeness, an experience of disorientation, are considered as our modes of existing in the world (Gadamer & Silverman, 1991). This liminal situation in the world, our existential tension between our feeling ‘at home’ and feeling ‘in exile’, makes understanding possible (Gadamer, 1975). All understanding thus leads to self-understanding, so that understanding metaphors is twined with our existential understanding. Homecoming or understanding, the reversal from the initial alienness of the home into a familiar home, happens when the understander feels at home, or identifies an unrecognized possibility of himself (Gadamer & Silverman, 1991). Using Gadamer’s philosophy, I investigate students’ existential understanding of metaphors. As part of my PhD project, I investigate how university students from different linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds understand English metaphors. I look at students’ self-understanding as incorporated in their interpretations for metaphors. To do so, I invite students to interpret a metaphorical poem The Road Not Taken (Frost, 1916). The liminal structure of the poem helps me to track students’ self-understanding in their interpretations for metaphors. I will illustrate the existential aspect of metaphor understanding using data from my ongoing research project.
Use of epistemological lenses on the ambiguity of reflective practice: What is it to reflect on experience?
Tamai, K. (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies)
This presentation attempts to challenge the stigmatic ambiguity of the reflective practice by discussing the characteristics of ‘reflection’ in connection with ‘experience’. Identifying that reflection is an act directed to experience, the author approaches the essential features of reflective practice by explicating the notion of ‘experience.’
The discussion takes two steps. First, various definitions of reflection from such different fields as education, nursing, theatrical performance and language teaching are chosen and compared based on such categories as context, sources, purposes and methods, then five characteristic features of reflection are extracted. With these features of reflection in scope, the second step examines the range of the concept of experience focusing on its depth, broadness and dynamics. Discussion is going to be made from such angles as experiential, phenomenological, critical, cultural, narrative and processual perspectives.
What emerge through the discussion are: 1) Reflection is an act directed toward experience, 2) reflective practice is a process of making sense of an experience, 3) experience is a complex, multi-dimensional and dynamic process which is always open to new understanding, 4) the complexity and multi-dimensional feature of experience may be a reason of versatile definitions and theoretical ambiguity of reflective practice., 5) due to this complexity and multi-dimensionality of experience, practitioner-researchers are expected of articulating his/her own epistemological framework to view experience, 6) use of versatile available theories will help achieving richer accounts of experience, 7) we need to be aware of the use of multiple perspectives to approach experience through reflective practice.
Thus existence of versatile definition on ‘reflection’ should not be thought problematic. More important is whether or not researchers and practitioners are aware of how they view the experience: their use of epistemological lenses.
This presentation attempts to challenge the stigmatic ambiguity of the reflective practice by discussing the characteristics of ‘reflection’ in connection with ‘experience’. Identifying that reflection is an act directed to experience, the author approaches the essential features of reflective practice by explicating the notion of ‘experience.’
The discussion takes two steps. First, various definitions of reflection from such different fields as education, nursing, theatrical performance and language teaching are chosen and compared based on such categories as context, sources, purposes and methods, then five characteristic features of reflection are extracted. With these features of reflection in scope, the second step examines the range of the concept of experience focusing on its depth, broadness and dynamics. Discussion is going to be made from such angles as experiential, phenomenological, critical, cultural, narrative and processual perspectives.
What emerge through the discussion are: 1) Reflection is an act directed toward experience, 2) reflective practice is a process of making sense of an experience, 3) experience is a complex, multi-dimensional and dynamic process which is always open to new understanding, 4) the complexity and multi-dimensional feature of experience may be a reason of versatile definitions and theoretical ambiguity of reflective practice., 5) due to this complexity and multi-dimensionality of experience, practitioner-researchers are expected of articulating his/her own epistemological framework to view experience, 6) use of versatile available theories will help achieving richer accounts of experience, 7) we need to be aware of the use of multiple perspectives to approach experience through reflective practice.
Thus existence of versatile definition on ‘reflection’ should not be thought problematic. More important is whether or not researchers and practitioners are aware of how they view the experience: their use of epistemological lenses.