'I am Italian in the world': a mobile student's story of language learning and ideological becoming. (2nd July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Harvey, Lou
• Is Part Of: Language & intercultural communication. Volume 16:Number 3(2016)
• Page Start: 368
• Page End: 383
• Publication Date: 2016-07-02
• Subjects: Language learning -- intercultural learning -- higher education -- mobile/international students -- dialogism -- ideological becoming; Language and languages -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Intercultural communication -- Periodicals; 306.4405
• DOI: 10.1080/14708477.2016.1168049
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1470-8477

Abstract

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. 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 with the other, enacted in, with and through language, as illustrated in Federica's story of 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 IC.