The Social Lives of Study Abroad

Understanding Second Language Learners' Experiences through Social Network Analysis and Conversation Analysis

Atsushi Hasegawa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138584686
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429013423
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume presents an innovative approach to understanding the language socialization process of second language learners in study abroad programs, focusing on the case of study abroad programs in Japan. Study abroad experiences are so diverse that both macro and micro viewpoints are needed to capture such complexity. This book looks for a way forward by adopting a novel approach which integrates social network analysis and conversation nalysis and allows for a fuller, more nuanced understanding of varying experiences of study abroad participants. Chapters draw on data from a wide range of sources, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, social network surveys, and audio and visual recordings, to demonstrate the ways in which broader social forces, environmental factors, and individuals' dispositions interact in myriad social contexts within the study abroad experience. Taken together, the volume offers readers a comprehensive portrait of social processes in study abroad programs and their implications for language development, making this key reading for students and scholars in second language acquisition, pragmatics, and applied linguistics.

Part I
Preliminaries

1 Introduction

Study Abroad as a Multidimensional Enterprise

Study abroad (SA) is a multidimensional enterprise that encompasses educational, political, economic, cultural, and historical causes and consequences. Over the past decade, SA has been expanding and growing due in part to the so-called globalization phenomenon and its related social values prevailing across the world. According to the Institute of International Education’s annual Open Doors Report (Institute of International Education, 2018), the number of U.S. students who received academic credits from participating in SA increased by 2.3% in the 2016–17 academic year. The total number of sojourners studying in foreign countries has tripled in 20 years. The top destinations are mostly European countries (e.g., United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany), but the diversification of destinations has also been observed with Asian countries, such as Thailand, India, and Japan; Latin American countries, such as Cuba and Mexico; and African countries, such as Morocco and Ghana, attracting a growing number of U.S. students. Similarly, students’ profiles have changed considerably over the past decade. The largest number of SA students are now coming from the STEM field (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), exceeding business and social sciences majors, whereas there has been a noticeable decrease in foreign language and humanities majors. Furthermore, reflecting the diversified fields of study, short-term programs (less than eight weeks) are becoming more popular and viable options for students, as opposed to semester-long or academic-year SA, for which we have seen a dip in the number of participants in the past decade.

With the SA enterprise becoming increasingly accessible and diverse, it has become even more difficult to talk about it as a uniform phenomenon. There appear to be many different forms and goals of SA. Nonetheless, the current momentum of SA as part of educational practice appears to be driven by some shared values and benefits that are presumably attached to SA. For example, personal growth (Dwyer, 2004; Jochum, Rawlings, & Tejada, 2017), cultivating intercultural and global competence (Anderson, Lawton, Rexeisen, & Hubbard, 2006; Jackson, 2008; Miller-Perrin & Thompson, 2014; Murphy, Sahakyan, Yongyi, & Magnan, 2014; Nguyen, 2017; Rose & McKinley, 2017; Tarrant, Rubin, & Stoner, 2015), and advancing academic and career trajectories (Bandyopadhyay & Bandyopadhyay, 2015; Nilsson & Ripmeester, 2016) are all considered to be the expected outcomes of SA for most—if not all—student participants. In this current environment, language acquisition, which used to be the major impetus for SA (Kinginger, 2009), may seem to be no longer part of this big picture (Ogden, 2018). Still, underlying these rationales and benefits is the ability of individuals who can connect with and take an active role in a new community of people of various customs and cultures through skilled communication (The Douglas Fir Group, 2016). I argue that language development that is captured as competent participation in society—the basic conceptualization of language socialization (Kramsch & Steffensen, 2008)—bears much relevance to the current state of SA as a whole, whether or not it is the stated goal of particular programs, or even if the destination of SA is not a country where a foreign/second language is spoken (e.g., American students studying in English-speaking countries). After all, socialization is a lifelong process of development for human beings.

This book presents an empirical study on the processes of second language (L2) socialization (Duff, 2007) by individuals who participated in short-term language-focused SA programs in Japan. This study is framed as second language acquisition (SLA) research, and I expect most readers to be scholars working in this area. However, I hope to start this book by situating SA in a larger context and introducing a broader perspective, which this study is inevitably tied into because SA is a multifaceted enterprise with educational, political, economic, cultural, and historical elements all intertwined in reality.

For example, Japan—the site of this research—is currently undergoing ‘globalization’ of higher education institutions. While there are many political and institutional changes that are being implemented, the most prominent initiative has been the Top Global University Project (スーパーグローバル大学創生支援事業), sponsored by the Japanese government. One of the aims of this multiyear, multimillion-dollar funding program is the “internationalization of Japanese society” (MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology—Japan, 2014) through innovations and efforts of universities. The increased mobility of students and faculty/researchers and the active exchanges with overseas partners are presupposed under this goal. Consequently, in order to increase the accessibility of education for students from other countries, many Japanese universities began offering English as a medium of instruction (EMI) degree programs, in which international students can enroll in courses on various disciplines all conducted in English and graduate with a degree in the respective fields. There are even some universities with complete EMI across campus.

The ‘English turn’ in Japanese universities will certainly raise (and has already raised) the volume of international students on campus and create different dynamics in terms of their interpersonal connections and participation in local communities (Leong, 2016). For local Japanese students, having increased access to international students may create opportunities for learning English and diverse cultures. Yet it may also mean a possible segregation between the two groups—local Japanese and international—because they may not be able to communicate with one another unless they share a lingua franca, which is likely to be English or Japanese. For international students, it means broadened access to education in Japanese universities without going through many hours of Japanese language instruction, but it may also lead to lost opportunities for learning local cultures. As such, there are multitudes of social impacts foreseeable from this political and societal direction. More relevantly, for those who are studying in Japan on short-term programs for the purpose of learning Japanese, like the students examined in this study, this change may yield different impacts in terms of their interpersonal connections and language development. Although the above circumstance is specific to Japan, emerging situations around the world are similar and compatible (e.g., the Erasmus program; Haberland, 2011).

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of State has recently strengthened an administrative commitment to the promotion of outbound SA (Strange & Gibson, 2017). As a nation that has a long history of accepting the largest number of students from overseas but with a relatively low number of outbound students (Gore, 2005), this is an interesting initiative. The following quote is found on the main page of its website, specifically dedicated to the promotion of SA:

Study abroad is a time of great discovery—young Americans experience the world and begin to form networks that will enhance their prospects in the world’s marketplace and their potential as global problem-solvers. Americans who study abroad build understanding as unofficial ambassadors for our country, defining American values and debunking stereotypes.

(USA Study Abroad, 2018)

This statement reflects the said trends, namely, personal growth, cultivating intercultural and global competence, and advancing academic/career trajectories, as the selling points and rationale for SA.

All in all, what becomes crucial in the current and future state of SA in terms of its values and justifications is the ability to relate with people and make interpersonal connections in various forms, regardless of the languages they speak or the specific program goals. In fact, prior research has repeatedly brought up and discussed these issues as general challenges for SA participants, that is, the difficulty of getting acquainted with local people, even with a shared first language (e.g., Wu, Garza, & Guzman, 2015). The sense of isolation or nonintegration into local communities is apparently intensified if the time spent abroad is shorter. Historically, SA has been romanticized as a high-impact educational practice for only the most privileged students who are imagined to succeed in making local friends, participating in a new community, and experiencing an exotic culture (Gore, 2005; Wolcott, 2013). In terms of SLA, it has been enthusiastically envisioned as an acquisition-rich environment where language learning is accelerated, as compared with students at home, through constant use of the target language and immersion into the local culture. However, such a utopian view of SA has been contested and contradicted by many studies, which have called for a more sophisticated and nuanced view of what is actually taking place in SA sites (e.g., Kinginger, 2013; Wang, 2010). Much of the inconclusiveness and inconsistency in the research is attributable to the vast differences in experience that each SA participant undergoes in the respective environments, including, most crucially, their relations with people while abroad (e.g., Kinginger, 2008, 2013). In spite of such a recognition, however, there have been few ventures into the investigation of the process, in which interpersonal relationships develop during the sojourn, with empirical data and solid analytical frameworks. And this gap led to the basis of my research.

On a personal note, I have taught Japanese in several language-intensive summer programs in Japan. These are typical ‘island programs’ (Goodwin & Nacht, 1988), where a cohort of students from the United States spend a summer taking Japanese language courses and experiencing Japan with limited interaction with locals. I remember seeing students having to go through the same dilemmas each summer; that is, of balancing the two goals of making friends, on the one hand, and creating chances to use Japanese, on the other. Accomplishing these two goals appeared to be a very difficult, if not impossible, mission to the students for various reasons. As an instructor, I tried my best to ensure that the students received quality instruction, but when it came to making friends with local Japanese, I felt more or less powerless. There were, of course, various measures and support that the programs offered to help them make friends and experience different sides of Japan, but such a setup did not necessarily lead to satisfactory results. At least, from the viewpoint of a teacher, it appeared so. More often than not, it was the use of English—rather than Japanese—that helped them become acquainted with local Japanese students who wished to improve their English. Ostensibly ‘successful’ students in class in terms of test scores were not the ones who made many Japanese friends and enjoyed the stay the most, whereas those who made extensive connections with local students were not necessarily high achievers in class (they probably resorted to English most of the time). Their social experiences—relational and interactional activities—struck me as both perplexing and intriguing. Over the years, I have developed a curiosity and desire for investigating what was actually happening to these students in Japan. However, the more I read, the more I felt confused because I could not find the information that I was eager to learn about from literature—the process of network formation and interpersonal development and its impact on interaction. As such, this research is motivated also by my struggle and concern as a language teacher.

Foci of the Present Study

This book presents a detailed account of language socialization processes by participants in three short-term SA programs in Japan. I take up two central aspects of language socialization, namely, interpersonal relationships and social interaction, as primary objects of analysis and discuss how these elements are intricately related vis-à-vis opportunities for language development. Interpersonal relationships are an oft-mentioned notion in SA research but rarely analyzed systematically. I employ social network analysis (SNA) to look into the structural properties of not only individual relationships but also of entire program networks and substructures (i.e., groups). For the second element, social interaction, I use conversation analysis (CA) to closely document characteristics of interactional procedures that SA sojourners employ, such as turn-taking, sequence organization, code-switching, and topic management, as well as the use of verbal and nonverbal/nonvocal resources, which all in all constitute their developing interactional competence (Hall & Pekarek Doehler, 2011). These macro-, meso-and microanalytical viewpoints work complementarily in generating the findings, pointing to the interplays of individual dispositions and orientations (e.g., personality, ability, motivation, and identity), participation in social activities, positioning in a social network, and environmental factors. These elements together lead to the creation of unique social experiences for each sojourner.

The main goal of this study is to better understand the process of SA experiences in terms of complex and intertwined social phenomena. More specifically, this study seeks to answer the following overarching questions:

1. How are social networks and groups formed/transformed in short-term SA programs?
2. What influences the ways in which sojourners participate in social networks and groups?
3. What procedures and resources do sojourners use to participate in social activities and interaction?
4. How does participation in social activities and interaction afford opportunities for language development?

Underlying these questions is the view of learning that I envision and endorse in this study; that is, I base my conceptualization of learning on the paradigm of L2 socialization (Duff, 2007). I view (language) development as emerging out of participation in social groups, where various resources and procedures are shared and deployed. Language is only one (but an important one) of such resources and procedures that enable social participation. Therefore, interpersonal relationships, which grant or inhibit access to social entities, are the primary locus to observe and examine how (language) development emerges for SA participants.

Organization of the Book

This book is divided into five parts. Part I lays out the background of the research across three chapters. After this introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents previous research on language learning conducted in SA settings and introduces some key concepts, such as language socialization, social networks, and interactional competence. The chapter also describes various processes of language socialization as identified in the previous research. Chapter 3 presents the methodological side of this study by first discussing the differences and similarities of SNA and CA. The combining of these two analytical frameworks, which allows for capturing different levels of sociality, constitutes one of the novelties of this research. The chapter then presents research sites, participants, data types, and the data collection and analysis procedures.

Part II, which comprises three chapters, examines the process of social network formation and transformation observed in each of the three focal programs. Chapter 4 takes up one particular type of network, namely, the ‘closed network’ formed in Program A, in which rigid program design and environmental factors led to the creation of tight-knit groups of people with a clear boundary within the program. Members of the closed network appeared to influence and be influenced by each other relatively easily because of the social proximity of people within the network. Chapter 5 discusses the opposite type, the ‘open network’ formed in Program B, in which people behaved more or less independently with a more equivocal network boundary. In this network, individual dispositions and orientations differentiated greatly...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Illustrations
• Part I Preliminaries
• Part II Formation and Transformation of Social Networks
• Part III Process of Interpersonal Relationships
• Part IV Participation in Social Interaction
• Part V Understanding Second Language Learners’ Experiences
• Appendices
• References
• Index