Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 1992 Sojourner Adjustment : A Diary Study Susan Elizabeth Hemstreet Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Applied Linguistics Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Hemstreet, Susan Elizabeth, "Sojourner Adjustment : A Diary Study" (1992). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4377. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.6261 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible:
[email protected]. AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Susan Elizabeth Hemstreet for the Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages presented January 21, 1992. Title: Sojourner Adjustment: A Diary Study. APPROVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE THESIS COMMITTEE: Maqone ~. Terdal, Chair Suwako Watanabe The focus of the ethnographic diary study is introduced and contextualized in the opening chapter with a site description. The thesis examines the diaries written during a sojourn of over two years in Japan . and proposes to answer the question, "How did the sojourner's initial maladjustment subsequently develop into satisfactory adjustment?" 2 The literature on diary studies, culture shock and sojourner adjustment is reviewed in order to establish standards of the diary study genre and a framework from which to analyze the diary. Using the qualitative methods of a diary study, salient themes of the adjustment are examined. The diarist's progression through the adjustment stages as proposed by the literature is supported, and the coping strategies of escapism, reaching out to people, writing, positive thinking, religious beliefs, compulsive behaviors, goal-setting and seeing the experience as finite are discussed in depth.