DOCT MOZHG OR MOZHGAN ZACHRISON AN AL ZA THESIS C INVISIBLE VOICES HRISON IN This book attempts to provide an understanding of non-linguistic ETHNIC Understanding the Sociocultural Influences on aspects involved in teaching, learning, and using a second language. Adult Migrants’ Second Language Learning and With the help of qualitative interviews and conversations, this AND Communicative Interaction book sheds light on how three perspectives interact and affect adult migrants’ learning milieu, attitudes to, and motivation for learning MIGR and using the Swedish language. These perspectives are a) the teaching A TION context, b) migrants’ living environment and life conditions, and c) S the sociocultural influences involved in communicative situations. TUDIES Adult migrants, especially at the beginning of their stay in Sweden, constantly hover between different social realities while organizing a 20 1 new life in an unknown country. Longing for home, having feelings of 4 displacement, and discovering and adjusting to the unwritten rules of INVISIBLE the migration country become a difficult challenge. In such a situation contact with people with a similar background and with the home country isolates the migrant from the Swedish language and Swedish V OICES society, at the same time as it is a survival mechanism. Similarly, a monocultural teaching approach that is isolated from learners’ social reality contributes to the feelings of alienation and ineptitude. As a result, there is a risk that the attitudes toward, and the motivation for, learning and using the Swedish language will not be prioritized and that adult migrants will continue to prefer to manage their lives without the Swedish language by relying on their access to other communities (i.e., their social capital). MALMÖ UNIVERSIT Y ISBN 978-91-7519-271-0 ISBN 978-91-7104-591-1 20 1 ISSN 0282-9800 ISSN 1652-3997 4 INVISIBLE VOICES Malmö Studies in International Migration and Ethnic Relations No. 12, 2014 Linköping Studies in Art and Sciences No. 626, 2014 © Mozhgan Zachrison 2014 Foto: Elisabeth von Essen ISBN (tryck) 978-91-7104-591-1 (Malmö) ISBN (pdf) 978-91-7104-592-8 (Malmö) ISSN 1652-3997 (Malmö) ISBN 978-91-7519-271-0 (Linköping) ISSN 0282-9800 (Linköping) Holmbergs, Malmö 2014 MOZHGAN ZACHRISON INVISIBLE VOICES Understanding the Sociocultural Influences on Adult Migrants’ Second Language Learning and Communicative Interaction Malmö University 2014 Linköping University 2014 This publication is also available at: www.mah.se/muep To my mother, the woman behind me ABSTRACT This dissertation is a qualitative study exploring the sociocultural influences on adult migrants’ second language learning and the communicative interaction through which they use the language. Guided by a theoretical perspective based on the concepts of life- world, habitus, social capital, symbolic honor, game, and the idea of the interrelatedness of learning and using a second language, this study aims to understand how migrants’ everyday life context, attachments to the home country, and ethnic affiliations affect the motivation for and attitude towards learning and using Swedish as a second language. Furthermore, the study explores in what way the context within which the language is taught and learned might affect the language development of adult migrants. The research questions of the study focus on both the institutional context, that is to say, what happened in a particular classroom where the study observations took place, and a migrant perspective based on the participants’ experiences of living in Sweden, learning the language and using it. Semi-structured interviews, informal conversational interviews, and classroom observations have been used as strategies to obtain qualitative data. The findings suggest that most of the participants experience feelings of non-belonging and otherness both in the classroom context and outside the classroom when they use the language. These feelings of non-belonging make the ties to other ethnic establishments stronger and lead to isolation from the majority society. The feelings of otherness, per se, are not only related to a pedagogical context that advocates monoculturalism but are also rooted in the migrants’ life-world, embedded in dreams of going back to the home country, while forging a constant relation to ethnic networks, and in the practice of not using the Swedish language as frequently in the everyday life context as would be needed for their language development. Keywords: Adult migrants, second language learning, communicative interaction, sociocultural context, life-world, habitus, symbolic capital, social capital TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................... 11 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 13 Background ........................................................................ 13 Adult Migrants’ Language Education in Sweden .................. 17 Research Problem: Focusing on Non-Linguistic Determinants of Language Acquisition ................................ 20 Purpose and Questions .................................................... 22 Disposition ..................................................................... 24 Previous Research ................................................................ 25 School as a Vehicle for Otherization .................................. 25 Focus on Second Language Learning in a Social Context ...... 28 The Cultural Domination in School ..................................... 31 International Research: Second Language Learning, Diversity, and Migration Societies ...................................... 33 Research Contribution ...................................................... 36 The Use of Certain Concepts ................................................. 36 Culture ........................................................................... 36 Communicative Competence ............................................. 39 Motivation ...................................................................... 40 2.METHODOLOGICAL DISCUSSION ............................... 42 The Design of the Study: The Two Groups of Informants ............ 42 1. Language Learners at the Basic Adult Education .............. 42 Group Discussions at the BAE ........................................... 43 Observations at the BAE ................................................... 46 Home Visits .................................................................... 47 2. Malmö University Students ........................................... 48 Interviews with Teachers at BAE ........................................ 49 A Qualitative Study ......................................................... 49 Qualitative Research Interviews ........................................ 52 Informal Conversational Interviews .................................... 55 Methodological Considerations ........................................ 56 ‘Helping the Participants to Deliver’ ................................... 57 The Hermeneutic Approach .............................................. 59 Data Analysis ................................................................. 62 Researcher Bias .............................................................. 63 Stranger, Friend, or Traveller? .......................................... 65 3.CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ....................................... 68 Life-World ...................................................................... 70 Different and Multiple Life-Worlds ..................................... 72 Life-World and Diaspora ................................................... 78 Habitus and Reproduction ................................................ 79 Social Capital ................................................................ 83 Symbolic Capital ............................................................ 86 Game ........................................................................... 89 INTERPRETING THE EMPIRICAL FINDINGS ................................ 94 4.THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK: LANGUAGE EDUCATION FOR ADULT MIGRANTS ....................................... 95 Introduction.................................................................... 95 The Perception of ‘Good Swedish’ .................................... 97 The Monocultural Classroom in a Multicultural Society ....... 106 The Lack of Connection between Teaching and the Learners’ Social Reality and Cognitive Condition .............. 112 The Role of the Teachers ................................................ 118 Learning Good Swedish Out There in Society ................... 125 The Role of Teachers in Understanding a Diverse Classroom ................................................................... 131 Conclusion .................................................................. 134 5.LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE WHILE DEALING WITH POST MIGRATION ISSUES .................................. 140 Introduction.................................................................. 141 Feelings of Displacement and Longing for the Familiar ....... 142 ‘Between Worlds’ .......................................................... 146 The Need to Belong to a ‘We-Group’ ............................... 151 Ambivalence, Ambiguity, and Finding Confidence ............. 156 Feelings of Imprisonment: “I feel like a bird in a cage” ....... 159 The Role of the Past ............................................................ 163 “Life was beautiful there despite the fact that