Abstract Summary
This subtheme will critically examine linguistic experiences aimed at ‘effortless’ and ‘more authentic’ learning, only achievable through immersing soul and body in socially-engineered spaces. (Re)presented as processes of self-transformation for self-capitalisation, we will discuss their construction and signification for a constellation of actors, many of whom simultaneously producers and consumers.
Abstract :
Underpinned by shifting forms of value creation, contemporary capitalism aims to produce experiences rather than goods, services or knowledge (Pine and Gilmore, 1999). Consuming experiences is a way of adding meaning to one’s life. The (foreign) language teaching industry is not alien to that experiential turn. Playing on and (re)creating learners’ dissatisfaction with achieved proficiency levels, it is constantly developing ‘enhanced’ methods for ‘effortless’ and ‘more authentic’ learning, only achievable through the immersing of soul and body in socially-engineered spaces of interaction often involving ‘native’ speakers. But how are these spaces created? What counts as an authentic immersion space and for whom? What do these experiences promise? What processes of linguistic ideologizing can be identified? How are they linked to forms of subjectification? Experience-based immersion is often (re)presented as a process of self-transformation framed by the neoliberal logics of capital accumulation and maximal profit. Leisure-time linguistic immersion, especially if involving international mobility, aims to metamorphose participants into not only better speakers but also more apt and employable professionals (Gao and Park, 2015) and more responsible citizens. However, the ‘benefits’ of linguistic immersion experiences are not restricted to learners. Immersive spaces engage a complex constellation of social actors, often volunteers or working tourists, who are at once experience producers and consumers. What do these ‘work’ experiences mean for them? What tensions do they have to reconcile? This subtheme will critically examine linguistic experiences in a variety of cultural and socio-geographical settings, and discuss their significance and consequences for the field of language learning as well as for those that engage with them.
Gao, S., & Park, J. S. Y. (2015). Space and language learning under the neoliberal economy. L2 Journal, 7(3), 78–96.
Pine II, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1999). The Experience Economy. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Review Press.
