Abstract Summary
Drawing upon the concepts of investment (Norton, 2010) and translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013), this study examines the ways university students and graduates consolidate translingual competence after study abroad by applying previously-developed L2 literacy and identities in literacy practices during job hunting and at work.
Abstract :
Reconceptualizing language learning and use as socially situated processes, a lot of study abroad (SA) research have investigated university students’ socialization into overseas academic and social contexts (cf. Block, 2003; Kinginger, 2013). However, the long-term effects of students’ overseas L2 socialization experiences on their literacy development, identity negotiations and career formation beyond SA have not been explored comprehensively. Given the growing sociolinguistic awareness about languages as mobile resources in a globalized world (Blommaert, 2010), it is crucial for such post-SA research to consider the processes through which post-SA students merge different language resources in situated interactions for new meaning construction (cf. Canagarajah, 2013). Drawing upon the concepts of investment (Norton, 2010) and translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013), this study examines the ways former SA participants consolidate their translingual competence by applying previously-developed L2 literacy and identities in literacy practices after SA. The focus of this study is also placed on the relationships between their development of translingual competence and their investment in their career development through job hunting and at work. Based on a longitudinal case study of five university graduates who undertook a one-academic-year SA during their undergraduate study, this study collected the qualitative data through open-ended questionnaires and follow-up interviews at several different stages, including after job hunting, after three months, one year, and a few years of employment. The findings demonstrated that participants’ investments in discursive literacy practices both in L1 and L2 enabled them to develop situated literacy and identities translingually at several different post-SA career development stages. This study also indicates that translingual competence is co-constructed and involves socially situated processes of responding to recurrent literacy practices by revealing the ways they not only noted and evaluated the norms of situated interactions but also negotiated senses of selves in their communities of practice.
