A Traveler's Tale : The Experience of Study in a Foreign Language

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

It is generally agreed that language is important. And yet, when we stay in our native tongue, the system of language or the particular language we speak is rarely at the centre of day-to-day experience. But this is different for foreign students. The experience of having to use a foreign language as the medium of study may be the cause of a variety of difficulties and agonies. As well, such experience may teach the student more valuable lessons and lead to personal growth beyond what learned in the subject of study.
The main question of this study is, "What is it like to study in a foreign language? And what is the pedagogical significance of understanding the lived meanings associated with such experience?" In order to explore some of the possible existential meanings embedded in the experience of studying in a foreign language, this dissertation adopts a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology which is characterized by a resolute commitment to thinking and rethinking about the phenomenon being investigated. This study is also trying to think reflexively and thoughtfully about the experience of studying in a foreign language through the practice of writing and rewriting this text.
In this inquiry, foreign graduate students’ lifeworld experiences are brought into the reflective space where the difficulty, uncertainty, and ambiguity of living and studying in a foreign language can be explored. In a way, what the exploration shows is not so promising and is filled with a great deal of frustration and utter confusion on the part offoreign students. However, even those frustrations and pains may help us understand more deeply their lifeworld, and help us gain more pedagogical confidence in dealing with the problems that they might have?although such pedagogical confidence does not always clearly give us a list of what to do and not to do. Although the study makes no claim to empirical generalization, it aims to provide pedagogical insights into the lives and experiences of others. It may be especially worthwhile to foreign students and their advisers, by bringing forth a more sensitive intersubjective understanding of such possible experiences.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Table of Contents
• CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: PREPARING FOR TRAVEL = 1
• Living and Studying in a Foreign Language = 1
• Perceptive Changes of Reality = 8
• The Research Question = 11
• Curricular Context of the Study = 16
• Significance of the Study = 20
• CHAPTER 2: PHENOMENOLOGY AS A METHODOLOGY: A MODE OF TRANSPORTATION = 22
• Hermeneutic Phenomenology = 22
• Reduction = 26
• The Vocative = 29
• Methods and Procedures = 31
• Using the Personal Experience as a Starting Point = 31
• Obtaining Experiential Descriptions From Others = 32
• Making Use of Professional Authors' Texts = 34
• Consulting Phenomenological Literature = 35
• A Travel Metaphor: The Vessel of the Study = 36
• Outline of the Study = 40
• CHAPTER 3: LANGUAGE, HOME AND ABROAD: THE ROADMAP OF THE TRAVEL = 42
• Language and Human Being = 42
• Alternative Views of Language = 48
• Language and Thinking = 56
• Home and Abroad = 59
• CHAPTER 4: LIVED EXPERIENCE OF STUDY ABROAD IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: TRAVEL THROUGH THE MAPPED REGION = 62
• Lived Experience of Place = 62
• Not Belonging Here = 63
• Becoming an Outsider = 67
• Being on the Margin = 69
• Lived Experience of Time = 72
• The Unacceptable Present = 74
• The Fossilized Past = 76
• The Future Without Guarantee = 79
• Lived Experience of Body = 81
• Ceaseless Tension = 82
• Lost Spontaneity of Response = 85
• I Am Nobody; I Have No-Body = 89
• Lived Experience of Self and Others = 91
• Deprived Sense of Self or Self-Discovery? = 93
• Being a Foreigner = 95
• Being a Child Again = 97
• Lost Sense of Humor 99
• Becoming a Serious Person = 102
• CHAPTER 5: LIVED EXPERIENCE OF STUDY ABROAD IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: REVISITING = 105
• Lost in Translation = 105
• Being and Becoming = 108
• Dialectic Between Home and Abroad, Mother Tongue and Foreign Language = 111
• CHAPTER 6: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS: THE TRAVELER'S RECORD = 115
• Pedagogy as "Seeing" the Possibility c = 115
• Difference as a Source of Empowering = 117
• On the Margin, We Can See More = 119
• Enriching the World in Which We Live = 122
• Making a Reflective Space: Writing = 125
• CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION: SETTING OFF ON A NEW TRAVEL = 131
• Personal Reminiscence of the Travel = 132
• Setting Off on a New Travel = 135
• REFERENCES = 140