przygotowanie studentów do udziału w wymianach międzynarodowych
1. International students and Emotions: A brief literature overview
Emotions constitute a vital part of life as they enable people to function effectively in the language, culture and society they are part of. The globalized world “has brought about unprecedented access to information, global con-versations and relationships” (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013, p. 8). According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (https://en.unesco.org), the number of students participating in transnational education has jumped from 0.8 mil-lion students in 1975, to a staggering 4.1 milmil-lion students in 2013. As the UNESCO data are six years old, we can assume a much larger number today, especially when we consider the growth of individual countries. Australia, with its dynamic story of transnational education, provides a very interesting example of this progression. In 2018, there were 693,750 students on a student
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visa in Australia – 10.7% more than were registered in 2017. The largest group (46%) included 399,078 students enrolled at Australian universities. This increase is consistent with the average 10.1% annual growth noted over the last ten years (internationaleducation.gov.au). Study abroad programs offer increasing opportunities for communication between students with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Often, this communication takes place between interlocutors who do not share the same first language (L1) or the same first culture (C1) (Stavans & Hoffman, 2014). Lorette & Dewaele (2015, p. 62) note that:both the expression of one’s own emotional state and the comprehension of others’ emotional states appear to be less intuitive when the communication occurs in a foreign language (LX) than when the communication occurs in an L1.
On the one hand, it is important to point out that the ability to understand the emotional state of one’s interlocutor is critical for interpreting the content of that interlocutor’s utterances. On the other hand, the proposition expressed by a speaker could be interpreted very differently depending on the speaker’s affec-tive orientation regarding this proposition (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1989; Lorette
& Dewaele, 2015, p. 62). The fact that languages differ significantly in terms of both emotional expression and in cultural scripts suggesting how people should feel or express their emotions is central for successful communication (Wierzbicka, 1999, p. 240). Consequently, in order to successfully communicate in the second/additional language, learners should master not only linguistic competence but also a sociolinguistic and sociocultural one. Regan, Howard
& Lemée (2009, p. 3) support this idea with the following statement:
In our globalized multicultural/multilingual world, communities are con-stantly shifting and individuals move in and out of them. People need to adapt to that constant shift in communities and find their own place in the speech community which they currently inhabit. Knowledge of grammatical and structural elements of the L2 is only a part of the skills and competen-cies which are necessary for this process of adaptation; sociolinguistic and sociocultural competences are equally important. These competences condi-tion the L2 speakers’ view of themselves in the L2 speech community, their view of their own community as well as the way they are perceived by the L2 community in turn, and this consequently affects the place they occupy in that community or communities and their progress through it.
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32 / Katarzyna Ożańska-Ponikwia, Beata Webb
As pointed out by Regan et al. (2009), the competences necessary for be-ing a successful member of any speech community cannot be limited to the knowledge of the grammatical and structural elements. Successful speech community members must, therefore, develop sociolinguistic and sociocul-tural competences which go beyond the knowledge of grammar or vocabulary.
Learner knowledge limited to formal language concepts is insufficient, as learn-ers must develop skills allowing them to negotiate meanings across languages and cultures in order to position themselves within a speech community (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013, p. 8; Malczewska-Webb, 2014).
Emotions form an intrinsic part of these sociolinguistic and sociocul-tural competencies, as researchers suggest that emotions are influenced and shaped by language and culture (Frijda, 1986; Lutz 1988; Matsumoto, 1994;
2006; Rosaldo 1984; Wierzbicka, 1999; cf. Ożańska-Ponikwia, 2012a, 2013;
Malczew ska-Webb, 2016). Rosaldo (1984, p. 304) states that emotions are
“self-concerning, partly physical responses that are at the same time aspects of a moral and ideological attitude; emotions are feelings and cognitive construc-tions, linking person, action, and sociological milieu.” This suggests that emo-tions are not isolated mental states but that they are deeply rooted in language and culture (Ożańska-Ponikwia, 2013; Malczewska-Webb, 2016). In line with Rosaldo, Wierzbicka (2004, p. 98) wrote that “different languages are linked with different ways of thinking as well as different ways of feeling; they are linked with different attitudes, different ways of relating to people, different ways of expressing one’s feelings.” Additionally, Matsumoto (2006, p. 422) stressed the importance of the relationship between culture and emotions, as culture shapes the perception and the expression of emotions through the social constructions of reality:
Because cultural worldviews can differ across cultures, they can help to con-struct different self-concepts in people of different cultures. Like the concept of the self (Markus, 1977), which is also a social construction, cultural worldviews are ideological belief systems that individuals use as guidelines to explain their and others’ behaviors. When reappraising events, therefore, it is likely that individuals will tap into these cultural and personal ideolo-gies to retrieve guidelines for ways in which they should evaluate or appraise emotion-eliciting situations.
Research on the relationship between perceiving and expressing emotions across cultures is complex, however, in its interpretations. While the studies
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