The Multilingual Adolescent Experience by Malgorzata Machowska-Kosciak

Author:Malgorzata Machowska-Kosciak [Machowska-Kosciak, Malgorzata]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Emigration & Immigration, Family & Relationships, Life Stages, Adolescence, Language Arts & Disciplines, Linguistics, Psycholinguistics
ISBN: 9781788927697
Google: 4fT_DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Published: 2020-10-09T05:16:52+00:00

Here, Janek makes the point that he can write longer ‘more complex sentences’ in Polish, whereas in English his sentences are rather ‘flat’ – without much emotional impact.

Between Home and School: Two Persons in One?

It can be debated here whether Janek’s ‘not sufficient’ or limited participation and completion of writing activities is related to a fear of being singled out, limited language proficiency (strong B2+ CEFR) or his personal choice of not sharing the same affective stances as his peers. When we consider the second example in which Janek reveals that ‘personal reasons/matters’ are restricting him from writing longer texts in English, but not in Polish, we come to realize that some other factors may be at play.

This chapter has shown that there are emotional discontinuities between home and school literacy practices. Minority language adolescents often perceive the same things differently from their majority language peers. It also happens that reading and writing in an L2 has a different emotional hold for them as a result of former socialization practices through their L1. Young people may invest more of their efforts in activities that are highly valued in a new society as they are sensitive to the relations of power inherent in every society. These differences in perceptions and conceptual and emotional processing may be related to the demands and practices of the society one lives in or one previously lived in. Janek started learning English at the age of 7; however, Polish has remained the language in his home to the present day. Dewaele (2007) contends that emotions caused by similar stimuli may be experienced and expressed differently in different languages and, as a consequence, the same person might be perceived differently by his or her interlocutors. Janek was perceived as a quiet introvert, a science-oriented boy with limited emotional and linguistic expression in English, basically, not expressing his feelings. This was not the case in the Polish weekend school. Thus, the problem of ‘emotional discontinuity’ – the problems caused by the discontinuity between the home environments (including emotional expression) and the school environments and also by home ecologies that are often different from new school ecologies appear when the transition from one mode of being to another takes place (Marcia, 1987). In this situation, an individual needs time to develop his or her own understanding of the new demands that are being imposed on him or her by the new sociocultural and socio-historical circumstances. It is also important to accommodate these new observed ways of being in the world within existing norms and culturally specific values. Moreover, culture and ethnicity have a great impact on the psychological development of adolescents. Being brought up in a different culture and speaking another language may impact general perceptions of the abilities and skills needed to succeed in that culture. Adolescence is a very difficult period for minority adolescents as not only do they start searching for their own unique ‘self’ identity, but also they need to accommodate their ethnic and cultural identity within their own social identity.

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