This presentation reports on a project investigating the study abroad (SA) experiences of Russian academic sojourners in the UK through consideration of identity, voice and ideologies. The main goal of the project is to explore the phenomena of developing voice trajectories through the lens of ideologies within migrant settings, while negotiating identities, simultaneously experiencing and using two (or more) languages and cultures, and dealing with social inequalities.
This project overall contributes to the existing body of work on SA, which has been criticized for its its imbalance and inconsistency (Benson et al., 2013; Badwan, 2015). The practical relevance of the project is determined by the growing number of Russian-born residents in the UK and increasing popularity of SA amongst Russian people. The study therefore addresses a) the previously undocumented experiences of Russian academic sojourners, b) the lack of research on Russian migrants’ identity construction in relation to their sociolinguistic activity and (language) ideologies, and c) the methodological limitations of existing studies.
Drawing on the empirical evidences, in my talk I will report on the process and outcomes of this qualitative longitudinal inquiry conducted through interviews over a period of eight months. While approaching phenomena of voice, identity and ideologies from a number of different theoretical perspectives (incl. Bakhtin, 1963; Hymes, 1996; Couldry, 2010), I will discuss how the sojourners’ conceptual and ideological frameworks are changing over time – specifically highlighting the issues of inequalities as connected to the audibility of (migrants') voice(s). I will also talk about the complex interplay of factors contributing to sojourners’ ideological becoming in the context of sociocultural heterogeneity, linguistic superdiversity and cross-time-and-space mobility.
References
Badwan, K. M. 2015. Negotiating rates of exchange: Arab academic sojourners' sociolinguistic trajectories in the UK. PhD thesis, University of Leeds.
Bakhtin, M.M. 1963. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, (Russian) Moscow:Khudozhestvennaja literatura.
Benson, P., Barkhuizen, G., Bodycott, P., and Brown, J. eds. 2013. Second Language Identity in Narratives of Study Abroad. Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan.
Couldry, N. 2010. Why Voice Matters: Culture And Politics After Neoliberalism. London:SAGE Publications Ltd.
Hymes, D. 1996. Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality: Toward and Understanding of Voice. London:Taylor and Francis.
