Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 484

Part of Session 129: Multilingualism and emotions in urban settings (Other abstracts in this session)

Silencing emotions in the language classroom

Authors: Ros i Sole, Cristina (1); Charalambous, Constadina (2)
Submitted by: Ros i Sole, Cristina (UCL, United Kingdom)

Emotion in language learning has been construed from a variety of perspectives: the emotions felt by the learning process (De los Arcos 2009; Dewaele 2005, Gardner et al.1997; Scovel 1978), the power of language to unleash a world of creativity and emotion (Kramsch 2006a, 2006b, 2009), and the emotions felt by the language learner when encountering new experiences or the expressing of 'old' emotions in a new language (Dewaele 2010, Dewaele and Pavlenko 2004, Pavlenko 2003, 2005, 2006). This paper will build on this research on language and emotion by adding a new dimension: the impact that ideologies about languages and cultures have on the suppression of emotional stances in language learning. The discussion will be based on two ethnographic case studies; one based on the learning of Turkish in a Greek-Cypriot school in Cyprus, and the other on the learning of Arabic in a university language centre in the UK. Arabic in the UK is often linked with cultures in turmoil and is associated with Islamic religious practices and world-political events. On the other hand, Turkish in the Greek-Cypriot context is associated with a long history of violent conflict between the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities, and, thus, is often seen as the language of the 'enemy'. Taking into consideration the highly charged contexts of the two case studies, the comparison will focus on institutional and educational representations of these languages, students’ emotions, and the strategies for avoiding controversy and dealing with ‘the other’ in the language classroom. We will argue that the discourses and pedagogies surrounding Arabic and Turkish prevent language learners from engaging with the more political and controversial aspects of the culture in an effort to suppress debates about highly charged topics.

References

De los Arcos, B.; Coleman, J. A. and Hampel, R. (2009). Learners’ anxiety in audiographic conferences: a discursive psychology approach to emotion talk. ReCALL, 21(1), pp. 3–17.

Dewaele, JM (2005). Investigating the psychological and the emotional dimensions in instructed language learning: obstacles and possibilities. The Modern Language Journal 89, 367-380.

Dewaele, JM. (2010) Emotions in Multiple Languages. Basingstoke (UK): Palgrave Macmillan.

Dewaele, JM., Pavlenko, A. (2004) Special issue ‘Bilingualism and emotion’. Estudios de Sociolinguistca, 5 (1).

Gardner, R.P., Tremblay, Masgoret, A.M. (1997). Towards a full model of second language learning: an empirical investigation. The Modern Language Journal, 81 (3), 344-362.

Kramsch, C. (2006a). The Multilingual Subject. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 16 (1).

Kramsch, C. (2006b). From Communicative Competence to Symbolic Competence. The Modern Language Journal 90 (ii) pp.249-252.

Kramsch, C. (2009). The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pavlenko, A. (2003). ‘Language of the Enemy’: Foreign Language Education and National Identity. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6(5), 313-331.

Pavlenko, A. (2005). Emotions and multilingualism. Cambridge:CUP.

Pavlenko, A. (Ed.) (2006). Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression, and representation. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Scovel, T. (1978). The effect of Affect on Foreign Language Learning: a Review of the Anxiety Research. Language Learning Journal 28 (1), 129-142.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

Silencing emotions in the language classroom