International students as (un)bounded sojourners: Emergent articulations of culture and identity through intercultural communication.

摘要

The United States is a leading country for hosting international students. Students around the world frequently seek higher levels of education outside their home country, and the once relatively homogenous international student population of the past has diversified. Growing evidence suggests that international students face a number of hurdles when studying abroad.;A large amount of published research reveals how anxiety, ambiguity, and uncertainty challenge communication and identity (Ekachai, Hinchcliff-Pelias, & Greer, 1998; Gudykunst, 1995, 2005; Gudykunst & Kim, 1992) when people from different cultures interact. However, when considering the international student population, most studies have focused on either U.S. students studying abroad, or on shifting enrollment, delays in arrival, or financial and political concerns for international students coming to U.S. universities. Fewer studies focus on the transformation process that international students experience on a U.S. campus; even fewer examine the intersections between culture, communication, identities, and university orientation programs.;Acculturation is one theoretical lens to view sojourners' experiences when participating in new cultural forums. Early acculturation theory used to view culture as being at the center of experiences leaving sojourners' positionalities as powerless victims to a system. Recent studies co-define individuals and environments (Kim, 2001) affecting acculturation and bringing communication to the center of experience, endowing sojourners with agency and recognizing the importance of voice.;This study explores sojourners in the U.S. from a communication perspective. Notions of home, new places, new practices, and new meanings inform ways in which sojourners negotiate cultural identities in changing discursive spaces. Sojourners offer insight into cultural identities as a "state of becoming" (S. Hall, 1996) by articulating their emerging identities through cross-cultural and intercultural interaction.