Being “in a Limbo”: Perceptions of Immigration, Identity and Adaptation of Immigrant Students in South Africa and the United States

ABSTRACT

Much research is available that details student experiences of immigration and adaptation to receiving countries and schools, but few studies analyze the metaphors used by immigrant students (IS) when talking about the immigration experience, or offer a comparative lens through which to view identity negotiation in two very different contexts. The present paper aims to address these gaps by conducting a comparative linguistic analysis of 20 interviews conducted with IS at universities in South Africa and the United States in order to gain a greater understanding of immigration and the types of identity negotiation processes learners undergo in these very different countries. Findings reveal interesting similarities between metaphorical conceptions of immigration across different cultural contexts and a remarkable resilience in the use of adaptation strategies and identity development that leads to salient pedagogical implications for teachers of higher education who face increasingly international classrooms.

KEYWORDS:

• applied linguistics
• comparative international education
• higher education
• identity construction
• immigration
• metaphor analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the participants for sharing their stories with us. In addition, we would like to thank Matsie Agnes Mohale for her contribution in conducting interviews for this project. Finally, the authors would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and insights, which we feel have greatly ameliorated the paper.

Notes

1. While one of the criteria for participants was that they planned to stay in their receiving countries, the authors recognize that transnational migration is a worldwide dynamic phenomenon. Thus, it is likely that some of the participants’ plans may have changed since the time of their interview.

2. Cognitive linguistics is a powerful approach to the study of language that focuses on conceptual systems and meaning construction (Hart, 2010).

3. Note that when using the target domain IMMIGRATION, the authors include the entire process of immigration, including the travel from receiving country to destination country and the adjustment period afterwards.

4. Deixis refers to pronouns or other words that are used for purposes of positioning.

5. Reasons for the longer U.S. interviews can be attributed to various factors, such as lack of time constraints on the part of participants, familiarity with researchers, willingness to speak about the experience openly, etc.

6. Image-schemas are recurring patterns of our perceptual interactions and motor programs that give coherence to our experiences (Kövecses, 2006).

7. Matsinhe (2011) describes this backlash as a “violent aversion towards African foreign nationals” that represents “scapegoating” and the externalization of historical internal repression (p. 310), which culminated in xenophobic attacks in 2008 (Coplan, 2008; Hassim, Kupe, & Worby, 2008). These attacks were directed towards Black immigrants (mostly the poorer and more vulnerable marginalized of society) by their Black South African counterparts (Vandeyar, 2012).