Nothing but a Fairy Tale: A Qualitative Study of Marriage Migration, Second Language Learning, and the Ideal Self

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the global trends of marriage migration and tightening of immigration policies in the West interconnect with second language learning motivation. Specifically, this article considers how social positions, governmental regulations, and everyday contexts come together to complicate the expectations of language learning that underlie much public discussion on “integration.” Applying narrative analysis to excerpts from interviews and conversations, I investigate the case of Mulenga, a younger Zambian woman who moved to Denmark to marry an older Danish man. Framed by the L2 motivational self system, the analysis reveals a self-discrepancy between her ideal self (hopes of a better life) and her actual self (lived reality in Denmark) and highlights how motivation and images of self traverse, combine, and reconfigure different cross-temporal experiences. The findings stress the importance for language educators to pay more attention to personal narratives and experiences outside the classroom when attempting to understand learner motivation.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigration policy
• integration
• marriage migration
• motivation
• second language learning
• self

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Steve Thorne, Kees de Bot, and Chris Peters for valued discussions and advice on this article. Also, I am grateful for the work of two anonymous reviewers whose comments helped sharpen the theoretical and methodological framing.

Notes

1. The first two digits refer to the recording year and the second to the week: 0549 = year 2005, week 49.

2. In other conversations, it is clear that she has feared selves that she is not contemplating in this interview: going back to Zambia, facing the judgments for divorce, and having failed after being given the opportunity to live a “better life” in the West.

3. For instance, the BBC headline from February 10th, 2011: “Do Denmark’s immigration laws breach human rights?” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12366676. See also “Related stories” on this site).