Student Voices

New Media, English LanguageLearning, and Intercultural

Identity

SUJIN KIMUniversity of Missouri–St. Louis

Living abroad in the United States for 9 years has blurred allthe categories that I used to rather clearly belong to, even more sowith the development and widespread use of transnational newmedia among migrant people. I did not have much difficulty5 years ago in attaching labels on myself, such as Korean, Englishlanguage learner, foreigner, nonimmigrant alien, and internationalstudent. As my stay in the United States has lengthenedunexpectedly, however, I became unsure of meanings in theselabels for my identity. I am still Korean, an English languagelearner, legally a foreigner and nonimmigrant alien, and aninternational graduate student, but none of these labels seem torepresent who I really am.

Where does this complexity come from? As a doctoral studentwho studies the intertwined relationships among new media,language, culture, and identity, I have realized from my ownlanguage learning experience that I am not residing in a clear-cutspace which is separated by any tangible borderline, whether it isnational, linguistic, or cultural. Oftentimes, language teachersassume that students come to the new country leaving everythingbehind, at least substantial relationships and everyday interactionswith home culture and language. However, as the past decade hasdemonstrated, migrants are living in a world that is increasinglyconnected transnationally, where people can connect to and buildon previous language, identity, and culture while at the same time

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learning a new culture and language in the host country (Lam,2004; Levitt & Glick-Schiller, 2004). Experiences of migrants andsecond language learners therefore undermine the traditionalconcepts of explicit borders between cultures, languages, andidentities.

Especially, the new media space (e.g., blogs, communitywebsites, social network services, email, transnational Skypephone calls) has enabled migrants to learn the new but maintain theold at the same time. Even the old is not old anymore; it becomes auseful tool to learn new things. Thus, I am not exactly Koreanonly, not just a foreign alien either. I try to adjust in the U.S.culture through learning English, but I also resist the subtledominance of certain identities represented in that language. I mixlanguages in social media to better make sense of my complexidentities and to better express who I am and what I relate to. Forexample, I use Facebook to communicate with friends both in theUnited States and Korea, both Americans and Koreans, both inEnglish and Korean, at times in a mixed language form. The wayI draw on my two languages—more precisely, in a hybrid form ofKorean, English, and symbols—represents who I am better thanany single language can. I communicate various topics that areimportant, interesting, fun, urgent, or relevant at the moment ofwriting in a language that feels the most resonant with the topicand my identity of the moment. The language I use differsdepending on who I assume my audience is, and it is most likely avery conscious choice. In this transnational new media space, awide range of choices exist in terms of diverse audience, differentcultural topics, and multiple language tools and media, includingnot only the written language but also audiovisual textualforms, creatively invented language such as emoticons andembedded links.

So I am still an English language learner in the United States,but not in the traditional sense which implied the lack of anychoice other than that of adopting a new language and culture andshedding my old one in order to thrive here. Many contemporarymigrants, many of whom are English language learners, do notwant to be forced into the category of English language learnersfrom a deficit perspective; rather, they actively build their learning

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trajectories, choosing their own tools and incorporating what theyhave brought with them into their language learning andintercultural identity negotiation process. Their home language,culture, and identity are all woven into the creative process ofborder crossing and hybridity across language forms, culturaltopics, and audiences.

Therefore, contemporary English language teachers should beaware that language learners negotiate their fluid, interculturalidentities through the conscious choice of tools in the divergentlanguage learning processes. Especially, they should understandhow the transnational new media landscape has changed the waystudents learn a new language by situationally drawing on diverserepresentational tools, thus resisting socially imposed identitylabels and exploring ways to articulate their complex, interculturalidentities.

THE AUTHORSujin Kim is a doctoral candidate in educational psychology,research, and evaluation in the College of Education at theUniversity of Missouri–St. Louis. Her research interests include(im)migrant youth’s identity work in the transnational context,media literacy, multicultural education, and teaching English assecond language.

REFERENCESLam, W. S. E. (2004). Border discourse and identities in

transnational youth culture. In J. Mahiri (Ed.), What they don’tlearn in school: Literacy in the lives of urban youth (pp. 79-98).New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Levitt, P., & Glick-Schiller, N. (2004). Conceptualizing simultaneity:A transnational social field perspective on society. InternationalMigration Review, 38, 1002–1039. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00227.x

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