How Opposing Perceptions of Communication Competence Were Constructed by Taiwanese Graduate Students
University of Texas at Austin
For a year and a half, I have followed six Taiwanese women who were new to the United States and new to a graduate program in a large university. As a part of that study I asked the question, “How has a sense of communication competence (or incompetence) been constructed in these individuals’ interactions with friends, fellow students, teachers, and others?”
This chapter discusses how two opposing perceptions of communication competence were created, how they evolved over time, and ultimately, what impact these perceptions had on the participants’ views of themselves. Rather than recount the stories of all six participants, I report on the two that represent the extremes of the competence continuum. In essence, these stories reveal how one individual constructed a belief in her communication competence, while the other created a strong sense of communication incompetence. Though differing in outcome, each of the two accounts reflects the power of seminal or watershed events in altering perceptions of competence and ultimately beliefs about the self.
A BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW
The term communication competence was first coined by Dell Hymes (1972), who wanted to account for the social and functional rules of language. The second language learning literature established its own version of communication competence as the ability to convey meaning and to successfully combine a knowledge of linguistic and sociolinguistic rules in communicative interactions (Savignon, 1971). In the 1990s, communication competence has come to be defined as “that aspect of our competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts” (Brown, 1994, p. 227).
In the field of speech communication, effectiveness and appropriateness are viewed as the primary features in defining competence (Rubin, 1991; Spitzberg & Cupach, 1984). More specifically, communication competence is defined as “knowledge about appropriate and effective communication behaviors, development of a repertoire of skills that encompass both appropriate and effective means of communicating, and motivation to behave in ways that are viewed as both appropriate and effective by interactants” (Rubin, 1991, p. 289).
Although the ostensible focus of this chapter is communication competence, there is a wider lens that not only frames the discussion of competence but that also explains or accounts for the changes in identity which the participants experienced in themselves. The wider lens is social construction—the creation of self in the context of social interaction using language as the interactive medium (Gergen, 1994).
Gergen traced constructionist views to recent explorations in ideological critique, literary and rhetorical processes, and the social basis of scientific knowledge, all of which form the foundation for the “postmodern turn” in the academic world. This “postmodern turn” has paved the way to the scientific practice known as social constructionism. There are five major suppositions that according to Gergen (1994, pp. 49–51) are central to a social constructionist account of knowledge. Two of them have particular relevance for this chapter:
• The terms by which we account for the world and ourselves are not dictated by the stipulated objects of such accounts.
• The degree to which a given account of world or self is sustained across time is not dependent on the objective validity of the account but on the vicissitudes of social process.
Below, I elaborate on each supposition and look at the implications not only for interpretation, but for the individual participants involved.
The first supposition states that the terms by which we account for the world and ourselves are not dictated by the stipulated objects of such accounts. Expressed in another way, there is no direct one-to-one correspondence between what is “out there” in the physical world and the language used to describe it, explain it, and account for it. According to Gergen (1994), “in its most radical form, [this supposition] proposes that there are no principled constraints over our characterization of states of affairs” (p. 49).
The implication for this research is that the particular rendering or interpretation of the participants’ words and stories expressed within these pages represents only one of many possible depictions. Another researcher could look at the multiple pages of transcripts and render a completely different account. Similarly, the words that the participants used to describe and share their experiences represent only one possibility of many. Given a different interviewer, a different day, a different mood, they might have told a different story—yet the events about which they speak would not have altered. The ephemeral, dynamic, even idiosyncratic nature of representation through language is made apparent with this first supposition of social constructionism.
The second supposition states that the degree to which a given account of world or self is sustained across time is not dependent on the objective validity of the account but on the vicissitudes of social process. Any individual’s account or interpretation of the world or of him- or herself may remain stable in spite of actual variations in that world and/or the self; similarly, that account may alter even when the world or the person undergoes no change. The “objective truth” is not the key to the accounts (or their alteration), rather it is the social relationships that play the determining role.
Such a supposition sounds a cautionary note for research interpretation. It must be kept in mind that what the participants shared about themselves across the course of the year may or may not have corresponded to the actual objective experience. The participants may have altered their perceptions of themselves without any corroborating real-life events or happenings, or likewise, maintained as stable a self-perspective in the face of counter evidence. The determining factor in their accounts is the social relationships of which they were a part.
To summarize, then, within the frame of social constructionism, a particular interpretive point of view is required—that of seeing both the participants’ words and the author’s words as interpretations or stories of actual events that arose out of a variety of social relationships.
Social constructionism as explanation requires that we look to Gergen (1991, 1994) and Bruner (1986, 1990). As stated earlier, in the constructionist view, self is created or constructed in social interaction using language as the interactive medium (Gergen, 1991, 1994). By participating in a variety of social interactions using English as the medium of exchange, the two participants altered their sense of themselves, and in effect constructed new identities for themselves.
Bruner (1986, 1990) asserted that we construct ourselves and our worlds using language in the context of social interactions: “Just as I believe that we construct or constitute the world, I believe too that Self is a construction, a result of action and symbolism” (1986, p. 130). Bruner saw the self as a narrative text about “how one is situated with respect to others and toward the world—a canonical text about powers and skills and dispositions that change as one’s situation changes from young to old, from one kind of setting to another” (1986, p. 130). To Bruner, the interpretation of this text by an individual “is his sense of self in that situation” (p. 130)—made up of expectations, feelings of esteem and power and inextricably linked in relationship. “Self becomes enmeshed in a net of others” (Bruner, 1990, p. 114). The implication is that self is not stable or permanent, but changes over time and circumstance.
Gergen (1994), like Bruner, saw the power of narrative and relationship in creating the self. “I replace the traditional concern with conceptual categories (self-concepts, schemas, self-esteem) with the self as a narration rendered intelligible within ongoing relationships” (p. 185).
In the postmodern world there is no individual essence to which one remains true or committed. One’s identity is continuously emergent, re-formed, and redirected as one moves through the sea of ever-changing relations. In the case of “Who am I?” it is a teeming world of provisional possibilities. … For good or ill, it is the individual as socially constructed that finally informs people’s patterns of action. (Gergen, 1991, pp. 139, 146)
As frame and explanation, social constructionism provides the basis for interpreting the stories shared within this chapter.
THE PARTICIPANTS
A total of six Taiwanese females participated in the study. They ranged in age from 22 to 26 years, were new to the graduate program, and also newly arrived to the United States as of the summer of 1995. Their chosen majors included journalism, second language teaching, curriculum and instruction, adult education, and nursing. All participants displayed sufficient English conversational proficiency to converse about themselves and their feelings as demonstrated through verbal interviews conducted at the study’s outset. They were recruited through the Taiwanese Student Association, the university’s international student programs, and through social network leaders within the Taiwanese community. The focus of this chapter is a more detailed history of the two individuals, “Valerie” and “Mary.”1
Valerie was a 24-year-old journalism major who grew up in Taipei with her parents and an older brother and sister. Her father was retired from a career in agricultural products, her mother was a housewife, her brother a graduate student in law, and her sister a host for a children’s TV program. When asked what values her parents conveyed to her, Valerie replied, “My parents just want me to live happy. … They just want me to have professional knowledge and I can get a job and then live happy.”
Valerie described her life growing up in Taiwan as happy, carefree, and very comfortable. As the youngest child, she was sheltered by her parents and older siblings; she considered herself outgoing, always smiling, and having many friends. When she talked about the year she spent before coming to the United States (and just after college graduation), she said, “I could go anywhere I wanted, buy anything I wanted. … I just play and don’t have any troubles.”
Valerie’s English training began, as it does for all Taiwanese students, in junior high and continued through high school. All of Valerie’s junior high and senior high teachers were native Taiwanese who focused more on the reading aspect of English than on either speaking or listening. In fact, Valerie indicated that the students did not speak English in their classes and that, “the teachers [even] taught English in Chinese.” At the university, Valerie majored in English literature, and it was in this environment that she experienced her first native English teachers. Even here, however, she had only a few courses where she spoke English. This formal education provided Valerie’s only experiences with English.
When Valerie graduated from the university, she didn’t want to work, so she decided to come to America to study. For her, it was an easier way to accomplish higher educational goals. “Because in Taiwan, if you want to study in graduate school, you have to take a test and you have to read a lot of books … but chance you can get to graduate school is very small, so I don’t want to take it.” According to Valerie, it was much easier to get into a graduate school in the United States than in Taiwan and so that’s what she decided to do.
Mary was a 25-year-old adult education major who grew up in Taipei with her parents and a younger brother and older sister. Mary’s father was a manager of personnel at Johnson and Johnson, her mother an elementary school teacher, and her brother a stockbroker. Mary’s sister died in her senior year at the university after an 8-year battle with leukemia. Two days prior to her sister’s death, her parents divorced.
When asked to describe herself, Mary replied, “I’m shy. I think I hate to speak. … it’s hard for me to care somebody else, my feelings inside, I always hide.” According to Mary, she grew up as “the stupid child.” As if she were providing a textbook example, Mary shared that she learned to think about herself as others thought of her.
I think I still don’t think about myself with my opinions. It’s because someone else opinion about me influence me a lot. I think I’m good, not because I’m good but because they tell me I’m good. Yeah, so, my parents have three children and they always told me I’m the stupid one.… And I agree with that because my elder sister very smart and my younger brother, too. But, so I always think I’m not good enough. Since my childhood.2
Mary was the only one of the six participants who grew up in a Christian family. She stated, however, that the beliefs that come from Christianity are really no different from traditional Chinese thinking: “… if you are Christian, the Bible influence you. But I think in the Bible, we must be kind person and to be nice to others, and it’s … almost like traditional Chinese.”
Mary’s junior and senior high English classes were also taught by native Taiwanese teachers. In Mary’s case, the emphasis was distributed evenly among reading, writing, and speaking English. Mary acknowledged, however, that English was spoken in class but not in any part of daily life. Mary majored in history at the college, where all of her classes were taught in Chinese. The extent of Mary’s English learning, therefore, was the 6 years spent in junior and senior high school.
For Mary, the decision to come to the United States was not hers, but her parents’: “my parents give me a idea that I have to go abroad to study.” Although Mary’s graduate major at the university is adult education, her first preference would have been music. The expense of a music career prohibited her pursuit of that field.
Summary
The two women present very different portraits of their lives in Taiwan. Valerie had been pampered and looked after, and had lived a carefree life of leisure with virtually no problems. Mary, on the other hand, grew up feeling stupid and not good enough. She lost an older sister to leukemia when she was in college and experienced her parents’ divorcing two days prior to her sister’s death. Valerie described herself as outgoing and happy, Mary as quiet, shy, and hating to talk. Valerie chose to come to the United States to study; for Mary, the choice was her parents’ and not her own. Valerie’s major in English literature provided her with numerous courses in college English. Mary received no English training beyond high school. After 1 year in the United States, one of these individuals constructed a strong perception of herself as communicatively competent, the other communicatively incompetent.
DATA COLLECTION
Data were collected almost entirely via individual interviews. Each participant was interviewed in her home four to five times between August of 1995 and June of 1996. Interviews lasted 1½ to 2 hours and were both audio and video recorded and later transcribed. This researcher also communicated with the participants via E-mail messages. The level of participation varied for each participant, with the total number of messages ranging from 5 to 28 throughout the study.
The initial interview was conducted to gain background information on the participants, including family and cultural backgrounds, English-learning experiences, expectations about living in America, stories heard regarding Americans, motivations for coming to the United States, cultural perceptions of self and identity, existing support structure, and career plans. Additional interviews were open-ended, but guided by general requests to share their communication experiences, their perceptions of those experiences, and the impact these experiences had on their views of themselves and others.
In the E-mail interactions, participants were asked to share various experiences and encounters and to pay specific attention to how these experiences affected the ways they viewed themselves and others. In addition, the participants frequently initiated interactions via E-mail with topics of their own choosing.
In an effort to uncover the evolving nature of the participants’ perceptions of their communication competence, a naturalistic or qualitative research methodology was utilized. Data were analyzed via a cyclical process of sampling, inductive analysis, grounded theory building, and emergent design until a coherent story on these views emerged.3
Valerie’s Story: The Construction of Communicative Incompetence
Although journalism is a particularly taxing field for foreign students because of its heavy requirements for both writing and speaking, Valerie felt confident in her English ability and fully capable of tackling her graduate work in the United States. However, out of one critical interaction, Valerie related in the following story that she was no longer a competent communicator in English and should stop communicating in her classes and with her American acquaintances for fear of revealing her poor communication skills.
As part of the standard routine for international students newly arrived in the United States, each student is interviewed by the university’s international director to determine any needs the student might have, particularly regarding his or her English. During Valerie’s interview, the director told her that it might be necessary for her to take an oral communication course. She asked Valerie to return to her office for another interview in about six weeks. In Valerie’s own words (as shared with me in our first interview on September 25, 1995):
V: After the international director, Karen Keen4, asked me to take oral communication, because I think my English okay, not as bad as that, I should take the oral communication course. So after she talk to me that I have to take a course, I just feel so frustrated and I just feel that my English so bad. And at this time, I don’t want speak English and I just don’t dare to speak English, I just feel, just right now I just that my English so bad because Karen Keen ask me to take the course. And I just OH! my English so bad and right now I little bit afraid to talk English and I sometimes don’t want to talk English. If my friend here, I just let him talk, I just don’t talk English because at first in the beginning I don’t afraid to talk, but just because say that my English is so poor, from that time I just think I am so poor and I am afraid to talk.
C: So, so in other words … just her saying that made you have a different view of yourself as an English-speaker.
V: Yeah. Yeah. A lot, a lot, she change me a lot in my view to my English communication.
This was clearly a seminal event in Valerie’s life. After just one interchange with the international director, Valerie’s view of herself was significantly altered. Confidence in her English ability was replaced by doubt. A willingness and eagerness to communicate was replaced by resistance and fearfulness. In reality, nothing about Valerie’s “actual” English ability changed during the interview—that ability was virtually the same at the end of the interview as it was when the interview began. What did alter, however, was Valerie’s view of herself as an English communicator; her perception was reconstructed from one of competence to one of incompetence.
During this first interview together, Valerie talked more about what happened to her sense of confidence after speaking with the international director.
V: But maybe I lose my confidence. … It’s hard to get your confidence back you know. For someone to check you. It’s hard.
C: How would you think the best way to get your confidence back would be?
V: I don’t know. … Karen Keen word said that my English is poor. It’s really, how to say in English. It’s really a big change, I don’t how to express English. … It’s really a big shock. … I just totally lose my confidence.
The fallout from that one interaction kept occurring for Valerie. Not only had she lost her confidence as a competent English-speaker, she didn’t have a sense of how to regain it. To make matters worse, other incidents eroded her confidence. Setting up phone service with Southwestern Bell was particularly challenging and frustrating for her:
Because in the beginning, you have to apply for a telephone, so I call Southwestern Bell, but I cannot understand what she is talking about. Yeah. I just say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then my friend telephone for me to say, no, no she doesn’t want these item, she doesn’t yeah.
As we ended our first interview, Valerie shared how frustrating these first months in the United States had been for her. Not only had the situation with the international director and her problems with English upset her, she was lonely and desperately wanted the happy and carefree life she had left in Taiwan:
[At home] I don’t have any trouble, anything that I should think about. Every day I was so happy. But after I come here, just myself alone. … I just feel, so I cry. I feel so uncertain. And I become very sad. … I tell myself the Valerie in Taiwan disappear. … All of the things I have to deal with, just by myself. I have to decide everything.
Valerie’s whole sense of herself—as competent communicator and as happy, carefree girl—was slipping away from her. Here in the United States she not only had to do things she had never done before, she had to do them on her own, without the support she had always known.
Valerie and I had a number of conversations via E-mail following our first interview. Many of those conversations revolved around the upcoming interview with the international director and Valerie’s continuing and overwhelming feelings of incompetence. In late October, we exchanged the following E-mail messages:
From Valerie on October 17th
I haven’t talk to Karen Keen yet. I plan to talk to her next week. But I think she will absolutely ask me to take the oral communication course. Take care!
My reply on October 17th
Tell me why you say that Karen Keen will “absolutely” ask you to take the oral communication course. What makes you think that?
By the way, you were going to be calling me to get some practice with your English. Don’t you want to do that anymore? I would be more than willing to do that with you. As a matter of fact, I would like it. Let me know.
From Valerie on October 18th.
Hello, Carol: Why I think Karen Keen will absolutely ask me to take the course is because that her requirement is very high. And people tell me that international office always wants students to take their courses, and then they can have students and earn money. Besides, I don’t think my English can improve a lot in such a short period of time.
I really would like to practice my English with you, but I think it’s just waste you time. I am afraid that it is inconvenient to you. So that’s why I am not calling you to practice my English. Thank you for your kind attention.
You can see from these exchanges that Valerie was becoming resigned and fatalistic. She was sure she would have to take the oral communication course and just as sure that practicing her English would make no difference in her performance.
Valerie was scheduled to meet with the international director for her follow-up interview on October 22. She called me that morning, extremely nervous and apprehensive. I wished her luck and asked her to call or E-mail me once the interview was completed. I received an E-mail that afternoon.
Hi, Carol: Thank you for your help and encouragement. I finally passed “the exam.” Karen Keen just talked to me about 7–8 minutes, and then she said I really improve a lot and she thought that I didn’t have to take the oral communication course. It really a great relief to me. Anyway I feel very happy today. Hope you have a nice weekend.
I responded with the following:
Congratulations!! That is wonderful that you don’t have to take the course. Now, here are my questions related to that:
1. What do you think about your English speaking ability now?
2. Do you feel like you have improved (in other words, do you agree with Karen Keen’s assessment of you?)
3. What is your predominant feeling about yourself right now?
Valerie sent an E-mail a few days later.
Hi, Carol: What list below is my answer.
1. I just think it was the same. But at least I can use my English to communicate with others.
2. I don’t think that my English has improved. I don’t know why Karen Keen thought that I really improved a lot.
3. The same as I used to be.
While Valerie was happy she didn’t have to take the course, she was not willing to accept the idea that she might have improved. She did admit she could communicate with others, but overall, Valerie was forming an identity of herself as an incompetent English-speaker.
My second interview with Valerie occurred on November 1, 1995, not quite two weeks after her “passing” interview with the international director. I was interested in how she’d been feeling about herself since Karen Keen had commented on her improved English and released her from the oral communication course.
C: Since you’ve had your meeting with Karen Keen have you felt better about your English?
V: No, because I don’t think … I don’t think that my English have been good. So I just … I think I have used it while I have wanted to how I speak to her just like in the first time I talked to her. I don’t think I have improved, so I just feel strange why she say I have improved a lot.
To get a sense of how others might be reacting to her, I asked about any feedback she was receiving.
C: Has anybody said anything to you about your speech?
V: … I think most Americans … always say, “Oh, your English is very good or something else,” they won’t say, “Your English is very bad.” They always encouraging you, I think. So as of right now I don’t hear people say that your English is very bad. I always hear people say, “Oh, your English is quite good.”
C: And do you believe that?
V: I don’t believe that.
Notice again how Valerie was not willing to believe (or not willing to acknowledge that she believed) feedback that ran counter to the way she was thinking about herself in terms of her English incompetence. Rather than accept what others offered her, she had found a way to explain it: they don’t want to hurt her feelings, they’re being nice, that’s what Americans do. In addition, these people did not hold the prestige or power that the international director held—they weren’t in any kind of gate-keeping role. Nevertheless, the sense of self that she had created as an incompetent English-speaker was becoming ingrained and she seemed unwilling to give it up.
In that same interview, I asked Valerie if there was anything that would change her mind about her competence in English.
C: Is there anything that would make you think you were good in English?
V: I don’t think so.
C: But you came thinking you were good in English.
V: … actually because in class or social settings right now, I don’t think that I can communicate very well because some times we talk to our classmates … for example we met my classmates in … in library or we went to a barbecue last time. Sometimes I want to talk about something but I don’t know how to … I can express but I don’t think I express very well.
Valerie admitted that there was nothing that anybody could say or do to have an impact on her perceptions of herself in relation to her English ability. And she supplied evidence to support her perception of herself as incompetent to show that she experienced trouble communicating with friends and classmates.
Valerie also stated that her incompetence in English might be the reason that she couldn’t become good friends with Americans: “I just think that’s why we can’t make good friends with Americans because it’s a barrier there, you can’t communicate very well.” So the belief that she was not a good communicator had given rise to a reason why she could not be good friends with Americans. Out of her perception came claims and beliefs about what she couldn’t do.
When I saw Valerie for our third interview, it was February of 1996, and she had just begun the second semester of her graduate program. I discovered in this interview that she had almost quit school on her return from her month-long Christmas break in Taiwan, and had even begun the tuition refund process before a friend (an older Taiwanese Ph.D. student) persuaded her to stay. On the positive side, she had also gotten a Korean roommate, and by the time I saw her Valerie seemed fairly happy with the roommate arrangement and with her choice to stay and complete her degree.
She talked about the communication problems she was encountering with her new roommate and also spoke about an incident that happened in the airport in California on her way back from Taiwan over Christmas break. In both incidents Valerie saw that her English skills actually changed depending on the skills of the conversational partners with whom she was interacting. I’ve italicized the phrases that reflect Valerie’s awareness of that influence. In each case, Valerie found that her skills either improved or deteriorated, but they always altered to match the skills of her partner.
C: And so the two of you [you and your new roommate] converse in English then?
V: Yeah, we have to converse in English.
C: That is so cool!
V: I know, but you know because his5 English not very good, my English not very good [italics added]. He’s even worse than me. … So, I just, I think my English is become worse and worse and worse. Yeah, because when I came back to Taiwan, I stop by San Francisco. And I have no, I have know a lot of guy there. And they have very good at English, so I just keep talking and talking and talking, after feel, oh, “my English is very good, cuz I can speak fluently.” I, so I think because they speak English very good, so that’s why I speak very good too [italics added]. But I talk to her sometime, I will feel problem. I think, so I think my English sound worse and worse. When I talk to her.
C: When you talk to her.
V: Yeah, because he has problem communication. I will influence by her [italics added].
Valerie continued this discussion. Notice that for the first time she was willing to acknowledge (at least occasionally), that she could speak English fluently and that she could express what she wanted to say. An important question to ask is, does this mark the beginning of a departure from the identity of incompetence that Valerie had constructed or did she view it as a fleeting, temporary aberration?
C: So when you, when you said you came back through San Francisco and you had a bunch of friends there?
V: I just met them in the airport. … They are Malaysia and some Asian country but they stay the States for many years, so their English is very good. … Yeah, and they just say, “oh, your English is very good. Just got United for about four months.” They say it’s incredible, I think, I say no, my English. But I can feel, when I talk to them, I can talk very fluently.
C: Yeah. Why do you think you could talk so fluently with them?
V: I don’t know but I don’t have any problem communication with them. I just feel very strange. … because I can express what I want to say. I just keep talking to them in English I feel, at that time I feel it’s very good because I…. Yeah, I don’t know why, that’s the first time I feel I can speak English very fluently.
C: Yeah.
V: Yeah. But, never again. [Mutual laughter]
The last line of this interchange, “But, never again,” seemed to answer the question posed. Valerie was not constructing herself anew as a competent English-speaker. The sense of fluency and competency she felt was simply a short-lived, momentary experience.
There was more evidence that Valerie’s view of herself as an incompetent English-speaker was not changing. I asked her how much of the time she’d been talking in English and she responded, “I think most of the time I talk in English right now. … But it’s a bad English.” Even though she was speaking English the majority of the time, she was not improving (i.e., she was still incompetent). She also provided two reasons why she wasn’t improving. First, “The people I met is not good at English. They will make my English be more bad.” And second, “I think maybe cuz it’s not American if I talk to American 80%, I think will make difference. … Yeah. I think that’s why can’t improve my English, even though I spend lot of time speak English.…”
By saying that her English would be improving if that English-speaking time were with Americans, by admitting to how poor her English was when she interacted with poor English-speakers, she was also acknowledging how important conversational partners were to her own competence.
Just as Valerie’s view of herself as incompetent was not changing over time, neither was her mistrust and disbelief in the positive feedback she received. It was February, and Valerie’s comments regarding feedback were virtually the same as the comments she made in her second interview in November.
V: Feedback. … I have a presentation, but I just tell you I think the teacher’s classmates is really kind, so when I finish my presentation, the teacher just say, “Wow, you are good.” I can’t believe that.
C: You don’t believe it.
V: My teacher say, “I believe you have done such a good job,” and my rest of my class claps his hand. I just say thank you thank you so much, but I don’t think I have, I have done my job so good, but they just keep press me, say, “oh, you are very good.” but they are so kind, you know. Yeah.
Even though she shared specifics about the kind of feedback she was getting (the teacher saying “Wow, you are good”) and about what people were actually doing (the classmates applauded her), she seemed unwilling to deviate from describing herself as an incompetent English communicator.
I interviewed Valerie for the fourth and final time in April of 1996, a few weeks before the second semester was over. She seemed happier and more peaceful than I’d ever seen her. I asked her how she was feeling about her English and she said that it was the same or possibly just a bit worse. Since she’d just returned from a trip to Taiwan for spring break, she was finding it more difficult to express herself and to organize her thoughts in English.
I asked her where she thought she was most competent now as an English-speaker.
C: Where do you feel that you’re, you’re best as an English-speaker? Where do you feel like you do the best job? You’re most competent?
V: I still feel if I talk to a stranger, we don’t know each other … if I go back to Taiwan, have to transfer the plane…. If I meet someone there, I don’t know him or her, and they don’t know me, and we just talk, I think at that time I can do good job, I can talk fluently and they will say, “Wow, your English is good.” and I say, “no, no, no” but I can tell that time I can speak very well, I don’t know why. I can talk and talk and talk and they can understand me, I can understand them. We just talk, but I don’t know why.
Valerie also shared where she felt least competent.
V: But when I talk in class I feel I can’t express my opinion or something very well.
C: Yeah. It’s hard for you to do that.
V: Yeah, but I think. I don’t know, I get tongue-tied or something…. I don’t know, I just—I just—try to explain my feeling and—suddenly, I just get tongue-tied, I don’t know. How do you say that? Hard to—hard to explain what I want to say to the teacher. I don’t know.
But at this point, Valerie described a shift in her attitude about her “incompetent” English or about the mistakes she made.
But I won’t feel sad about that. Because I’m pretty—kind of get used to that this semester. “Oh, it’s okay” I just—talk. I think—they can understand me even if I don’t talk in a correct way, but I just keep talk. [Laughs] Yeah. If the teacher don’t understand you, he will ask you again, so, I don’t mind.
Two things seem to have altered for Valerie. First, the overwhelming sadness she had been experiencing was not present for her as it was in the past; second, she was not letting her mistakes or her concern about being inadequate stop her. In other words, her “incompetent” English was no longer holding her back or incapacitating her. She admitted that she still might feel a little sad when people couldn’t understand her, but the amount of time she spent dwelling on that sadness was short.
C: And it doesn’t bother you if somebody has a little bit of trouble or if you don’t feel you do a great job.
V: Actually, if I—actually I will feel “oh, if I can’t say” I still feel, I still feel so low, but people still can’t understand me, actually sometime I will feel a little bit sad, but not too sad. After a while, one or two minutes? It’s okay. …
C: So you get over it fast.
V: Yeah. Well actually I will feel sad at the beginning of one or two minutes, yeah, but, later, nothing. Not a big deal.
Valerie shared in this final interview that she’d actually started to feel happy about living in the United States. She felt she’d finally adjusted and was enjoying her life here. It had taken her almost two full semesters, but she now was doing what she wanted—in spite of her constructed identity of incompetent speaker. She had managed to see English speech as only one part of her self in the United States.
Mary’s Story: The Construction of Communicative Competence
In this section we will explore Mary’s evolution from the shy, quiet, uncommunicative individual who arrived in the United States in the summer of 1995, to the confident and self-expressive English-communicator that she became after a year of living here. Mary’s story is a counterpoint to Valerie’s story. In a phenomenal re-creation of herself into a competent, confident speaker of English, Mary overcame a past in which she knew herself (and was known as) the shy, quiet one who didn’t share herself and who listened more than she talked. Out of her experiences here in the United States—with her church, her university classes, and her roommates—Mary confessed to feeling more confident as a speaker of English than she was as a speaker of Chinese.
My first interview with Mary took place on September 21, 1995. You may recall that Mary was the participant who had no English experience or practice beyond high school. At the time of the interview, Mary had been in the United States for only 1 month. I was curious about what had been most difficult for her in using English to communicate.
M: Hardest thing? Everybody wants me to talk about my country, my family. It’s hard for me to speak. But I can listen, but it’s hard for me to speak. I think … it’s a big problem. But the other is, even in my country, when I in my country, I speak less. It’s I think a personality.
C: So you’re shy in general.
M: Yeah. Yeah.
She shared that speaking in class was also hard for her. She was not sure she comprehended the reading assignments, and to then be asked to share her opinions about them was terrifying for her. Though volunteering and speaking in class made her nervous in Taiwan, the language component here made it worse for her.
When I asked Mary what she thought about herself in light of these difficulties, she said: “I think I’m not good enough and I have to prepare and learn more.” This perspective was consistent with her identity in Taiwan: “not good enough” and “stupid.”
However, in spite of her fears and self-judgments, Mary had already created a number of opportunities for speaking English. She was attending a Christian church where “on the Lord’s day, we honor him in English.” Of her two roommates, one was American with whom she had to speak English. And, as part of the adult education graduate program at the university, Mary belonged to a cohort of graduate students who would remain together throughout their graduate program. Because there were no other Chinese or Taiwanese individuals in this cohort, Mary was forced to speak English with them.
Mary noticed an inability to communicate deep thoughts and feelings in English; as of this first interview she had only spoken such thoughts and feelings to her Chinese roommate. This ability was important to Mary and she was anxious to see how this aspect of her English communication would unfold over time, particularly since one of her goals was to remain in this country. To be successful, however, she knew that she would have to present herself differently—as someone who shared herself, was more social, and who was willing to converse with people she didn’t know.
M: Um, because if I want to survive here and live happily I must to change my, the way I live.
C: In what way?
M: I need to get along and do things that I don’t like to, talk to someone else so much and I think … I’m not used to say “Hi” on the bus. …
Between our first and second interviews, Mary and I communicated with each other via E-mail. In a series of exchanges in early October, Mary wrote about a frustrating incident that happened at the university computer center with the computer aide:
I told him I want to send a letter by E-mail. I wanted him to show me how. And that man just started talking and told me how to do. But he used a lot of professional vocabularies that I never heard before. I was so shocked and afraid that I did not know what to do. His manner and face showed me that I am the most stupid person he had ever met. Finally, I called my Chinese roommate and asked her to come here and help me. The solution is I told her what I want to do and she translated it for me to the student and again translated what the man said in Chinese to me. After we sent my letter, it is after 12 a.m. It is terrible.
Clearly, an incompetence in communication was created in this interaction. Mary’s inability to comprehend what the aide was saying and his resultant frustration with her (“His manner and face showed me that I am the most stupid person he had ever met”) confirmed her long-held belief of herself as stupid. Instead of solving the dilemma through English communication, Mary called in her roommate to translate into Chinese.
In the same E-mail message, Mary told me that two different teachers had praised her use of English—one time for being class moderator and the other for a paper she had written. Mary’s reactions indicated that the positive exchanges boosted her self-image, whereas the negative feedback (as with the computer helper) diminished that image.
At first, I will be very emotional about the situations. I will be very high or very down and be controlled by the feelings. Two or three days past, I will cool down and start to think about how I should do to maintain my good performance and avoid doing wrong again. I appreciated every situation I went through and I told myself I must learn something from it. I am not afraid of making mistakes. I am afraid that I do not get something from the enjoyment or sufferings. I think the experiences could help me grow up.
According to Mary, this reaction represented a shift from who she had been in the past. She was actually looking at how she could benefit from each experience, including the negative ones, and how she could use them to grow and mature.
Yeah, at—yeah, in Taiwan, I think I am bad and I don’t have some kind of ability. I cannot speak in front of my classmates … and so someone gave me negative feedback … some people will point it out and say, “Mary you … made a mistake. You have to improve something.” And I just very upset, I cannot do anything, and I will feel in that feeling a long time.
On October 29, Mary sent me an E-mail message telling me she’d been able to express her deeply felt emotions in English. She’d gained a new friend from her classes at school. Since this friend was from Indonesia and did not share the same native language as Mary, the two of them could only communicate using English.
I have a classmate who came from Indonesia…. We are the only foreigners in our classes…. We spent a lot of time together since we are alone here. … One night, we ate out together tried to treat ourselves. We were talking about our feelings and loneliness…. We laughed, felt sad, made fun, and supported each other. We had a wonderful time. We have to communicate in English and we don’t speak well. But we still can realize each other and be realized well. I felt happy because having a friend who understands me is exciting for me. And knowing that someone needs me, I can be helpful to my friend is also made me feel worthy. I am not nobody. I am somebody. [italics added]
This represents one of the pivotal events for Mary in altering her sense of competence and her sense of self. From this experience, Mary described herself as being a “somebody” instead of a “nobody”—all out of a successful communication in which she could share intimate emotions with a friend and he of service to that person. And Mary stated that even though “we don’t speak well,” each of them was able to express herself to and be understood by the other. She ended her E-mail to me with a powerful insight: “Actually, language is a problem in communication, but it’s not a big deal. Once you want to, you can make it. People can feel if we also open our hearts.”
Mary seemed to be saying that with intentionality (“once you want to”) and the sharing of one’s self (“if we also open our hearts”), communication can take place even if language is a problem. In other words, competence has more to do with a desire and willingness to communicate than it does with grammar and sentence structure.
I interviewed Mary for the second time on November 13, 1995. She’d been living in the United States about three months and although she hadn’t perceived improvement in her English, she stated she was much more comfortable speaking English and that almost 60% of the time she spoke in English. What’s remarkable is that she estimated that a majority of that English-talking time was spent sharing her feelings. She’d become best friends with the Indonesian woman she spoke about earlier and she was also learning to share her feelings with her cohort of classmates.
Another pivotal set of events occurred for Mary out of her classmates’ support of her. When the semester began, Mary wasn’t able to say “Hi” to her classmates. Over time she ventured an occasional “Hi” and finally advanced to hugs. Here’s how Mary described the progression:
C: What have you noticed that you have done, that’s different from the way you were when you came?
M: I have done, I mean in the beginning of the semester, when I came to class and I saw my classmates, I did not say anything, I look at them and it means that I say hello to them, but I didn’t say hello or give them a hug. Now I can “Hi.” (Mutual laughter)
C: And are you comfortable doing that?
M: Yeah, I comfortable—and I love to—they teach me. Because at first I hug my classmate I hug her and she tell me, “It’s not a hug, Mary,” and I say “It is a hug.” She say “No, I show you how is an American hug.” [Sounds of a big hug and laughter]
C: That’s amazing.
M: Yeah, at first I’m very uncomfortable because you see, I’m not used to except my boyfriend, so close to the other person. …
At this point in her story, I asked Mary how learning to hug made her feel about herself.
M: OK. I know that I change, because it’s a big change for me and I notice the change. But sometimes maybe my English improve, maybe, but I don’t know. I didn’t notice that. But this kind of change I can notice it and I love the change because I know it’s there, I know myself. And other ways, I want to, because I want to change too. I want to stay here I must adjust to some of the situations.
C: That’s really great.
M: And it seems to me that I can do this, but I can’t do the other part.
C: And what’s the other part?
M: Speak in front of a lot of people. … Yeah, I want to confront the problem.
Through positive experiences with her classmates (as revealed in learning to hug) and the development of a close friendship with an individual, Mary had gained a new confidence for making future communicative adaptations. She seemed ready, for example, to now “confront” her “problem” of speaking in front of groups.
Mary and I met for our third interview on February 3, 1996. She had just begun her second semester at the university and shared that this semester was harder for her because she had not been as excited as she was starting her first semester. However, she did tell me how much more confident she was in her ability to speak English—in fact she confided feeling more confident as an English-speaker than as a Taiwanese-speaker—a phenomenal statement!
C: So you have more confidence when you speak English than when you speak Chinese? Is that what you’re saying?
M: Yeah.
C: Wow! How come, do you think?
M: I don’t know. I think maybe it’s because the people around me they give me feedback. Sometimes I think I cannot describe something and I try, they they have patience, a lot of patient on me.
C: Patience with you, yes.
M: Patience with me, so I say some, I try to describe something and after that they say, “I can totally understand what I feel or what I describe” so I think that make me have more confidence to speak and when, even though I am with a stranger I don’t feel that I’m afraid of or I’m shy. … You know, when I speak English I’m more confident than when I speak in Chinese.
Relationships with friends have also been pivotal in Mary’s increasingly positive view of herself. From their patience and understanding, their support and validation of her, Mary reported increased confidence and less fear and shyness, even with strangers.
The newly confident Mary continued to benefit from both positive and negative feedback. When Mary received negative feedback in Taiwan, she would be immobilized and not able to speak. Here, in the United States, she was disappointed for a while, but worked to improve and ultimately saw the feedback as a contribution to her. Because she was committed to speaking well and doing a good job here, negative feedback occurred more as an opportunity, rather than a self-deflating event. “But here, I am upset too, but after maybe one or two days, I will practice more, I think I must confront the problem … if I have to do the presentation next time I will be, I must be better. Yeah.”
When I asked what caused this change in her, she wasn’t sure, but thought it was the American culture: people, here, were confident and she wanted to gain and possess that confidence.
The newly confident Mary also saw possibility for herself in living in the United States permanently. In the first interview, she saw that if she was to do that successfully, she must become proficient and capable with the English language. In that early interview, however, she had doubts about her ability to do that. In this third interview, she acknowledged that she still had a long way to go, but added, “Now I think it will be possible [if] I keep practice and I learn; it will be possible.”
In this third interview, Mary shared that she spoke her best English when she was with her American roommate; next best was in class with the cohort; and third was with salesclerks (as Mary put it, “when I’m go shopping with the sales girls”). Mary spoke a little more about her American roommate and the closeness and sharing they had developed:
One thing that does surprise me is I have two roommates, one is Chinese and I usually speak with her in Chinese and the other one is American. But after the one semester, I found out that I am more close to the American roommate than the Chinese one because at first I think I’m … closer to the Chinese roommate, because we all speak Chinese. Of course … I share my feelings to both of them, but it’s different kind of feelings. And I’m surprised that my American roommate, she shares some thing I think she might not want to share with foreigner, but she does share with me.
Mary believed she did her worst speaking with people who were acquaintances but not close friends—people who ask questions that seem to her to require that she go below the surface for her answers, but who may not want to hear those deep answers. As she described it:
.… it’s more like with, not friends, acquaintance. You know we know each other. But not so bad, not so well. And they will ask you this, that, and at that time I cannot express or speak English very well …They always ask a lot of different kind of things. They may ask, “How’s your school?” and I think that means they didn’t want to spend a lot of time to hear what my school goes, they only ask, but I don’t think they really want to listen. So I if my roommate, she ask me, “How’s your school?” I can, I know what she expect me to say.
Mary had a sense that people didn’t want long answers, but she was not quite sure how to respond in those situations. Through her unfamiliarity with these circumstances, a certain sense of interactional incompetence surfaced.
Another place where incompetence may have emerged was when Mary was in stores and had to speak slowly in order for the salespeople to understand her. Yet she noticed that Americans speak very quickly and she found herself wanting to match their rapid rate so they wouldn’t be impatient with her. But when she did, she made more mistakes and people had difficulty understanding her. For example, when Mary attempted to match the rate of American speakers (to please them and avoid their impatience) her speech deteriorated and the salesclerks couldn’t understand her.
C: Where [else do] you feel like you’re least able to communicate?
M: When I speak with someone, they, he or she speak very quickly.
C: Okay, so with rapid speakers.
M: Yeah. Because I know they speak quickly so I have to speak quickly too. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but I think that kind, they don’t have so many, so mary so much patience with someone speak very slowly, so I will try to speak quickly too, but that I will make a lot of mistakes.
We ended our third interview with Mary expressing how happy she was and how much she loved school and living in the United States.
I saw Mary for our fourth interview on April 24, 1996, just a few weeks before the end of the second semester. Another watershed event had occurred. She related that she had experienced a very rough time since I last saw her and had almost dropped out of school and returned to Taiwan. She had an English class that was particularly challenging for her, and because she had not completed a paper she had stopped attending school for 2 weeks. Her advisor finally persuaded her to return, arguing that since Mary considered herself a failure whether she quit or didn’t quit, she might as well go back and finish. Mary followed that advice and in the process discovered a number of things about herself and the extent of her classmates’ support. At the beginning of each week, Mary’s teacher asks them to share their feelings and experiences with the class. On the day that Mary returned from her 2-week hiatus, she chose to share with the group. Here are parts of her story:
C: How did you feel [about sharing with the group]?
M: At the beginning I’m very nervous and I don’t want to share. But after I share and they gave me feedback. I feel, I feel I came home … that kind of feeling. But because our cohort is, the teacher, she wanted our cohort is a group, a team, we do things together. So … then we know them, then they know me.
I asked Mary how sharing with her classmates made her feel about herself.
Uh, I feel, I have more blending, or I have more … mutual freedom with my classmates. Before I didn’t ask for help, I didn’t ask my problem, I will think, that’s maybe my only problem. And I don’t understand that’s because I’m a foreigner, I don’t understand. But sometimes now, after the class I ask, “What is she saying? I didn’t understand at all.” And they will tell me, they too didn’t understand either. And I think, oh, it’s not only my problem. And that’s the teacher’s problem!
By sharing and getting feedback from her classmates, Mary got a chance to see that her self-portrayal as incompetent because of not understanding the teacher was also experienced by native English-speaking classmates; it was not the result of being a foreigner. She also saw the extent to which she was an integral part of her group.
During this fourth interview, we also talked about how she was doing with her English. She told me that she’d increased her English-speaking time to almost 80%—half of that time with native English-speakers and half with non-native English-speakers. Her best friends now included an American and her friend from Indonesia. Both were in her school cohort.
Mary shared further how the sense of competence she now possessed had come from the interactions she had with her cohort.
C: Where do you feel like you’re the most competent, the most effective?
M: In my class.…
C: How come? What makes you say that?
M: I think [pause] because I feel I’m safe in that group. And they can understand and they want to understand me, so I feel more comfortable in speaking in that group. And I know why I speak I not influence but have some reaction to the people I’m talking with, talking to.
Mary’s competence emerged from her interactions with and feedback from that group. She saw that her communication had value (her classmates not only understood her, they wanted to understand her) and power (her speaking actually caused reactions in her classmates).
Recall that in the third interview Mary shared that she felt more comfortable as an English-speaker than as a Chinese-speaker. In this interview, she shared how that sense of confidence was continuing and increasing the more she lived here.
I don’t know how to say that, but, as a Chinese-speaker, it’s easy for me to, to act like before, so I say, so if now I’m with a Chinese-speaking group, then I won’t speak. I just stay the way I were. But as English-speaker, if people don’t understand me, so I have to speak, try to explain my feelings, describe what I’m thinking. And after I speak I have I have, they give me reaction, feedback, and I feel confidence. But in Chinese, I don’t know why. Every time even though some, during last semester I went home, except share my feelings with my boyfriend. With the other friends, I’m just the way I were. And they and they are used to what I want. I just stay what I were.…So I think that’s why I feel more confident as an English-speaker. And especially people … don’t know what I was before so … for me it’s a new start. New beginning that I can talk and they urge me to talk.
Mary was more confident as a speaker of English than of Chinese. Why? Because in Taiwan people thought of Mary in a particular way: Mary doesn’t talk, Mary is quiet, Mary doesn’t express her opinions. Here in the United States, Mary could create herself anew, without those preconceived notions in place. When she spoke here, people asked her to clarify or explain or to say more, and she did. She worked at making herself understood. And out of that she received positive feedback for her talking, for taking the time and effort for her listeners. And out of that she felt good about herself, and gained confidence that she was a person with valuable things to say and one who could influence her friends. Out of that myriad of interactions, Mary created a confidence that did not exist for her as a Chinese-speaker.
DISCUSSION
At the beginning of this study, I asked the question, “How has a sense of communication competence (or incompetence) been constructed in these individuals’ interactions with friends, fellow students, teachers, and others?” I began the chapter with brief definitions of communication competence from the perspective of second language learning and speech communication, but pointed out that the theoretical lens of social constructionism not only frames the discussion in this chapter, but also explains or accounts for the changes in self that the participants experienced. I then recounted the stories of two of the participants who represented the extremes on the communication competence continuum. One individual, Valerie, constructed a belief in herself as an incompetent communicator and the other, Mary, constructed herself as a competent communicator. Both stories (briefly summarized below) demonstrate social constructionism in the real world and confirm the importance of watershed or seminal events in altering perceptions of communication competence and self.
Valerie came to the United States confident and self-assured. She’d lived a happy and carefree life in Taiwan and had successfully completed an undergraduate degree in English literature in Taiwan. She came ready to tackle the journalism program at the university. Just days after her arrival, however, Valerie met with the university’s international director and was told she might have to take an oral communication course to improve her skills. From this seminal event, Valerie actually reversed her view of her competence and constructed an identity of incompetent English communicator. She decided to stop communicating in English and became hesitant and fearful in class and with American acquaintances.
Although Valerie continued to speak of herself as incompetent, she acknowledged certain times and places where she believed she did have good skills—for example, with people she didn’t know who had excellent English. Her acknowledgment pointed to the contextual and interdependent nature of her sense of her own competence. Over the course of a year, Valerie grew to accept this identity of incompetent speaker (she became less upset about it and even ceased having it stop her from doing things she wanted to do), but she never relinquished it.
Mary, on the other hand, arrived in this country shy, introverted, and hating to talk. She’d grown up in Taiwan as the one in her family who was “stupid” and “not good enough.” Her older sister died of leukemia when Mary was in her last year at the university and her parents divorced that same year. Here in the United States, Mary was enrolled in the adult education program at the university and became part of a cohort of students who functioned as a group throughout her first year of schooling. Out of a series of pivotal events, Mary reconstructed her identity into one of confident, competent English communicator. As with Valerie, there were certain places that brought out increased competence in Mary (in class, with close friends, with roommates), while others fostered a certain incompetence (with salesclerks, casual acquaintances), thus also corroborating the contextual nature of Mary’s construction of her own competence. Mary’s reconstruction into competent speaker evolved more gradually and slowly, but over the course of two semesters and a number of pivotal experiences, she became more confident as an English-communicator than she was as a Taiwanese-speaker.
Let’s now add the frame of social constructionism, with its particular interpretative point of view. What Valerie and Mary shared about their past was not an objective truth, but a construction, an interpretation of what they’d perceived and remembered. Did Valerie have the idyllic, happy-go-lucky past she claimed? I don’t know, but it’s what she presented to me in the interview. Was Mary really the stupid one in her family? It’s her perception that she was; she constructed it that way, but we don’t actually know. Additionally, what Valerie and Mary recounted about each interaction here in the United States—with the international director, friends, and teachers—was also a construction, a story created out of the actual event. Did the international director tell Valerie she had poor English skills? Valerie certainly heard it that way; it became the pivotal event in her construction of herself as incompetent speaker. From a constructionist perspective, every aspect of each woman’s story is a derived construction from her particular perceptions, points of view, and past experience.
Just as the participants constructed themselves in their social interactions, I, in turn, constructed the participants through my own interpretations and renderings. All accounts, all constructions are interpretations derived from relationships. This, then, is the frame provided by social constructionism.
With social constructionism as explanation, we look to Bruner (1986, 1990) and Gergen (1991, 1994) who assert that we construct ourselves and our worlds using language in the context of social interactions. As stated earlier, Bruner (1986) saw the self as a narrative text about “how one is situated with respect to others and toward the world—a canonical text about powers and skills and dispositions that change as one’s situation changes from young to old, from one kind of setting to another” (p. 130).
Using Bruner as our guide, both Mary and Valerie have a story, a “narrative text,” about their lives. Certain chapters in that text are devoted to their lives in Taiwan (as children, as adolescents, as college students, and so on). At least one chapter will include the story of their lives at the university and what they constructed themselves to be there. As Bruner asserted, each chapter will represent how they “situated” themselves with respect to others and the world. In the “university chapter,” Valerie situated herself as an incompetent English-communicator, Mary as someone more confident speaking English than Chinese. These situated selves had their source in the social relationships of which Valerie and Mary were a part, more specifically in those crucially important relationships and events that were key in causing a reversal in their perceptions of competence.
In the view of the constructionist, one’s identity or self is linked so closely to others it becomes fluid and dynamic and interdependent on the particular relationship of the moment. “One’s identity is continuously emergent, re-formed, and redirected as one moves through the sea of ever-changing relations. In the case of ‘Who am I?’ it is a teeming world of provisional possibilities” (Gergen, 1991, p. 146).
Gergen (1991) argues that as we interact in these ever-changing relations, we become a “plurality of voices” that are “products of perspective” vying to be accepted as legitimate expressions:
As we absorb multiple voices, we find that each “truth” is relativized by our simultaneous consciousness of compelling alternatives. We come to be aware that each truth about ourselves is a construction of the moment, true only for a given time and with certain relationships. [italics added] (p. 16)
Gergen’s words address the process of identity construction. As Valerie and Mary moved through that “sea of ever-changing relations,” as they participated in social interactions, they constructed themselves in the moment, moment by moment.
While we could argue that Valerie’s and Mary’s sense of self and competence fit perfectly into Gergen’s framework, that they are “constructions of the moment,” capable of altering with interactional partners and contexts, it is important to note that Valerie and Mary may not view themselves that way. Rather, Valerie may believe she has lost her true self and become someone she doesn’t recognize. Mary, on the other hand, may believe that she has found her true self and that who she was in Taiwan was simply her true self waiting to be released. Regardless, Valerie and Mary know that their perceptions of themselves and their communication competence have altered—they view themselves as different from the two women who arrived in the United States in 1995. In Gergen’s words, their identity has been “reformed” in that “sea of ever-changing relations.”
In their first year in the United States, each participant constructed an identity for herself within and inseparable from the various social relations of which she was a part, using language as the means of construction. In both cases, alterations in perceptions of self came from watershed events. Keep in mind, however, that these identity constructions, according to social constructionism, do not represent an essential or objective truth out there in the real world. Rather, they are constructions, interpretations, created initially by the participants during their social interactions, created again as they shared themselves with me in our interviews, and created lastly by me in my telling of their stories—all via language in social interchange, all in narrative form. In this sense, then, social construction can explain and account for the participants’ identity constructions.
Bruner and Gergen have provided the theoretical framework for Mary’s and Valerie’s construction of themselves (not only in the United States, but throughout their lives). Likewise, the stories Mary and Valerie told of their experiences have demonstrated social constructionist theory in the real world. From them, we find confirming evidence that perceptions of self do not remain stable, but are dynamic and alter over time depending on conversational partners, particular contexts, and language spoken. By following the social constructionist viewpoint to its logical conclusion, we must acknowledge that the stories by Valerie and Mary are only representative of them in the moment they shared them. As their lives move forward, their stories will continue to evolve and change. In fact, the world and the identities that they construct for themselves are changing even as I write these words and as you read them.
REFERENCES
Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of language leaning and leaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gergen, K. (1991). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: Basic Books.
Gergen, K. (1994). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride and J. Holmes (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: Selected readings (pp. 269–293). Baltimore: Penguin.
Rubin, R. (1991). Perspectives on communication competence. In B. Phillips (Ed.), Communication incompetencies: A theory of training oral performance behavior (pp. 289–305). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Savignon, S. (1971). Communicative competence: An experiment in foreign language teaching. Philadelphia: The Center for Curriculum Development, Inc.
Spitzberg, B., & Cupach, W. (1984). Interpersonal communication competence. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
1Although these are not their real names, both participants adopted American names on their arrival in the United States—Valerie at the suggestion of an English teacher in Taiwan; Mary at the suggestion of an aunt who lived in Canada.
2These are Mary’s perceptions and memories from her past, and may be remembered differently by others in her family.
3It should be noted that the issue of interest in this study is the not the participants’ written work, but rather the changes in their sense of competence that came about from their oral interactions.
4A false name has been substituted for the director’s real name.
5Valerie tends to misuse masculine and feminine pronouns. Her roommate is actually a female. You will notice that the mix-up continues throughout this exchange.