I am currently wrapping up my first month in Luxembourg, and while certain aspects of my life have improved since I've been here (I don't get as lost while on the bus system, for example), the language barrier is still the most stark difference between my American self and those of true Luxembourgish descent. After reading more of Ancient Rhetorics, I have found that the term "discourse" is applicable to my position as a guest in Luxembourg.
As a human being, I have a lifeworld discourse, which is the way that I have been raised to use language, feel, think, act, and interact with people. As an American, I have learned this from Americans. Thus, I have been trained to use language, feel, think, act, and interact with other Americans. Being in Europe, I am not around many Americans besides those who are also studying abroad with me. The people that I am around have been raised to hold a completely different lifeworld discourse, and the environment that trained them is the one that I am living in.
The feeling of being an outsider that I have attributed to the language barrier is rooted in this misalignment of discourses. Crowley and Hawhee define discourse as a socially accepted association among ways of using language and other symbolic expressions. As someone who cannot use language in the same way as those who are living around me, I am automatically outside of any discourse. I have no socially meaningful network to be a part of without a shared language.
This is something that cannot be helped. I can learn to speak better French, definitely, but that will take me all semester, and even then, there is no way for me to change my primary or lifeworld discourse. I wonder, then, how close I can get to people within this community despite my inherent American-ness. There are definitely ways of bridging the gap, or else people would never be able to become ex-Pats. I'm not an ex-Pat, but still.
As a human being, I have a lifeworld discourse, which is the way that I have been raised to use language, feel, think, act, and interact with people. As an American, I have learned this from Americans. Thus, I have been trained to use language, feel, think, act, and interact with other Americans. Being in Europe, I am not around many Americans besides those who are also studying abroad with me. The people that I am around have been raised to hold a completely different lifeworld discourse, and the environment that trained them is the one that I am living in.
The feeling of being an outsider that I have attributed to the language barrier is rooted in this misalignment of discourses. Crowley and Hawhee define discourse as a socially accepted association among ways of using language and other symbolic expressions. As someone who cannot use language in the same way as those who are living around me, I am automatically outside of any discourse. I have no socially meaningful network to be a part of without a shared language.
This is something that cannot be helped. I can learn to speak better French, definitely, but that will take me all semester, and even then, there is no way for me to change my primary or lifeworld discourse. I wonder, then, how close I can get to people within this community despite my inherent American-ness. There are definitely ways of bridging the gap, or else people would never be able to become ex-Pats. I'm not an ex-Pat, but still.