Cultural Noticing, Language Learning, and Sources of Tension During a Study Abroad Experience Activity Systems Analysis
Abstract
The study reported below traces the developing intercultural competence and foreign language communicative competence of a Polish sophomore student of chemical technology as she becomes a border crosser in Portugal. The theoretical perspective taken up in the present paper rests on Activity Theory (Leontiev 1976, Vygotsky 1984) and the research methodology is based on its outgrowth, namely the Activity Systems Analysis (Engeström 1987, 2001). The analysis of the accrued ethnographic data uncovered how the emerging tensions and contradictions experienced by the research participant helped her work towards minimising them, overcoming the disequilibrium and becoming a better, although still imperfect, intercultural speaker.
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