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Thesis defences

PhD Oral Exam - Marina Doucerain, Special Individualized Program

Mainstream Social Participation Mediates the Relation between Mainstream Cultural Orientation and Language Outcomes


Date & time
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Cost

This event is free

Organization

School of Graduate Studies

Contact

Sharon Carey
514-848-2424, ext. 3802

Where

Guy-De Maisonneuve Building
1550 De Maisonneuve W.
Room 930-48

Wheel chair accessible

Yes

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

Competence in the mainstream language (L2) plays a critical role in migrants' cultural adaptation to a new society and is closely tied to psychosocial adjustment. A substantial body of work on acculturation and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has shown that migrants with a more positive outlook on the mainstream cultural group report more favourable language outcomes, broadly conceptualized here as “linguistic adjustment”. However, the mechanisms underlying this outlook-language outcomes link have not been fully explored. Targeting this gap, the present research shows that migrants' social participation in the mainstream society (interpersonal interactions and relationships) mediates the relation between cultural orientation toward the mainstream cultural group and L2 outcomes. Five manuscripts, reporting on six studies of multicultural first-generation immigrant students to Montreal, examine different aspects of this mediation model.

First, Manuscript 1 discusses in detail the methodological issues facing acculturation research and that informed this dissertation. Second, two manuscripts provide empirical support for both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the relation between mainstream cultural orientation and social participation. Manuscript 2 reports on two longitudinal studies showing that more positive baseline mainstream cultural orientation prospectively predicts greater social participation. Manuscript 3 reports on two studies using a daily diary approach to show that moment-to-moment cultural affiliation during social interactions is related to characteristics of the local context and to mainstream cultural orientation. Third, Manuscript 4 shows that a more interconnected L2 social network, another aspect of mainstream social participation, is associated with lesser communication-related acculturative stress. Finally, Manuscript 5 uses a path analysis and provides evidence supporting the overall mediation model guiding this research. Together, these studies make a strong case for the role of social participation as a mechanism underlying the relation between mainstream cultural orientation and language outcomes.

In parallel, this dissertation aims to support two arguments: (1) methodological issues hinder progress in acculturation research and therefore it is essential to go beyond cross-sectional self-report attitudinal scales, and (2) integrating acculturation research in cross-cultural psychology and research on SLA in applied linguistics – two largely separate – would greatly benefit our understanding of migrants' cross-cultural adaptation processes.

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