Autobiographical Contexts of Mono-Cultural and Bi-Cultural Students and their Significance in Foreign Language Literature Courses

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the latest development of an empirical project about the mental processes of students with both mono-cultural and bi-cultural socialisation in foreign language literature courses. Introspective methods help to analyse how students tackle Antonio Skármeta's No Pasó Nada (1980), in which he describes the way of life of a young Chilean refugee living in Berlin. Which mental processes happen while reading this text? What significance do autobiographical factors have? Which contexts do the students evoke? Starting with a description of the project itself and the empirical methods applied to the study of students following a Spanish course, I will concentrate on the mental processes and autobiographical contexts of two students. Then, I will discuss the importance of autobiographical contexts by analysing two utterances that show how perturbation can take place. The research methods are influenced by ethnography of speaking, conversation analysis and discourse analysis.