CONSTRUCTING CROSS-CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: NATIVE AND IMMERSION STUDENTS AT BABEȘ-BOLYAI UNIVERSITY, ROMANIA

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate whether and how cultural identities are created in the academic milieu, through a particularly focal activity, namely discussions in interactive lectures in a micro-multicultural situation. From a range of academic study activities carried out at Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania two particular instances have been focused on involving two sets of relevant languages: the mother tongues of the participants and the target language of the lectures, with the intention of finding out whether and how (cross-) cultural identities may be built, negotiated and reinforced in multilingual academic contexts, and whether the deliberate intentions or alternately unconscious tendencies of the speakers at creating a community of practice are of consequence as regards the discursive strategies deployed. While our perspective is mainly that of cultural sociolinguistics, we have rallied elements of Conversational Analysis we deemed pertinent to our study. Our analytical study has managed to establish how collective or group identities emerge in academic discourse, and while their main characteristic is fluidity in the process of their nascence they generate definite bonding within the mixed ethnic participants with no encumbrance to the flow of the academic discourse and objectives. If anything, the students involved come out enriched with knowledge, information and an extra and valid identity. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.2.6