Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
TESOL 2022 Doctoral Research Forum, Pennsylvania, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 22 Mart 2022, ss.1-2
As an inevitable result of globalization and digitalization, English, as a lingua franca, has a symbolic power. English learners’ position within a national or international field depends on the amount of their capital (i.e., power) valued within the field (Vu, 2021). Thus, learning English, is a social and political act in which millions of people, now, compete to achieve linguistic and symbolic capital which results in, or from, economic, cultural, and social capital (Darvin & Norton, 2019). Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1991) theory of practice, this qualitative case study aimed to investigate how Turkish learners of English position themselves in an international online field. Given that, the researcher examined the learning trajectories of two Turkish gamers who managed to be a legitimate member of an international gamer community thanks to their English competence. The analysis of their learning autobiographies and semi-structured interviews revealed that one’s ability to self-direct learning is a significant cultural capital in the process of language learning and contributes to the learners’ success. More importantly, it empowers marginalized learners in an international community by freeing them from the constraints of their learning environment such as the monolingual language policy or the rank of their home country in the global class hierarchy. Previously, as learners who were exposed to standard English and mostly grammatical knowledge of English at school, they felt marginalized in the international gamer field. However, by self-directed learning, they acquired intercultural competence and pragmatic knowledge of English which helped them position themselves as legitimate members of the community. Moreover, although they come from similar social contexts, they had distinct learning experiences and pursued different capital forms due to their habitus. Attendees of the session will gain insights into the social and political power of self-directed language learning and leave with a basket of pedagogical implications.