Making sense of being between languages and cultures: a performance narrative inquiry approach

Abstract

This paper explores how French native speakers experience moving between languages and cultures internationally for work purposes. Examining the narratives of professionals who have relocated to Australia from France using performance narrative inquiry methods, I argue that bilingual speakers strategically draw on multiple linguistic and cultural perspectives in interactions in the host culture. The theoretical reference points that underpin the argument draw on the work of Ricoeur on narrative phenomenology, Bourdieu's notion of symbolic capital and Goffman's dramaturgical view of the self.