SELF-CONSTRUALS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN EFL REFLECTIVE ESSAYS WRITTEN BY SWEDISH ADVANCED EFL STUDENTS

Oleksandr Kapranov

DOI Number
-
First page
579
Last page
590

Abstract


The article presents a cognitive linguistic analysis of reflective essays in English as a foreign language written by 12 advanced university students (further referred to as ‘participants’) whose first language (L1) is Swedish and foreign language is English (EFL). All the participants were enrolled at an advanced EFL course at Stockholm University (Sweden).  The participants were instructed to write a one page reflective essay titled ‘As a Swede, I am…’ in English. After six months the same participants were instructed to write another one page reflective essay titled ‘As Swedes, we are…’. The participants’ essays were examined for the presence of self-construals referring to their national identity on the individual and collective levels respectively.  The analysis of the participants’ essays revealed the following findings: First, it was found that the participants’ reflective EFL essays involved independent self-construals of national identity. Second, data analysis revealed that reflective EFL essays on national identity involved predominantly cognitive metonymy with cognitive metaphor playing an epiphenomenal role. Those findings are presented and discussed in the present article.

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