“This Is Called Free-Falling Theory not Culture Shock!”: A Narrative Inquiry on Second Language Socialization

Grounded in the framework of second language socialization, this study explores the identity (re)construction of Erol, a Turkish doctoral student in the United States. Drawn from a larger corpus collected for a longitudinal, mixed-method research, the data for this study came from autobiographies, journal entries, and semistructured interviews. Based on a synthesis of inductive-thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998 Boyatzis, R. E. 1998. Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development, Thousand Oaks, , CA: Sage. Google Scholar), as well as deductive approaches through the use of three sensitizing concepts—investment (Norton, 1995 Norton (Peirce), B. 1995. Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1): 9–31. Crossref, Web of Science ® , Google Scholar), cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977 Bourdieu, P. 1977. The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science Information, 16: 645–668. Crossref, Web of Science ® , Google Scholar), and audibility (Miller, 2003 Miller, J. 2003. Audible difference: ESL and social identity in schools, Clevedon, UK: Cromwell Press. Crossref , Google Scholar)—Erol's social identity (re)construction was marked with struggle: first, to gain social networks and, second, to be recognized within the target language community. Erol's story, while providing evidence for the role of affective and socially structured variables in enabling language learners’ access to social interactions, also draws attention to the need for more research at the discourse level to explore how power relations within speech communities influence the nature of interaction between international students and the host culture.