‘I need to learn how to talk’: sociolinguistic reflections on habitus and doxa in first-generation university student narratives

In this paper we use Bourdieu as a bridge between the sociology of education and the linguistic anthropology of education to analyze the ways in which first-generation university students narrate their entry into and experience in the university field. By analyzing sociological interviews, course assignments and focus-groups with methodological lenses from the language sciences (analysis of narrative), we ask: what becomes tellable about language, self-presentation and belonging when FGS recount their first steps into university? And how do those tellings reveal both symbolic exclusion and the micro-conversions through which students navigate ‘the game’ of university participation? The analysis outlines how FGS, during the transition from school and family to university, recognize the university as a relatively distinct field and consequently adopt, embody, and enact a habitus which – given their social and schooling trajectories – enables them to take up positions within it.