A View on The Emotional Resonance of Shared Native Languages within Multilingual “Communities of Practice”

Abstract: Society is labeled as the knowledge society, information society, network society, risk society. Economy is also characterized as knowledge-based economy and the creative economy. Knowledge and the quality of knowledge production is as an important criteria for the comprehensive national strength, as a capacity of organizational development and a token of power. Researchers have been debating over and emphasizing the importance of innovation, creativity, knowledge production or continuous work-based learning for the current economy, where it is no doubt that knowledge is the key. When speaking of knowledge, I suppose, the notion of learning should also be considered. One may often come across terms such as “knowledge sharing”, “ knowledge acquisition”, “knowledge production”, “knowledge construction” and “knowledge creation”. If the above terms are linked up as an ongoing and continuous procedure of knowledge receiving, perception, negotiation, production and reproduction, individuals' learning is permeable throughout the whole procedure. Knowledge is not only the impetus for an individual to learn, but also the outcome of learning. Social constructionist Wenger (1998) interprets the social theory of learning, where learning is as doing, as becoming, as experience and as belonging. Vygotsky notes “zone of proximal development”(Vygotsky 1978:86) emphasizing on the learning environment and learning context that learner is engaged in as well as the learning capacity that contributes and is produced by the continuous learning process (Matthews and Candy 1999). Marton and Ramsden (1988) suggest in accordance with the learning-in-context arguments that “the way individuals learn is a function of the way they perceive the learning task and the learning analysis environment” ( Matthews and Candy 1999:51). In this paper, the issue of emotional resonance of shared native language is looked upon in the context of multilingual communities of practice. The purpose of this study is to find out in a multilingual context: how the ERSNL negotiates the course of one's meaning making; how the ERSNL shapes one's engagement in the practice and one's relationship with others; how the ERSNL interacts with one's membership acquisition and selfidentification. The qualitative approach and the case study strategy are applied in the paper. On the account of understanding the linguistic and emotional issues studied, observation and interview methods are mainly used for collecting data.