Title:
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Muffled Voices in a World of Words: What does it Mean to Live with Language and Communication Difficulties? - Three Case Studies in Hong Kong and North America
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This exploratory study aims to understand, from their own perspectives
and in a holistic manner, the personal experiences of three students' living with
language and communication difficulties (LCD) from a Cantonese-speaking
background in the context of their everyday life in Hong Kong and North
America (Le., New York and Toronto). The focus is to through their voices
explore the personally meaningful matters and resultant emotional reactions
arisen from daily social encounter in their wider sociocultural communication
context. How supportive or hostile are these daily living contexts to these
individuals and how well do they cope? It was hoped that through this
exploration, their views and beliefs would be made known to us and the
interplay of their experience and intrapersonal functioning with the
sociocultural context would be revealed. More importantly, the intention is that
with this knowledge, these students would be more appropriately understood
and their needs appropriately responded to.
Through observation in and description of the context, analysis of causal
explanation and autoethnographic reflection, this study eventually evolved into
a critical study, which was evaluative, revelatory in nature. As a result, the
issues relating to LCD in cross-cultural encounters in individual's experience
milieu were illuminated to disclose new meaning of LCD in a world regulated
and dominated by the power of language and culture. It also extended to
involve the experience of significant others and helpers (e.g., parents, teachers,
professionals).
The cross-case analysis of themes emerged out of the findings reveal an
enriched discourse of individuals with LCD. It elucidates the
interconnectedness and the interplay of language/communication and emotion,
the ecological omnipresent system of governmentality and the redemption from
it, the social connectedness between them and us, the implications of the
presence of individuals with LCD to us.
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