Second/Foreign Language Learners and Narrative Film Comprehension: An Intercultural Reception Study
Abstract
Sociocultural concepts (Krashen, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978; Wood et al., 1976) and a constructivist narrative film theory (Bordwell, 1985) offer interdisciplinary insights for a study exploring second/foreign language (L2/FL) interpretations of two intercultural films (films made in linguistically and socioculturally diverse contexts) with English audio/dubbing (Chafe, 1980; Desilla, 2014; Erbaugh, 2010). A qualitative reception study examined the potential of intertextual (i.e., knowledge of other texts) and cultural information as learning scaffolds as well as style and narrative cues as forms of comprehensible input used by post-secondary international Chinese and domestic Canadian students as they watched sequences from Shaolin Soccer (Chow, 2001) (English dubbed) and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (Thurber, 2004). Sociocultural concepts highlight the interdependent, collaborative, and mediating relationship between intercultural narrative cinematic systems and the viewer’s prior textual and personal experiences used to scaffold their comprehension (Vygotsky, 1978; Wood et al., 1976). A constructivist theory of film narration is informed by sociocultural concepts to describe film’s narrative structures and stylistic devices as multiple forms of comprehensible input (Bordwell, 1985; Branigan, 1992; Krashen, 1981). Findings demonstrated that while the Chinese and domestic Canadian audiences did not always interpret audio-visual information the way the filmmakers intended, overall comprehension of the U.S. and Chinese film clips (with English audio) was nevertheless effectively achieved using a personal mixture of prior knowledge and narrative information. For instance, groups relied heavily on intertextual knowledge and cultural information from their background as resources for comprehension. Additionally, while some of the participants felt they could not describe the function of the narrative film elements using technical film language, they nonetheless used narrative and stylistic cues to justify their interpretations of the film sequences. These findings highlight the need for more intercultural media literacy pedagogy within the L2/FL classroom.