‘Fish in the river’: Experiences of bicultural bilingual speakers

Abstract

This hermeneutic phenomenological study describes, analyzes, and interprets the lived experience of eight proficient bilingual individuals in the United States. Common themes of speaking one's native language and English as one's second or third language are described. The essences of participants' first-language communicative experiences ranged from feeling more at home and comfortable (‘Fish in the river’) to feeling challenged and uncomfortable (‘A test of skills’). Despite these individual differences, an awareness of the interplay of language, identity, communication, and culture emerged as the structural essence of this lived experience. All participants expressed how speaking one of the languages available to them reflects and creates culturally conditioned aspects of identity as well as aspects of identity related to psychological constructs such as self-esteem and confidence. The findings support basic assumptions of the Communication Theory of Identity and of Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory and point to the need to integrate these two theoretical perspectives.