REGULAR ARTICLE Self-Construction in Immigration – I-Positioning through Tensional Dialogues to Powerful Foreign and Native Voices Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia 1 Accepted: 9 February 2021/ # The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 Abstract This paper explores proculturative semiotic dynamics underlying self-construction in emigration that reveals various forms of the self’s positioning through the processes of relating to the native and foreign socio-cultural environments. The self is conceptualised as the heterogeneous entirety of voices and self-related positions which are hierarchically organised. Hierarchical organisation implies the dominance of certain voices and I-positions at the expense of silencing others. Moreover, external societal voices promote hegemonic social representations which are represented as promoter I- positions/signs in the self-structures and have the power to regulate individuals’ mental activity. Therefore, it is argued that selves’ relations to the environment are not always symmetrically dialogical. The compelling power of hierarchically ordered external meaning systems that are conceptualised as “objective culture” is illustrated in the best manner when a person occurs in emigration where the native organisation of voices and I-positions is being semiotically ruptured due to the meeting with a foreign configura- tion of a hierarchy of external I-positions and gets “attacked” by alien promoter signs. External promoter voices and I-positions have the power to take the dominant position and establish asymmetric relations with other self-related elements. They can signifi- cantly influence intra-psychological negotiations by vocalising hegemonic social rep- resentations which exist in any community. The case study of a Georgian emigrant’s living in Germany vividly reveals the wave of self-transformations which she un- dergoes after the liberation from the pressure of native promoter signs and engagement with the German ones. Specific microgenetic experiences leading to the transforma- tions at the ontogenetic level are highlighted. Symmetric and asymmetric forms of communication are conceived as particular instances of relating. This paper vividly reveals the significance of the exploration of the forms of dynamic relations between various components of the self and socio-cultural environment and entailing intra- https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-021-09603-1 * Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia ladogamsakhurdia@gmail.com Extended author information available on the last page of the article Published online: 16 March 2021 Integr Psych Behav (2021) 55:445–469