The author argues that second language acquisition (SLA) theorists have struggled to conceptualize the relationship between the language learner and the social world because they have not developed a comprehensive theory of social identity which integrates the language learner and the language learning context. She also maintains that SLA theorists have not adequately addressed how relations of power affect interaction between language learners and target language speakers. Using data collected in Canada from January to December 1991 from diaries, questionnaires, individual and group interviews, and home visits, the author illustrates how and under what conditions the immigrant women in her study created, responded to, and sometimes resisted opportunities to speak English. Drawing on her data analysis as well as her reading in social theory, the author argues that current conceptions of the individual in SLA theory need to be reconceptualized, and she draws on the poststructuralist conception of social identity as multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change to explain the findings from her study. Further, she argues for a conception of investment rather than motivation to capture the complex relationship of language learners to the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to speak it. The notion of investment conceives of the language learner, not as a historical and unidimensional, but as having a complex social history and multiple desires. The article includes a discussion of the implications of the study for classroom teaching and current theories of communicative competence.

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Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning*

Fact and fiction in language learning researching identity and language learning the world of adult immigrant language learners Eva and Mai - old heads on young shoulders mothers, migration, and language learning second language acquisition theory revisited claiming the right to speak in classrooms & communities.

Identity and language learning : gender, ethnicity and educational change

This chapter considers the literature on language learning anxiety in an effort to clarify the relationship between anxiety and second language learning. It will first argue that langua ge anxiety is a specific anxietyrather than a tra it anxietyand discuss how this conceptualization has helped clarify the research literature. After Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) proposed that a specific anxiety construct which they called Fore ign Langu age An xiety was r espo nsible fo r stud entsunco mfor table experiences in langua ge classes and o ffered an instrum ent, the Foreign Langu age Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), to measu re this anxiety, findings concerning anxiety and language achieve ment have be en relatively uniform, indicating a consistent moderate negative relationship between anxiety and achievement. However, some rese archers (Sp arks and Gans chow and the ir colleagues) have suggested that poor langu age learning is a cause r ather than a resu lt of language anxiety. This review conclud es that anxiety is indeed a cau se of poo r language learning in some individuals and discusses po ssible source s of this anxiety, including difficulty in authentic self-presentatio n and various langu age teaching pra ctices. In addition, it reports on new trends in language anxiety research that attempt to identify aspects of language learning (e.g., reading anxiety or writing anxiety) which provoke anxiety for some individuals.

Language anxiety and achievement

Reviews of the literature on foreign-language anxiety show a considerable amount of ambiguity arising from the conflicting results of past studies. This study attempts to show that these difficulties can be resolved given an awareness of the theoretical perspective from which this research has developed. Specifically, it was predicted that anxiety based in the language environment would be associated with language learning whereas other types of anxiety would not show consistent relationships to performance. Eleven anxiety scales were factor analyzed yielding two orthogonal dimensions of anxiety which were labelled General Anxiety and Communicative Anxiety. It was found that only Communicative Anxiety is a factor in both the acquisition and production of French vocabulary. Analyses of the correlations between the anxiety scales and the measures of achievement show that scales of foreign-language anxiety and state anxiety are associated with performance. Scales of test anxiety, audience sensitivity, trait anxiety, and other types of anxiety did not correlate with any of the production measures. Finally, a model is proposed which describes the development of foreign-language anxiety.

Anxiety and Second‐Language Learning: Toward a Theoretical Clarification*

Since Scovel's review of the literature in 1978, several studies have been conducted that consider the role of anxiety in language learning. This paper examines the perspectives from which foreign language anxiety research has been conducted, the instruments that have been used, and the results that have been reported. Three approaches to the study of anxiety are identified as the trait, state, and situation specific perspectives. The instruments chosen to measure anxiety have been quite varied, with several scales specifically intended to assess foreign language anxiety. The literature to be reviewed comes from studies of children, studies that have included anxiety in models of language learning, and finally, studies that are focused directly on the role of anxiety in language learning. With the advances in theory and measurement that have been made in the past decade or so, it is anticipated that foreign language anxiety will receive much more research consideration.

Methods and Results in the Study of Anxiety and Language Learning: A Review of the Literature*

Although studies of the relationship between affective factors and language learning proficiency abound in the literature, the evidence to support such a relationship is difficult to interpret. Much of the problem resides in the fact that a wide range of variables are lumped together under the rubric “affect.” An attempt is made to ameliorate this situation by defining affective variables in terms of traditional psychological theory and classifying them as a subset of those variables intrinsic to the learner. The conflicting evidence dealing with one important affective variable, anxiety, is then examined, and it is shown that ambiguous experimental results can be resolved if the distinction between facilitating and debilitating anxiety is drawn. Further classificatory distinctions are discussed from the abundant experimentation undertaken by applied psychologists, and an attempt is made to consider the implications of some of this research for adult language learning–for some of the new methodologies in EFL as well as for future research opportunities.

Thomas Scovel

Papers

The effect of affect on foreign language learning: a review of the anxiety research