Showing papers on "Identity and Language Learning published in 2012"

Identity: The Situated Construction of Identity and Positionality in Multilingual Classrooms

Abstract: Identity and language learning is one of the most vibrant areas of current research that considers language learning as a fundamentally social process. While recognizing the limitations of more traditional psycholinguistic models that see language learning as primarily an individualistic mental process, many scholars are now interested in exploring the socially, culturally, and historically situated nature of language learning (Zuengler & Miller, 2006). Parallel to this changing view of language learning is the changing notion of language learners: learners are now seen in terms of their dialectical, or mutually constitutive, relationship to the social world rather than as constellations of particular cognitive styles, affective orientations, and personality types (Norton & Toohey, 2001). Within this view, identity is understood as being constructed and negotiated within a given discourse community. While scholars have drawn from various conceptions of identity, two theoretical orientations that have been particularly influential in second language acquisition (SLA) are what I broadly call sociocultural frameworks and poststructuralist/critical feminist frameworks. The former includes language socialization (Ochs, 1993) and community-of-practice perspectives (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), both of which view language learning as a process of participating in the practices of a given community and gaining competence and membership within that community.

Reframing the foreign language classroom to accommodate the heritage language learner: A study of heritage identity and language learning motivation

Abstract: One of the biggest challenges faced by any language teacher is the necessity to adapt one's teaching style and content to suit the range of learning needs that can exist in any specific language teaching setting. In many cases, this may mean catering for the wildly different learning needs of high numbers of individuals of different ages, levels of proficiency and walks of life. The problem can be further complicated by the presence in the student population of heritage language learners (hereafter HLL). Through a discussion of qualitative data from a longitudinal study of the experiences of heritage language learners in traditional foreign language courses of Italian in Wellington, the article presents some of the challenges faced by such learners in the language classroom. The aim is to raise teachers' awareness of HLLs' subjective interpretation of their ethnic identity and its links to language learning motivation. The article concludes with some remarks on the practical implications for teaching practice in an attempt to foster the successful accommodation and support of the motivational needs of this very distinctive group of learners in courses more specifically tailored to non-heritage language students.

Sociolinguistic approaches to identity negotiation and language learning: A circumstantiality perspective on communities of practice

Abstract: As a result of growing globalization, the learning experience of second/foreign (L2/FL) language learners has been inextricably linked to complex social structures and networks. Through a sociolinguistic lens, this paper provides a critical review of L2/FL learning, identity negotiation, and community of practice in the face of incremental changes in linguistic systems and norms concomitant with gradual transformations in politics, society, and economics. In different social structures, identity emerges and is formed in complex social, cultural, and interactional phenomena. Due to the complicity of identity work, methods employed in identity and language learning entail both qualitative and quantitative approaches, including micro and macro analysis of language use, and ethnographic study on social and cultural practices. It is examined in this paper how identity has been conceptualized in sociocultural theories of language learning. Moreover, I probe into the context in which language learning takes place and discuss to what extent L2 and FL communities overlap and exchange. I argue for a perspective on the “circumstantiality” of language learning and communities of practice. At the end of this paper, reflections on identity work are offered and implications for language learning are discussed in the hope of relevant issues to be further explored.