Issues of Identity in Second Language Acquisition: Is there a way out?

SLA is the determination of the linguistic systems of learners and how it evolves over time. One of the youngest and probably the most pervasive add-ons on Second language research, identity has now been a prominent field of research in its own right. Identity theorists believe that language is intricately associated with one’s being (both physical and imagined realities and identities), and they seek to identify how one’s race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and culture impact one’s language learning and teaching journey (Norton, 2013). Identity theorists directly draw on Bourdieu’s notion of the symbolic power relation between the people that take part in communication of any form. Any successful communication, as Bourdieu puts, follows an unspoken agreement that the person who speaks is worthy of speaking and the person who listens is worthy of listening. In addition, the person who dictates how the conversation goes, what to be said and discussed always have higher social capital value (i.e., power) compared to other participants (Bourdieu, 1979).

            Before the identity theories in SLA become popular, researchers viewed language learning and its success in binary fashion (e.g., motivated or unmotivated, extroverted or introverted, uninhibited or inhibited) and they assigned the success to the higher level of positive attributes in learners’ part. Identity theorists questioned the validity of the findings of such research and tried to look into other crucial aspects of language learning e.g., affective filters, learners’ subjectivity, positioning, investment, and agency. The term subjectivity came from the word ‘subject’ which reminds that a person should always be seen from a relational point of views: one is either a subject of a set of relationship (‘we’- in a position of a power) or a subject to a set of relationship (‘they’- in a position of reduced power). The sense of oneself as a member of a social group always keeps learners in constant negotiation with other for construction of identity. One of the most important aspects of subjectivity studies in SLA is the acknowledgement of individual identity, it multiplicity and dynamicity. Thus, a learner is not only contesting with others for identity but within oneself about multiple aspects of self and is continuously evolving (Norton, 2013). Researcher Chris Weedon is one of the prominent figuress in this field. She believed that as learners acquire L2 they learn to give voice to their knowledge and are able to understand it in a particular fashion, and discourse. This higher conscious notion of self and subjectivity yields them ground to be a subject of a set of relationship (Weedon, 1987).

Other important trajectory of identity theory is the concept of positioning. This stance deviates from subjectivity in a crucial matter i.e., learners do not always stick to the static roles assigned to them by others. They hold the capacity to position themselves to a particular role and doing so they tend to acquire higher power than the ones who stick to the assigned roles. Drawing on Davies and Harre (1990), researchers in this area tap into the learners’ discursive positioning and how such positioning impact their language learning. For example, organization and teachers of the language learners often tend to assign certain positioning (e.g., students from minority household tend to disrespect teachers), but students are not always happy with this notion. It may impact the way they learn.

One of the pioneer works in this area was conducted by McKay and Wong, who followed four Chinese and four Spanish junior high students living in the state of California. The participants had a zero English background at the beginning of the study. Based on their site visits and preliminary school observation, the researchers identified major discourses, ‘model minority discourse’, ‘colonialist/racialized discourse’, ‘gender discourse’ and ‘school discourse’. Students from minority non-White background were often supposed to be more problematic in classroom based on their culture, motivation, cognitive capability, and other factors. Asian students were expected to be better than Latino students. The researchers collect varieties of data ranging from classroom observation, written and spoken prompts, interviews with teachers, and test scores. They concluded that L2 learners deal with extremely complex classroom environment and there existed constant conflict to defy the stigmatic views of teachers, classmates, and even the school authorities. The students who were able to reposition themselves and defied the generally accepted roles, and characteristics, geared towards better learning gains than the ones who could not (McKay, & Wong, 1996).   

The notion of subjectivity evolved into other important construct of SLA popularly known as agency. Subjectivity was mere notion of awareness of one’s surrounding, more specifically the background (for example, in my case- a male, an educated male, a Nepalese, A Nepalese person living in the United States, a South Asian, an Asian, a Florida resident, a teacher etc.) and act accordingly in different settings as expected. Agency on the other hand is the higher notion of subjectivity which allows a learner to question the established meaning and interpret it the way they find it appropriate. In other words, it is the realized capacity of people to act upon their world, so, it is being aware of who the learners are, and make conscious efforts to make sense of things in their own terms and, take necessary action to resist imposed set of identities if they do not coincide with their own understandings (Norton, 2013). Furthermore, in context of SLA, agency is not only a mere individual property but a relationship that is constantly constructed and renegotiated with those around the individual and society at large (Lantolf, & Pavlenko, 2001).

One research that comes into mind of this kind was conducted by Professor G. Vitanova. Drawing on Bhaktin’s ideas of agency, she studied four highly educated East European immigrants to the Midwestern city of the United States over the course of two years by conducting in-depth semi-structured and unstructured interviews. The researcher witnessed how participants evolve over time and by challenging other’s discursive practices and how they affected their learning. She concluded that resistance was in the crux of agency and her participants displayed wide range of endeavors to posit resistance e.g. humor, laughter, and direct to defy imposed identity. Vera’s explanation of how she confronted an American colleague who refused to acknowledge Vera after attending her party a year ago is one of the most fascinating example of act of agency (Vitanova, 2005).

The most recent trend in identity SLA is the study of ‘investment’. Devised and introduced primarily by Bonny Norton towards the end of the previous century, this concept has been established as an antithesis to motivation studies. Norton postulated that the study of motivation failed to appropriately acknowledge the power relationship between class teachers and learners, and even refused to take the classroom environment in consideration. Most of such studies unequivocally stated motivation as the character trait of successful language learners, and that motivation always translates into good language learning. The study of investment on the other hand try to assess learners’ investment (time, effort, and other resources) in the target language and see how that affects their learning. It is not compulsory for the learners to be present in the target language community to invest, for example an African national interested to immigrate to the United States for a long time may use significant amount of time listening English music, doing online research about American culture, befriending American people on social media, practice American English etc. This person definitely holds higher investment than the other African immigrant who lives in the United States, works with people who share similar home language, and rarely welcomes the chances of communicating with White-Caucasian Americans. A highly motivated immigrant girl hardly learns anything if the classroom she attends has a homophobic, racist, elitist, and sexist classmates and teachers. She will not even be able to learn a great deal if she feels that she is not welcomed in that classroom or if her notion of a good classroom environment is different from that of the classroom she attends. Norton believes that investment is always co-constructed in interaction between learners, teachers, and peers. The investment is always by choice and in many cases the learners do so with an understanding that they will acquire symbolic resources (language, education, and friendship) or capital resources (money, job, or capital goods) (Norton, 2013).

Pavlenko, Norton, Kanno, Warriner etc. represent this school of thought, so far. The example of Norton’s participant Mai may be the perfect example to see the dichotomy between her level of motivation and investment. Despite being highly motivated to learn English language, she could not invest to attend the classes, because she had hard time making connection between her desired outcome and everyday classroom activities. She wanted to be an office dweller, put fancy clothes, work on computer and have access of phone in her office. However, she did not think that the routine presentation of one’s historical/geographical background in her classroom would ever enable her to achieve that goal.

Finally, identity is a major construct in the field of present S LA studies. People have different identities at the same time and they are constantly changing. Without properly addressing the identity conundrums, it is hard to pinpoint learning/teaching strategies that work for all second language learners.

References:

Bourdieu, P. (1979). Symbolic power. Critique of anthropology, 4(13-14), 77-85.

Davies, B., & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 20(1), 43-63.

Lantolf, J. P., & Pavlenko, A. (2001). Second Language Activity theory: Understanding second language learners as people. Learner contributions to language learning: New directions in research, 141-158.

McKay, S. L., & Wong, S. L. C. (1996). Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Investment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard educational review, 66(3), 577-609.

Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation. Multilingual Matters.

Vitanova, G. (2005). Authoring the self in a non-native language: A dialogic approach to agency and subjectivity. Dialogue with Bakhtin on second and foreign language learning: New perspectives, 149-169.

Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.