In language learning research, identity refers to the personal orientation to time, space, and society, and the manner in which it develops together with, and because of, speech development.
Language is a largely social practice, and this socialization is reliant on, and develops concurrently with one's understanding of personal relationships and position in the world, and those who understand a second language are influenced by both the language itself, and the interrelations of the language to each other. For this reason, every time language learners interact in the second language, whether in the oral or written mode, they are engaged in identity construction and negotiation. However, structural conditions and social contexts are not entirely determined. Through human agency, language learners who struggle to speak from one identity position may be able to reframe their relationship with their interlocutors and claim alternative, more powerful identities from which to speak, thereby enabling learning to take place.
Early developments The relationship between identity and language learning is of interest to scholars in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA), language education, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics. It is best understood in the context of a shift in the field from a predominantly psycholinguistic approach to SLA to include a greater focus on sociological and cultural dimensions of language learning,Firth, A. & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal, 81, 286-300.Morgan, B. (2007). Poststructuralism and applied linguistics: Complementary approaches to identity and culture in ELT. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), International handbook of English language teaching (pp. 1033-1052). New York: Springer.Norton, B., & Toohey, K. (2001). Changing perspectives on good language learners. TESOL Quarterly, 35(2), 307-322. or what has been called the “social turn” in SLA.Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Thus while much research on language learning in the 1970s and 1980s was directed toward investigating the personalities, learning styles, and motivations of individual learners, contemporary researchers of identity are centrally concerned with the diverse social, historical, and cultural contexts in which language learning takes place, and how learners negotiate and sometimes resist the diverse positions those contexts offer them. Further, identity theorists question the view that learners can be defined in binary terms as motivated or unmotivated, introverted or extroverted, without considering that such affective factors are frequently socially constructed in inequitable relations of power, changing across time and space, and possibly coexisting in contradictory ways within a single individual.
Many scholarsBlock, D. (2007a). The rise of identity in SLA research, post Firth and Wagner (1997), Modern Language Journal, 91, 863-876.Menard-Warwick, J.(2006). Both a fiction and an existential fact: Theorizing identity in second language acquisition and literacy studies. Linguistics and Education, 16, 253-274.Ricento, T. (2005). Considerations of identity in L2 learning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research on second language teaching and learning (pp. 895-911). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Swain, M., & Deters, P. (2007). ‘New’ mainstream SLA theory: Expanded and enriched. The Modern Language Journal, 91 (focus issue), 820-836.Zuengler, J. & Miller, E. (2006). Cognitive and sociocultural perspectives: Two parallel SLA worlds? TESOL Quarterly, 40 (1), 35-58. cite educational theorist Bonny Norton’s conceptualization of identity (Norton Peirce, 1995; Norton, 1997; Norton, 2000/2013) as foundational in language learning research. Her theorization highlights how learners participate in diverse learning contexts where they position themselves and are positioned in different ways. Drawing from poststructuralist Christine Weedon's (1987) notion of subjectivity and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's (1991) power to impose reception, Norton demonstrated how learners construct and negotiate multiple identities through language, reframing relationships so that they may claim their position as legitimate speakers.
The race aspect People often consider language and identity as some structured definitions from the dictionary that they just follow. Although there are structural definitions for the words "language" and "identity", some people have different perspectives on them. In the essays written by James Baldwin, he was able to grasp a new meaning and new perspective of reading and writing because of the way these authors portray these words. We have come to a point where language somewhat links with identity. The two terms at times can go hand in hand like black and white or like a pea in a pod.
In the essay, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” by James Baldwin talked a lot about the way he saw language to be and the way he felt that both language and identity is linked. In his essay, he said that language is the most crucial key to identity. This statement helped to show readers that we would not be who we are without language. Also, it shows his main idea about Black English because it did not have the kind of significant personality they have today. Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker . Baldwin consistently stressed on how the way one uses language can show the person the speaker is. Which shows how important it is for a person to embrace their language for their personality to be seen positively by others. Baldwin’s stress on language and identity through his different ideas really helped to open a door in every reader's mind because it makes them think back and see how language helped to form their identity.
Contemporary ideas Since Norton's conception of identity in the 1990s, it has become a central construct in language learning research foregrounded by scholars such as David Block, Aneta Pavlenko, Kelleen Toohey, Margaret Early, Peter De Costa and Christina Higgins. A number of researchers have explored how Identity categories of race, gender, class and sexual orientation may impact the language learning process. Identity now features in most encyclopedias and handbooks of language learning and teaching, and work has extended to the broader field of applied linguistics to include identity and pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and discourse. In 2015, the theme of the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) conference held in Toronto was identity, and the journal Annual Review of Applied Linguistics in the same year focused on issues of identity, with prominent scholars discussing the construct in relation to a number of topics. These included translanguaging (Angela Creese and Adrian Blackledge), transnationalism and multilingualism (Patricia Duff), technology (Steven Thorne), and migration (Ruth Wodak).
Closely linked to identity is Norton's construct of investment which complements theories of motivation in SLA. Norton argues that a learner may be a highly motivated language learner, but may nevertheless have little investment in the language practices of a given classroom or community, which may, for example, be racist, sexist, elitist, or homophobic. Thus, while motivation can be seen as a primarily psychological construct,Dornyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press. Investment is framed within a sociological framework and seeks to make a meaningful connection between a learner’s desire and commitment to learn a language, and their complex identity. The construct of investment has sparked considerable interest and research in the field.Arkoudis, S. & Davison, C. (Eds.). (2008). Chinese students: Perspectives on their social, cognitive, and linguistic investment in English medium interaction. [Special Issue]. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 18 (1).Cummins, J. (2006). Identity texts: The imaginative construction of self through multiliteracies pedagogy. In O. Garcia, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. Torres-Guzman. (Eds.) Imagining multilingual schools: Language in education and glocalization. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, p. 51-68.Haneda, M. (2005). Investing in foreign-language writing: A study of two multicultural learners.Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4 (4), 269-290.McKay, S., & Wong, S. C. (1996). Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Investment and agency in second language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard Educational Review, 66(3), 577-608.Norton, B., & Gao, Y. (2008). Identity, investment, and Chinese learners of English. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 18(1), 109-120.Pittaway, D. (2004). Investment and second language acquisition. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 4(1), 203-218.Skilton-Sylvester, E. (2002). Should I stay or should I go? Investigating Cambodian women’s participation and investment in adult ESL programs. Adult Education Quarterly, 53(1), 9-26. Darvin and Norton's (2015) model of investment in language learning locates investment at the intersection of identity, capital, and ideology. Responding to conditions of mobility and fluidity that characterize the 21st century, the model highlights how learners are able to move across online and offline spaces, performing multiple identities while negotiating different forms of capital.Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2015). Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied Linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 36-56.
An extension of interest in identity and investment concerns the imagined communities that language learners may aspire to join when they learn a new language. The term “imagined community”, originally coined by Benedict Anderson (1991), was introduced to the language learning community by Norton (2001), who argued that in many language classrooms, the targeted community may be, to some extent, a reconstruction of past communities and historically constituted relationships, but also a community of the imagination, a desired community that offers possibilities for an enhanced range of identity options in the future. These innovative ideas, inspired also by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998), are more fully developed in Kanno and Norton (2003), and Pavlenko and Norton (2007), and have proved generative in diverse research sites.Carroll, S., Motha, S., & Price, J. (2008). Accessing imagined communities and reinscribing regimes of truth. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 5, 3, 165-191.Dagenais, D., Moore, D., Lamarre, S., Sabatier, C., & Armand, F. (2008). Linguistic landscape and language awareness. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (pp. 253-269). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.Kendrick, M. & Jones, S. (2008). Girls’ visual representations of literacy in a rural Ugandan community. Canadian Journal of Education, 31(3), 372-404.Silberstein, S. (2003). Imagined communities and national fantasies in the O.J. Simpson case. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2, 4, 319-330. An imagined community assumes an imagined identity, and a learner’s investment in the second language can be understood within this context.
Identity and writing