Amy Busch

Honors 211C

Final Paper

3/13/13

State of the Art in Sociolinguistic Research:

How Identity affects Second Language Acquisition

Linguistic research and methodologies have been growing and changing in recent years in response to the notion that a sociolinguistic approach could enhance researchers’ understanding of second language acquisition (SLA). Linguists such as Bonny Norton, Allan Firth, and Johannes Wagner contend that a cognitivist approach has created limitations on linguistic research and has in turn limited theories of how language is acquired and bilingualism is attained. A sociolinguistic approach would seek to answer how an individual learner’s personal identity, culture, biography, and social situation influence the way they acquire a second language. Norton defines identity as “how people understand their relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how people understand their possibilities for the future,” (1997, p. 410). Linguistic theories that neglect to study identity fail to consider that identity affects the learner’s confidence, their motivation for learning the language, their use of the language, and their overall acquisition of the language.

In their 1997 and 2007 articles, Firth and Wagner contend that current research reflects a more cognitive and mentalistic approach to SLA and neglects the social and contextual side of SLA. The authors do not subscribe to SLA’s fundamental tenets such as dichotomies like “acquisition versus use” or “language versus communication,” the separation of the cognitive and social, the non-native speaker as a deficient communicator, or the static view of context and identity. They argue that the terms used and data collected in mainstream SLA research are oversimplified because they fail to account for the interactional and sociolinguistic perspective. Through their work, Firth and Wagner claim that the specific biography of the learners and their individual development of social relations are important, but their research is limited and their articles, at their core, only serve to call for other sociolinguistic research in SLA.

Firth and Wagner wrote two articles in order to share their perspective and call for a reconceptualization of SLA methodologies, theories, and foci. Their first article, “On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research” (1997), approaches their argument by commenting on certain methodologies and perspectives in current SLA research and describing how an awareness of the contextual and interactional dimensions of language use can broaden and enhance SLA. However, this article has certain limitations and is enhanced by a second article, written a decade later. Their second article, “Second/Foreign Language Learning as a Social Accomplishment: Elaborations on a Reconceptualized SLA” (2007), outlines the arguments made in their first article and addresses criticisms of their arguments with evidence and a further description of the reconceptualization they first called for.

Firth and Wagner sought to better understand how identity influences second language acquisition. They briefly provide an evidential argument through conversation analysis in which they observe learning occurring in conversations between two Non-native Speakers (NNSs). The first excerpt provided is a conversation between a Danish salesman and an Egyptian wholesaler in which the meaning of “blowing” is negotiated to mean that cheese has gone bad. Firth and Wagner write, “Learning here, then, is an artifact of interactional exigency and a product of collaboration” (2007, p. 808). The Danish salesman later uses the term appropriately and in context after being transferred to the Egyptian wholesaler. Firth and Wagner believe that the selective use of the term “blowing” “offers an intriguing angle from which to view language learning” (2007, 809). Firth and Wagner analyze three more conversations, and draw the conclusion that language is “learned by doing.” Such conversation analyses are challenging because they are not available for longitudinal studies, but Firth and Wagner contend that “the development of social relations, the mutual constituency of linguistic resources and tasks, and the specific biography of the language learners” are important (2007, p. 812).

In his article, “The Rise of Identity in SLA Research, Post Firth and Wagner” (1997), David Block comments on how Firth and Wagner’s articles, among others in the mid-1990s, were “symptomatic of a general uneasiness about a certain conceptual and epistemological narrowness in the field” (865). This uneasiness resulted from the notion that SLA research might indeed be neglecting how important identity can be in terms of understanding a learner’s second language acquisition. Block discusses how identity is related to different demographic categories, such as age, nationality, gender, and race, but how it is also dynamic and changeable. Block cites Aneta Pavlenko, who wrote, “It is possible that only personal narratives provide a glimpse into areas so private, personal, and intimate that they are rarely—if ever—breached in the study of SLA, and at the same time at the heart and soul of the second language socialization process” (Pavlenko, 167). SLA researchers must consider identity in order to understand how learners associate with their target language.

Block considers Firth and Wagner’s work as a starting point, but chooses a different form of research in order to better understand SLA. Block says that there are two practical ways of understanding a language learner’s identity: drawing on autobiographical accounts or doing fieldwork and interviews. Those that consider autobiographical accounts study memoirs about personal language learning experiences. Those that collect data using fieldwork and interviews work closely with groups of language learners in formal settings, conduct interviews, and make observations. Both types of researchers “have constructed the L2 [second language] learning stories of individuals, who for survival, professional, or more ludic reasons, have crossed language and cultural borders” (867). Block considers these methods to be highly beneficial to an understanding of how various social factors play into language acquisition. He regards Norton’s 2000 publication Identity and Language Learning and Marya Teutsch-Dwyer’s 2001 article “(Re)constructing masculinity in a new linguistic reality” (included in Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender) as studies that provide beneficial methods of analyzing the role of identity in SLA.

In her 1997 article, Norton wrote about the relationship between SLA and identity, and said, “We as L2 educators need to take this relationship seriously. The questions we ask necessarily assume that speech, speakers, and social relationships are inseparable” (409). In her 2000 study, Norton followed five immigrant women in Canada over the course of 12 months. She asked these women, who had completed six months of ESL courses, to keep daily diaries of their social, work, and at-home experiences as well as discuss their daily access to English. Norton’s study reflects on the women’s complex and dynamic identities, which are made evident in their diaries. She notes the degree to which these women were able to use English. Block describes two contrastive cases in Norton’s study. “In the case of Eva, a young Polish woman, success was achieved in the sense that she was able to gain acceptance among her colleagues and clientele in the restaurant where she worked” (Block, 868). In contrast, Felicia, a middle-aged Peruvian woman, was not as lucky. “Caught between her middle-class past in Peru and her more precarious economic status in Canada, Felicia struggled to find her voice in English and above all she chafed at the way that she was often positioned by others as an immigrant, fortunate to be in Canada” (Block, 868). Norton concludes that there is a complex relationship between identity, social relations, motivation, and language learning. However, Block argues, she failed to provide example conversations so her data and results are limited.

Block uses Teutsch-Dwyer’s study as an example because it focused on L2 learner’s personal narratives and also provided examples of conversation. Teutsch-Dwyer studied Karol, a middle-aged Polish man living and working in the United States. Over the course of the 14-month study, Karol showed very little improvement in his English grammar. Teutsch-Dwyer attributed his lack of improvement to his English usage habits. Karol only spoke with a group of women, including his girlfriend, who did not try to help him improve his speech. In fact, they slowed and simplified their speech for him, and his girlfriend did the majority of his English communication on his behalf (868). In contrast to Norton, who explained poor L2 development as a result of lack of access to the language, Teutsch-Dwyer explained Karol’s identification with others as the main factor in his poor acquisition of English grammar. Block notes that Teutsch-Dwyer’s methodologies remedy the shortcomings of Norton’s study because they relied not only on what Karol said about his life, but also fieldwork that recorded Karol in action.

Norton also wrote about other studies done in identity research in SLA. She first defined identity as a reference to “how people understand their relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how people understand their possibilities for the future,” then explained various ways of approaching an understanding of how identity affects SLA (1997, p. 410). Norton gave a brief overview of five articles that utilize an interview method to study the effects of identity. The first article discusses how ESL teachers need to understand that their students have “social needs and aspirations that may be inseparable from linguistic needs” (414). The author of the article, Brian Morgan, is an ESL teacher that believes the ESL classroom is an important area of study in identity research. The second article, written by Patricia Duff and Yuko Uchida, is an analysis of how TOEFL teachers construct identity and teach culture. Lucia Thesen studied Black students learning English for Academic Purposes (EAP), and Norton notes the importance of her analysis of how the students were stereotyped as underprivileged, but in fact did not identify themselves in that way. Sandra Schecter and Robert Bayley took their research out of the classroom setting and studied interactions in Mexican families that had immigrated to the United States. Finally, Norton discusses Constant Leung, Roxy Harris, and Ben Rampton’s study of ESL classrooms in England. Like Firth and Wagner, they questioned certain constructs in SLA research. Leung, Harris, and Rampton argue that in order for ESL teachers to better respond to the language needs of their students, terms such as “native speaker” and “mother tongue” should be replaced with notions of “language expertise”, “language inheritance”, and “language affiliation.” In her analysis of the study, Norton writes, “…the teacher should ask, ‘What is the learner’s linguistic repertoire? Is the learner’s relationship to these languages based on expertise, inheritance, affiliation, or a combination?’…These constructs…are highly productive for understanding the relationship between language and ethnic identity” (418). All of the articles that Norton lists choose to analyze the effects of identity on SLA through fieldwork and interviews (414-418).

Norton concludes that identity is ““complex, contradictory, and multifaceted”, “dynamic across time and place”, “constructs and is constructed by language”, and “must be understood with respect to larger social processes, marked by relations of power that can be either coercive or collaborative” (419). Norton concludes her article in a discussion of how identity contributes to an ownership of the English language. She states that, “If learners cannot claim ownership of the language, they might not consider themselves legitimate speakers” (422). Norton calls for English educators to avoid categorizing English learners or non-standard speakers and to instead allow them to “own” the language just as much as any native speaker. She believes that, if this happens, fewer learners will suffer from identity issues that cause them to question their abilities or their motivation for studying the language (427).

Naoko Morita focuses more closely on identities formed in the classroom community in her article “Negotiating Participation and Identity in Second Language Academic Communities” (2004). Morita did a qualitative multiple-case study that followed six L2 English graduate students from Japan. She examined how L2 learners negotiated their participation and membership in class discussions through student self-reports, interviews, and classroom observations. Three participants illustrated a major challenge in negotiating competence, identities, and power relations. Their identification with English was constructed in the classroom, and if they failed to participate and be recognized as competent members of their classroom communities, their language acquisition could be affected (573). Morita says this research can have implications for classroom practices, and notes that classroom practices should cater to the language learner’s identity.

Research in how identity affects SLA has expanded since the mid-1990s, and there are many different ways to measure identity’s effects on SLA. Ethnographic methods that include narratives, observations, and interviews have proven the most relevant in the expanding sociolinguistic understanding of language acquisition. Replications of previous interviews with new subjects will provide more data on identity’s effects on SLA. Further studies in the effects of identity and biographical influence on SLA and an understanding that an individual learner’s personal identity, culture, biography, and social situation influences the way they acquire a second language can further enrich linguistic research and may prove beneficial for teachers who could cater to individual needs in a second and foreign language learning setting.

Bibliography

Block, David. "The Rise of Identity in Sla Research, Post Firth and Wagner (1997)."Modern Language Journal. 91 (2007): 863-76. Print.

Duff, Patricia A, and Yuko Uchida. "The Negotiation of Teachers' Sociocultural Identities and Practices in Postsecondary EFL Classrooms." TESOL Quarterly. 31.3 (1997): 451. Print.

Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (January 01, 2007). Second/Foreign Language Learning as a Social Accomplishment: Elaborations on a Reconceptualized SLA. The Modern Language Journal, 91.

Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (October 01, 1997). On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research. Modern Language Journal, 81, 3, 285-300.

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Morita, Naoko. "Negotiating Participation and Identity in Second Language Academic Communities." TESOL Quarterly. 38.4 (2005): 573-603. Print.

Norton, Bonny. Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. Harlow, England: Longman, 2000. Print.

Norton, Bonny. "Language, Identity, and the Ownership of English." TESOL Quarterly. 31.3 (1997): 409-429. Print.

Pavlenko, Aneta. Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2001. Print.

Schecter, Sandra R, and Robert Bayley. "Language Socialization Practices and Cultural Identity: Case Studies of Mexican-Descent Families in California and Texas." TESOL Quarterly. 31.3 (1997): 513. Print.

Thesen, Lucia. "Voices, Discourse, and Transition: in Search of New Categories in Eap."TESOL Quarterly. 31.3 (1997): 487. Print.