ES identidad / CAT identitat / FR identité / DE Identität

A person’s identity is the conception he or she has formed about their relation to their social environment: "[People] try to act as though they are who they say they are. These self understandings […] are what we refer to as identities" (Holland et al. 1998: 3). Learning a new language entails contributing to the construction of one’s identity, since a certain amount of effort is required to create new ways of relating to the world through words, and it also entails engaging in new interpersonal relationships in which one desires to remain the same person but has to adopt new ways of action. “As [a] person encounters new, and especially challenging, situations, new and different ways of relating to these situations need to be constructed, and this construction work is referred to as identity” (Van Lier 2009: xiv). Agency allows learners (when trying to express themselves from a specific identity) to redefine their relationship with their interlocutors and to adopt new, more powerful identities from which to speak, which allows them to make progress in their learning.

Remotely rooted in Bakhtin and Vygotsky’s theories on language mediation, the concept arises from the subjectivity theory and the power relations of poststructuralist sociology (Bourdieu). Authors such as Norton (2013), Pavlenko (2002), or van Lier (2009), among others, have applied the concept to their works on language learning. According to them, an additional language learner builds and negotiates multiples identities when taking part in language activities from a specific set of power and legitimacy relations, which are variable and context-dependent. Unlike psycholinguistic approaches, which are aimed at motivation and learning styles, identity-related approaches focus on the social, historical and cultural contexts of learning, as well as how learners question or negotiate the place they are assigned within them. This approach abandons the static conception of the learner and its affective factors, which are considered a result of social construction, so their nature may change depending on the different contexts.

References

  • Holland, Dorothy; Lachicotte Jr., William; Skinner, Debra & Cain, Carole. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  • Norton, Bonny (2013). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
  • Pavlenko, Aneta. (2002). Poststructuralist approaches to the study of social factors in second language learning and use. In V. Cook (Ed.), Portraits of the L2 user, 277- 302. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
  • Van Lier, Leo (2009). Foreword: Agency, Self and Identity in Language. En Breffni O'Rourke y Lorna Carson (Eds.), Learning Language Learner Autonomy: Policy, Curriculum, Classroom : a Festschrift in honour of David Little. Berlín: Peter Lang.