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Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning

Bibliographic Data

ID5774433
AuthorsBonny Norton Peirce (Institute for Christian Studies, corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume29
Issue1
Pages9-9
Publication date1995-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTESOL Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0039-8322 • E-ISSN: 1545-7249
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/3587803
OpenAlexW2075617627
LanguageEN
Citations received792
References cited16

The author argues that second language acquisition (SLA) theorists have struggled to conceptualize the relationship between the language learner and the social world because they have not developed a comprehensive theory of social identity which integrates the language learner and the language learning context. She also maintains that SLA theorists have not adequately addressed how relations of power affect interaction between language learners and target language speakers. Using data collected in Canada from January to December 1991 from diaries, questionnaires, individual and group interviews, and home visits, the author illustrates how and under what conditions the immigrant women in her study created, responded to, and sometimes resisted opportunities to speak English. Drawing on her data analysis as well as her reading in social theory, the author argues that current conceptions of the individual in SLA theory need to be reconceptualized, and she draws on the poststructuralist conception of social identity as multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change to explain the findings from her study. Further, she argues for a conception of investment rather than motivation to capture the complex relationship of language learners to the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to speak it. The notion of investment conceives of the language learner, not as a historical and unidimensional, but as having a complex social history and multiple desires. The article includes a discussion of the implications of the study for classroom teaching and current theories of communicative competence

Investment · Social identity approach · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Multilingual Education and Policy · Second Language Learning and Teaching

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Unique citing works792
Citations per year13,89
Citation span1969 - 2026 (58)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedYes
Citation typesNeutral: 779
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