Second Language Identities by David Block

Bibliographic Data

ID3612252
AuthorsJosephine Lee (0000-0003-0686-9228, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume13
Issue1
Pages118-122
Publication date2009-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Sociolinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1360-6441 • E-ISSN: 1467-9841
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00397_4.x
OpenAlexW1547502456
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited6

David Block . Second Language Identities . London : Continuum . 2007 . 230 pp . Hb (0826474063) £75.00/$160.00 . Reviewed by Josephine Lee Alongside the works of Norton (2000), Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004), and Mantero (2007), this book attempts to link identity with issues of second-language development. The volume contributes to this field of study by taking a decidedly poststructuralist approach to language and identity. As an articulate, critical, and comprehensive text, it offers a good introduction to contemporary theory and existing literature related to identity research. The book does not require the reader to have any background about the area as it is written in a highly readable style, explaining every term and topic in full detail. The collection consists of seven chapters. Although the text is not divided into any sections, I will group the chapters into three parts, for the sake of illustrating the overall organization of the book. The first part (Chapters 1-3) provides a concise yet thorough overview of the theoretical concepts commonly involved in identity research. Having prepared readers with the appropriate theoretical knowledge, the second part (Chapters 4-6) proceeds to critically review current literature with a particular focus on exploring how identity varies across different contexts. Each chapter is dedicated to a different setting: adult migrant, foreign language, and study abroad context. Finally, in the last part, (Chapter 7), a summary of the book is followed by several suggestions for future research. As the starting point of the volume, Chapter 1, ‘Introduction’, initiates the discussion of defining ‘identity’ as a key construct. Three quotations extracted from a bank statement, song lyrics, and Bonny Norton's 1995 article, respectively, are presented to illustrate varying perspectives on identity. Brief analyses of each demonstrate how identity can be perceived as a fixed product, as a volatile and fluid construct, or as an academic concept. Having laid out the different views of identity, the author gives a historical account for the current popularity of identity research present among social scientists and applied linguists. Tracing back as far as to the Western European enlightenment era, identity is viewed to have its roots in the works of Descartes, Locke, Machiavelli, Kant, and Hegel. What separates recent frameworks of identity from the past, however, is the ontological change brought about from lifestyles situated in the now postmodern age. Deterministic labels such as ‘gender’ and ‘race’ are being replaced with concepts that are more complex and volatile in nature, and it is this poststructuralist stance that the introduction clearly articulates as being this book's approach to identity. Having made explicit the theoretical stance of the volume, in Chapter 2 Block delves further into the specific concepts associated with poststructuralist discussions of identity. The author sets apart this position from the essentialist perspectives grounded in biological determinism and social-structuralist approaches. Quoting from renowned scholars such as Weedon, Hall, Foucault, Butler, and Wenger, this chapter frames identity as a ‘complex and multilayered construct’ (p. 27). Identity is a social and discursive construction and a performance played out by individuals. It is in constant negotiation with new subject positions that arise in their surroundings. Based on this approach to identity, the author is able to problematize the deterministic nature of commonly-held categories (e.g. ethnicity, gender, national identity, social class, etc.). That these identities are recently considered as being unstable, multi-faceted, and discursive in nature is emphasized throughout this chapter. The content of Chapter 3 is well explained by its title alone: ‘Revisiting the past’. This chapter goes back in time to rediscover identity from oft-cited publications such as the works of Schumann, Schmidt, Bailey, Lambert, Brown, and Guiora. Citing Pavlenko, the author calls this line of research as being part of the ‘Socio-psychological Approach’ to language learning. Although identity is rarely an explicit issue in these studies, the author unveils its existence and examines how contemporary concepts of identity are lying dormant under the surface. The purpose of such an approach is to demonstrate how the limitations of socio-psychological perspectives can be overcome if a poststructuralist framework takes over. With discussions of the socio-psychological and poststructuralist approaches positioned side by side, the reader is able to gain a clearer picture of how views on identity have transformed and become more central in second-language studies over the past twenty years. Chapter 4 opens up the discussion of identities that emerge in adult-migrant contexts. The author argues that this particular setting carries the most potential for ‘significant identity work’, as adult immigrants are often socialized into a new culture and language that differs from what they originally possess. Subsequently, Broeder et al's (1996) research is reviewed as a start, along with the works of Goldstein, Norton, and Teutsch-Dwyer, through which the author points out the recent transition of interests towards detailed life trajectories of the informants as a common way to examine identity issues. These studies, however, fall short of the author's expectations in that they fail to incorporate actual recordings of second-language use. The author's own research is thereby discussed as a complement to those shortcomings. In his study of a Spanish-speaking Latino named Carlos, actual recordings are included as part of the data. Furthermore, the findings of the study are significant as they demonstrate the poststructuralist view of identities as being complex and multi-layered. The ‘transnational’ identity exhibited by Carlos happens to challenge traditionally-held assumptions of migrant identities being fixed to national or cultural identities. Shifting from a somewhat ‘immersion setting’, Chapter 5 focuses on how the issue of identity is negotiated in foreign language (FL) contexts, especially in classroom settings. The chapter moves from studies that are only indirectly involved with identity issues to those that more explicitly state identity as the locus of their research. In discussion of works on interlanguage pragmatics, intercultural-language learning, textual identities, and subject positions in classrooms, the author concludes that FL settings provide few opportunities for the learner to reconstitute their sense as mediated by the target language. Two studies - one on a case of an internet-mediated exchange program and another done on Japanese EFL learners in a feminist English class - are listed as exceptions, but the author claims that as such they are not considered to be the norm. Chapter 6 focuses on the study abroad (SA) context, which the author views as falling somewhere between the FL and adult-migrant context. First reviewed are studies on sexual harassment experienced during studies abroad. Combined with other research on gender-subject positions, the author delineates how gender ideologies of the target community often determine the kind of access and learning opportunities made available for the learner. National-subject positions are also another concern in this context. SA context is presented as a setting that can lead to either increased nationalism in the learners, or awareness of an intercultural self. After a short summary of the whole book, the final chapter lays out five major suggestions directed for future research. The first proposes greater inclusion of social class as a variable affecting second-language identity formation. Other suggestions concern the often neglected contexts: communities where multilingualism is considered as the norm and settings where local lingua francas are the primary means of communication instead of the target language of the majority. The author suggests that such multilingual settings have great potential for ‘expanding the ambit of L1’ (p. 190) and discovering their own particular identity issues. Electronically-mediated language learning contexts are also posed as an interesting site to investigate identity work different from face-to-face interactions. Lastly, the author, as a response to Bendle's (2002) call, prudently argues how a psychoanalytic approach might be an alternative perspective that leads to a more introspective understanding of identity related to second-language learning. The book is well organized and easy to follow. Considering the scope and volume of the literature on identities on second languages, it is impressive that the author has managed to fit such a broad range of topics and contexts into a single publication. The volume, however, is not without its shortcomings. First, a few typographic errors are distracting for the reader. Second, the book would also have benefited from some discussion of research methodologies. Although multiple sources of data (e.g. interviews, recordings of interaction) are presented throughout the chapters, readers are not informed of the actual analytical approaches taken to analyze the data. In particular, I would like to have seen the analyses of interviews presented in a more credible way - those from Block's own studies at the least. Often data extracts are quoted in an isolated manner, details of the actual talk are lost in the transcription, and the interviewer's questions are deleted. In this way, the author misses the opportunity to consider interviews as interaction situated in a specific social context (Potter and Hepburn 2005). Provided with only a simplified version of the talk, readers are less able to fully evaluate the author's findings, and the reliability of the study comes into question. Other weaknesses concern the validity of the findings in Block's own research. First, some parts of his analyses are jumps to macro-interpretations, without pointing out where in the data his claims are grounded. Rather than considering what the informants are actually saying, Block appears to be imposing a priori his own assumptions. Second, there is the issue of under-analysis. Instead of putting the discursive complexity and the socially-engaged nature of interviews into close analysis, Block often lets the data ‘speak for itself’, or simply offers summaries of what the respondent is saying. This analytic approach not only distorts the discursive details of the original (Antaki et al. 2003), it also gives the impression that the author assumes people's accounts to be accurate representations of the truth (Atkinson and Delamont 2006). Third, unequal attention is given to the treatment of multiple data sources. In Chapter 4, Block argues for the collection of actual recordings to complement interview data, but then he does not analyze each data source in its own right. His conclusions rely more on informants' retrospective interviews of an activity, even though the documented actual event seems to contradict the participants' retrospective comments. By ignoring the context-bound nature of each action and account, the opportunity of adding complexity and rigor to the study is lost (Denzin and Lincoln 2000). Lastly, my main concern is related to the author's claim that foreign language contexts are ‘an unfertile ground for TL-mediated work’ (p.144). In this sense, the author seems to view TL from a perspective limited to those of the target community, not necessarily considering the specific social and cultural contexts in which the foreign-language learning is situated. How individuals negotiate their identities in response to the particular societal values, status, and ideologies attached to the foreign language in socio-culturally and politically-diverse-educational environments seems not to be within the author's interests. Nevertheless, with foreign-language education often being interrelated with complex influences such as globalization, political agendas, mass media, etc., it should not be too readily dismissed but be recognized as a rather prolific site to examine the multi-layered nature of identity. I have discussed several weaknesses of this volume. However, the blame is not to fall entirely on this work alone. The issues I have addressed are common problems that arise in a significant majority of qualitative reports in applied linguistics. Despite these shortcomings, this book is a valuable resource in its concise and comprehensive review of key pieces of theory, literature and context. The author very successfully delineates how the concept of identity has evolved from the past to the present, and summarizes a research agenda for the future. The diversity of languages and countries discussed is also creditable in this publication. In short, the essence of discussions on identity is condensed into this single volume. It is highly readable, engaging and thus appealing, especially to students and novice researchers just entering the field. This volume is a perfect selection for readers seeking to become familiarized with the complex concepts of a poststructuralist approach to identity and to get them excited about second-language-identity research

Block (permutation group theory · Combinatorics · Linguistics · Sociology · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Mathematics · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Second Language Learning and Teaching

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