Identity and Language Learning: Discourse, Culture, and Identity

            The readings for this week were about language learning and how it affects a person’s identity and culture. The Holliday readings talked about discourse and identity. It talked about how narratives are used a way to represent a person’s identity because people write or talk about their personal experiences they have had in their lives. As Stephenson states, “the capacity to narrate our personal experience gives us a sense of individual identity, but in so far as we are able to relate that experience to a broader narrative, we can also share an identity with others,” (p. 101). I think that a reading or listening to someone’s narrative about their personal experiences can give the reader or listener a sense of who that person is, but there is more than personal experiences that mold a person’s identity and makes them who they are.

            In Chapter 2: Language and Identity (Hall, 2000), it focused on the connection between social identity, language and culture. I learned that language and culture are important factors in building a person’s social identity. “Our histories are defined in part by our membership in a range of social groups into which we are born such as gender, social class, religion and race” (p. 32). I found it interesting that based on the groups or communities we are a part of can have a great affect on our social identities and roles. “The degree of individual effort we can exert in shaping our identities, however, is not always equal,” (p. 33). In this article, I learned about Giddens' theory of structuration and Bourdieu's notion of habitus. We bring our past experiences in our lives to social situations.

            In the article Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning (Norton, 2000), Peirce argues that “SLA theorists have not developed a comprehensive theory of social identity that integrates the language learner and the language learning context. Furthermore, they have not questioned how relations of power in the social world affect social interaction between second language learners and target language speakers” (p.12). After reading this article, it made me think as a teacher how children deal with second language acquisition and how the impact it has on a person’s social identity. I thought it was interesting that she described language learners as “unidimensional,” e.g. introverted vs. extroverted, inhibited vs. uninhibited, or field dependent vs. field independent (p. 10).

            I think that as a bilingual education major, I am going to have to make sure that I don’t make assumptions about a culture because my students may come from very diverse backgrounds and I have to be able to embrace that diversity in the classroom. Also, some of the parents of my students may be struggling with the culture shock as Gail and Eva did in the article. I think that for the ELL students in the classroom it is important to lower the affective filter in order to help them gain the confidence they need to learn a second language. “In Krashen's view, this affective filter comprises the learner's motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety state—all of which are variables that pertain to the individual rather than the social context,” (p. 10).