Second Language and Identity Linda and Wei-Li Hsu

1. Second Language and IdentityLinda and Wei-Li Hsu

2. Personalities Learning styles motivations Why do students want to learn the target language? What kind of learning styles fit what kind of students? 70’s & 80’s:

3. Diverse social - Historical - And cultural contexts What kind of social, historical, and cultural background do the students bring into the classroom? How does it affect their learning? 90’s until present:

4. Current Issue: • How can we link the theory with classroom practice?

5. Usual case: • The student’s social, historical and cultural background are ignored or even disapproved of. • The student is forced to assume a new identity while acquiring L2.

6. Goal: • Give the students a chance to share their identities in the classroom in order to allow them to preserve and expand their identity while acquiring L2.

7. Organizations, Journals, and Conferences

10. Bonny Norton Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9-31. Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 409-429. Norton, B. (Ed.). (1997). Language and identity [Special issue]. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3).Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow, England: Longman/Pearson Education. Kanno, Y., & Norton, B. (Eds.). (2003). Imagined communities and educational possibilities [Special Issue]. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4).

11. Bonny Norton Norton, B., & Gao, Y. (2008). Identity, investment, and Chinese learners of English. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 18(1), 109-120. Norton, B. (2006). Identity as a sociocultural construct in second language education. In K.Cadman & K. O'Regan (Eds.), TESOL in Context [Special Issue], 22-33

12. SLS UH faculty Kathryn Davis- Authenticity and identity: Lessons from indigenous language education Christina Higgins- Gender Identities in Language Education

13. Christina Higgins Identity and L2 learning and use As I have taught many graduate students who are interested in careers in language teaching, I find myself increasingly enaged in learning more about how second language learning/use relates to the development of a distinct second language self. My own experiences as an L2 Swahili speaker have also inspired me to do research on identity formation in L2 learning and use, as I find that the subject positions available to me in Swahili are rather different from those I experience in my L1, English. To address these interests, I have two research projects underway which make use of narrative inquiry:

14. Resistance to identity slippage in Tanzania: L2 users of Swahili I am using narrative inquiry to investigate how L2 users of Swahili respond to the idea of 'becoming Swahili' in and through their second language. This research examines whether and to what degree cross-cultural adaptation through 'identity slippage' (Armour, 2002) and 'discursive repositioning' (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000) is possible for people through L2 learning and use. I organized a colloquium at the 2007 International Pragmatics and Language Learning Conference, in March of 2007 on this topic where participants presented on L2 identity formation in Japanese, French, and English. I expect to publish these papers and my own work in the following edited collection: Higgins, C. (ed.) Negotiating the self in a second language: Identity formation in a globalizing world. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

15. Language learning as a site for belonging: Korean adoptee-returnees' use of Korean as a heritage language. (with Kim Stoker) Many Heritage Language (HL) studies have found that learners are often motivated to learn or improve their HLs in order to use them with people of their ethnic and national ancestry, and to more fully participate in ethnic communities tied to the HL (e.g., Cho, 2000; He, 2008; Tse, 1998;Valdes, 2005, 2006). This project investigates whether and to what degree heritage language learners of Korean are able to use their HL with Korean speakers as a means of connecting with their ethnic identity and participating more deeply in Korean social networks. We expand the field of HL research by investigating the experiences of four Korean-born, U.S.-raised adoptee-returnees who currently reside in South Korea and use Korean as an L2. We employ ethnographically-informed narrative inquiry (Bamberg, De Fina, & Schiffrin, 2007; Kanno, 2003; Pavlenko, 2007) by drawing on interviews, observations, and the personal experiences of Kim Stoker, who is a member of this community, to explore how adoptee-returnees' learning of Korean affects their settlement success, social recognition, and sense of ethnic and cultural belonging in the country of their birth. Thus far, we have found that many adoptee-returnees claim belonging through their participation in the 'third place' (Kramsch, 1993) of the adoptee-returnee social network in Seoul in a myriad of ways, as illustrated through their high degree of production of verbal and visual artforms that utilize both Korean and English to produce 'in-between' identities.