In the literature review, the author will begin with the importance of second language learner self-identity and why it is the underlying target of the whole research, followed by the motives why these factors of IDs are selected to be the focus, along with the connections among the factors, and the concept mapping.
Over the past two decades, there has been an exponential growth in the amount of research on identity, and the issue has been probed from two broad methodological orientations: one that examines learners’ identity construction and formation through their interaction with others, and one that pursues it through oral or written
auto/biographical accounts of learners’ experiences in learning a foreign language. In fact, researchers interested in exploring the matter from the above-mentioned
approaches tend to adopt a qualitative or narrative oriented perspective both in their methodology and analysis since they understand that narrative informs the concept of self and identity. On the contrary, few empirical studies provide specific definition on self-identity in EFL domain and meanwhile employ quantitative approach to analyze this theoretical concept. In the following parts, both qualitative and quantitative studies on the issue of self-identity are going to be discussed.
Notions of Self-Identity
Personal identity within a particular culture is a central topic throughout the humanities, cognitive science, psychology, and psychoanalysis. In psychodynamic sciences, an approach that emphasizes systematic study of the psychological forces which underlie human behavior, feelings, and emotions (Brookes, 2004), the
complexity of multiple self-experiences and social presentations in an individual are addressed in terms of layers of person schematization (Horowitz, 2012). The creation
of a precise definition for the term identity is therefore difficult. Many definitions have been put forward, yet lack conformity. The term has evolved from the representation of a “stable core self” (Hall, 1997) to dynamic, contradictory, and multiple dimensions of an individual (e.g., Block, 2006, 2007; Pavlenko, 2002). Ha (2008) argues that Eastern and Western notions of identity differ greatly. Western scholars tend to perceive identities as “hybrid and multiple” (p. 64), whereas Eastern scholars relate identities to a sense of belonging. Despite the various ways in which identity may be viewed, the subject of identity among English learners has been studied from a post-structuralist point of view that conceptualizes identities as
multiple, diverse, dynamic, and contradictory. The construct of identity as changeable is particularly important because learners who struggle to use the language from one identity position can reframe the relationship with interlocutors and reclaim
alternative. This construct has profound implications for SLA (Norton, 2000) because language learners’ identities may be affected by some potential factors such as
attitude.
In terms of EFL learners’ emotional development, the formation of identity is crucial. Once one has acquired a new language, the learner’s perceptions of personal competence, style of communication and value systems may be subject to alterations.
Most noticeably, variations in learners’ self-identity may be unobservable characteristics that EFL learners develop or construct while learning English.
According to Norton (2000), social identity refers to the relationship between the individual and the larger social world, as mediated through institutions such as families, schools, workplaces, social service, and law court, therefore identity is multiple and dynamic. Norton’s (1995, 2000) view of identity places emphasis on cultural identity, and discusses the notion from a perspective of “power” derived from a qualitative approach, suggesting that the power of a language may impact the
cultural identity of both language learners and users. As such, specifically
clarifications must be made concerning the social identity postulated by Norton (1995, 2000) as this definition differs from what is examined and discussed in the current study, as the latter particularly concentrates on the self-identity that learners
experience while acquiring the second language (English). The current study further scrutinizes different self-identity transformations and the psychological factors that affect such changes.
Multidimensional and non-unitary natures of learner identities have been
exemplified in several studies (e.g., Armour, 2004, Bosher, 1997; Lam, 2000; Norton, 2000). Norton (2000) demonstrated, through a series of case studies of immigrant women in Canada, how the social identities these women accepted influenced their opportunities for learning English.
Norton (2000) expanded on the multiple identities of a participant in her study,
“Martina”, who identified as an immigrant, a mother, a language learner, a worker and a wife. Martina, as an immigrant and a language learner, never felt comfortable
speaking English. However, her identity as a mother allowed engagements of long conversations in English with her landlord when he accused her of breaking a lease agreement.
Negotiating multiple identities, as several researchers (e.g., Armour, 2004;
McKay & Wong, 1996; Pierce Norton, 1995) indicated, is a site of struggle, meaning that language learners need to seek the balance between L1 and L2 identities. A participant in McKay and Wong’s (1996) study, actively resisted being positioned as an ESL student. During the initial assessment of his language skills, this participant chose not to use the suggested topic of family or school, but rather to write about his hobbies (sports and pets). McKay and Wong concluded that the participant’s attempt to “write about his hobbies” illustrated delicate social negotiations to fashion
desirable identities. The participant had refused to become a passive recipient of positioning and attempted to reposition and deploy discourses and counter discourses.
A further insight to the complexities of EFL identities are offered in Ali’ (2006) study. This study provided slightly different insights into L2 identities as compared to previous research. In Ali’s (2006) study, the participant “Maria” went to great length to conceal her ethnic identity instead of maintaining her L1 identities so she could be part of the collective social identity within the school. She did so by adopting
common linguistic and social traits shared by the dominant African-American social group within the school context. Since Maria was eager to gain entry into the
dominant group she resisted pressure to learn Standard American English (SAE), regardless of the opportunities it would afford her. Maria further refused the label of
‘ESL student’ since ESL students were considered inferior by most other students.
Maria’s priority was not to be academically successful, but to be socially accepted and included within the dominant social sphere in the school.
Others, such as Kramsch (1993), Norton (2000) and Kim (2003), conceptualize bilingual identities as dynamic and changing over time. Kramsch (1993) asserts that socio-cultural identities are not static deterministic constructs that EFL students bring to the classroom and then take away unchanged at the end of a lesson or course.
Instead, identity is an ongoing process of negotiating the self as argued by Wenger (1998), a similar impression is offered by Ueno (2001). After studying eleven bilingual Japanese middle school students at a Japanese Saturday school in a large mid-western city, findings indicated that none of the students interviewed were able to give clear-cut definitions of their identities. While these participants appreciated both sets of values, American and Japanese, they did not attempt to take on either identity exclusively. In fact, half of the participants claimed to locate their identities midway between American and Japanese. Therefore, dependent on internal and external
variables of the learners, learners will arrive at various consequences due to individual learning actions.
Ueno’s (2001) provided an interesting challenge to studies that suggest the negotiation of EFL identities as a site of struggle. In fact, the participants in Ueno’s study enjoyed belonging to both identities of their native culture and target culture.
Despite accepting American values of heterogeneity and individualism, the participants did not neglect their Japanese values (homogeneity and collectivism).
This suggests that identity formation is fluid and complex rather than straightforward and unmoving.
In sum, studies regarding self-identity indicate that L2 identities are
multidimensional, and provide a site of modification, which is fluid, and changing over time. Also highlighted is the fact that L2 learners do not necessarily need to abandon personal ethnic identities when learning new languages. On the contrary, the studies reviewed here indicate that the most successful second language learners are those who are able to maintain ethnic identities while adapting to L2 target culture.
Additionally, more and more researchers, following Norton’s (1995, 2000) theoretical underpinning, begin to make a thorough inquiry of self-identity with qualitative approach. However, it is important to expatiate that the concept of self-identity in current study is slightly different from the one by Norton. Precisely, Norton pays more attention to ethnical or cultural identity in some specific contexts (such as immigration), and she creates an academic term, imagined community, to refer to the ideal situation of language learners’ membership or sense of belonging to the target culture. Nevertheless, the self-identity in this study concentrates on the development of different stages that language students have when learning the L2 (Gao et al., 2005, 2007), and the separation of various stages of self-identity is supported by the field of social psychology (Berry, 1997), which also has similar
distinctions with this study and will be discussed in the following parts. To briefly sum up, the premise of self-identity in this research shares parallel foundations with Norton’s definition, but the empirical operation will be treated differently, with more focus on the various dimensions of self-identity in bilingual education.
Defining Self-Identity
Self-concept refers to an individual constructs from personal beliefs of self, as well as self-perception, or, in the terms that Hamlyn (1983: 241) uses, “the picture of oneself”. As such, in regards to self-perception, “facts” tend to be less important than what is believed to be true. Self-identity appears to function in domain-specific terms (Marsh, Byrne, & Shavelson, 1988), i.e., self-beliefs are grouped to reflect a particular field or area. While the term “domain” may refer to a subject area, it may also refer to a status. In the current study, self-identity is defined as a social psychological
construct that comprises “a self-description judgment that includes an evaluation of competence as well as the feelings of self-worth associated with the culture(s) during the process of learning new language(s) (Pajares & Schunk, 2005: 105). Self-identity in academic terms therefore relates to the self-perception of a given individual, especially in terms of competence and the individual’s related self-evaluative judgments in the academic domain. The current study focuses on learners’ English Language Learning (ELL) self-identity, which is defined as an individual’s
self-descriptions of competence and evaluative feelings while learning English, and, importantly, it is the English learning self-identity, a type of non-linguistic outcome, may affect EFL learners’ perceptions towards L1 and L2 cultures.
Self-Related Constructs
In order to further clarify the sense in which the term self-identity is used in this study, it is important to differentiate between it and other key self-related constructs.
Although there are many areas of commonality between the various self constructs,
and, indeed, their boundaries may best be viewed as being permeable, the use of these constructs in research do differ in important ways. In order to properly appreciate the claims made in research and the pedagogical implications of studies, it is important to understand the nature of the relationships between the various constructs and the ways in which they may be similar and/or different.
Three additional self-constructs will be elaborated upon here in relation to the current study, those being self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-concept. Self-esteem is a global construct which is related to an individual’s value system and, thus, considered to have a more evaluative component. Self-esteem, as Harter (1999: 5) explained, is focused “on the overall evaluation of one’s worth or value as a person” and terms self-esteem and self-worth are used interchangeably. Self-esteem is the broadest and most evaluative of the three constructs.
In contrast, self-efficacy is tied to very specific tasks within specific domains, tends to be more cognitive in nature, while being more concerned with expectancy beliefs about an individual’s perceived capability to perform a specific task in certain contexts (Bandura, 1997). Self-efficacy is defined as “a context-specific assessment of competence to perform a specific task, a judgment of one’s capabilities to execute specific behaviors in specific situations” (Pajares and Miller, 1994, p. 194; Mercer, 2011, p. 15).
Finally, self-concept is not measured at the level of specificity of self-efficacy, while being less context-dependent. However, self-concept contains both social and psychological elements (Markus & Wurf, 1987), i.e., self-concept focuses on
individuals’ self-perceptions and self-evaluations within specific domains. Differing from the more global construct of self-esteem, self-concept may be regarded as more domain-specific while including a cognitive dimension.
In Mercer’s (2011) definition and interaction between the key self-constructs,
briefly speaking, self-esteem is considered as the biggest scope that cover both self-identity and self-concept. Essentially, self-identity and self-concept overlap in majority, and the difference is that the former emphasizes the connection of “self” to specific domain (EFL domain in this study), while the latter focuses on self “across”
the contexts, and also includes some other ideas such as self-efficacy. In actual fact, in order to specifically and precisely look into the role of “self” in EFL domain, this study will center on self-identity, rather than self-concept, to see how it is influenced by other factors.
Self-Identity in Psychological Perspective
Prior research into the relationship between self-identity and other psychological factors are further described here. March (2006) claimed that research specifically focusing on self-concepts within particular academic subject areas, should measure self-concepts with scales specific to such subjects. These scales should include
dimensions such as attitudes (Azjen & Fishbein, 2005) and motivation (Dornyei, 2005;
Mercer, 2012). While both attitudes and motivation are significant determinants, research has indicated higher motivation, directly affected by attitude, as a
contributing factor strengthening weakening individual self-identity (Gao et al., 2007).
However, this is but one important relationship as other relationships between the construct and a range of other key variables exist: identity (Clément, Noels, &
Deneault, 2001), acculturation processes (Noels, Pon, & Clément, 1996), motivation (MacIntyre, Baker, Clément, & Donovan, 2002), attitudes (Rubenfeld, Clément, Lussier, Lebrun, & Auger, 2006) and WTC (MacIntyre, Baker, Clément, & Conrod, 2001; Yashima, Zenuk-Nishide, & Shimizu, 2004). Relationships involving Clément’s L2 linguistic self-confidence have often been examined. In a study by Noels et al.
(1996), for example, a relationship between L2 linguistic self-confidence and the learners’ identity with the cultural group using the language is identified. A greater
feeling of self-confidence when using the language enabled participants to form a stronger sense of identity within the target community (Noels et al., 1996).
Self-Identity in Socio-Cultural Perspective
Within a given society, the identity that an individual holds plays a vital role in the development and relationships which are formed. Identity is important because, regardless of what it is or what it shapes, identity is an aspect of how humans make sense of the world, personal experiences in it, including experiences in different environment (McCarthey & Moje 2002, p. 228). The role that identity plays in learning is essentially a social act, especially for language learning, which involves the learning to the target culture to some extent (Norton, 2000). Individual identity is not only important in terms of how relationships are developed, but also in regards to how such relationships are understood by others. To a great extent, these
understandings shape the way that people behave during interactions.
Moreover, identities are changeable. Learners tend have multiple identities. Each identity enables an individual to perform well within a particular situation. While various kinds of identity may be recognized within oneself throughout life, such perceptions of these positions affect the building of relationships. Thus, individuals’
identities are closely related to how relationships are built and maintained within various texts. Therefore, learners must be viewed as persons with multiple and changing identities, not just as static individuals with learning needs (e.g., English language).
Self-Identity in the English as a Foreign Language Domain
In order to specify the research domain of current study, this part mainly elucidates how self-identity is conceived in an EFL context. Marsh and Shavelson (1985) developed the model that is currently dominant for self-concept. It shows self-concept to be a hierarchical, multifaceted construct. Though the model does not
refer to EFL self-identity explicitly, it implies where such a self-identity might lie within the hierarchy of the model, namely subsumed under “verbal academic
self-concept” in the facet entitled “foreign language self-identity” based on Marsh and Shavelson’s model.
The first layer of the hierarchical model concerns about the general language self-identity. In Marsh, Byrne and Shavelson’s (1988) theoretical elaboration of the Marsh and Shavelson (1985) model, the authors suggest this facet would primarily subsume language-based skills, such as the mother tongue (usually represented by English) and foreign language skills, as well as subjects such as culture and history.
The second layer of the hierarchical model comprises two elements, mother tongue (L1) self-identity and foreign language self-identity, with the former one being a key component of the general languages domain. As for the foreign language self-identity, Marsh et al. (1988) in their model explain that this domain appears to represent a specific single foreign language, as the authors suggest that each facet in the model is intended to represent one academic subject (Marsh et al., 1988: 377). Yet, it is
conceivable that a general foreign languages domain and respective self-identity may exist that could incorporate more than one single foreign language, and indeed the hierarchical model implies the potential for such a domain by the nature of its structure which descends in increasing terms of specificity. In actual fact, this idea confirms both Lambert’s (1967, 1975) and Gao et al.’s (2005, 2007) conception that language learners’ self-identity may co-exist in learning the new language. Figure 7 will illustrate the layers.
Figure 7. The Potential Position of a “Foreign Language Self-identity” in a Hierarchical Model
A similar classification on learning new languages and cultures, from the viewpoint of social psychology, was provided by Berry (1997). Berry (1997) proposed a model of adaptation to immigration which provides understanding as to how globalization promotes diverse cultural identities in adolescence and emerging
adulthood. A specific question raised by Berry (1997) is in regards to what happens to particular individuals who have developed in one cultural context, and subsequently relocate to a new cultural context (1997). Since the purpose of the current research pertains to globalization rather than immigration, this question may be rephrased as,
“What happens in the identity development of adolescents and emerging adults when presented with multiple cultural contexts, including both the relative local culture and other external contact cultures encountered via globalization?” Four possible patterns of acculturation were suggested by Berry (1997):
1. Assimilation. Persons do not wish to maintain their original cultural
identity. Instead, it is rejected while the new culture is embraced on the basis of an entirely new cultural identity.
2. Separation. Value is placed on holding on to the original culture while contact with people in the target culture is avoided.
3. Integration. A combination of the original cultural identity with elements of the new culture takes place.
4. Marginalization. Maintenance of the original culture is foregone, while the new culture is rejected.
The classification of EFL learners’ self-identity (Gao et al., 2005, 2007) may be
The classification of EFL learners’ self-identity (Gao et al., 2005, 2007) may be