Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Identity and Language Learning IALA01 1 18/3/13, 04:59 PM LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL LIFE SERIES Series Editor: Professor Christopher N Candlin Chair Professor of Applied Linguistics Department of English Centre for English Language Education & Communication Research City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong For a complete list of books in this series see pages v and vi IALA01 2 18/3/13, 04:59 PM Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change Bonny Norton IALA01 3 18/3/13, 04:59 PM Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoneduc.com First published 2000 © Pearson Education Limited 2000 The right of Bonny Norton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP ISBN 0-582-38225-4 CSD ISBN 0-582-38224-6 PPR British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Norton, Bonny, 1956– Identity and language learning: social processes and educational practice / Bonny Norton. p. cm. — (Language in social life series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–582–38225–4 (csd) — ISBN 0–582–38224–6 (ppr) 1. Second language acquisition. 2. Ethnicity. 3. Language and languages—Study and teaching. I. Title. II. Series. P118.2.N67 2000 418′.0071—dc21 99–086879 Set in 10/12pt Janson by 35 Produced by Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd. Printed in Singapore IALA01 4 18/3/13, 04:59 PM LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL LIFE SERIES Series Editor: Professor Christopher N Candlin Chair Professor of Applied Linguistics Department of English Centre for English Language Education & Communication Research City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Language and Power Norman Fairclough Discourse and the Translator Basil Hatim and Ian Mason Planning Language, Planning Inequality James W Tollefson Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction John Stephens Linguistics and Aphasia Ruth Lesser and Leslie Milroy Language and the Law John Gibbons (ed.) The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language Alastair Pennycook Literacy Practices: Investigating Literacy in Social Contexts Mike Baynham Critical Discourse Analysis: the Critical Study of Language Norman Fairclough Fictions at Work: Language and Social Practice in Fiction Mary M Talbot Knowledge Machines: Language and Information in a Technological Society Denise E Murray Achieving Understanding: Discourse in Intercultural Encounters Katharine Bremer, Celia Roberts, Marie-Thérèse Vasseur, Margaret Simonot and Peter Broeder The Construction of Professional Discourse Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, Per Linell and Bengt Nordberg (eds) Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction Ron Scollon IALA01 5 18/3/13, 04:59 PM Interpreting as Interaction Cecilia Wadensjo Language and Literacy in Workplace Education Giselle Mawer Writing Business: Genres, Media and Discourses Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini and Catherine Nickerson (eds) Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change Bonny Norton IALA01 6 18/3/13, 04:59 PM For Anthony, Julia and Michael, who have filled my life with love, joy and purpose. IALA01 7 18/3/13, 04:59 PM Language is the place where actual and possible forms of social organization and their likely social and political consequences are defined and contested. Yet it is also the place where our sense of ourselves, our subjectivity, is constructed. Weedon, 1997, p. 21 Just as, at the level of relations between groups, a language is worth what those who speak it are worth, so too, at the level of interactions between individuals, speech always owes a major part of its value to the value of the person who utters it. Bourdieu, 1977, p. 652 IALA01 8 18/3/13, 04:59 PM Contents Acknowledgements xi General Editor’s Preface xiii 1. Fact and fiction in language learning 1 Saliha and the SLA canon 2 Identity and language learning 4 Power and identity 7 Motivation and investment 10 Ethnicity, gender and class 12 Rethinking language and communicative competence 13 Structure of book 16 2. Researching identity and language learning 20 Methodological framework 20 Central questions 22 The researcher and the researched 23 The project 24 Data organization 33 Comment 36 3. The world of adult immigrant language learners 38 The international context 38 The Canadian world of immigrant women 43 Biography, identity and language learning 47 Comment 57 IALA01 9 18/3/13, 04:59 PM x CONTENTS 4. Eva and Mai: Old heads on young shoulders 60 Eva 61 Mai 74 Comment 85 5. Mothers, migration and language learning 87 Katarina 89 Martina 94 Felicia 101 Comment 107 6. Second language acquisition theory revisited 109 Natural language learning 110 Alberto and the acculturation model of SLA 114 The affective filter 119 Reconceptualizing identity 124 Language learning as a social practice 129 Comment 131 7. Claiming the right to speak in classrooms and communities 133 Formal language learning and adult immigrants 134 Beyond communicative language teaching 138 Rethinking multiculturalism 142 The diary study as a pedagogy of possibility 145 Transforming Monday morning 151 Concluding comment 153 References 155 Index 167 IALA01 10 18/3/13, 04:59 PM Acknowledgements This book has had a long history, though in the context of a new mill- ennium, it can be seen as evolving in a brief moment of time. Learners, teachers, authors, colleagues, and publishers have contributed in countless ways to the production of this work, and I would like to gratefully acknow- ledge the diverse support I have received. The women who participated in my research study generously worked with me as a researcher, a teacher, and a friend. Despite their many commit- ments in their homes and workplaces, they made the time to write, to meet, and to talk. Their insights and their voices have made this work possible. I extent to them my warmest thanks. This book has developed from my doctoral thesis, supervised by Roger Simon of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the Uni- versity of Toronto. With rigorous and compassionate guidance, Roger taught me not to fear theory, but to harness it to inform and critique my research and teaching. Other colleagues and fellow students at OISE contributed to numerous debates on language learning and teaching. Such debates have survived The Duke and are alive and well on the internet. For their intel- lectual support, I am grateful to Monica Heller, Jim Cummins, Merrill Swain, David Corson, Barbara Burnaby, Alastair Pennycook, Tara Goldstein, Brian Morgan, Arlene Schenke, Helen Harper, Elizabeth Yeoman, and John Clegg. New colleagues, research assistants, and secretaries in the Department of Language and Literacy Education of the University of British Columbia have, in diverse ways, helped me to bring this work to completion. Patsy Duff, Margaret Early, Diane Fouladi and Bernie Mohan have been generous and supportive colleagues; Tammy Slater and Jim Hu carefully proofread the manuscript and tracked down references; and Anne White’s secretarial skills have been invaluable. Other colleagues on the west coast, including Kelly Toohey and Diane Dagenais of Simon Fraser University and Sandy Silberstein of the University of Washington, have been a constant source of encourage- ment. I am indebted to all of them. IALA01 11 18/3/13, 04:59 PM xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the significant contribution of Chris Candlin, the General Editor of this series. His careful and rigorous critique of an earlier draft of this book was invaluable. His contribution to my work – and to the field of language learning and teaching more generally – has been profound. I add my voice of thanks to those of numerous authors whose work has been enriched by his guidance. As well, editors, proofreaders, and designers at Pearson Education, of which Longman is an imprint, have worked diligently to expedite the publication of this book. I appreciate the efficiency of all these professionals. I am also very grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Spencer Foundation of the National Academy of Education, USA, who have given me financial support at different stages of this project. Without the unconditional love of my family, I could not have completed this work. Anthony Peirce, Julia Norton Peirce, and Michael Norton Peirce have been unfailing in their support. I am deeply grateful to them for cheer- fully accepting that family does not always come first. IALA01 12 18/3/13, 04:59 PM General Editor’s Preface I suppose that if one had to identify one of the most telling factors in the relatively short-lived, if intense, history of studies in second language acqui- sition, it would have to be the consistent anonymising, if not the actual eclipsing, of the learner. There are a number of reasons why this is so: the overwhelming and legitimate desire of researchers to raise the study of second language acquisition to the experimental heights reached by other studies