![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
The past two decades have seen a proliferation of studies investigating, complicating, and reimagining the relationship between second language learning and identity. Yet, with only a handful of exceptions, these studies are limited to adolescent and adult second language learners. In this article, the author proposes that identity research with very young second language learners has been limited both by a tendency to see early second language learning as less problematic than that of older learners and by the conceptualization of identity itself. The author argues that a post-structuralist perspective on identity—or, rather, subjectivity—opens possibilities for research with the youngest students. In order to explore this theoretical potential, the author examines four major studies of identity and young second language learners (kindergarten and Grade 1) to analyze how their authors conceive of identity and what each affords for analysis. These studies support the idea that a post-structural analysis, through its interrogation of the concept of identity, offers possibilities for studies of subjectivity in young children. Yet they also highlight a need to interrogate traditional views of language and of language learning.
References
Section:
|
Anderson, R (2007) Being a mathematics learner: Four faces of identity. Mathematics Educator 17(1): 7–14. Google Scholar | |
|
Antonini, C (2013) Why (and how) to teach your toddler a foreign language. Available at: http://dotcomplicated.co/content/2013/08/why-and-how-to-teach-your-toddler-a-foreign-language/ (accessed 15 July 2014). Google Scholar | |
|
Bakhtin, MM (1981) The Dialogic Imagination. Ed. Holquist, M . Trans. Emerson, C, Holquist, M. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Bauman, R, Briggs, CL (2003) Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Block, D (2007a) Second Language Identities. London: Continuum. Google Scholar | |
|
Block, D (2007b) The rise of identity in SLA research, post Firth and Wagner (1997). Modern Language Journal 91(S1): 863–876. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Bomer, R, Laman, T (2004) Positioning in a primary writing workshop: Joint action in the discursive production of writing subjects. Research in the Teaching of English 38(4): 420–466. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Bucholtz, M, Hall, K (2004) Language and Identity. In: Duranti, A (ed.) A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 369–394. Google Scholar | |
|
Clarke, P (1999) Investigating second language acquisition in preschools: A longitudinal study of four Vietnamese-speaking children’s acquisition of English in a bilingual preschool. International Journal of Early Years Education 7(1): 17–24. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Davies, B (1989) Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales: Preschool Children and Gender. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Google Scholar | |
|
Davies, B, Harré, R (1990) Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 20(1): 43–63. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Day, E (2002) Identity and the Young Language Learner. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar | |
|
Derrida, J (1978) Writing and Difference. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Derrida, J (1993) Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences. In: Natoli, J, Hutcheon, L (eds) A Postmodern Reader. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 223–242. Google Scholar | |
|
De Saussure, F (1998) Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Harris, R . Chicago, IL: Open Court. Google Scholar | |
|
Eckert, P (1989) Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School. New York: Teachers College Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Enciso, PE (1998) Good/bad girls read together: Pre-adolescent girls’ co-authorship of feminine subject positions during a shared reading event. English Education 30(1): 44–62. Google Scholar | |
|
Erikson, EH (1994) Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: Norton. Google Scholar | |
|
European Commission (n.d.) Early language learning. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/languages/policy/learning-languages/early-language-learning_en.htm (accessed 13 March 2013). Google Scholar | |
|
Foucault, M (1971) The Order of Things. New York: Pantheon Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Foucault, M (1972) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Foucault, M (1979) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Vintage Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Genishi, C, Dyson, AH (2009) Children, Language, and Literacy: Diverse Learners in Diverse Times. New York: Teachers College Press and National Association for the Education of Young Children. Google Scholar | |
|
Gillanders, C (2007) An English-speaking prekindergarten teacher for young Latino children: Implications of the teacher–child relationship on second language learning. Early Childhood Education Journal 35(1): 47–54. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Godley, AJ (2003) Literacy learning as gendered identity work. Communication Education 52(3–4): 273–285. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Grieshaber, S, Cannella, GS (2001) Embracing Identities in Early Childhood Education: Diversity and Possibilities. New York: Teachers College Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Hawkins, M (2005) Becoming a student: Identity work and academic literacies in early schooling. TESOL Quarterly 39(1): 59–82. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Holland, D, Leander, K (2004) Ethnographic studies of positioning and subjectivity: An introduction. Ethos 32(2): 127–139. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Kabuto, B (2010) Bilingual writing as an act of identity: Sign-making in multiple scripts. Bilingual Research Journal 33(2): 130–149. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Kramsch, C (2000) Social discursive construction of self in L2 learning. In: Lantolf, J (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 133–153. Google Scholar | |
|
Kramsch, C (2002) Introduction: How can we tell the dancer from the dance? In: Kramsch, C (ed.) Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives. New York: Continuum, pp. 1–30. Google Scholar | |
|
Kramsch, C (2006) From communicative competence to symbolic competence. Modern Language Journal 90(2): 249–252. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Kramsch, C (2009) The Multilingual Subject. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Kramsch, C (2012) Subjectivity. In: Chapelle, C (ed.) Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781405198431 Google Scholar | |
|
Kramsch, C, Whiteside, A (2008) Language ecology in multilingual settings: Towards a theory of symbolic competence. Applied Linguistics 29(4): 645–671. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Kyratzis, A (1999) Narrative identity: Preschoolers’ self-construction through narrative in same-sex friendship group dramatic play. Narrative Inquiry 9(2): 427–455. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Leander, KM (2002) Locating Latanya: The situated production of identity artifacts in classroom interaction. Research in the Teaching of English 37(2): 198–250. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Lemke, JL (2002) Language development and identity: Multiple timescales in the social ecology of learning. In: Kramsch, C (ed.) Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives. New York: Continuum, pp. 68–87. Google Scholar | |
|
McKay, SL, Wong, SLC (1996) Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Investment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard Educational Review 66(3): 577–609. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
McNamara, T (2012) Poststructuralism and its challenges for applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 33(5): 473–482. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
MacNaughton, G (2000) Rethinking Gender in Early Childhood Education. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Google Scholar | |
|
Madrid, S (2013) Playing aggression: The social construction of the “sassy girl” in a peer culture play routine. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 14(3): 241–254. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Månsson, A (2011) Becoming a preschool child: Subjectification in toddlers during their introduction to preschool, from a gender perspective. International Journal of Early Childhood 43(1): 7–22. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Norton, B (2000) Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. Essex, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Google Scholar | |
|
Norton Peirce, B (1995) Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly 29(1): 9–31. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Ochs, E (1979) Transcription as theory. In: Ochs, E, Schieffelin, B (eds) Developmental Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press, pp. 43–71. Google Scholar | |
|
Orellana, M (1999) Good guys and “bad” girls: Identity construction by Latina and Latino student writers. In: Bucholtz, M, Liang, AC, Sutton, LA (eds) Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 64–82. Google Scholar | |
|
Pavlenko, A, Blackledge, A (2003) New theoretical approaches to the study of negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. In: Pavlenko, A, Blackledge, A (eds) Negotiation of Identities in Multilingual Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 1–33. Google Scholar | |
|
Pennycook, A (1994) Incommensurable discourses? Applied Linguistics 15(2): 115–138. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Rymes, B, Pash, D (2001) Questioning identity: The case of one second-language learner. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 32(3): 276–300. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Skattebol, J (2003) Dark, dark and darker: Negotiations of identity in an early childhood setting. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 4(2): 149–166. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Supporting Dual Language Learners and Their Families (2013) Special issue of Young Children 68(1). Available at: http://www.naeyc.org/yc/pastissues/2013/march Google Scholar | |
|
Tabors, PO, Snow, CE (2003) Home and community influences. In: Neuman, SB, Dickinson, DK (eds) Handbook of Early Literacy Research. New York: Guilford Press, pp. 159–178. Google Scholar | |
|
Taylor, C (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Toohey, K (2000) Learning English in School: Identity, Social Relations, and Classroom Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar | |
|
Van Lier, L (2002) An ecological-semiotic perspective on language and linguistics. In: Kramsch, C (ed.) Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives. New York: Continuum, pp. 140–164. Google Scholar | |
|
Weedon, C (1987) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. London: Blackwell. Google Scholar | |
|
Weedon, C (2004) Identity and Culture: Narratives of Difference and Belonging. New York: Open University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Willett, J (1995) Becoming first graders in an L2: An ethnographic study of L2 socialization. TESOL Quarterly 29(3): 473–503. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Wong Fillmore, L (1976) The Second Time Around: Cognitive and Social Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Google Scholar | |
|
Wong Fillmore, L (1979) Individual differences in second language acquisition. In: Fillmore, CJ, Kempler, D, Wang, WS-Y (eds) Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior. New York: Academic Press, pp. 203–228. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Wong Fillmore, L (1991) Second-language learning in children: A model of language learning in context. In: Bialystok, E (ed.) Language Processing in Bilingual Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 49–69. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Wortham, S (2006) Learning Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar |
