Second Language Acquisition and Identity

Abstract

This chapter introduces the field of second language acquisition (SLA) and identity with a focus on the main topics prevalent in this field and the research methods used by scholars. Beginning with some seminal works in the early 1970s, this field has gained increasing importance. Resilient concepts regarding the study of identity and language include “acts of identity,” resistance, and investment rather than motivation and the idea that attitudes toward speakers of another language are formed at an early stage. Typically studies in this area have focused on immigrants in first world countries like the USA and UK who make tremendous investments in language learning. However, a new trend in this area is the emergence of studies which look at language learning in Asian contexts, such as Singapore and Malaysia, where English is either the sole medium of instruction or the medium of instruction for a few subjects. Scholars tend to lean more toward qualitative methods of data collection in this field, favoring case studies and ethnographies, though there do exist a few studies in which a large-scale survey is the main instrument of data collection. I will introduce this chapter with a few incidents from my own professional life that have shaped my identity as a language learner and teacher. Thereafter I go on to discuss topics in the literature which have longevity, in other words, topics that keep occurring in the literature over decades of research. Following this is a section on the best-known works in the field of SLA and identity and, thereafter, topics that are currently being debated in the field. At the end of the chapter, I focus on problems faced by scholars in this field and finally future directions.