Social Identities and Multiple Selves in Foreign Language Education

by Rivers, Damian J.; Houghton, Stephanie Ann

• ISBN13: 9781474218870
• ISBN10: 1474218873
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-01-29
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Within foreign language education contexts across the globe, inadequate attention has been paid to documenting the dynamics of identity development, negotiation and management. This book looks at these dynamics in specific relation to otherness, in addition to attitudinal and behavioural overtones created through use of the term 'foreign' (despite its position as an integral marker in language acquisition discourse).

This book argues that individual identities are multidimensional constructs that gravitate around a hub of intricate social networks of multimodal intergroup interaction. The chapters pursue a collective desire to move the notion of identity away from theoretical abstraction and toward the lived experiences of foreign language teachers and students.

While the identities entangled with these interactions owe a significant measure of their existence to the immediate social context, they can also be actively developed by their holders. The collection of chapters within this book demonstrate how foreign language education environments (traditional and non-traditional) are ideal locations for the development of a sophisticated repertoire of discursive strategies used in the formulation, navigation, expression and management of social identities and multiple selves.

Author Biography

Damian J. Rivers is an Associate Professor at Osaka University, Japan

Stephanie Ann Houghton is an Associate Professor at Saga University, Japan

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Identities in “Foreign” Language Education, Damian J. Rivers and Stephanie Ann Houghton

1. The Institutional and Beyond: On the Identity Displays of Foreign Language Teachers,
Jose Aguilar

2. Implications for Identity: Inhabiting the “Native-Speaker” English Teacher Location in the Sociocultural Context of Japan, Damian J. Rivers

3. Professional Identities Shaped by Resistance to Target Language Only Policies, Brian A. McMillan

4. Language, Culture and Identity: Transcultural Practices and Theoretical Implications, Claudia Kunschak and Felix Giron

5. Social Identifications and Culturally Located Identities: Developing Cultural Understanding Through Literature, Melina Porto

6. Re-Imagining Sociolinguistic Identification in Foreign Language Classroom Communities of Practice, Deborah Cole And Bryan Meadows

7. The L2 Imagined Learning Community: Developing Identity and Increasing Foreign Language Investment, John W. Schwieter

8. Foreign Language Motivation and Social Identity Development, Lou Harvey

9. Emotive Accounts of the Self During an Erasmus Sojourn Abroad, Sonia Gallucci

10. Setting Standards for Intercultural Communication: Universalism and Identity Change, Stephanie Ann Houghton

References
Index