Language and Identity I

Norton and Pavlenko's readings were very insightful. They brought up many key terms and concepts in which I have experienced or witnessed, but never really knew how to explain. What stood out to me the most in these readings was Norton's theory on social identity and how it affects the learning process of another language. It is something that I have always recognized and thought about, but after reading her explanation and research I now have a better understanding of how one's experience and social identity can really affect communication.

Whenever I am reading something for this class, I always seem to relate back to my time abroad in Spain. It isn't intentional, and I think it is a good thing that I am able to make certain connections. Having said this, I'd like to discuss some of the connections I made in Norton's research, Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning. To begin with, she discuses the key term: social distance. According to Schumann (1976), where there is great social distance between the language speaker and target speaker, the less acculturation there is, therefore leading the second language speaker to become less proficient. I find this concept to be 100% true. If a person who is very intelligent sits in his or her room and studies a second language every day for a year, it is guaranteed that they won't be as fluent as someone who has had many conversations with someone in that target language. This is where I made my connection. In Spain, I could tell a drastic difference between the people's speaking abilities who were always conversing with the Spaniards and their host families and the people who refused to speak Spanish to anyone. Social distance is something that everyone who plans on learning a second language should become aware of so that they know it is something to work on if they want to succeed.

Norton also discusses how power relations play a crucial role in social reactions (pg. 12) and how language learners all have a complex social identity. We can see this through Eva and Martina's stories in the research. Both of their identities and investments were completely different, but both forced them to learn English. According to Norton, language is not conceived of as a neutral medium of communication but is understood with reference to its social meaning (pg 13). She also argues that investment rather than motivation more accurately signals the relationship between language learners and the target language speakers (pg. 17). Therefore, Eva and Martina's investment in surviving in their communities signaled them to learn English. As future teachers, we must help students claim the right to speak outside the classroom so that they can avoid the problems that Eva and Martina experienced. To do this, we must research and observe the experiences and social identities of the language learners and apply it to our curriculum.

Moving on to Pavlenko's text, I really enjoyed reading the immigrant narratives and getting their perspective on learning a second language as well as seeing how the issues they face today are so different than the ones they have faced in the past. It was interesting to me to see how effective these narratives are in portraying identities as a second language learner, and I think it would be effective to use this technique in my future ESL classroom.