Identity and language learning

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In language learning research, identity refers to the personal orientation to time, space, and society, and the manner in which it develops together with, and because of, speech development.^[1]

Language is a largely social practice, and this socialization is reliant on, and develops concurrently with ones understanding of personal relationships and position in the world, and those who understand a second language are influenced by both the language itself, and the interrelations of the language to each other. For this reason, every time language learners interact in the second language, whether in the oral or written mode, they are engaged in identity construction and negotiation. However, structural conditions and social contexts are not entirely determined. Through human agency, language learners who struggle to speak from one identity position may be able to reframe their relationship with their interlocutors and claim alternative, more powerful identities from which to speak, thereby enabling learning to take place.