In a traditional foreign language teaching and learning approach, language is regarded as a “universal, abstract system”, while, language users are typically treated as “stable, internally homogeneous, fixed entities in whose heads these systems reside” (Hall, 2002, p.31). That is, language has a separate existence in learners‟ minds, and learners have no part in shaping themselves. However, within the framework of sociocultural theorising, language or a sign system is viewed as being created by human beings purposefully (Kramsch, 2000). It functions as a stimulus to regulate human behaviors. In other words, language possesses the power of regulation. Through the mediation of material signs, external social interactions can be internally reconstructed as psychological processes. Therefore, learning a new language is not “an innocent relabeling of the familiar furniture of the universe” (Kramsch, 2000), rather, it is a process of reconfiguring one‟s whole classification system (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000).
Sociocultural learning theorising recognises EFL teaching and learning as a process of identity reconstruction. Lave and Wenger (1991), when discussing the concept of learning as legitimate peripheral participation, argue that “learning is not merely a condition for membership, but is itself an evolving form of
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membership” (p.53). They emphasize that learning involves the construction of identity. Based on this view, foreign language learning is not merely a linguistic cross-over, but a renegotiation of one‟s identities. Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) contend that the reconstruction of one‟s identities in foreign language learning involves communication with members of another discourse. And within the process, a struggle between the previously constructed identities and the newly forming identities is inevitable. Hawkins (2004) suggests that “previous identities should be respected and leveraged in the service of acquiring new ones” (p.4) since social languages are closely connected with socially-situated identities. Hence, foreign language learning is the struggle of “concrete socially constituted and always situated beings to participate in the symbolically mediated lifeworld of another culture” (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000, p.155) rather than merely the acquisition of a new set of grammatical, lexical and phonological forms and the construction of other world-views.
Sociocultural theorising acknowledges identity as socioculturally constructed (Norton, 2006) and in the literature there are views of learning a foreign language as a process of appropriation, the appropriation of others‟ voices (de Guerrero & Villamil, 2001). According to De Guerrero and Villamil (2001), the appropriation of others‟ voices refers to cultural appropriation when someone of one culture learns about another. One of the tenets of sociocultural theory is that learners are primarily members of a specific culture with cultural identities (Alfred, 2002). Alfred considers the degree to which learners engage in learning as “a function of
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this cultural identity” (p.5). He thinks this identity is culturally situated. According to his argument, in foreign language learning, learners are not limited by one culture but “float in and out of many cultures”, and thus, become “the product of the multiple realities of these cultures”, which co-construct learners‟ “beliefs, values and norms” (p.7).
Sociocultural theorising acknowledges identity as co-constructed in sociocultural interactions, and language is central to this co-construction (Baker & Galasinski, 2001; Hall, 2002; Norton, 2006; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000). According to Baker and Galasinski (2001), human beings are formed from the social process using cultural materials; without language, “not only would we not be persons as we commonly understand that concept, but the very concept of personhood and identity would be unintelligible to us” (p.29). They argue that it is language and thinking that constitutes the “I”, and identity is constituted through the regulatory power of discourse. Baker and Galasinski‟s view stresses the close relation between identity and language as well as the role of language in shaping an individual‟s identities.
Norton (2006) employs Bakhtin and Bourdieu‟s views to support her argument. According to Bakhtin (1994), language is situated and cannot be separated from speakers and meaning cannot be separated from the contexts where it is created. Bakhtin (1994) claims that language is a product of ideology as language carries or is invested with certain moral, social and political values. Language is not only
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itself a part of a reality but it reflects and refracts something lying outside itself. Therefore, language is never neutral. Norton (2006) views language as a way for speakers to express their beliefs and value system and the listeners have to listen to their interlocutors‟ positions expressed in their utterances (Norton, 2006). According to Norton (2006), in contrast with Bakhtin, Bourdieu focuses on “the unequal relationships between interlocutors and the importance of power in structuring speech” (p.26). Bourdieu stresses the importance of an individual‟s values and social relationships in understanding his or her speech. According to him, the value expressed in an individual‟s speech is determined largely by his/her value system and his/her value system cannot be understood without considering his/her networks of social relationships.
In summarizing Bakhtin and Bourdieu‟s views, Norton (2006) points out that during language learning, learners have to appropriate the voices of others and even struggle to “ „bend‟ those voices to their own purposes” (p.26). In other words, as non-native speakers, language learners have to appropriate new surroundings and the practices in any particular community in order to construct their new identities. Or in Baker and Galasinski‟s (2001) words, identity is socially circumscribed.
Scholars also recognize that identity is dynamic and constantly changing (Alfred, 2002; Norton, 2006). According to sociocultural perspectives, learning is embedded within social interactions or discourse community (Alfred, 2002), thus,
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learning a second or foreign language is regarded as a learning of social language within discourses (Gee, 2004; Hawkins, 2004). Firth and Wagner (1997) argue that learning a language should "account in a satisfactory way for interactional and socio-linguistic dimensions of language" (p.285). Alfred (2002) claims that each discourse possesses its own history, culture and identity. However, social identity is not fixed: “It is negotiated as one moves within and across communities” (Alfred, 2002, p.9). He comments that identity is contextually situated and within each discourse, members are constantly reflecting their identities, and acquiring new perspectives as well as reshaping their identities, which he calls “recursive identity” (p.9). This is similar to Alfred, Baker, and Galasinski (2001) who describe identity as a process of becoming, or “a continually shifting description of ourselves” (p.30). According to them, cultural identity is continually being produced during the process of meaning making, since meaning is never finished and identity “represents a snap shot of unfolding meaning, a strategic positioning which makes meaning possible” (p.30).
The construction and reconstruction of identity in foreign language teaching and learning may be an uncomfortable process (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; Sercu, 2005). Within a sociocultural framework, language learners are viewed as people with history, intentions, agency, and affect (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000). During the learning process, when learners move from one cultural practice to another, they experience the stages of loss and recovery of self. They firstly lose their linguistic identities. Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) emphasize that “it is not merely a
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phonological problem to be overcome with some practice” (p.164) but “the convention of subjects, which are embedded in their world, into objects no longer able to fully animate that world” (p.164). They comment that the reconstruction of identity is the loss of agency, or more specifically, the connection with the inner world, the world of mind. According to them, the loss of agency implies that native language inner speech stops its function and the function of the target language inner speech begins. Inner speech, as a tool of making sense of and organizing human social experience, makes language learners unable to make sense of their experience. Thus, the appropriation of others‟ voices is the first step toward recovery and reconstruction of a self. According to Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000), the new identity, the same as the previous identity, is co-constructed with others. Based on these views, Pavlenko and Lantolf (2000) further argue that the ultimate attainment in second or foreign language learning depends on learners‟ agency because agency is a crucial factor in determining whether learners have to “initiate a long, painful, inexhaustive and, for some, never-ending process of self- translation” (p.170).
Sercu (2005) also describes foreign language learning, the intercultural experience, as uncomfortable and involving “the revision of beliefs, concepts, and attitudes that one has hitherto taken for granted” (p.2). While reconstructing their identities through participating in community practices, learners have to rethink their opinions towards themselves as legitimate but marginal members. The feelings involved range, according to Sercu (2005), from “anger and anxiety to excitement
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and relief” (p.2).
The uncomfortable feeling can also be seen from the view that learning is what Lave and Wenger (1991) refer to as legitimate peripheral participation. According to these authors, legitimate peripherality is a complex notion involving relations of power: “It can itself be a source of power or powerlessness” (p.36). The concept of legitimate peripheral participation also indicates that as a peripheral participant, foreign language learners are not central but are on the margins of the activity in question” (Flowerdew, 2000, p.131) and they are facing being powerless all the time. As marginal members, learners, while experiencing powerlessness and conflicts between the new and old cultural identities, will inevitably be immersed in feelings of marginality, identity confusion, and depression as well.