Abstract
Learner identity has been recognized as significant for second or foreign language learning in the recent decades. By employing Bamberg et al.’s (2011) framework of three identity dilemmas and Norton’s identity theory of SLA (Norton, 2000, 2010) as the theoretical foundation, this study investigates how learners’ identities transformed, and how they were related to learners’ English learning trajectories by tracing a group of first-year English majors in a key university in China for one year. With the data elicited from one of the participants’ diary and in-depth researcher-participants meetings, this paper suggests that English learning is not just a process of acquiring a set of language skills and knowledge, but a complicated social practice, in which learners’ identities are constantly constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. This finding has important implications for English teaching and learning in China.
Highlights
Most English majors have to go through dramatic transitions in their life upon their first arrival in the university
By tracing a group of first-year English majors for almost one year in GW, a key university in Guangzhou, China, the current study investigates how the transformations of learners’ identities are related to their English learning trajectories
With the data elicited from participant’s diary and in-depth researcher-participants meetings, this paper has revealed a dynamic picture of identity transformations of an English major throughout her first year in the university
Summary
Most English majors have to go through dramatic transitions in their life upon their first arrival in the university.
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