Multilingual identity in education

Introduction

The inextricable and interdependent link between language and identity has long been acknowledged (e.g. Joseph 2004; Norton 2000). Language is, after all, the means through which we identify ourselves and are, in turn, identified by others. Yet, we live in an increasingly multilingual world where many individuals have multiple languages in their repertoire. It is important to note that we use the term ‘multilingual’ here in its broadest sense, to include learners who have knowledge of more than one language, regardless of their level of proficiency in their languages or how they were acquired; we include not only spoken languages, but also non-verbal forms of communication such as sign languages. Our position is that each language that is part of an individual’s repertoire may influence the nature of their identity negotiation in important ways. However, this raises significant questions about the relationship between multilingualism and identity and, in particular, the influence that this may have on language learning in a range of different contexts. For example: How do we conceptualise and research multilingual identity? How does multilingual identity intersect with other key constructs from the field of language learning, such as language beliefs and motivation, language emotions and intercultural understanding? What are its intersections with psychological constructs such as memory, and how are our memories and multilingual identities shaped by our social and cultural experiences? How can a better understanding of multilingual identity extend our existing knowledge of language learning and enhance language pedagogy? These are just some of the questions at the heart of this special issue.

Work on identity within the fields of second language education and applied linguistics has flourished since Norton’s (1995, 2000) seminal work on identity and language learning published over two decades ago. At the time of writing this introduction (early 2021), we conducted a search for the key terms ‘multilingual(ism)’ and ‘identity’ in the online database Scopus. This revealed 1,871 results where these terms were included in the title, abstract or keywords of publications, just under a quarter of which were published in the past two years. This provides an indication of the sustained and growing interest in the topic from scholars around the world. Related topics also formed the focus of a special issue of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism on bi/multilingual identity in South Africa, edited by van der Walt (2014), and a special issue of the International Multilingual Research Journal on borderland negotiations of identity in language education edited by Yazan, Rudolph and Fuad Selvi (2019). In addition, in September 2019, a high-profile conference entitled Multilingualism and Identity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives was held at the University of Cambridge and brought together researchers in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, modern languages and education studies with the aim of creating new synergies. A book of the same name, edited by Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Linda Fisher (Forthcoming) is to be published by Cambridge University Press. It is clear, therefore, that research on multilingualism and identity is thriving and continues to inform language learning and education in innovative ways. The aim of this special issue is, therefore, to contribute to this growing body of work by bringing together scholars from around the world to reflect on and extend our theoretical, methodological and pedagogical understanding of multilingual identity.

Multilingual identity research: a brief overview

In this introduction we deliberately do not wish to impose an overarching definition of identity or multilingual identity, nor do we advocate for a particular theoretical or methodological approach, as to do so would undermine the diversity of perspectives represented in the papers which compile this special issue. We therefore invited the authors to clarify their own position in their respective contributions and to reflect on the way in which their work furthers our understanding of multilingual identity more broadly. Instead, we provide here a brief overview of the dominant theoretical and methodological approaches in the field of multilingual identity with a view to situating and contextualising the contributions of this special issue.

Identity researchers in the field of second language education have drawn on a wide spectrum of theoretical approaches. This includes those inspired by psychological or psychosocial theories which highlight the developmental nature of identity and which suggest the existence of a core identity which develops over time. Sociocultural theories, on the other hand, emphasise the mediational role of social, historical and cultural contexts in shaping the individual; identity from a sociocultural perspective is therefore viewed as relational, mediated and as highly situated. However, it is the post-structural perspective, where identity is considered as dynamic, multiple and shifting, which remains the ‘default epistemological stance’ (Block 2006: 34) within the field. Here, the dynamic nature of identity opens up possibilities for self-transformation and attributes a sense of agency to individuals. While some researchers situate themselves clearly within a particular perspective, such as one of those suggested above, others have argued for the need to adopt a multi-theoretical approach in order to provide a richer understanding of such a complex construct (e.g. Fisher et al. 2020). Each of these positions contributes to our understanding of the myriad facets of multilingual identity and its role in language learning and teaching.

These theoretical lenses and perspectives, in turn, are complimented by a range of increasingly innovative methodological tools to capture the complexity of participants’ multilingual identity. Introspective methods such as questionnaires and interviews remain popular and have been used in a wide range of studies. Taylor (2013), for example, developed the ‘quadripolar identity questionnaire’ to explore the identity of Romanian adolescent learners of English. In this special issue, both Haukås et al. and Forbes et al. also reflect on the development and use of questionnaires to capture multilingual identity. However, interviews remain one of the most prevalent methods for exploring an individual’s multilingual identity and are represented widely both within this special issue (see Wang et al. and Sheridan) and beyond (e.g. Ceginskas 2010). In addition to more traditional interviews, a range of multimodal identity-focused elicitation tasks have been developed and used to help participants (and, particularly, younger participants) to reflect on such an abstract construct. These include, for example, visual narratives (e.g. Melo-Pfeifer 2015), photo-elicitation tasks (e.g. Besser and Chik 2014), language portrait silhouettes (e.g. Dressler 2015) and the use of metaphors (e.g. Nguyen 2016), some of which are variously drawn on by authors in this special issue. In line with the above qualitative approaches, autoethnography has also recently been posited as a valuable means for exploring language and identity (Choi 2016) and in this special issue, Ahmed and Morgan innovatively build on this by adopting a duo-ethnographic approach for their study.

It is encouraging to see the way in which both theoretical and methodological approaches to exploring multilingual identity continue to evolve in order to provide increasingly nuanced insights into this complex construct in a range of settings. While research in the field has focused on a wide range of contexts and groups of participants, such as adult migrants (e.g. Norton 2013), heritage language learners (e.g. Seals 2018), study abroad settings (e.g. Barkhuizen 2017) and the use of digital technology (e.g. Rusk 2019), the primary emphasis of this special issue is on multilingual identity in educational settings. As noted by Ceginskas (2010), education is part of the complex process of identity formation and can play a key role in shaping an individual’s multilingual identity. We hope that these papers will not only enrich ongoing theoretical and methodological discussions in the field, but will also provide valuable insights for language learners and practitioners in terms of their findings.

Overview of papers

In order to compile this special issue, we began by putting out a call for papers which was publicised in The Language Learning Journal and through other relevant mailing lists. We invited interested colleagues to submit an abstract and from the 30 received we invited ten to submit a full paper. Six of these were ultimately accepted. We are delighted that the papers which comprise this special issue represent a diverse range of countries and settings, namely, the US, the UK, Australia, Ireland, Norway and China. We are also proud of the diversity of languages represented in the various multilingual (and multimodal) repertoires documented, including national languages, the learning of foreign languages in various educational settings (such as Japanese in China or French in the UK), and also sign language learners in Ireland. In this section, we provide a brief overview of each of the papers in this special issue.

Given the complexity of capturing and researching multilingual identity, we begin this special issue with a paper by Haukås at al. which makes a valuable methodological contribution to the field. Here, the authors provide a detailed and reflective account of the development and validation of their ‘Ungspråk’ questionnaire, which was designed to explore multilingualism and multilingual identity among secondary school learners in Norway. While much existing research on identity and multilingual identity has adopted a qualitative approach, the authors focus on the development and validation of a questionnaire that is sensitive to the highly contextual nature of the phenomenon and which will ultimately enable data to be gathered from a larger sample of participants. The authors operationalise multilingual identity as a phenomenon that can be connected with other factors such as language use habits, open-mindedness, future multilingual self and beliefs about multilingualism, which are each captured in the questionnaire. They reflect systematically and explicitly on the process of design, validation and piloting of the questionnaire with a group of over 200 lower secondary school students; a process which is too often neglected or glossed over in published studies. This paper ultimately provides valuable insights into how we can understand and research multilingual identity.

The second contribution, by Wang, McConaghy and Ushioda, explores the links and possible tensions between multilingual identity and motivation. This paper adopts a qualitative approach and draws on longitudinal, in-depth interview data collected from five Chinese university students studying both Japanese (as their major) and English. The authors explore how these language learners experience identity tensions when learning multiple languages and reflect on how this, in turn, influences their motivation. Their work provides valuable insights into the way in which multilingual identity negotiation occurs both in relation to direct lived experiences in and with language, and also in relation to macro ideological discourses about language. This work has important implications for research on both multilingual identity and language motivation, emphasising how both identity and motivation need to be understood as simultaneously a psychological and sociological process.

The third paper, by Forbes et al. takes an interventionist approach and considers the language learning classroom as a key site for the construction of learners’ multilingual identities. This paper first outlines the development of an innovative programme of ‘participative multilingual identity education’ which was implemented by teachers in foreign language classrooms across four secondary schools in England over the course of one academic year. The intervention focused on developing students’ knowledge, awareness and reflexivity about languages; learners were encouraged to engage in the active and conscious process of considering their own multilingual identities and to become aware of the possibility of change in relation to these identifications. Through a quasi-experimental research design, the authors found that the introduction of such activities did indeed contribute towards the development of students’ multilingual identities. However, it was the element of reflexivity which emerged as particularly beneficial. The evidence presented in this paper highlights the potential for an identity-based approach to contribute to a new dimension of pedagogy in the language classroom.

Given that the vast majority of existing research on multilingual identity focuses on learners and users of spoken languages, the fourth paper in this special issue by Sheridan shifts the focus to sign language learners at a university in Ireland. The emphasis here on mixed-modality multilingual identity is both innovative and timely. The author draws on interview data to explore how perceptions of sign language are renegotiated through the process of learning a sign language in a formal education setting. Similar to Wang et al., Sheridan’s research explores the multilingual identity and language ideology nexus and reveals how identity negotiation occurs through tensions between macro ideologies and micro experiences with language, resulting in ‘biographical junctions’ or ‘muda’ that deeply impact on identity and the self. In line with Forbes et al., Sheridan’s study similarly foregrounds the role of the language classroom (in this case, the sign language classroom) in renegotiating language beliefs and multilingual identity.

Fielding’s contribution also has a strong connection to language pedagogy and focuses, in particular, on the intersections between multilingual identity and intercultural understanding. In this theoretical paper she critically reflects on key theories and perspectives related to both intercultural understanding and multilingual identity and identifies crucial areas of intersection, namely: the interrelationship of language and culture, imagined identities, self-concept, feelings of belonging and, consideration of self and others (reflexivity). Fielding argues that while current approaches to intercultural stance involve a certain level of reflection on identity, extending this to a multilingual approach could encourage students to consider their full linguistic repertoire which could, in turn, help them to engage in a more reflective way with the views of others.

The final paper of the special issue, by Ahmed and Morgan, adopts an innovative, duo-ethnographic approach to explore (post) memory and multilingual identities in English language teaching. The first author reflects on his experiences as a learner and then teacher of English for academic purposes in Bangladesh and Canada, and the second author from the perspective of an English teacher and language teacher educator. In line with Wang et al, the authors understand multilingual identity as both a psychological and sociological construct and highlight how multilingual identity formation is not only shaped by the here and now of the social world, but also by memories that are maintained intergenerationally and make the past part of the present. Grounded within the field of memory studies and through the use of duo-ethnography, the authors argue that a focus on memories, emotions and identity can provide language teachers with a better understanding of learners’ investment in language practices, including in formal education settings.

Conclusion

Multilingual identity is an increasingly vibrant field of research that contributes to our understanding of language learning and effective language pedagogy. It does so by explicitly questioning who counts as ‘multilingual’ and on what grounds, thereby not only taking account of an individual’s full linguistic repertoire, but also considering the full person who engages with languages as a thinking, feeling and acting being within a social and historical context. With this special issue, we aim to contribute to ongoing theoretical, methodological and pedagogical discussions on multilingual identity by bringing together a diverse range of perspectives. At a theoretical level, the papers point to the potential for the cross-fertilisation of ideas from various disciplines (e.g. applied linguistics, psychology and sociology) to help us gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be or become multilingual. At a methodological level, the papers provide insights into the development of a range of both well-established and innovate data collection tools to help us to understand the complex nature of this construct. And, at a pedagogical level, we hope that the papers which compile this special issue highlight the links between multilingual identity and language learning and, as such, encourage teachers, teacher educators and policy makers to embrace this essential, but often overlooked, dimension of language education.

Acknowledgements

We are incredibly grateful to Elspeth Broady and Norbert Pachler at The Language Learning Journal for their constant support and advice throughout the process of compiling this special issue. We are also indebted to the AHRC-funded Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies project which is where our interest in and work on multilingual identity began. And most of all, we would like to thank all of the authors and the reviewers for their valuable contributions.