Identity, Good Language Learning, and Adult Immigrants in Canada

Abstract

This study examines the process of linguistic-and-cultural-identity formation as experienced by adult immigrants to Canada who consider themselves professionally successful and highly proficient in the target language. It addresses the characteristics of “good language learners” by determining how they negotiated their marginal standing in Canadian society and became successful professionals, proficient in English. It offers insights into the role of human agency in good language learning, and it analyzes the dynamics between identity and internal versus external power. Through a series of interviews with 20 practicing professionals who immigrated as adults, 3 common strategies emerged as essential in their journey of identity construction: generation of a self-motivating inner dialogue as a counter-discourse to the social marginalization paradigm expected by the NS community, finding ways to gain access into the social networks of native speakers in order to improve communicative competence and secure meaningful employment, and symbolic membership in an “imagined community” of successful multilingual and bicultural adult immigrants.

Key words:

• linguistic and cultural identity
• imagined communities
• multilingual competence
• adult immigrants
• internal power
• external power

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Dr. Thomas Ricento and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions that helped me refine this article. All remaining inaccuracies are strictly my own.