Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied Linguistics

“Variation in access to opportunities across learners within a classroom or across classrooms plays a significant role in shaping learners’ investment in these contexts (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Morita, 2004).”

“Collectively, these developments call for new constructions of “good practice” in the field of language teacher education (Hawkins & Norton, 2009) as well as enhanced understandings of ideology and capital, and learner and teacher investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

“…published her influential TESOL Quarterly article, ‘Social identity, investment, and language learning’ (Norton Peirce, 1995) and the fifth year since we, Darvin and Norton (2015), co-authored ‘Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics’ in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.”

“In these contexts teachers have more agency and power (Darvin & Norton, 2015) to manipulate and possibly change the social structures they engage with.”

“Wernicke 2014; De Costa, Rawal & Zaykovskaya 2017). According to Magnan & Lafford (2012), to facilitate student linguistic success abroad, candidates ought to engage in social computing networks with their future host families before arrival on site, receive extensive departure training about the target culture, live…”

“Within the social turn of applied linguistics, studies on identity and investment led Darvin and Norton (2015) to assert that “language constructs our sense of self, and that identity is multiple, changing and a site of struggle” (p. 36).”

“…and position themselves in multiple ways before they even speak (e.g. as a native, bilingual, or monolingual speaker) and, as a result of this, they ‘navigate through spaces where they are not only granted or refused the right to speak, but also the right of entry’ (Darvin and Norton 2015, 43).”

“Today’s technology has expanded what used to be imaginable for learners and teachers, opening the gate for imagined identities that are characteristic of the new world order (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

“Whilst essentially collaborative and dialogic in nature (Bakhtin 1981), the theory sees the agency of the learner as central, recognising how, beyond linguistic and cognitive dimensions, learning involves an investment of self (Norton and Toohey 2011; Darvin and Norton 2015; Pahl and Rowsell 2012).”

“While increased superdiversity has unbound language from nation-states’ ideologies (Blommaert, 2013; Darvin & Norton, 2015), new trends in bi/multilingual pedagogies may conflict with teachers’ language ideologies tied to old nationalistic monolingual paradigms.”

“I then turn to a discussion of an expanded model of investment that I have developed with Ron Darvin, which responds to changes in the communicative landscape in an increasingly digital era, and locates investment at the intersection of identity, capital, and ideology (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

“The sociological concept of investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015) has been used to explore how often-marginalised learner identities can be empowered through DMC in L2 classrooms (Jiang et al., 2020; Kendrick et al., 2022).”

“(Darvin, 2015).”

“Language teachers, thus, can construct imagined identities which are formed by their own imaginary practices and reflections, and such identities might influence their investment, identification, and belonging (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton Peirce, 1995; Pavlenko & Norton, 2007).”

“The role of ELIs in Iran is thus best understood with reference to the enhanced range of identities made possible by improved communicative command of English and associated increases in economic, social, and cultural capital (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

“…language perspective, the socialization of language learners into the various communities around them can have a considerable impact on providing legitimate opportunities to use language, thereby increasing investment in learning and participation (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton Pierce, 1995).”

“The 2015 model of investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015) provided a useful framework with which to analyze Monica’s investment, and its connection to identity, capital, and ideology.”

“However, much of the second language literature on identity focuses on adult immigrant and foreign language learning contexts (as explained in Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton, 2000; Norton, 2019; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004) and, therefore, may not translate directly to the realities and context of…”

“Moreover, aligning with Darvin and Norton (2015) expanded model, the present study shows that investment in English learning is a relational process between students and teachers.”

“These characteristics of Indigenous language learning make it appropriate to consider a model of investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton, 2000, 2013), which has explicit sociocultural components, over a model of motivation alone (e.g., Dö rnyei & Ushioda, 2009), which has no explicit…”

“Darvin and Norton (2015, p. 46) suggest that B because learners want to be part of a country or a peer group, to seek romance, or to achieve financial security, learners invest because there is something that they want for themselves.”

“The study thus points to the importance of learners’ individual differences for lexical learning and the potential role of the capital that learners bring to the classroom (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

“Drawing on Bourdieu’s use of economic constructs, Darvin and Norton (2015) developed a model of language investment at the ‘intersection of identity, capital and ideology’ (46).”

“Concerned with the relational and socially-and tem-porally-constructed nature of linguistic identity, scholars (e.g. Block, 2007; Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton, 2013; Norton & Toohey, 2011; Norton Peirce, 1995) have emphasised the complexity and fl uidity of people ’ s identi fi cations with their…”

“These findings corroborated previous research (e.g., Park & Lee, 2006) and provided evidence for the highly social nature of language tutoring (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

““With how the world is just connected and how information is at your fingertips, you can be anyone or anything you want to be and it’s just right there (Interview with Ayrton, October 2013, quoted in Darvin & Norton, 2015, p. 115).”

“In short, and in keeping with Darvin and Norton’s (2015) model of investment (see Figure 4) that looks at the intersection between ideology, identity and capital, Alim’s ideology towards Putonghua, which he valued for its attendant capital, solidified his investment in learning the language and led him to position him…”

“…working, all have noticed the increased levels of engagement, creativity and critical thinking when students feel a sense of agency and ownership, when, in other words, there is an investment of self (Dörnyei, 2009; Van Lier, 2007) and students are given the right to speak (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

“Indeed, imaginations of possible selves and modes of belonging have previously been found to influence students’ language learning trajectories (Darvin and Norton 2015; Kramsch 2009; Norton 2013; Pavlenko and Norton 2007).”

“The model is primarily focused on how “learners are able to negotiate symbolic capital, reframe relations of power, and challenge normative ways of thinking, in order to claim the right to speak” (Darvin & Norton, 2015, p. 47).”

“There is enough evidence that shows that languages shape the identity construction of plurilinguals (Darvin and Norton 2015; Grosjean 2010; Henry and Thorsen 2018; Koven 2007; Pavlenko 2006), and that individuals who are pro fi - cient in their L2 are more likely to self-identify as bilinguals (Sia…”

“However, in the context of learning a lingua franca, it opens up the opportunity for belonging to a much wider community, for acquiring global citizenship (Darvin and Norton 2015).”

“By this, Norton (2015) precisely refers to the linguistic and cultural capital, learners’ prior knowledge, home literacies, and mother tongues.”

“To provide a critical framework that responds to these issues, Darvin and Norton (2015) have constructed a model of investment that demonstrates how identity, capital, and ideology are at work in every communicative context (Figure 1).”

“…differences among language learners and the importance of race, gender, and class in learners’ access to language learning opportunities focuses mostly on discourse and how people engage with one another through studies of agency, investment, and identity (Miller 2014; Darvin and Norton 2015).”

“According to Darvin and Norton (2015), learners invest in particular practices for both desired material or symbolic resources and the perceived likelihood of utilising their existent capital as the affordance of learning.”

“Derived from a complex interplay between the past and the present (Reay 2004), habitus can provide individuals with a sense of their place in a given field, continuously shaping their understandings of what is reasonable or possible (Darvin and Norton 2015).”

“Darvin and Norton (2015, 44) use Bourdieu’s (1986) understanding of capital equalling power, which extends from the material to the cultural and social.”

“Therefore, identities are multiple, fluid, and sociohistorically shaped and constrained by ideologies (Darvin & Norton, 2015).”

“Investing in L2 learning is the process of negotiating identity, accumulating capital, and navigating ideological structures (Darvin and Norton 2015; Darvin and Norton 2023).”

“…employability and migrants’ language skills is also seen in migrant workers’ own orientations to the importance of learning specific languages (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Flubacher, Coray, & Duchêne, 2016) and in how refugees are trained in intercultural communication and behaviour skills (Del…”

“The construct of investment in language learning (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton, 2013, 2020) is informed by the work of Bourdieu (1977, 1986, 1987, 1991), who has explicitly drawn attention to the importance of power in structuring speech.”

“7–38 приводить к конфликтам и изменениям (Darvin & Norton 2015, Miller et al. & McKinney 2011) подчеркивает взаимосвязь отдельного индивида, изучаю-щего иностранный язык, и более широкого социального мира, обращает внимание на гибкость и инициативность учащегося при реализации своей идентичности, а…”

“Much L2 research has shown that transnational language learners are able to exert their individual agency to overcome existing structural constraints and invest in practices that have the potential to transform their lives (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Flowerdew & Miller, 2008).”

“…of positionality, voice, and authority (Dei, 2019), the project of decolonizing language and literacy education requires a space where learners can claim the right to speak (Norton, 2013; Darvin & Norton, 2015), author new knowledges, and reimagine alternatives to colonial thinking and practice.”

“When language learners traverse across online and offline spaces, the colluding or competing ideologies embedded in different conditions of existence can position learners in various ways and thus shape their identities, as well as inform the values of capital (Darvin and Norton 2015).”