Identities: negotiated, multiple and complex

From early on, researchers have struggled to theorize identities and thus, there has been a request for a unified conception of identity in the field of second language acquisition (Norton 2000:5). As the starting point for the different, commonly vague and confusing perceptions is that ultimately, identity is viewed as a depiction of oneself. Bonny Norton (2000:5), a pioneer and ground breaking theorist in the field of language learning and identity, uses the term identity “to reference how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future.” Drawing on Norton´s (2000) definition and the previously presented approaches of social constructionism and poststructuralism, in the present study identities are similarly presented as multiple, complex, dynamic and, most importantly, socially constructed.

As many people argue today, everyone has an identity and additionally, not only one but multiple (Hall 1999:22, Paiva 2011:66, Miyahara 2010:5). According to Gee (2001:99) and Weedon (2004:7), people have multiple identities connected not to their inner self but to their performances in society. What is implied here is that the formation of identities is linked to people´s engagement in various social activities with each other.

This is in line with Huhtala and Lehti-Eklund (2012:15) who drawing on Lemke´s (2000) thoughts note that “A human becomes a person only through social interaction within a community.” As pointed out previously, humans are social beings and their activities are mediated: to be able to interact with each other, people use various ways to communicate of which the most significant is language. Since the relationship between

language and humans is symbiotic, meaning that there is no language without people, it is easy to come to the conclusion that language functions as the focal point of social organization, which is the assumption on which the poststructuralist theory lies as well (Pavlenko 2002:282). In addition to its role in forming the world and relationships, language, most importantly, offers a site of identity construction and negotiation.

Weedon (1997:21), who is the leading theorist of the feminist practice and poststructuralism, argues that language is where a person´s construction of subjectivity takes place. Thus, language is not the way to be an individual, but instead it is the medium to construct individuality and to be a certain type of person. Drawing on Bourdieu (1977), Norton similarly notes that whenever people speak, they negotiate and renegotiate themselves in relation to the social world and in the specific context and time given (2010:350). What Norton points out is that the way identities can be constructed via language is related to what people speak, to whom, how and where.

Human communication is about sharing and receiving information, expressing feelings and emotions and most importantly, about revealing to people around what type of persons they are and where they belong to (De Fina 2006:263). This can only take place in interaction with other people. Similarly Joseph (2010:9) agrees that through language people have a sense of themselves and of their place in the world. In addition to the self-images that people create of themselves while talking, language is also used to identify others, to judge and to classify people (De Fina 2006:263).

Identities are socially, culturally, historically, and institutionally assigned, meaning that the environmental and structural conditions produce the discourses where identities are constructed (Weedon 2004:7, Gee 2001:100). Because of this, special emphasis should be paid on how structural conditions and social practices place individuals in various contexts and how the individuals react to them. This is made possible through identity categories (Norton & Toohey 2011:427). Identities are closely related to different traditionally demographic categories through which people can identify themselves according to their ethnicity, race, nationality, migration, gender, social class and language (Block 2007:27). According to Bucholtz and Hall (2005:592), “Identities encompass (a) macrolevel demographic categories; (b) local, ethnographically specific cultural positions; and (c) temporary and interactionally specific stances and participant roles.” Similar to Block´s view (2007:27), macrolevel demographic categories refer to grand scale identities, such as nationality or ethnicity, whereas local positions are

identities under a certain macrolevel category. The latter remark on identities refers to roles which people take in various acts of interaction with friends or in any community, for instance.

Similarly De Fina (2006:268) agrees that the emerging of identities may involve various agents and processes of communication. Accordingly, identities can be typed as individual or collective, social, personal or situational (De Fina 2006:268). The first type, individual identity, means negotiating of one´s own identity in a conversation with a friend, for example, whereas collective identity refers to discursive constructions which involve the identity of the represented community, such as, a political party.

Personal identities involve both membership in a community and moral or physical characteristics, such as courage or weakness, that help in distinguishing people from each other. Situational identities refer to similar types of roles in specific contexts that Buchholtz and Hall (2005:592) and Miyahara (2010:4) also suggest. For instance, a female teacher working in an elementary school can have various identities during a day, such as, a wife, a mother, a teacher and a colleague to her fellow teachers.

Similarly, using different languages can place the individuals to different roles in their lives (Paiva 2011:66). Finally, social identities are categories that express belonging to a specific racial, gender or political group. However, it is important to acknowledge that the various identities cannot be completely separated from each other since they are constantly overlapping.

In addition to their multiplicity, by their nature identities are complex and dynamic.

According to Paiva (2011:62), “identity is a complex system that displays a fractalized process of expansion as it is open to new experiences.” Identity changes constantly since its process is dynamic; new environments, experiences, people or any other

“process of expansion”, has an effect on identity. Complexity also refers to the previously mentioned multiplicity of identities and the production of them that can take place in various communicational situations and requires for different types of agents (De Fina 2006:268). Indeed, the process of identity construction takes place at many levels at the same time which leads to a temporary and fluctuating end result (Huhtala and Lehti-Eklund 2012:15). Similarly Barker and Galanski (2001:31) note that identities are unstable by their nature but they can, however, also be temporarily stabilized by social practice and regular behavior. The multilayered and constantly shifting nature of identity thus sets challenges in the understanding of the concept but also makes it easier

to understand why it cannot be called a fixed system. Therefore, the construction of identity is also often described as a constant process of different phases, or as Huhtala and Lehti-Eklund (2012:15) phrase it, “a holistic life-long process”, which implies that identities are never finished.

In the following sections the vision of identities and how to interpret them are examined more closely. Taking into account the purpose of the present study, the connection between language learning and identity reconstruction is discussed first. Secondly, the role of the learner oneself in language learning and identity construction is dealt with.

Thirdly, the focus is shifted towards situations where interaction and thus, the reconstruction of identities takes place, namely in communities of practice.

Additionally, the notion of imagination and investment in forming identities is discussed. Lastly, identities are described as narratives, which are constructed of the person´s self-expressed experiences.