Manufactured Silences (Bonny Norton on Identity and Second-Language Acquisition)
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Review of Bonny Norton's research on Canadian migrants and their developing social identities and investments as L2 English-language learners.
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Manufactured Silences (Bonny Norton on Identity and Second-Language Acquisition)
- 1. Migration, Marginalization, and L2 Learner Anxiety ENGL 623 | John Turnbull | April 3, 2017
- 3. Professor & Distinguished University Scholar Department of Language & Literacy Education Source: http://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton/
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- 21.
Editor's Notes
- My own research questions: How does marginal social status – especially the status of being undocumented (“illegal”) – add to L2 learner anxiety, especially among victims of forced migration from economically depressed, unstable, and warring parts of México and Central America? What socialization factors push displaced, “low-status” L2 learners past “facilitating” into the terrain of “debilitating anxiety” and silence? Do various social pressures, in fact, promote “facilitating anxiety” and help learners harness motivation or L2 investment (McKay and Wong 1996)? [Are there “negative” and “positive” investments, using the term as developed by Bonny Norton for SLA studies? Can we learn from memoirs – or the documentary-style raw writing and journals – of language learners?]
- According to Norton Peirce 1989 (“People’s English”), of 30 million in South Africa, just 5 million spoke one of two official languages: English and Afrikaans. 2011 census data: https://businesstech.co.za/news/general/104497/the-most-spoken-languages-in-south-africa/. Pop. 56 million. Native Speakers 1 IsiZulu 11.58 million 2 IsiXhosa 8.15 million 3 Afrikaans 6.85 million 4 English 4.89 million
- Hymes (1971): communicative competence This picture of rebellion seen on the previous slide, in my experience, is not the norm. Open rebellion is not the eternal manifestation against injustice; often, there is quiet acceptance, a diminution of power as one lives with timidity.
- Relates to my interest in the topic: “Maria”’s story of being ignored at an elite social club. It occurs to me that not everyone has the same opportunity to practice L2 for sociological reasons. Also, experience of intercambio – L1 learners have power, including the power to meet their learning goals in L2, to make sure that they come first. [Power dynamics – working at country club, things you could not say.] Bourdieu uses the phrase “power to impose reception.” And Norton’s formulation here neglects the reflexive considerations: Those who speak regard themselves as unworthy to speak and might silence themselves. Those who listen regard those who speak as the custodians of reality.
- “The central argument of this paper is that SLA theorists have not developed a comprehensive theory of social identity that integrates the language learner and the language learning context” (1996, 12). Also lack of inquiry into power relations between L1 speakers and L2 learners. “Theories of the good language learner have been developed on the premise that language learners can choose under which conditions they will interact with members of the target language community and that the language learner’s access to the target language community is a function of the learner’s motivation.” (12) Example of Genie (wild child) – analyzed according to lack of input, stimulus, and as proof of critical period hypothesis. But does it also show, for L2 learners, that an abusive, perverted connection to L1 culture will completely cut off acquisition?
- Possible analyses from current SLA theories (individual): Eva is unmotivated, introverted, unable to interact, poor language learner without sociolinguistic competence. From social theories: According to acculturation model (Schumann 1978), great social distance existence between Eva and Gail. to Norton, there are artificial distinctions between individual and social, leading to “arbitrary mapping” onto one or the other. Why is a learner sometimes motivated and extroverted, sometimes unmotivated, and introverted? Why is social distance great in some places and not in others? “Why does a learner sometimes speak and other times remain silent?” (1996,11) Importance of power relations. In interview with Eva after this diary entry, Eva said she felt humiliated and identified herself as a “strange woman.” Norton realizes that Gail’s questions were rhetorical. Gail determined grounds of interaction and when interaction could end. (11-12). Gail subject of the discourse, Eva subject to the discourse. (16) Eva’s social identity was not fixed but changing over time
- Each of the three resists thinking about the individual as “master of her destiny.” Real world is messy and contradictory. Three poststructuralists: possible to resist by being aware and attend to complexity, change, paradox. Anderson: Historian and cultural theorist, fought against natural, God-given theories of nationalism. National identities are not a birthright but “painstakingly constructed” by nation-state through census, maps, museums, schools, film, media. Nations “imagine” themselves into being, imagining borders, sovereignty, united. Nations are social and political constructs that serve interests of powerful. Bourdieu: Resisted the fallacy of the autonomous individual. Importance of habitus in contrast to “rational actor.” All people “must believe in the game they are playing.” Persistence of the game presumes an investment. Weedon: Resisted innatist theories of the self. Subjectivity is constructed, not innate. Importance of “the multiple nature of the subject”; “subjectivity as a site of struggle”; and “subjectivity as changing over time” (1996, 15). Meaning is constituted within language and not guaranteed by the subject that speaks it. Her SLA theorizing is rooted (radical) in the learner’s social world, interdisciplinary, politicized, and committed to the transformative potential of language acquisition.
- Darvin & Norton’s (2015) model of investment locates language learning at the intersection of identity, capital, and ideology (Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35, p. 42.) “Darvin and Norton's expanded model of investment … responds to changes in the communicative landscape spurred by technology. Seeking to address the paradoxes of globalization and the invisible mechanisms of power in the knowledge economy, the model locates investment at the intersection of identity, capital and ideology. As such, it provides an important elaboration of the ways in which the right to speak needs to be understood as materially and ideologically constructed. Drawing on data from learners in Canada and Uganda, the paper demonstrates how investment is shaped by the positioning of learners [identity], their negotiation of learning affordances [capital], and the systemic patterns of control that impinge on their agency [ideology].” Need to problematize concept of motivation. Instrumental and integrative motivations are insufficient to account for relationships among power, identity, language learning. Reference to Bourdieu’s model of cultural capital – some forms of cultural capital have a higher exchange value than others. Motivation does not account for the language learner having a complex social identity and different desires.
- The idea is to see the language learner in their social world
- In USA, 21.2 million immigrant women residing in the United States in 2013, out of a total immigrant population of 41.3 million (US pop: 324 million; women, 164.6 million). Female immigrants in US make up 13 percent of the female population. (Source: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/immigrant-women-united-states)
- Participants self-constructed identities affects their levels of investment.
- “As a socially constructed immigrant woman, Martina never felt comfortable speaking. Despite the fact that Martina showed remarkable resourcefulness and progress in her language learning, she frequently referred to herself as ‘stupid’ and ‘inferior’ because she could not speak English fluently.” (21) [Almost a need for SLA therapists? How much does language anxiety come up in professional therapy sessions?] She claimed right to speak, because she could not depend on husband to deal with public world and defend family. Second, she reframed power relations; they were “legitimate speakers,” but she was older and a parent.
- “The data suggest that nobody acknowledged Eva because she had the subject position immigrant in the workplace: As Eva put it, she was someone who was not fluent in English; she was “not Canadian,” she was “stupid,” she had “the worst type of work” in the store. To speak under such conditions would have constituted what Bourdieu (1977) calls heretical usage. Eva accepted the subject position immigrant; she accepted that she was not a legitimate speaker of English and that she could not command reception of her interlocutors. As she herself said, when she first arrived in Canada, she assumed that if people treated her with disrespect, it was because of her own limitations. She conceded to these rules of use in her workplace, rules that Eva herself accepted … as normal.” (24)
- Particular social conditions in which women were uncomfortable and unlikely to speak. … On resistance, some want to learn English as a means of defense in daily lives. In addition to asking, “To what extent is the learner motivated to learn the target language?” the teacher or researcher might ask, “What is the learner’s investment in the language practices of this classroom or community?” A classroom may be racist, sexist, elitist, homophobic, etc. (Norton 2013, 6). Mention of Duff study of multilingual Canadian secondary school – ELLs in blended class afraid of being laughed at for English (“silence protected them from humiliation”), while other students saw them as lacking initiative, agency or desire.
- These learners are not unidimensional, not ahistorical. They have complex, contradictory identities. Their shortcomings are visible, but their resources/knowings are invisible. My frustration at curriculum for immigrant learners – categories of “vacation,” lack of realia, intro to American culture (not needed); they are experts on American culture. They have to live in two worlds, I can live in one. Call to create a “living curriculum” – Freirian? That is, students choose a “guiding theme” and are “invested” in the process.