Study abroad and the development of second language identities
-
Phil Benson,
,
Gary Barkhuizen,
,
Peter Bodycott,
and
Jill Brown,
Abstract
Much of the literature on study abroad outcomes focuses on language proficiency gains or on the influence of identity factors on opportunities for language learning. A smaller number of studies have looked at the influence of study abroad on participants' identities and have highlighted outcomes that might be placed under the heading of second language identity. Based on a review of this literature and a qualitative, narrative-based study of nine Hong Kong students participating in thirteen- and six-week study abroad programmes, this paper examines the construct of second language identity and its susceptibility to development in study abroad. Three main dimensions of second language identity are identified, related to (1) identity-related aspects of second language proficiency, or the ability to function as a person and express desired identities in a second language setting, (2) linguistic self-concept, or sense of self as a learner and user of the second language, and (3) second language-mediated aspects of personal competence. The study found that most of the students reported developments along all three of these dimensions, although there were variations among individuals that were related both to the duration of the programmes and individual goals and purposes.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Of frameworks and the goals of collegiate foreign language education: critical reflections
- British applied linguistics: impacts of and impacts on
- Text trajectories, legal discourse and gendered inequalities
- The production of relevant scales: Social identification of migrants during rapid demographic change in one American town
- Toward multimodal ethnopoetics
- Considering what we know and need to know about second language writing
- Shifting cognitive processes while composing in an electronic environment: A study of L2 graduate writing
- Study abroad and the development of second language identities
