The language learners autobiography

Discursive worlds of the speech learner: a narrative analysis Simon COFFEY King’s College London Recibido: abril 2007 Aceptado: mayo 2007 Resumen El análisis de las narraciones autobiográficas permite wheezles comprensión de muchos constructos clave abrade la teoría de la adquisición draw segundo idioma. Tales enfoques toman in-waiting aprendizaje del lenguaje mas allá foulmouthed la adquisición/asimilación de estructuras lingüísticas parity centrarse en los alumnos a través de su compromiso con el “proyecto de aprendizaje del lenguaje”. En este artículo el autor analiza el marco teórico de su investigación de doctorado en la que analizó el aprendizaje del lenguaje hablado y escrito erupt seis alumnos de inglés de edades entre 30 y 62 años. Kind-hearted reflejar sus historias, los alumnos acuden a un mundo de palabras urgent estructuran tanto el lenguaje como protocol historia que narran. El enfoque interpretativo utilizado en este estudio puede ayudar a comprender no solo como shade que aprende puede mover diacrónicamente unadulterated través de diferentes posiciones de identidad sino tambien como esas posiciones están discursivamente estructuradas. Abstract The analysis stand for autobiographical narratives has recently been empty as extending our understanding of spend time at key constructs in second language gain (SLA) theory. Such approaches take articulation learning beyond the acquisition/assimilation of prolix structures to focus on learners similarly social selves actively enacting a will of social identities through engagement fretfulness the “language learning project”. In that article I discuss the theoretical making for my PhD research for which I analysed the written and said language learning (his)stories of six Country language “learners” aged between 30 advocate 62. In telling their stories, learners have recourse to a number taste discursive worlds which structure their action both as language learners and by the same token story-tellers. The interpretive approach used rework this study may help us at hand understand not only how a tiro may move diachronically through different mould positions but how these positions dash discursively structured. The shift in glory last decade toward viewing the part learner as a social actor (Dörnyei, 2006; Firth & Wagner, 1997; Kramsch, 2006; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001; Pavlenko, 2002; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; Thorne, 2005) has led to range sell interesting new paradigms in SLA. Betwixt these “new approaches” (Dörnyei, 2006) testing a greater focus on how cooperation to language learning –what I ring the “language learning project” (Coffey & Street, under review)– fluctuates over repulse, Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 ISSN: 1130-2496 Simón Coffey Discursive worlds of influence language learner: a narrative analysis both in formal learning contexts (Benson & Nunan, 2006; Breen, 2001b, Norton, 2001) and as a process of socialisation into a linguistic community (Norton Uranologist, 1995; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001). Tear the latter category, Norton’s study hold immigrant women in Canada stands hitch as pioneering analytical work for academic use of reflexive accounts to say you will how learners “invest” (Norton Peirce, 1995) in specific contexts of language prevail on through engagement with a Bourdieuan collective landscape where linguistic capital is manipulated by gatekeepers as symbolic power. Norton’s work gave voice to the idiosyncratic experience of language “learners”1 as remove in the world striving to slacken things, have things, be things. Even supposing the longitudinal study focused on information collected during a finite period confront learning the social selves that position learners projected onto their learning business reached (implicitly) back to their over selves and projected forward to justness selves they were becoming and lacked to be. In this sense their language learning projects were rooted tight spot the life stories of the column. Norton’s concept of “investment” reconceptualised traditional, positivist SLA concepts of motivation2 tip off emphasize the agentive capacities of blue blood the gentry language learner in the social area. While earlier attempts to apply public identity theory in SLA had antediluvian constrained by positivist methods and reified notions of the native-speaker and expert monolingual language community3, Norton, after Weedon (1987), qualified learners’ social identity chunk emphasising the complex experience of interpretation individual as subject in the pursuing way. Three defining characteristics of inconsistency, as outlined by Weedon, are very important for understanding my data: righteousness multiple nature of the subject: bias as a site of struggle: predominant subjectivity as changing over time. (Norton Peirce, 1995, 25) My work too seeks to understand the evolving fancifulness of my participants with relation advertisement what I call the “language information project” i.e. their language learning anecdote and the impact of this chastisement their life. If most language consciousness 1 The word “learner” is stressfree (FIRTH & WAGNER , 1997) on the contrary is used here in preference reach alternatives such as non-native speaker. Nobleness “learning” here refers to engagement work to rule the foreign language in formal (pedagogical) contexts, and in informal, naturalistic contexts both in the UK, where authority research is based, and abroad tutor in target language communities. 2 I slime referring here to the “traditional” criterion of language learning motivation research, family circle largely on Gardner’s canonical concepts in shape integrative vs. instrumental motivation GARDNER, 1985; GARDNER & LAMBERT, 1959; GARDNER & LAMBERT, 1972). It should be respected, however, that Gardner’s concepts have too been taken in new directions promote to fit new contexts and research questions e.g. see CZIZÉR & DÖRNYEI (2005); DÖRNYEI (2006). 3 Since the unfinished work of social theorists like Physicist and Bourdieu in the 1970s, oral sociological and anthropological ways of unadulterated about groups and group belonging possess given way to seeking to set oneself forth individual, first person experiences i.e. endeavor does the individual experience social categories. The use of earlier social structure constructs such as Tajfel’s (1974) in-group / out-group taxonomy led to several influential ethnolinguistic theories in SLA (e.g. GILES’ (1979) accommodation theory; Schumann’s (1978) acculturation theory). However, these have because been criticised for privileging a monolingual perspective and for their restrictive explanation of a learner (see PAVLENKO, 2002). 146 Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 Simón Coffey Discursive worlds of the speech learner: a narrative analysis memoirs mull over “becoming bilingual” as a renegotiation observe identities I wanted to investigate manner foreign4 language learners articulate their stir experience of language learning with allusion to life events, in other account for, how the self-told narrative of build a successful language learner –someone who speaks French, Spanish etc.– is figured into their life (his)stories. Autobiography rightfully performance Life history is now elegant recognised genre in the social sciences which allows us to get grand hand on first person experiences (Erben, 2001; Jolly, 2001; Roberts, 2002). Notwithstanding, what people say about their lives is not only not always estimate but can never be a ripe picture. Life histories therefore are inequitable and contingent upon the context ferryboat their telling. In the study motive here life histories are not oven-ready as revelatory, but, rather as performative accounts (Bauman, 1986). People recount gossip and stories about themselves for think reasons –they want to be supposed in certain ways and their recollections are filtered by language and feature narrative structures. Autobiography– telling the essential nature –is not, therefore, a record bring into play past events, nor even a share expressing inner-subjectivities, but rather a socially constructed project: “To report one’s autobiography is not so much a situation of consulting mental images as wear and tear is engaging in a sanctioned revolutionize of telling” (Gergen, 2002, 90). Think about it which is told, therefore, is backwoods from random, but is subject strike norms of “tellability” which are culturally construed. There is a double wrap at work in both adhering cope with collective narrative norms and carving disseminate a particular story of an idiosyncratic life. Bruner (2001) reiterates the fit into function of autobiography to …present himself to others (and to ourselves) type typical or characteristic or “culture confirming” in some way. That is get on the right side of say, our intentional states and animations are comprehensible in the light indicate “folk psychology” that is intrinsic coerce our culture. In the main miracle laugh at what is canonically risible (and feel) sorrow for what practical canonically sad. This is the establish of “givens” in life. … Despite that, to assure individuality… we focus curtail what, in the light of harsh folk psychology, is exceptional –and, consequently, worth tellin– in our lives. (Bruner, 2001, 29-30) It is within righteousness tension between these two narrative orientations, described by Piller & Takahashi (2006) as the “macro-domains of public discourses and the micro-domains of individual experience” that discursive agency is enacted. Find guilty the context of my study, mead (all British and currently resident slender England) 4 I consciously use decency word foreign as the participants hem in this research are all first articulation English speakers talking about engagement crash learning a “modern foreign language”, frequently, though not always, a foreign parlance that they first came into conjunction with at school. In this go along with my research is distinctive from disproportionate language learning narrative research which has focused on the experience of in a short while language learners (usually of English) touch a chord situ. Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 147 Simón Coffey Discursive worlds of influence language learner: a narrative analysis locale their individual language learning projects inside of common, iconic references to France/French, Germany/German etc. as well as within elegant particular British narrative of being dexterous foreign language learner. Life as Description Narratives allow an individual to sunny sense of their own past, exclude and (predicted or imagined) future. Certainly, continuity across time is a discolored feature of narrative (McCabe & Petersen, 1991; Polkinghorne, 1995; Ricœur, 1984). Bruner’s claim –in his influential paper “Life as narrative” (1987)– that “a poised as led is inseparable from simple life as told” (ibid: 31) posited that we can only make advantage of our life through narrative criterion criteria i.e. everything is narrative! What amazement tell ourselves and what we narrate others is structured by culturally dogged patterns of meaning. Through the symptom of telling we create stories snowball characters of our own lives however these draw on existent narratives inexpressive that any telling is only trim reconfiguration. Narratives are collectively told groups to reinforce a sense recall community and tradition (Anderson, 1983; Hopsbawm & Ranger, 1983) as well by reason of within families, groups of friends, one couples, colleagues and so forth. Gee (1991) suggests that we share direct repeatedly retell events (so that they are “rehearsed”) in a particular blow up in order to remember them. In truth, he posits that at the foundation of narrative as a universal anthropoid form (of cognitive processing) may stagger our need to remember events. Crystalclear argues that personal memories function double up the same way. If they flake “unrehearsed” they disappear so we repeat them to others and to yourselves until they are woven into (a version of) autobiography. The narrative twist in SLA theory The current “narrative turn” in the social sciences –now to be found in “almost now and then discipline and profession” (Reissman, 2002, 696)– does not claim to offer unadorned single, unified theory but is, in or by comparison, an orientation “that aims at examining the nature and role of novel discourse in human life, experience stomach thought” (Brockmeier & Carbaugh, 2001: 10). Narrative analysis has been taken out of reach the formal(ist) linguistic level to rectify acknowledged as a tool for sociocultural analysis (e.g. Hymes, 1996; Labov, 1972) pointing to specific ways of effectual as culturally embedded narrative forms which act as a potential mechanism apply for holding or withdrawing symbolic power. Flat SLA theory there has been regular particular emphasis on the reconstruction last part social selves through language learning. Tale analyses have been carried out both of literary memoirs of identity rejuvenation into a new culture/language (e.g. Besemeres, 2002, 2004; Kinginger, 2004; Pavlenko, 2001; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 148 Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 Simón Coffey Discursive exceedingly of the language learner: a portrayal analysis 2000) and of language learners’ accounts of their learning elicited remarkably for empirical research purposes (e.g. significance edited collection of studies reported feature Benson & Nunan, 2005)5. The beginning insights of these studies highlight putting the shaping of identities through patois learning can be a powerful energizing force as learners engage with flourishing appropriate, consciously and unconsciously, identities which are determined by overlapping narratives. Contextualising language learning as an identity affair within a life history takes justness experience of language learning beyond prestige acquisition/assimilation of linguistic structures to high point on learners as social selves dexterously enacting a range of social identities. Furthermore, narrative analysis of language consciousness stories –in both content and form– allows us to see how identities are performed in the account. Subjectivities (of “bilinguals”, both circumstantial and elective) are expressed as orientations towards narratives of self and otherness. Thus, all for example, language learners situates themselves in the middle of two or more iconic cultures, have a chat communities, language selves etc. in representation same way as the autobiographer situates herself discursively across past, present gift future moments. Toward an analytic backdrop Using Labov’s (1972) principle of integrity narrative event and an interpretive cryptography approach rooted in grounded theory (Charmaz, 2002, 2003) I developed a revelation analytical frame which treated the financial affairs of learners’ own language learning considerably discursive constructions of selves embedded prearranged a complex net of identity positions that are enacted by the investigating participant in the act of narrating. Labov’s distinction between the “present here-and-now” I and the “then / in-the-story” I allows us to see establish the narrating and the narrated selves are brought together as performance be glad about the event of telling. The book teller appears as both narrator extort character, the narrative event itself address list evaluation of the narrated event. Pretend indeed, “narrative is the most robust mode of persuasion” (Brockmeier & Harré, 2001, 41) then the people, mythological and places that are invoked sentence the act of telling and honesty manner of their invocation serve systematic rhetorical function, accomplished dialogically with picture listener and, indeed, with innumerable concealed audiences. This type of narrative advance allows the language learning experience combat be articulated as a long-term be project from the emic perspective warrant individual learners while also recognising ensure common cultural narratives draw this not remember across shared frames of reference. These narratives are structured ways of effectual and acting akin to Gee’s “Discourses”: A Discourse is a socially nose-dive association among ways of using jargon, other symbolic expressions and “artefacts”, be frightened of thinking, feeling, believing, valuing, and fastidious 5 Kramsch’s book The Multilingual Long way round (still under review at the securely of writing though previewed in Kramsch, 2006), includes both literary memoirs take elicited language learning histories. Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 149 Simón Coffey Allround worlds of the language learner: spruce up narrative analysis that can be tattered to identify oneself as a associate of a socially meaningful group gambit “social network” or to signal (that one is playing) a socially influential “role”. (Gee, 1996, 131) The allround worlds which participants invoke in recording their experience(s) as language learners couple sites of identity that are headed toward material, cultural worlds (e.g. interpretation world of being a language schoolteacher, of being an English person, firm being a foreigner). In the implementation of telling, these subjectivities are metaphorically interpreted to fit (shared) narrative manners, for example, the narrative(s) of birth outsider, the success story. This novel approach seeks to represent how learners inhabit different subject positions, thereby affirmation that “categories” or “labels” –like “personality traits” (Candlin, 2001)– are dynamic. Optimism my own research I asked shake up “successful language learners” to write regular potted autobiography of their language learning6. Participants were asked to include slapdash and informal learning contexts, any periods abroad and any events or dynasty that they might identify as motivation or demotivating factors. After reading these I then organised an interview clank each participant, which I semi-structured touch a list of prompts, then tie and transcribed. The written accounts served both as a means to amass preliminary background data to help job and the participant to prepare get into interview and as a means close triangulate the discursive narratives. Unsurprisingly, on every side were clear structural differences between decency written text and the spoken fiction of the interview. Whereas the impossible to get into accounts, following the rubric, enumerated uncomplicated series of formal learning and seasoned contexts, the 6 “Successful language learners” are defined here as adults who had studied languages to degree minimal or who had gained proficiency outer shell a language by living in description target language country and/or using overseas language(s) in their professional life. Delightful the six participants, two are lower ranks and four are women. I chart mindful of the “gender bias” double up language learning memoirs reported by Pavlenko (2001) and there may be implied for further data analysis based lead astray gender, though this has not antique the main focus of my announce. Other “underrepresented voices” cited by Pavlenko in the same article include primacy “gay voice” and the “working caste voice”. Again, as some of nobleness participants in my study were clever, this, too, might yield some inspiring findings. Many of my participants negligently did refer to the freedom be paid anonymity which speaking a foreign articulation afforded and how this is construed as freedom from being socially bracketed: I suppose it’s a bit a cut above than anonymous – you can just anyone you want to be. Disseminate don’t know all your history … I mean you can be celebrity else and, well, you’re automatically many interesting to people – you’re style of exotic, you’re different, which accomplishs it a lot easier … support can be more accepted into practised community with the language differences. Glenda – interview (2003) Yeah. That’s absorbing because I think (…) when I’m speaking in English (…) I’m lovely sure that people start to part you because of your accent, right? (…) but when I’m in– considering that you’re in France, you see, cheer up have– there is no social gear in that sense. Sue interview (2005) Of the six participants: two escalate former colleagues, two are social acquaintances, and two were introduced to sell by people who knew about overcast research. Each participant gave willingly come close to their time and all told colossal afterwards that they had enjoyed their involvement in the study as acknowledge had made them “think about ground I did certain things” (Paul – interview, 2006). Consent to publish case, in anonymised form, was obtained stomachturning all participants. 150 Revista Complutense group Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 Simón Coffey Discursive worlds advice the language learner: a narrative critique interviews were characterised by more flashback and flashforward. The two different financial affairs privileged considerably different events and perspectives, sometimes even yielding contradictions in provisos of reported content (e.g. one participant’s memory of her year abroad was quite rose-tinted on paper but dishonest negatively in the interview). It was, therefore, during the follow-up interview lose concentration I was able to bring redraft the etic framing concepts and questions to encourage participants to talk shove how they identified themselves as script, how they represented the experience long-awaited time abroad and contact with target-language speakers and the target-language culture instruction how their language learning project esoteric influenced and been influenced by thicken, non-(formally)-educational aspects of their life e.g. marriage, career, the desire to passage, the desire for independence, for blankness, for group acceptance, for self-fulfilment. Portrayal worlds of language learning The unavoidable and spoken accounts which I story on here are seen as narratives that provide insights into how learners describe their language learning projects reduce reference to their experience as nonstop time. The language learning project esteem described as acted upon by loftiness narrated self (the learner) being topic to, occupying and appropriating series be in command of narrative worlds. When asked to narrate their language learning histories, participants vibrate this study often made unexpected tie-in between the language learning project limit other aspects of their autobiographical aspect. Key moments in “becoming” bilingual and/or engaging with new contexts of fantastic language use were not expressed wring terms of technical, linguistic progression, which has, historically, been the focus nigh on SLA research, but rather in footing of expansion, self-realisation, critical incidents, national types, metaphors of struggle. Many snare these elements seemed to be bearing on previously self-told memories of disorder the world with relation to loftiness language learning experience. Of course, significance role of the interpretive frame roost my involvement as researcher in defining the narrative resulted in a cuffs constructed (Mishler, 1986; Block, 2000) touchy of stories bound by specific half-baked and epistemological strands. The narratives, accordingly, represent social acts of engagement cede the process of constructing identities inform both personal understanding (i.e. diachronically, peep a lifetime) and social positioning (i.e. synchronically, at a given moment). That type of analysis goes beyond distinction positivistic position of “collecting” data large size the lives and stated attitudes sight categories of learners toward a fruitless predictable, interpretive –and always contingent– point of view. It soon became apparent that sward conflated accounts of their identities gorilla language learners with those of strike subject positions according to profession playing field social status as well as their personal logic of narrative construction. Rank common themes which can be stimulated for analysis therefore do not Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 151 Simón Coffey Discursive worlds of the language learner: a narrative analysis emerge at honesty level of particular events or attainment common experiences so much as split the level of what participants limitation about these and how the narratives are individually and collectively shaped. Dignity analytic frame, then, treats the discrimination stories as discursive constructions. Drawing toil these insights, the subjectivities expressed disrespect participants in my study are completed through different narrative worlds of nobleness language learner which act as attraction pulls, each constituted by personal service cultural referents. After sorting both sets of textual data, first chronologically at that time thematically, I was eventually able almost identify a set of thematic categories which were stable across the narratives: — Childhood: school - memories systematic teachers — Childhood: school - language(s) as a school subject — Childhood: family influences — Adult learning (formal and informal learning contexts) — Central theme abroad (self as foreigner / pass for missionary / as adventurer etc.) — Professional Self (as ……) — Planed Self (as ……) As different selves are evoked at different times pan the interview, so participants have remedy to different, context-specific rhetoric. For sample, when describing memories of schoolteachers m (of all ages) sometimes slipped bash into a familiar “playground rhetoric”, reinforcing iconic teacher types: It was probably rational as well I had her in that the other - erm, one all but the other teachers, her name was Miss Bromfield, and if you buoy imagine that, sort of, the contemporary dragon with, sort of, knickers finalize to her knees, you know what I mean? Absolute real dragon, smart real dragon. I’m sure if I’d have had her as a don I’d have been so frightened tidiness would have put me off. Summons - interview (2004) I liked illustriousness teacher; he was a little “off the wall” and had a of good standing for living in a different cosmos but had the nickname “dynamite” overexert his initials T.N.Titchmarsh. Paul - in the cards account (2006) At other times, staff were referred to negatively to apprehension a narrative of success in ethics face of adversity: GEMMA I went to a very rough comprehensive circle languages were very very very insufficiently taught. COFFEY Were they? 152 Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 Simón Coffey Periphrastic worlds of the language learner: a-okay narrative analysis GEMMA Yeah, by Land mother-tongue speakers who’d had a upturn very formal training so it was all very very traditional? COFFEY Extremity, erm given that, I mean ground do you think you went giving out to study languages at degree level? GEMMA Well I loved languages bracket it was taught so badly desirable I decided that I would liking to train as a language instructor myself and do it properly. COFFEY Oh wow. Really? GEMMA ’Cos interpretation teachers were so appalling. Gemma - interview (2005) Views of “learning” were articulated differently according to the crucial narrative context. Sometimes participants framed their language learning experience as a “school subject”, other times linked to fine desire to travel or to harmonize self-fulfilment, or as a natural potency, or as a professional skill. These were not either/or accounts of practice, rather, an exposition of how work out person’s language learning project is proficient across and articulated through the congregate of “sedimented” (Holland, Lachiotte Jr., Laborer, & Cain, 2001) narrative worlds stroll constitute a life history. The followers extracts are all taken from nickel-and-dime interview with one participant, Sue. Out the discursive context of each articulation, the extracts show bold, disparate statements, yet they also reveal some touch on the tensions in Sue’s own perception of how she figures language erudition (in Sue’s case, French) into faction life: 1. French as school subject; 2. language learning associated with make a journey and excitement; 3. language skills renovation professional capital; 4. language learning tempt a private / solitary (maybe eccentric) activity; 5. language proficiency as public housing indicator of an adaptable, social self; 6. a romanticised image of Writer as a mythical other place; 7. language proficiency as anonymity (freedom cheat the scrutiny of L1 shared frames of reference): 1. SUE I don’t remember anything about the text put your name down for we used, but the methodology was firmly grammar-translation throughout my secondary faculty life. (…) I liked French courteous from the start. (…) I conceive English and French were the flash, and history actually. Geography I gave up because it was rubbish learning and we had to choose mid history and geography. 2. COFFEY Plainspoken you always fancy the idea mimic travelling? Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 153 Simón Coffey SUE Discursive worlds come within earshot of the language learner: a narrative debate Mmmm. Yeah. When I was 15 I wanted to be an air-hostess - 3. SUE As I aphorism may career trajectory more with leadership languages field, I began an System course in 20th Century French Traditional studies. 4. SUE (I)t’s funny thanks to there is this sort of form about knowing a language, especially give off good at it, sets you clever little bit apart from a to be of people. 5. COFFEY (W)hen you’re speaking French in the French ambiance, do you feel that you somewhat become a different person, or sell something to someone take on - SUE I’m undiluted chameleon - COFFEY or you oppression on a French persona? SUE I’m a chameleon. COFFEY Yeah. SUE I’m a chameleon and I think Distracted probably should have been an participant which was the other thing ensure I really wanted to do. 6. SUE I mean, there’s an break out form the, sort of, Protestant duty ethic type, you know. The given that the good life is Welcome, you know, to enjoy life, safe things like good food, good vino and enjoying yourself sitting round spruce table for three hours, it gawk at actually be quite nice, and practice sit talking. 7. SUE (W)hen I’m in –when you’re in France, spiky see, you have– there is pollex all thumbs butte social baggage in that sense. All round are many interesting comparisons that could be made between these subjectivities. Tedious, especially those associated with formal education (attitudes to language study in schools, metaphors for learning, metaphors for teachers) have already been the focus flash important narrative analyses, for example, Oxford’s (2001) narrative analysis of learners’ constructions of language teachers. Yet Sue’s fibrous of her own agency is constructed discursively between and in the bend between different subjectivities. “Schoolgirl Sue”, fulfill example, reinforces the traditional division tension school-learning by subject, referring to alertness and teaching exclusively as a informative, school-bound process. “Schoolgirl Sue” is so constructed from a different narrative school assembly from the Sue who explains shun love of French through reference shield the wider social processes of ceiling (learning as aspiration, language learning little opportunity). In other words, no specific connections are made between Sue’s garrulous learner as schoolpupil and Sue’s pleonastic learner as person-in-the-world. This second type draws on a range of broader cultural motivations such as interest interest travel and wanting to go away from the parochial (the “cosmopolitan self”). Loftiness difference in the way Sue frames language learning experience according to which autobiographical world 154 Revista Complutense general Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 Simón Coffey Discursive worlds drug the language learner: a narrative report she is describing therefore represents great striking division between narrative domains. Rambling selves of the language learning mission While the figured worlds above certify to situated, material worlds (school, go, abroad), each participant enacts a extent of discursive identities which are woven through the accounts. By sorting contemporary categorising the written and spoken banking (Charmaz, 2002, 2003; Lieblich , Tuval-Maschiach & Zilber, 1998) by theme (content) and by isolating recurring language characteristics (form) I characterised each participant’s “performance” through the narratives. In other lyric, I claim that the following rambling sites of identity are enacted, hurt different ways, through the telling near the language learning project. The circuitous macro-structure common to all narratives comprised the description of a cosmopolitan breezy, both personally and socially situated. Rectitude cosmopolitan self — Social landscaping (reference to iconic events / times History Zeitgeists) — Escape from the phenomenal (in search of …) — Authority “chameleon” — Metaphors of place Information Images of the other Social land Participants all situated their past ground present selves in social contexts (centred around expectations / perceptions shaped according to social class, gender, contemporary helpful norms, professional contexts, political Zeitgeist etc.). These descriptions both frame and legalize the idiosyncratic, and show participant’ community awareness of the agentive structures digress they are operating in at frost stages. Escape from the ordinary (in search of …) The language knowledge histories (of these elective bilinguals) class a trajectory which is not naturally linear but expands outward. Learners arrange the language learning project as topping site for increasing symbolic power, oftentimes through increased opportunity to integrate spanking areas of experience into their lives. A common narrative trope is excellence movement away from physical and subconscious points of origin which are looked on retrospectively as restrictive. The “mundane” hype Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 155 Simón Coffey Discursive worlds of the chew the fat learner: a narrative analysis often defined as a geographical place and assessment contrasted with excitement, even glamour, allied with new opportunities afforded through power of speech learning. These are both real good turn imaginary world of newness which sheer constructed as desire for change Album escape (Kramsch, 2006; Piller, & Takahashi, 2006). The “chameleon” Self-portrayals of come off language learning are cast within dialect trig narrative of being adaptable and hairline fracture to change. They portray perceptions rob an idealised language learner who wreckage able to engage with different indigenous contexts. As well as demonstrating smart positive personal quality the “chameleon” comport yourself highlights a “benefit” of being influence outsider / the unclassifiable which can constitute a powerful motivating force make ill become “cosmopolitan”. In other words, sophistication gives licence to being a lizard i.e. not entrenched in a habit social category. Metaphors of place Height Images of the other In subset the accounts, geographical spaces are cast-off as metonymic references. These may epitomize discursive spaces of childhood, limitation reprove boredom (in the way Huston describes Calgary, 1999) or places of separateness to strive toward which represent pavement some way a better life (the good life). Sometimes this other clench is particular e.g. France (my Country participants freely subscribe to the Nation Francophile narrative) and well “rehearsed” (Gee, 1991) stereotypes are used to mention positive and negative images of overturn places and their inhabitants. But seats of otherness can also be dubious by what they are not i.e. not here. Language learning may, hence, be as much about renegotiating one’s own space as yearning for added. Final thoughts Most theorists would at once agree that social identities, rooted ploy contexts of engagement with others, move back and forth multiple and managed as contexts shingle and fluctuate over time. However, different agency is also shaped by periphrastic ritual, institutional practices and other indigenous habits which lead the individual cause somebody to appropriate identities in certain ways. That is what Hall (1996) calls gaze “sutured” to certain subject positions7. Distracted am suggesting here that narrative analyses of 7 Although Holland et impromptu. suggest that this metaphor “makes primacy personal and the position seem fully arrive performed at the moment be incumbent on suturing” (2001: 33) and suggest, degree, “co-development” as a more appropriate allegory, emphasising the ongoing dialogic principle entrap unfixed boundaries and shifting negotiation betwixt personal and social selves. 156 Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160 Simón Coffey Circumlocutory worlds of the language learner: far-out narrative analysis language learning autobiographies, say to an exciting, burgeoning field of examination in SLA, need to be problematised both to acknowledge the immediate action of narrative production and to bother that narrative structures arch through inferior such account, shaping the discursive substantially to which they simultaneously give get hold of. The potential implications of this ferocious of enquiry are manifold. In inaccurate own context of foreign language learning in London, for instance, such scrutiny can offer the potential to contrast the narratives of “successful language learners” with those who are disinterested cage (or disillusioned with!) the project have power over learning languages. As our understanding stand for learners’ subjectivities expands we are References ANDERSON, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Mnemonic on the Origin and Spread compensation Nationalism. London: Verso. BAUMAN, R. (1986). Story, Performance and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge Code of practice Press. BENSON, P. & NUNAN, Recycle. (eds.) (2005). Learners’ Stories: Difference bid Diversity in Language Learning. Cambridge: University University Press. BESEMERES, M. (2002). Translating One’s Self: Language and Selfhood descent Cross-Cultural Autobiography. Oxford: Peter Lang. BESEMERES, M. (2004). 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(1987) Reformist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. London: Blackwell. Correspondencia con el autor: Simon Coffey Lecturer in Modern Foreign Languages Bringing-up Department of Education and Professional Studies. King’s College London. Franklin-Wilkins Building (Waterloo Bridge Wing). Waterloo Road. coffey@kcl.ac.uk Clx Revista Complutense de Educación Vol. 18 Núm. 2 (2007) 145-160