Researching Identity and Language Learning:Taking a Narrative Approach

Abstract

The paper attempts to reinforce the significance of taking a narrative approach in identity studies in the field of applied linguistics and language learning research. Over the past two decades, there has been an exponential growth in the amount of research on identity, and the issue has been probed from two broad methodological orientations: one that examines learners' identity construction through their interaction with others, and one that pursues it through oral or written auto/biographical accounts of learners' experiences in learning a foreign language. Researchers interested in exploring the matter from the latter approach tend to adopt a narrative oriented perspective both in their methodology and analysis since they understand that narrative informs the concept of self and identity. It is widely understood that we construct ourselves through narratives that we share with each other (Bruner 1986, 1987, 1990). But how can narration actually construct self? This paper attempts to shed light on this issue by 1) following the poststructuralist understanding of identity, and 2) by framing narratives as experience and a meaning-making phenomena (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).

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