Social Identities and Multiple Selves in Foreign Language Education - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1441101152 ISBN 13: 9781441101150

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013

Synopsis

Within foreign language education contexts across the globe, inadequate attention has been paid to documenting the dynamics of identity development, negotiation and management. This book looks at these dynamics in specific relation to otherness, in addition to attitudinal and behavioural overtones created through use of the term 'foreign' (despite its position as an integral marker in language acquisition discourse).

This book argues that individual identities are multidimensional constructs that gravitate around a hub of intricate social networks of multimodal intergroup interaction. The chapters pursue a collective desire to move the notion of identity away from theoretical abstraction and toward the lived experiences of foreign language teachers and students.

While the identities entangled with these interactions owe a significant measure of their existence to the immediate social context, they can also be actively developed by their holders. The collection of chapters within this book demonstrate how foreign language education environments (traditional and non-traditional) are ideal locations for the development of a sophisticated repertoire of discursive strategies used in the formulation, navigation, expression and management of social identities and multiple selves.

About this title

About the Authors

Damian J. Rivers is an Associate Professor at Osaka University, Japan.

Stephanie Ann Houghton is an Associate Professor at Saga University, Japan.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1441101152
• ISBN 13: 9781441101150
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Rivers Damian J.