Review of  Second Language IdentitiesReviewer: Laura Michele Callahan

Book Title: Second Language IdentitiesBook Author: David Block

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)

Linguistic Field(s):

Sociolinguistics

Issue Number:

20.2672

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Review:AUTHOR: Block, David TITLE: Second Language IdentitiesPUBLISHER: ContinuumYEAR: 2009 

Laura Callahan, The City College of the City University of New York

SUMMARYThis is the paperback edition of a book first published in 2007. It containsseven chapters, references, and an index. Notes are placed at the end of thechapter in which they appear.

Chapter 1: Introduction. Here the author situates identity as it is to be examined in this book,beginning with a brief acknowledgement of popular perspectives on the concept.With respect to second language learning (hereafter SLL), he quotes Norton(1995: 12), who states that ''SLA theorists have not developed a comprehensivetheory of social identity that integrates the language learner and the languagelearning context'' (p.1); Block notes that much work in identity has been donesince the 1990s. He next provides a brief overview of its theoretical trajectoryin various social sciences disciplines, from which the field of appliedlinguistics has borrowed as identity has grown in interest for SLL researchers.Block maintains that ''[t]he rise of identity in SLL has [...] been a question ofcatching up with developments in other social sciences'' (p. 2). He providesseveral references of work on the history of identity, from the Western Europeanenlightenment to the postmodern age. Finally, he summarizes the content of theremaining chapters, and also anticipates questions readers might raise aboutthis volume's scope.

Chapter 2: Identity in the social sciences today.Block examines the poststructuralist view of identity, with a comprehensiveoverview of significant work from the past 20 years, as well as its foundationsfrom earlier decades. Concepts elucidated include subjectivity, discursiveconstruction and discourse; performativity and presentation of self;positioning; ambivalence and hybridity; communities of practice; and power andrecognition. He then contemplates the seven most common angles from whichidentity has been examined: race and ethnicity (considered in combination hereto reflect their frequent, if erroneous, conflation), national identity, migrantidentity, gender identity, social class identity, and language identity. Hecites authors who have objected to an over-reliance on the construct ofindividual agency (e.g. May 2001), and ultimately demonstrates that theprogression from essentialist to poststructuralist and social constructivistviews can be seen as a building onto rather than a full scale replacement of oneschool by another.

Chapter 3: Revisiting the past: identity in early SLL research. In this chapter Block reviews pertinent studies from the 1960s, 1970s, and1980s, teasing out references to identity. He points out that some work in thesocial sciences decades prior to this contains ''the seeds of poststructuralism''(p. 47), citing Whyte's 1943 book Street Corner Society. He then details earlyresearch on motivation and French/English bilingualism, moving on to studies of

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the language ego and adult ESL learners' pronunciation, work on the experienceof migrant laborers and the Acculturation Model, studies of affect in SLL, diaryaccounts of foreign language learning experiences, the professional migrantexperience and fossilization, and the professional sojourner experience.

Chapter 4: Identity in adult migrant contexts.This chapter is the first in a series of three, each one of which focuses on aspecific SLL context. Block argues that ''it is in the adult migrant context thatidentity and one's sense of self are most put on the line [... and] individualsare forced to reconstruct and redefine themselves, both for their own sense ofontological security (Giddens, 1991) and the positions ascribed to them byothers in their new surroundings'' (p. 75). He examines investigations from the1990s and 2000s on adult migrants and gate-keeping encounters in WesternEuropean countries, Portuguese among Toronto factory workers, life stories offemale immigrants in Toronto, the language-based masculinities of a Polishimmigrant in California, and Spanish-speaking Latinos in London.

Chapter 5: Identity in foreign language contexts. Here Block considers the possibilities that ''the emergence of significant newsubject positions mediated by the TL [target language]'' (p. 113) will actuallytake place in classroom settings in which students attempt to ''learn a languagethat is not the typical language of communication outside the classroom'' (p.112). Studies discussed include ones focusing on interlanguage pragmatics andthe identity of the foreign language learner; intercultural language learning;textual identity, language play, and the identity of the foreign languagelearner; foreign language learning diaries; and the interpersonal languagelearner. Block then reviews two cases that present exceptions to his conclusionthat identity in foreign language contexts is not often subject to targetlanguage mediation. Both feature variations from the traditional pedagogicalcontext. The first involves Japanese women studying English in Japan, in classesin which instruction is organized around feminist themes. The second involvesuniversity students in a French course in the U.S. who use the Internet tocommunicate with French speakers in France.

Chapter 6: Identity in study abroad contexts. In the final context of the tripartite series, Block examines work on the studyabroad experience that includes case studies of sexual harassment of femalestudents in three countries, gendered subject positions, student-teacher subjectpositions, and enhanced national identity as a result of the study abroadexperience. It is worth noting that this last outcome, an enhanced nationalidentity, is the exact opposite of what language educators have in mind whenthey encourage students to spend one or more academic terms living abroad. Inaddition, as is also the case in adult migrant contexts, mere physical presencein a country where the target language is spoken does not guarantee an abundanceof opportunities to interact in the second language, even when potentialinterlocutors do not speak the learner's first language. The chapter ends with acall for more research on the study abroad experience. While acknowledging thediverse perspectives offered in recent investigations, Block argues that moreinvestigations need to be done, including ones covering a broader range ofnationalities of both students and host countries.

Chapter 7: Second language identities: future directions. In the closing chapter, Block suggests five angles for future work on identity:a greater emphasis on social class, expanding the ambit of the 'First Language',the emergence of local lingua francas, electronically mediated SLL experiences,and the psychoanalytic perspective. In regard to this last item, he points outproblems that may arise when researchers who lack a thorough grounding in adiscipline not central to their field of expertise attempt to incorporatepsychoanalysis into SLL studies.

EVALUATIONFor its extensive survey of authors (too numerous to have included more than afew names in this review) along with Block's lucid observations of their

significance and connections to other work, Second Language Identities is to berecommended to graduate students and researchers who wish to acquaint themselveswith seminal studies in the discipline of identity in SLL. The volume contains acohesive sample of not only recent work—in which identity is the explicit objectof investigation—but also of earlier studies in which it was not in theforeground but was nevertheless present in a less developed form. Two qualitiesmake the book especially readable. The first is that a case study-like approachis taken with the investigations presented, in that Block goes into enoughdetail to give a genuine sense of each one he has chosen to include. The secondis that information essential to an understanding of fundamental issues isrepeated at a rate appropriate to the volume's denseness.

With respect to Block's assessment of the studies he describes, it is importantto note, as he duly does, that the original authors did not in most cases setout with the same objectives that Block and other writers he mentions use tocriticize these studies' shortcomings. As Block warns us in the first chapter,''[a]s I discuss these studies, the reader should bear in mind that I amdeliberately misreading them, as I frame findings according to my own purposesand intentions'' (p. 4). This approach works well, even if at times it may seemas though work not intended to address the issue of identity in SLL is unjustlycriticized for not going far enough in that direction.

REFERENCESGiddens, A. (1991). _Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the LateModern Age_. Cambridge: Polity.

May, S. (2001). _Language and Minority Rights_. London: Longman.

Norton (Pierce), B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning._TESOL Quarterly_, 29 (1), 9-31.

Whyte, W. F. (1943). _Street Corner Society_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWERLaura Callahan is currently Associate Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at theCity College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY),and Research Fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in UrbanSociety (RISLUS), at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research interests includeintercultural communication, language and identity, and heritage languagemaintenance. Her most recent publication is _Spanish and English in U.S. ServiceEncounters_ (Palgrave Macmillan 2009).Versions:

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