The Applied Linguistic Individual - Sociocultural Approaches to Identity, Agency and Autonomy - Phil Benson
9 Individuality in L2 identity construction: the stories of two Chinese learners of English
The Applied Linguistic Individual - Sociocultural Approaches to Identity, Agency and Autonomy - Phil Benson
Mingyue (Michelle) Gu
University of Hong Kong
Description
The first part of the book examined theoretical tensions between the social and the individual in their approaches, while this second part explores how they are resolved in data-based research. In this chapter, the author discusses a study in which she attempted to apply this framework to trace the processes of L2 identity formation of two college English L2 learners in China. The study aimed to capture the changes they experienced in their L2 identities over a prolonged period in similar learning contexts. The study asked how these two learners, as individual social agents, constructed their L2 identities in the face of both the spread of English that accompanies globalization, and also the rapid changes in Chinese society.