BONNY NORTON BONNY NORTON
University of British Columbia University of British Columbia
This article serves as the introduction to the special-topic issue of the
TESOL Quarterly on Language and Identity. In the first section, I discuss
my interest in language and identity, drawing on theorists who have
been influential in my work. A short vignette illustrates the significant
relationship among identity, language learning, and classroom teach-
ing. In the second section, I examine the five articles in the issue,
highlighting notable similarities and differences in conceptions of
identity. I note, in particular, the different ways in which the authors
frame identity: social identity, sociocultural identity, voice, cultural
identity, and ethnic identity. I explore these differences with reference
to the particular disciplines and research traditions of the authors and
the different emphases of their research projects. In the final section, I
draw on the issue as a whole to address a prevalent theme in many of
the contributions: the ownership of English internationally. The central
question addressed is the extent to which English belongs to White
native speakers of standard English or to all the people who speak it,
irrespective of linguistic and sociocultural history. I conclude with the
hope that the issue will help address the current fragmentation in the
literature on the relationship between language and identity and
encourage further debate and research on a thought-provoking and
important topic.
Just as, at the level of relations between groups, a language is worth what those
who speak it are worth, so too, at the level of interactions between individuals,
speech always owes a major part of its value to the value of the person who utters
it. (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 652)
T he relationship between language and identity is an intriguing one,
partly because debates on theories of language are as inconclusive
and indeterminate as debates on theories of identity. However, whereas
some linguists may assume, as Noam Chomsky does, that questions of
identity are not central to theories of language, we as L2 educators need
TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 31, No. 3, Autumn 1997 409image 1
to take this relationship seriously. The questions we ask necessarily
assume that speech, speakers, and social relationships are inseparable.
Such questions include the following: Under what conditions do lan-
guage learners speak? How can we encourage language learners to
become more communicatively competent? How can we facilitate inter- become more communicatively competent? How can we facilitate inter-
action between language learners and target language speakers? In this action between language learners and target language speakers? In this
view, every time language learners speak, they are not only exchanging
information with their interlocutors; they are also constantly organizing
and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the
social world. They are, in other words, engaged in identity construction
and negotiation.
LANGUAGE AND IDEN'IT'Y: THEORY AND PRACTICE
Identity in Theory
As McNamara (this issue) and Hansen and Liu (this issue) demon-
strate, there is much interest in language and identity in the field of
language learning. Different researchers, drawing on different sources
and using a variety of methodologies, have brought diverse perspectives
to this relationship. In my own work, I use the term identity to refer to
how people understand their relationship to the world, how that
relationship is constructed across time and space, and how people
understand their possibilities for the future. As I outline below, theorists
who have been influential in helping me to develop an understanding of
identity include Cornel West, Pierre Bourdieu, Chris Weedon, and Jim
Cummins.
I take the position, following West (1992), that identity relates to
desire-the desire for recognition, the desire for affiliation, and the
desire for security and safety. Such desires, West asserts, cannot be
separated from the distribution of material resources in society. People
who have access to a wide range of resources in a society will have access
to power and privilege, which will in turn influence how they understand
their relationship to the world and their possibilities for the future. Thus
the question "Who am I?" cannot be understood apart from the question
"What can I do?" According to West, it is people's access to material
resources that will define the terms on which they will articulate their
desires. In this view, a person's identity will shift in accordance with
changing social and economic relations.
Bourdieu's (1977) work complements West's because it focuses on the
relationship between identity and symbolic power. As the epigraph to
this article indicates, Bourdieu argues that the value ascribed to speech
TESOL QUARTERLY 410image 2
cannot be understood apart from the person who speaks, and the person
who speaks cannot be understood apart from larger networks of social
relationships-many of which may be unequally structured. His position
is that the linguist (and, I would argue, many applied linguists) take for
granted the conditions for the establishment of communication: that
those who speak regard those who listen as worthy to listen and that
those who listen regard those who speak as worthy to speak. I have those who listen regard those who speak as worthy to speak. I have
argued, however (Peirce, 1995), that it is precisely such assumptions that argued, however (Peirce, 1995), that it is precisely such assumptions that
must be called into question. Bourdieu (1977) argues persuasively that
an expanded definition of competence should include the "right to
speak" or "the power to impose reception" (p. 75).
Because the right to speak intersects in important ways with a
language learner's identity, I have used the term investment to signal the
socially and historically constructed relationship of learners to the target
language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to learn and practice it.
Central questions in my own work are not "Is the learner motivated to
learn the target language?" and "What kind of personality does the
learner have?" Instead, my questions are framed as follows: "What is the
learner's investment in the target language? How is the learner's
relationship to the target language socially and historically constructed?"
The construct of investment conceives of the language learner as having
a complex history and multiple desires. An investment in the target
language is also an investment in a learner's own social identity, which
changes across time and space.
Unlike West and Bourdieu, Weedon (1987) has worked within a
feminist poststructuralist tradition. Whereas West's work has focused on
the relationship between identity and material relations of power, and
Bourdieu's on the relationship between identity and symbolic power,
Weedon has sought to integrate language, individual experience, and
social power in a theory of subjectivity. In this theory, the individual is
accorded greater human agency than in Bourdieu's theory, whereas the
importance of language in constructing the relationship between the
individual and the social is given greater prominence than in West's
theory. Three defining characteristics of subjectivity have been influen-
tial in my work: (a) the multiple, nonunitary nature of the subject; (b)
subjectivity as a site of struggle; and (c) subjectivity as changing over
time. In this theory, subjectivity is produced in a variety of social sites, all
of which are structured by relations of power in which the person takes
up different subject positions-teacher, child, feminist, manager, critic.
The subject, in turn, is not conceived of as passive; she or he is conceived
of as both subject of and subject to relations of power within a particular
site, community, and society: The subject has human agency. Further-
more, and of central importance, subjectivity and language are theorized
as mutually constitutive.
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 411image 3
In drawing a distinction between coercive and collaborative relations
of power, Cummins (1996) complements the work of West, Bourdieu,
and Weedon. He maintains that coercive relations of power refer to the
exercise of power by a dominant individual, group, or country that is
detrimental to others and serves to maintain an inequitable division of
resources in a society. Collaborative relations of power, on the other
hand, can serve to empower rather than marginalize. In this view, power
is not a fixed, predetermined quantity but can be mutually generated in
interpersonal and intergroup relations. As Cummins observes, "The interpersonal and intergroup relations. As Cummins observes, "The
power relationship is additive rather than subtractive. Power is created power relationship is additive rather than subtractive. Power is created
with others rather than being imposed on or exercised over others" (p.
15). By extension, relations of power can serve to enable or constrain the
range of identities that language learners can negotiate in their class-
rooms and communities.
There is growing interest among L2 educators in the negotiated,
constructed, and conflicted nature of identity. The work of Bourdieu
(1977), Bourdieu and Passeron (1977), and Bakhtin (1981) has been
used to frame innovative sociolinguistic and ethnographic research on
language and identity (Canagarajah, 1993; Corson, 1993; Goldstein,
1996; Martin-Jones & Heller, 1996; May, 1994, Morgan, 1995/1996;
Walsh, 1987). Drawing on a different tradition, Peirce (1995), McKay
and Wong (1996), and Siegal (1996) have found the feminist poststruc-
turalist theory developed by Weedon (1987) productive for understand-
ing language learners' multiple and changing identities, and McKay and
Wong have expanded on the construct of investment, drawing on a
different group of learners than Peirce does.
Identity in Practice: Mai's Story
It is not only theorists and researchers who find the relationship
between language and identity interesting and important. To demon-
strate the relevance of this relationship for learners and teachers, I relate
a story of classroom resistance that is best understood with reference to
learner identities and investments. The story is a short vignette in the life
of Mai, one of the participants in my longitudinal study of five immigrant
women in Canada (Peirce, 1993).
After completing a 6-month ESL course offered to adult immigrants
in Canada, Mai, a young woman from Vietnam, continued taking ESL
courses at night in order to improve her spoken and written English. Mai
had to make great sacrifices to attend these courses. After a long day at
work, she rushed home, made dinner, and rushed out again to take
public transportation to her class. At night, she came home exhausted,
TESOL QUARTERLY 412image 4
with some dread that potential assailants were "chasing" after her while
she was walking from the bus stop to her home at 10:30 p.m.
Given the sacrifices that Mai made to attend these evening courses,
she expressed great frustration with one particular course she was
attending. In an interview with Mai, I questioned her more closely about
her experience in this course. Mai explained that it was centered around
students' presentations on life in their home countries. She described
how frustrating it was to sit for a whole lesson and listen to one student
speak:
I was hoping that the course would help me the same as we learnt [in the
6-month ESL course], but some night we only spend time on one man. He 6-month ESL course], but some night we only spend time on one man. He
came from Europe. He talked about his country: what's happening and what came from Europe. He talked about his country: what's happening and what
was happening. And all the time we didn't learn at all. And tomorrow the
other Indian man speak something for there. Maybe all week I didn't write
any more on my book.
After struggling through this course for a number of weeks and coming
to feel that she "didn't learn at all," Mai never returned to the class.
It could be argued that the Mai's ESL teacher was attempting to
incorporate the lived histories of the students into the classroom by
inviting them to make public presentations about their native countries.
The teacher was giving students the opportunity to practice speaking in
the classroom and inviting them to share their heritage with the rest of
the class. This approach, however, did not have a desirable pedagogical
effect-at least as far as Mai was concerned. She was convinced that she
did not "learn at all" when she sat mute, listening to fellow classmates
discuss their native countries.
Although I cannot provide a definitive interpretation of the course of
events, it is possible to argue that the teacher's methods did not do
justice to the complexity of learner identities. Whereas immigrant
learners' experiences in their native country may be a significant part of
their identity, these experiences are constantly being mediated by their
experiences in the new country, across multiple sites in the home,
workplace, and community. At that stage in the course, the teacher had
not provided learners with the opportunity to critically examine experi-
ences in their native countries in the light of more recent experiences in
Canada or to critically examine their experiences in Canada in light of
experiences in the native country. As a result, Mai had little investment in
the presentations of her fellow classmates, and a potentially rich oppor-
tunity for language learning and teaching had been lost.
This story is a simple illustration of the view that the relationship
between language and identity is not only abstract and theoretical but
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 413image 5
also has important consequences for positive and productive language
learning and teaching.
LANGUAGE AND IDEN'T l Y:
A WINDOW ON THE WORLD
Having introduced theories of language and identity that have been
influential in my own work and illustrated their importance for class-
room teaching, I now highlight what for me were particularly noteworthy
aspects of the five articles in this issue. Thereafter, I reflect on the
authors' collective contribution the authors provide to theorizing the
relationship between language and identity. My comments do not
provide a definitive analysis; they invite readers to explore each of the
articles in greater depth.
It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It
In an innovative and thought-provoking article on identity and In an innovative and thought-provoking article on identity and
intonation, Morgan (this issue) draws on his reflections as a teacher-
researcher in a community-based adult ESL classroom in Toronto,
Canada. His topic, the relationship between identity and intonation, has
received little attention in the L2 literature. Whereas there has been
increasing interest in communicative approaches to the teaching of
pronunciation (Morley, 1991), the ways in which intonation engages the
speaker's sense of self have been little explored. Morgan presents a
fascinating account of his teaching of intonation to a group of predomi-
nantly Chinese immigrant women. A particularly engaging part of the
lesson takes place when Morgan teaches his learners that the different
intonation patterns used to realize the word Oh can have very different
social meanings and presuppose disparate social relationships. With
reference to the lesson as a whole, he writes,
What stands out most in this activity is how the foregrounding of social power
and identity issues seemed to facilitate greater comprehension of sentence-
level stress and intonation as strategic resources for (re)defining social
relationships.
Morgan does not, however, exclusively describe a language lesson. In
drawing on Halliday's (1985) sociocultural theory of language, Morgan
brings a rich theoretical framework to his analysis. He contends that new
meanings arise from the tension between text and context within the
larger context of culture. Furthermore, looking to critical research, he
TESOL QUARTERLY 414image 6
investigates how a common subject area such as pronunciation can have
what he calls "emancipatory potential." This investigation is consistent
with his view, and that of many other ESL teachers working within a
critical tradition, that ESL teachers need to conceive of their students as
having social needs and aspirations that may be inseparable from
linguistic needs. Morgan also raises important questions about the status
of teacher-research. Drawing on his experience as both a teacher and a
researcher, he takes issue with the view that teacher-research can be a
benign and politically neutral activity. He argues persuasively that
teachers who choose not to interview, tape-record, or externalize the
emic voices of their students should not be excluded from contributing
to the knowledge base of the TESOL profession.
Those Who Can, Teach
Duff and Uchida (this issue) take readers to another country on a
different continent and to a new set of issues pertaining to language and different continent and to a new set of issues pertaining to language and
identity. The country is Japan, the participants are teachers of English as identity. The country is Japan, the participants are teachers of English as
a foreign rather than a second language, and the questions are as
follows: How are teachers' sociocultural identities, understandings, and
practices negotiated and transformed over time? What factors are
associated with these changes? To address these questions, Duff and
Uchida conducted an ethnographic study of two American and two
Japanese EFL teachers and their classes in a private language institution
in a large, cosmopolitan Japanese city. One of the American teachers was
male; the remaining three were female. Data were collected over a
6-month period by means of teacher/student questionnaires, journals,
audio- and videotaped observations, life-history interviews, and Uchida's
participant-observer research journal.
In taking on this ambitious task, Duff and Uchida tackle a number of
perennial questions in the field of TESOL: How should researchers
theorize culture in the field of language learning and teaching? To what
extent are teachers of English teachers of culture? What emerges from
their research is a tapestry that is no less complex than the object of
research, a tapestry that challenges any simplistic analyses of the relation-
ship between language and culture. Drawing on Britzman (1991),
Clifford (1986), and Kramsch (1993), Duff and Uchida's central insight
is that culture is not just a body of knowledge; it comprises implicit
assumptions, dynamic processes, and negotiated relationships. The two
Japanese teachers, for example, although sharing a similar cultural
history, had different understandings of language and culture, which
were implicated in their identities and practices as teachers. Miki saw
herself as a teacher of language, not culture (a "linguistically oriented
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 415image 7
Japanese teacher") and believed that the transmission of culture was best
left to native speakers of English. Kimiko, on the other hand, believed
that language and culture were inseparable and dedicated her teaching
to raising learners' cross-cultural awareness. Such data highlight interest-
ing disparities among teachers with respect to theories of language and
culture and the relationship between native and nonnative teachers of
English.
Long Walk to Freedom
Thesen (this issue) takes the reader to southern Africa, a region in
which the English language has had a turbulent history. Her research on
identity and transition provides a window on the vibrant changes taking
place in postapartheid South Africa and the concomitant effects on
language learners' identities in that society. Transition has multiple
referents. At its broadest level, it refers to the transitions taking place in
South Africa at this time, in which White minority rule has been
displaced by a multiracial, multilingual democracy. In this context, the
identities of institutions and those of learners and teachers of language identities of institutions and those of learners and teachers of language
are in a state of intense flux. Transition also refers to the changes that are in a state of intense flux. Transition also refers to the changes that
Thesen's participants faced as they transferred from secondary school to
a tertiary educational institution. What were their expectations for the
future? How did these intersect with their histories and experiences and
with their relationship to the acquisition of academic literacy? Transition
also refers to the research process-the complexity of conducting
research in a context of rapid change and one in which conclusions
drawn at one time may have only transitory relevance. Whereas Thesen
suggests that a research context in transition may raise problems for
interpretation, I believe it also provides a unique opportunity to gain
insight into language and identity at the very juncture-in time and
space-at which learners' identities are being contested and renegotiated.
Thesen's analysis is based on biographical interviews with five Black,
English language learners in their 1st year at a historically White
Anglophone tertiary institution. The research elicited a rich corpus of
data that effectively challenge some dominant assumptions about iden-
tity and English for academic purposes (EAP). Thesen examines the
discrepancy between the conventional categories by which her students
are identified-"disadvantaged," "underprepared," "second language"-
and how they identify themselves. Robert and Faith, for example,
although both framed as "disadvantaged" with respect to the institution,
appeared more invested in relationships with peers. With reference to
the development of academic literacy, Thesen describes how the partici-
pants struggled to negotiate the expectations of the institution with
TESOL QUARTERLY 416image 8
regard to such practices as plagiarism and how these practices conflicted
with the learners' identities. As Mkhululi said, "Sometimes you come up
with what you feel is your personal feeling and then you're told that
you're plagiarising some White guy who happened to be fortunate
enough to get information and to jot it down." A central argument
Thesen makes is that current critical discourse theory does not do
justice to the human agency of individuals and that greater attention to
the voices of learners generates unexpected consequences and new
understandings.
Where the Heart Is
Schecter and Bayley (this issue) transport the reader out of classrooms
and educational institutions into the domestic sphere of the home. The
authors investigate the relationship between language and cultural
identity as manifested in the language socialization practices of
Mexican-descent families in the U.S. They see their research as a
response to the challenge by Zentella (1996) that researchers explore
the diversity of Latino communities in the U.S., given that such diversity
is little recognized by much of the educational community.
The research is based on a larger study of 40 families (20 in California The research is based on a larger study of 40 families (20 in California
and 20 in Texas) that sought to investigate the relationship between and 20 in Texas) that sought to investigate the relationship between
home language socialization practices and the development of bilingual
and biliterate abilities by Mexican-descent children. In this article
Schecter and Bayley richly and comprehensively describe the home
language practices of four of the eight families-two in northern
California and two in south Texas-that were selected for an intensive
case study. Among their findings are that all four focal children and their
parents defined themselves in terms of allegiance to their Mexican
heritage, that they all viewed bilingualism as a positive attribute, and that
they all accorded Spanish a substantial role in the formation of cultural
identity. The families in each respective state differed, however, in the
extent to which they actually used Spanish to affirm identity and in the
way they saw the idealized role of the school in relation to Spanish
language maintenance and cultural identity. These differences are
examined at length in the article. Schecter and Bayley assert that the
differences between the California and Texas participants in this sample
can be partly explained by the sociocultural ecologies of the two
respective communities and the depth of their ties with the U.S.
Schecter and Bayley's analysis is supported by a remarkable corpus of
data including audio- and videotaped observations, interviews with the
focal child in each family, samples of the child's writing, and home
observations. One of the questions addressed to both parents and focal
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 417image 9
children is central to the article: "We'd be interested to know how you
see yourself. Let's say someone asked you about your cultural identity.
What would you call yourself?" Schecter and Bayley note, however, that
additional insights into language and cultural identity were gleaned
throughout the research process.
Rule Britannia?
In the final article in this issue, Leung, Harris, and Rampton seek to
integrate theory, research, and practice with respect to questions of
language and identity within urban classrooms in contemporary En-
gland. The purpose of their article is threefold. First, the authors
challenge dominant understandings of classroom realities in multilin-
gual urban schools in England. Based on biographical data from
adolescent bilingual and multilingual learners, they argue in particular
that a disjuncture exists between the experiences of the learners and the
linguistic and ethnic categories imposed upon them. They take the
position that the needs of ESL students cannot be simplistically por-
trayed in terms of fixed categories of ethnicity and language. Second,
they draw on recent research in cultural theory to better understand the
complex relationship between ethnicity, identity, and language use in the
context of the postcolonial diaspora. The theorists they have found most
useful in this regard include Bhabha (1994), Gilroy (1987), Hall (1988), useful in this regard include Bhabha (1994), Gilroy (1987), Hall (1988),
and Hewitt (1991). They cite in particular Hall's notion of translation, and Hewitt (1991). They cite in particular Hall's notion of translation,
which addresses what Hall calls the cultures of hybridity characteristic of
late modernity. Third, the authors claim that attempts to address the
diverse needs of contemporary school populations in England have
lacked analytic clarity.
To address what the authors call the "paralysis" experienced by
TESOL practitioners and mainstream teachers in responding to the
language needs of their students, Leung, Harris, and Rampton develop
Rampton's (1990) earlier work to offer a framework for analysis. They
argue that the terms native speaker and mother tongue should be replaced
with the notions language expertise, language inheritance, and language
affiliation. Thus the central questions teachers need to ask are not "What
is the learner's mother tongue?" and "Is the learner a native speaker of
Punjabi?" Rather, the teacher should ask, "What is the learner's linguistic
repertoire? Is the learner's relationship to these languages based on
expertise, inheritance, affiliation, or a combination?" These constructs,
which are clearly explained in the article, are highly productive for
understanding the relationship between language and ethnic identity.
TESOL QUARTERLY 418image 10
Theorizing Language and Identity
In reflecting on the central themes relating to language and identity
within these five articles, I am intrigued by the similarities and differ-
ences among them. The juxtaposition of the articles provides a unique
opportunity for intertextual analysis. With respect to the similarities, the
authors appear to have very consistent conceptions of identity. First, they
all see it as complex, contradictory, and multifaceted and reject any
simplistic notions of identity. As Schecter and Bayley write,
The diversity of meanings ascribed by the participants to the ideas of Mexican
and Mexican American identity reinforces critiques of essentialist descrip-
tions, based on reductionist categories, as aids to understanding the back-
grounds and aspirations minority children bring with them to classrooms.
Second, the authors see identity as dynamic across time and place.
Indeed, a recurring theme in the articles is that of transition. Most of the
participants in the five research projects were undergoing significant
changes in their lives, whether moving from one country to another
(Duff & Uchida; Morgan; Schecter & Bayley); from one institution to
another (Thesen); or from one community to the next (Leung, Harris,
& Rampton). As Morgan notes,
Identity is not so much a map of experience-a set of fixed coordinates-as it
is a guide with which ESL students negotiate their place in a new social order
and, if need be, challenge it through the meaning-making activities they
participate in. participate in.
Third, all the authors point out that identity constructs and is Third, all the authors point out that identity constructs and is
constructed by language. Leung, Harris, and Rampton argue that
"language use and notions of ethnicity and social identity are inextrica-
bly linked"; Duff and Uchida examine the "inseparability" of language
and culture; and Schecter and Bayley conceive of language as embodying
in and of itself "acts of identity." Fourth, most of the authors note that
identity construction must be understood with respect to larger social
processes, marked by relations of power that can be either coercive or
collaborative. Morgan demonstrates how issues of language, power, and
identity might be approached in ESL pedagogy; Thesen draws on
theorists who see "profound links" between literacy and social processes;
and Schecter and Bayley acknowledge the "relevance of ideological and
power relations."
Finally, all the authors seek to link identity theory with classroom
practice. Leung, Harris, and Rampton stress that it is of "utmost
importance" for TESOL pedagogy to explicitly recognize and address
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 419image 11
societal inequalities among ethnic and linguistic groups. Duff and
Uchida, who take the position that teaching is itself a cultural practice,
assert that the cultural underpinnings of language curricula and teach-
ing require further examination. Thesen describes the innovative EAP
courses at her institution that explicitly focus on writing, identities, and
transition; and Morgan observes that "identity work in an ESL classroom
is not just descriptive but fundamentally transformative."
With respect to the differences among the authors, I was struck by the
fact that the authors framed identity in different terms. The focus of
Morgan's research was on "social identity," Duff and Uchida's on
"sociocultural identity," Thesen's on "voice," Schecter and Bayley's on
"cultural identity," and Leung, Harris, and Rampton's on "ethnic identity."
I have always been interested in social identity as distinct from cultural
identity (see Peirce, 1995). As I have understood it, social identity refers
to the relationship between the individual and the larger social world, as
mediated through institutions such as families, schools, workplaces,
social services, and law courts. I have asked to what extent this relation-
ship must be understood with reference to a person's race, gender, class,
or ethnicity. Cultural identity I have understood to refer to the relation-
ship between individuals and members of a group who share a common
history, a common language, and similar ways of understanding the
world. I have tended not to draw on theories of cultural identity because
I have debated whether they could do justice to the heterogeneity within
the groups I have encountered and the dynamic nature of identity I have
observed. As I have reflected on these five articles, however, I have seen observed. As I have reflected on these five articles, however, I have seen
the difference between social identity and cultural identity as fluid and the difference between social identity and cultural identity as fluid and
the commonalities more marked than the differences.
Morgan, for example, who is particularly interested in social identity,
nevertheless explores the relationship between intonation and identity
with reference to the dominant cultural practices of a particular group of
Chinese immigrants in Canada. He does not, however, reify these
cultural practices but seeks to understand them in relation to the
dynamics of ethnicity and gender. Schecter and Bayley, who are particu-
larly interested in cultural identity, nevertheless seek to understand their
research with reference to larger social debates over the terms of Latino
participation in U.S. society. Furthermore, within their sample of four
families, they reflect on the discrepancies in their participants' under-
standing of Spanish maintenance. They note, for example, that
Enrique and Mariana Villegas, from an upper-middle-class background in
Guadalajara, equated Spanish maintenance with preservation of the culti-
vated Spanish of the educated Mexican elite, a social dialect that was never
spoken by the adults in the other families studied.
TESOL QUARTERLY 420image 12
Such an analysis suggests that social relations of class are important in
understanding the relationship between language and identity. Duff and
Uchida, indeed, collapse the distinctions between the social and the
cultural.
Sociocultural identities and ideologies are not static, deterministic constructs
that EFL teachers and students bring to the classroom and then take away
unchanged at the end of a lesson or course .... Nor are they simply dictated
by membership in a larger social, cultural, or linguistic group, the way many
scholars approach the topic of language and social identity .... Rather, in
educational practice as in other facets of social life, identities and beliefs are
co-constructed, negotiated, and transformed on an ongoing basis by means of
language.
The apparent differences between the theoretical orientations of the
authors might be explained in terms of the disciplines and research
traditions that inform their work and the different emphases of their
research projects. At the risk of oversimplification, my tentative observa-
tions are as follows. Morgan, working within an institutional context and
committed to social change, adopts a more sociological approach to his
conception of identity; Schecter and Bayley, whose research focuses on
the language socialization of a particular group of people with a
common linguistic heritage, adopt a more anthropological approach to
their analysis of identity; Duff and Uchida, working within an institu-
tional context but addressing differences between American and Japa-
nese teachers, find both social and cultural theories of identity useful;
Leung, Harris, and Rampton, who are interested in the extent to which
schools in England are adapting to an increasingly bilingual and
multilingual student population, find theories of ethnicity helpful in multilingual student population, find theories of ethnicity helpful in
addressing identity; and Thesen, who is interested in the life histories addressing identity; and Thesen, who is interested in the life histories
and biographies of students in transition and seeks to give greater
prominence to human agency in theorizing identity, finds the social
theory of Bakhtin (1988), particularly the notion of voice, relevant:
I also use the term in Bakhtin's sense (1988), referring to the speaking con-
sciousness-the individual speaking or writing, at the point of utterance,
always laden with the language of others, from previous contexts, and
oriented towards some future response.
IDENI'I'ITY AND THE OWNERSHIP OF
ENGLISH INTERNATIONALLY
Having focused in depth on the five articles in this issue, I now draw
on the contributions in the issue as a whole to address questions
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 421image 13
concerning language, identity, and the ownership of English in the field
of TESOL. I arrived at this decision after reflecting on the diverse
contributions to the issue. Whereas all of the contributions are framed
with reference to a given time and place, many of them, implicitly or
explicitly, address the larger question, "Who owns English internation-
ally?" In other words, the authors raise questions about whether English
belongs to native speakers of English, to speakers of standard English, to
White people, or to all of those who speak it, irrespective of their
linguistic and sociocultural histories. Although these questions are more
frequently asked in the context of language planning (Kachru, 1990;
Lowenberg, 1993; Ndebele, 1987; Ngiug wa Thiong'o, 1986; Peirce,
1989; Pennycook, 1994; Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1996; Swales,
1997; Tollefson, 1991; Widdowson, 1994), they have a direct bearing on
the relationship between language and identity. If learners of English
cannot claim ownership of a language, they might not consider them-
selves legitimate speakers (Bourdieu, 1977) of that language. By exten-
sion, there is an important relationship among language, identity, and
the ownership of English.
In this section I address the following questions raised in the contribu-
tions to this issue:
1. What is the relationship between native and nonnative ESL teachers?
How is race implicated in this relationship?
2. How are ESL learners categorized?
3. What is the relationship between standard and nonstandard speakers
of English?
4. Do TESOL educators perpetuate Western cultural hegemony in
different parts of the world?
The many overlapping themes among these questions all require further
research, reflection, and analysis. research, reflection, and analysis.
What is the relationship between native and nonnative What is the relationship between native and nonnative
ESL teachers? To what extent is race implicated in this
relationship?
The relationship between native and nonnative ESL teachers is not
only symbolic; it has significant material consequences. When studying
the employment advertisements at the TESOL convention in Chicago in
March 1996, I was struck by the number of advertisements that called
specifically for a "native English speaker." Another disturbing issue in
this debate, although rarely addressed, is the issue of race and the ideal
English teacher.
TESOL QUARTERLY 422image 14
These topics are taken up by Tang and Amin in the Teaching Issues
section of this issue. In her 1995-1996 survey of 47 nonnative ESL
teachers (NNESLTs) in Hong Kong, Tang found that her participants
believed native ESL teachers were superior to NNESLTs with respect to
communicative aspects of English. In contrast, the NNESLTs felt they
had a better command of grammar and, when the teacher shared the
mother tongue of the students, could more effectively address errors due
to language transfer. According to Tang, the NNESLT can be an
empathetic listener for beginning and weak students, a needs analyst, an
agent of change, and a coach for local public examinations. In a
different context, Amin, based on research with five visible-minority ESL
teachers in Toronto, Canada, found that her participants believed ESL
students make a number of problematic assumptions about the authen-
tic ESL teacher. Among them are that only White people can be native
speakers of English and that only native speakers know "real" English. As
a result of her research and her own experience as an ethnic Pakistani
ESL teacher, Amin argues that "TESOL in Canada and the U.S. should
clearly define the terms native and nonnative, emphasizing that there is
no intrinsic connection between race and ability in English."
At a broader level, the relationship between native and nonnative
English speakers is taken up by Mawhinney and Xu (this issue) and by
Leung, Harris, and Rampton. Describing their research in a recredential-
ing program in Ottawa, Canada, aimed at helping foreign-trained
teachers obtain an Ontario Teaching Certificate, Mawhinney and Xu
report on the professional growth of seven teachers in the context of
challenges posed by language proficiency. Two of the findings address
the relationship between native and nonnative English-speaking teach-
ers. The first concerns the accents of nonnative English-speaking teach-
ers. One principal claimed, "If these teachers want to be accepted in my
school, they must totally get rid of their accent because the students will
have trouble understanding them." The second concerns the complex have trouble understanding them." The second concerns the complex
question of race. In the words of one teacher, "Talk about difference? question of race. In the words of one teacher, "Talk about difference?
The only difference is that we are not White. They do not want us to stay
in school. No matter how well we do, they do not like us."
Such findings concur with those of Leung, Harris, and Rampton, who,
although working on a different continent, claim that "there is an
abstracted notion of an idealised speaker of English from which ethnic
and linguistic minorities are automatically excluded." Furthermore, they
point out that notwithstanding research to the contrary, England is for
all practical purposes cast as a homogeneous community with one
language and one culture. The diversity they have found is not restricted
to ethnic and linguistic minorities. They make the important point that
there is also much diversity within the majority ethnic community and
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 423image 15
question the assumption that White, monolingual English speakers are
automatically affiliated to standard English.
How are ESL learners categorized?
Ndebele (1995), quoted by Thesen, notes that naming is a political
act: "The namer isolates the named, explains them, contains them, and
controls them" (p. 4). The undesirable consequences of how ESL
learners are named and categorized are a theme addressed in four
contributions. Pao, Wong, and Teuben-Rowe (this issue), for example,
based on their research on mixed-heritage adults in the U.S., assert that
"the individuals' identities had been constantly challenged by a racially
conscious society set on placing people into distinct categories." They
argue that L2 educators can play a critical role in promoting positive
self-identities for mixed-heritage students. Hunter (this issue), drawing
on her research on the development of children's literacy in a multilin-
gual elementary classroom in urban Canada, remarks on the contrast
between the school's construction of the students' identities based on
ethnicity and English proficiency and the students' own investments in
very different social identities. The outcomes of such labelling, she notes,
"often allowed for reinforcement of the school's label for them as
'deficient' in language and literacy."
The research of Leung, Harris, and Rampton in England and that of
Thesen in South Africa also convincingly problematize the categories
used to define English language learners in their respective societies.
Leung, Harris, and Rampton point out that there are serious problems
with routine practices in the education of bilingual learners in England,
in which they are frequently attributed a kind of "romantic bilingualism"
and turned into "reified speakers" of community languages. Central to
Thesen's work is an examination of the "labelers and the labeled" and a
search for new categories in the field of EAP. Thesen takes the position
that naming is inevitable and can be useful ("equitable educational
policy cannot happen without it") but that the categories have to be kept
open and co-constructed with learners.
What is the relationship between standard and What is the relationship between standard and
nonstandard speakers of English? nonstandard speakers of English?
Nero (this issue) highlights the ambivalent identities of Anglophones
from the Caribbean, eloquently captured in the title of her report,
"English Is My Native Language . . . or So I Believe." She notes that
TESOL QUARTERLY 424image 16
Anglophone immigrant students entering U.S. colleges from the Carib-
bean are frequently placed in remedial writing or ESL classes, which
many of these students find problematic. After analyzing the language of
four such students with a view to informing pedagogy in English classes,
she concludes that the participants' spoken and written language reflects
to varying degrees a unique interaction of Creole and English that
provides a point of departure for writing pedagogy.
Interesting common themes emerge from the research of Nero in the
U.S. and that of Leung, Harris, and Rampton in England. The latter
maintain that "the question of similarities and differences in L2- and
Creole-influenced language continues to be unresolved in the English
educational literature." Either many of the students defined as bilingual
learners are most comfortable linguistically with a local, urban spoken
English vernacular, they observe, or a nonstandard variety of this kind
serves as their first spoken entry into English in the local community
context.
Are TESOL educators perpetuating Western imperialism
in different parts of the world?
In her insightful review of three of Ngfigi wa Thiong'o's books (1977,
1986, 1993), MacPherson raises a compelling issue.
One question I have wrestled with as a graduate student in the field is whether
we are unwittingly serving exploitative multinational corporate interests as
missionaries once served conquistadors, weakening the cultural and linguistic
resources of people in a manner that makes the carnage of local cultures and
economies possible.
MacPherson is not alone in wrestling with this question. It is vigorously
debated not only in TESOL but also in the broader educational
community (Kachru, 1990; Lowenberg, 1993; Ndebele, 1987; Ngfugi wa
Thiong'o, 1986; Peirce, 1989; Pennycook, 1994; Phillipson & Skutnabb-
Kangas, 1996; Swales, 1997; Tollefson, 1991; Widdowson, 1994). In
reviewing Ngigi wa Thiong'o's work, MacPherson seeks to bring to the
attention of the TESOL community the conflicts this question has raised
for a noted African writer and scholar. Central to this issue is the
question raised by Duff and Uchida: Are TESOL educators teachers of
English or teachers of culture? Duff and Uchida demonstrate convinc- English or teachers of culture? Duff and Uchida demonstrate convinc-
ingly that language and culture are, to some extent, inseparable. Culture ingly that language and culture are, to some extent, inseparable. Culture
relates to not only the cultural content of the courses L2 educators teach
but also the subtle practices that are characteristic of their teaching: the
way they arrange seating in their classrooms, the questions they ask, the
stories they tell, the exercises they set.
LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND THE OWNERSHIP OF ENGLISH 425image 17
These concerns are relevant not only in EFL settings in different parts
of the world but also in ESL settings in the West, where language learners
have to negotiate new social and cultural relationships. Morgan notes
that classroom relationships and interactions both consciously and
unconsciously define what is desirable and possible for learners. Like
Duff and Uchida, he observes that the influential role of the teacher is
determined not only by the explicit content of the lessons but by the type
of materials incorporated into a lesson and the methods used by the
teacher. As Starfield (this issue) suggests, drawing on her reading of
Cummins (1996), Goldstein (1996), and Wink (1997), teachers in the
West cannot be complacent about the extent to which teaching practices
can both constrain and enhance possibilities for ESL learners.
Notwithstanding questions raised about the spread of English and
Western cultural hegemony, the research in this issue cautions against
drawing neat conclusions about the learning of English in either EFL or
ESL contexts. In this regard, the research of McMahill (this issue) in
Japan and Bosher (this issue) in the U.S. is instructive. For the female
EFL learners in Japan who were part of McMahill's study, learning
English seemed to be an empowering experience. As one woman said,
"When speaking Japanese, it takes a lot of courage to express my
convictions or insist upon my beliefs, but in English I can do so with a
sense of being equal to the person I am talking to." According to
McMahill, this was achieved in spite of the ambivalence some women felt
about the role of English in perpetuating Western culture. In a different,
ESL context, based on research with 100 Hmong students in U.S.
postsecondary institutions, Bosher (this issue) found that newcomers
were able to develop "bicultural" identities by adapting to the host
culture without giving up their native culture or ethnic affiliation. She
concludes that her study demonstrates support for multicultural/bilin-
gual educational and social policies.
CONCLUSION
I began this article with some reflection on my own understanding of
language and identity as informed by my reading of such theorists such
as West, Bourdieu, Weedon, and Cummins. I then focused attention on
the five articles in this issue, using the authors' research in Canada,
Japan, South Africa, the U.S., and England as the starting point for a
more textured analysis of the relationship between language and iden- more textured analysis of the relationship between language and iden-
tity. Next, I drew on the issue as a whole to address a recurrent theme: tity. Next, I drew on the issue as a whole to address a recurrent theme:
the relationship between identity and the ownership of English.
I conclude with a few reflective comments. First, as Thesen argues,
discourse theory has tended to have a somewhat deterministic view of
TESOL QUARTERLY 426image 18
language and identity because it has often overlooked a focus on
individual accounts. This special-topic issue attempts to do justice to the
individual accounts of learners and teachers in different parts of the
globe and seeks to ensure that debates on language and identity have
taken the voices of learners and teachers seriously. Second, the Forum
contributions of McNamara and Hansen and Liu suggest that research
on language learning and identity has hitherto been rather fragmented
and insular. This special-topic issue is an attempt to address such
fragmentation. I hope that readers will take the opportunity not only to
compare the different theories, research traditions, and findings in the
various articles and reports but also to enrich the debate with their own
contributions. Finally, because the mandate of TESOL is the teaching of
English, I suggest that if English belongs to the people who speak it,
whether native or nonnative, whether ESL or EFL, whether standard or
nonstandard, then the expansion of English in this era of rapid globaliza-
tion may possibly be for the better rather than for the worse.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank all of the contributors to this special-topic issue, who have made an important
contribution to an understanding of language and identity. I also thank Patricia A.
Duff, Margaret Early, and Sandra McKay for insightful comments on an earlier
version of this article.
THE AUTHOR
Bonny Norton is Assistant Professor in the Department of Language Education at the
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her research addresses ques-
tions of language and identity, critical discourse, and English as an international
language. Her recent research (as Bonny Norton Peirce) has been published in
TESOL Quarterly, Harvard Educational Review, TESL Canada Journal, and Gender and
Education.
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Errata
In the Summer 1997 issue (Vol. 31, No. 2), the heading on page 365
reads "Teaching Issues, edited by Bonny Norton Peirce." This should
have been entitled "Research Issues, edited by Patricia A. Duff." We
apologize for the oversight.
In Tony Silva's Forum contribution, "On the Ethical Treatment of ESL
Writers" (Vol. 31, No. 2, page 361), the third sentence of the second
paragraph should read: "If they enroll in courses with titles like Introduc-
tory Writing or Freshman Composition, I believe it is certainly reason-
able for them to expect and to get courses that focus primarily if not
exclusively on writing, as opposed to courses that primarily focus on such
interesting and important yet inappropriate topics as peace education,
conflict resolution, environmental concerns, political issues, particular
ideologies, literature, critical thinking, cultural studies, or some other
cause celebre dujour, and use writing merely as an add-on or reinforce-
ment activity."
The phrase in boldface was not included in the sentence. We
apologize for the omission.
Pennycook, A. (1994). The cultural politics of English as an international language. New
York: Longman. York: Longman.
Phillipson, R., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1996). English only worldwide or language Phillipson, R., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1996). English only worldwide or language
ecology? TESOL Quarterly, 30, 429-452.
Rampton, B. (1990). Displacing the "native speaker": Expertise, affiliation, and
inheritance. ELTJournal, 44, 97-101.
Siegal, M. (1996, March). Creation of the other: The case of White women learningJapanese
and the implications of discursive practices. Paper presented at the annual meeting of
the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Chicago, IL.
Swales, J. (1997, March). English triumphant, ESL leadership, and issues of fairness.
Plenary address at the annual meeting of the International Language Testing
Association, Orlando, FL.
Tollefson, J. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the
community. New York: Longman.
Walsh, C. A. (1987). Language, meaning, and voice: Puerto Rican students' struggle
for a speaking consciousness. Language Arts, 64, 196-206.
Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. London: Blackwell.
West, C. (1992, Summer). A matter of life and death. October, 61, 20-23.
Widdowson, H. (1994). The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 377-389.
Wink, J. (1997). Critical pedagogy: Notes from the real world. New York: Longman.
Zentella, A. C. (1996, March). The "chiquitafication" of U.S. Latinos and their language,
or why we need a politically applied linguistics. Plenary address at the annual meeting
of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, Chicago.
Errata
In the Summer 1997 issue (Vol. 31, No. 2), the heading on page 365
reads "Teaching Issues, edited by Bonny Norton Peirce." This should
have been entitled "Research Issues, edited by Patricia A. Duff." We
apologize for the oversight.
In Tony Silva's Forum contribution, "On the Ethical Treatment of ESL
Writers" (Vol. 31, No. 2, page 361), the third sentence of the second
paragraph should read: "If they enroll in courses with titles like Introduc-
tory Writing or Freshman Composition, I believe it is certainly reason-
able for them to expect and to get courses that focus primarily if not
exclusively on writing, as opposed to courses that primarily focus on such
interesting and important yet inappropriate topics as peace education,
conflict resolution, environmental concerns, political issues, particular
ideologies, literature, critical thinking, cultural studies, or some other
cause celebre dujour, and use writing merely as an add-on or reinforce-
ment activity."