Manufactured Silences

Migration, Marginalization, and L2 Learner Anxiety

ENGL 623 | John Turnbull | April 3, 2017
Norton Peirce 1996
Bonny Norton Peirce, Social
Identity, Investment, and
Language Learning, TESOL
Quarterly 29, no.1 (spring
1996):931.
Bonny Norton (1956)
University of British Columbia

Professor & Distinguished University Scholar

Department of Language & Literacy Education
Source: http://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton/
The Peoples English
(South Africa)
English-language learning during
apartheid

Source: Anti-
Apartheid
Movement
Archives, Bodleian
Library, Oxford
University
The Peoples English
(South Africa)
Redefining linguistic competence
[T]he nature of the mental representations
comprising the internal grammar of learners
(Ortega 2009, 110)

National Education Crisis Committee, South Africa,

1986
[L]anguage competence extends beyond an
understanding of the rules that govern the English
language and the appropriate use of English in South
African society. Peoples English redefines language
competence to include the ability to say and write
what one means; to hear what is said and what is
hidden to make ones voice heard; to read print
and resist it where necessary. (quoted in Norton
Peirce 1989, 41112)
The right to speak
[T]he definition of competence
should include an awareness of the
right to speak. [Bourdieus]
position is that the linguist takes 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. (1996,
18)
Key theoretical questions
1. How does an L2 learners
connections to the L1 social world
affect second-language acquisition?
Power dynamics: Gender, social class,
status, and the legitimate speaker
2. How should the individual be
represented in SLA theory?
False dichotomies? Unmotivated and
motivated, introverted (shy) and extroverted,
etc.
Who is Bart Simpson?
The girl [Gail] which is working with
me pointed at the man and said:
Do you see him?I said
Yes. Why?
Dont you know him?
No. I dont know him.
How come you dont know him. Dont you watch
TV. Thats Bart Simpson.
It made me feel so bad and I didnt
answer her nothing. Until now I dont
know why this person is important.
(Evas diary, February 8, 1991, quoted in 1996, 910)
Theoretical background
Benedict Anderson (19362015) | historian,
Cornell University
Imagined communities: Nations control the
imaginations of citizens, directly and indirectly
Pierre Bourdieu (19302002) | sociologist, CSE
(Paris)
Investment: Individuals in interaction with
habitus/field learn who they are
Chris Weedon (1952) | feminist, University of
Cardiff (Wales)
Poststructuralist identity: Socially produced
subjectivities in struggle over power
Motivation investment

Source: Darvin
and Norton 2015
Situated research questions
1. How are opportunities for immigrant
women in Canada to practice English
socially structured outside the
classroom?
2. How do immigrant women create,
use, or resist opportunities to
practice outside the classroom?
3. Can theories of natural language
learning and social identity
contribute to knowledge about SLA
and influence pedagogy? (1996, 1314)
Methodology
Primary data sources
Five female ELLs Mai (Vietnam), Eva and
Katarina (Poland), Martina (Czech
Republic), and Felicia (Peru) keep diaries
of interactions with Anglophone
Canadians over one year
Additional data sources
Questionnaires, interviews, and home
visits with attention to natural language
learning experiences (1996, 14)
Immigrant women in Canada

The 2006 Census enumerated

3,222,795 immigrant women in
Canada, who made up 20.3% of the
countrys female population. The
proportion of immigrant women had
not been at a similar level since 1931,
when 20.2% of the female population
was made up of immigrants (Chart 1).
(Chui 2011, 5)
Immigrant women in Canada
Investment and social identity

Despite highly motivated participants,

there were particular social conditions
under which the women in my study were
most uncomfortable and unlikely to
speak.
Eva: silenced when customers made comments
about her accent
Mai: most uncomfortable speaking to her boss
Katarina: most uncomfortable talking to her teacher,
the doctor, and other anglophone professionals
Martina: frustrated when she could not defend her
familys rights
Felicia: uncomfortable speaking English in front of
Peruvians who speak English fluently (1996, 19)
Martina: Multiple, contested
identities
Born in Czechoslovakia, 1952. Emigrated
to Ontario, 1989. Trained as surveyor. In
Canada, works as fast-food assistant cook.
Investment: Primary caregiver for three children with
desire to take over parental tasks and advocate for
family
I feel uncomfortable using English in the group of
people whose English language is their mother tongue
because they speak fluently without any problems and I
feel inferior. (diary, quoted in 1996, 21)
In restaurant I was working a lot of children, but the
children always thought that I amI dont know
maybe some broom or something. (interview, quoted
in 1996, 23)
Eva: Identity shift over time

Born in Poland, 1967. Arrived in Ontario as

refugee, 1989. Fluent in Italian. Works at
restaurant in food prep.
Investment: Shifts from immigrant (illegitimate
speaker) to multicultural citizen
When I see that I have to do everything and nobody
cares about me becausethen how can I talk to them? I
hear they doesnt care about me and I dont feel to go
and smile and talk to them. (interview, quoted in 1996,
24)
Then I started to talk to them about how life is in
Europe. Then they started to ask me some questions.
(interview, quoted in 1996, 25)
The complexity of motivation

[A] language learners motivation to

speak is mediated by investments that
may conflict with the desire to speak.
[T]he decision to remain silent or
the decision to speak may both
constitute forms of resistance to
inequitable social forces. (1996, 1920)
Research implications
[T]he second-language teacher
needs to help language learners
claim the right to speak outside
the classroom. To this end, the
lived experiences and social
identities of language learners
need to be incorporated into the
formal second-language
curriculum. (1996, 26)
Classroom-based social
research (CBSR)
Definition: [C]ollaborative research
that is carried out by language learners
in their local communities with the
active guidance and support of the
language teacher. In many ways,
language learners become
ethnographers in their local
communities. (1996, 26)
CBSR objectives
Investigate opportunities to interact with TL
speakers
Reflect critically on engagement with TL
speakers | learn to transform social practices of
marginalization
Reflect on observations in diaries and
journals | examine critically any communication
breakdowns
Pay attention to and record unusual events |
change subject position from immigrant to researcher
Compare data with fellow students and
researchers (1996, 2728)
References
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges. Social Science
Information 16, no. 6: 64568.
Bourdieu, Pierre, and J. Passeron. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society, and
Culture. London: Sage.
Chui, Tina. 2011. Immigrant Women. In Women in Canada: A Gender-Based
Statistical Report. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, Social and Aboriginal Statistics
Division.
Darvin, Ron, and Bonny Norton. 2015. Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied
Linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35:192201.
Norton Peirce, Bonny. 1989. Toward a Pedagogy of Possibility in the Teaching of
English Internationally: Peoples English in South Africa. TESOL Quarterly 23,
no.3 (September):401-20.
. 1996. Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning. TESOL Quarterly
29, no.1 (spring):931.
. 2013. Identity and Language Learning: Extending the Conversation. 2d ed.
Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.
Ortega, Lourdes. 1989. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Understanding
Language series, ed. Bernard Comrie and Greville Corbett. London: Hodder
Education.
Weedon, Chris. 1997. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. 2d ed. London:
Blackwell.