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The Psychological Background:
Culture, Motivation and Identity in
Second Language Education
Douglas Fleming
University of Ottawa
• “Identity would seem to be the garment with which one
covers the nakedness of the self; in which case, it is best
that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert,
through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and,
sometimes, discerned” James Baldwin (1976)
• Lynd once observed that, "the search for identity has
become as strategic in our time as the study of sexuality in
Freud’s" (1958, 14).
• The importance of identity theory has been increasingly felt
in social science research generally (Mathews, 2000), in
overall education research (Cummins, 1996; Bernstein,
1996), and second language education (SLE) more
particularly (Block, 2007; Davison, 2001).
• so, what does the word identity mean?
• the word identity was "first used to mean personal identity
by the empiricist philosophers Locke and Hume, who used
the word identity to cast doubt on the unity of the self"
(Langbaum, 1977; p. 25);
• It is important to note the individual self has not always
been a significant preoccupation in European cultural
history;
• From the late 12th to the 14th centuries a number of
dramatic events shifted European outlook towards
individualism (Tuchman,1978), including:
– growth in the number of secular European universities
– new challenges to the sanctity of dynastic rule
– and the first elaboration of the modern scientific method.
• Sociological concepts like identity are in great contrast to
related terms in psychology, such as motivation.
• Dilthey: the essence of being human can only be
grasped historically; experience is a collection of events
that have a unity of meaning; identity is the human
quality that which unifies this experience across time for
individuals.
• Durkheim: social control mechanisms are as much
mental (ritual) as physical; these help create collective
representations and solidarity, shape personality,
identities and behaviors.
• George Mead: generalized other
• Cooley: looking glass self
• Dewey: the regulatory function of imagined reaction
• Bourdieu: cultural capital
• Giddens: identity as narrative
• Said: the ‘other’ in political discourse
• Althussar: Ideology
• Friere: pedagogical tasks and activist critiques of civil society
• Foucault: governmentality and micro-processes of power
• In contrast, psychology places an emphasis on the
importance of the integrated and autonomous self.
Motivation is central to this.
• Motivation is quite clearly a psychological term,
influenced by Freud's conception of the mind into id, ego
and superego, Piaget's constructivist conception of
personality development and Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs.
• Motivational psychologists hold that there are five
sources of motivation:
– intrinsic (simply for enjoyment);
– instrumental (for material reward);
– self-concept: external (for group status);
– self-concept: internal (for empowerment) and
– goal identification (for accomplishment).
• R.C. Gardner’s concept of integrative motivation: the desire
to learn the target language based on positive feelings for
the community to which that language belongs.
• J.H. Schumann's acculturation model outlines the factors
involved in whether or not groups of learners, principally
ethnic minorities, have a propensity (social distance and
psychological distance) to learn the language of the majority
population.
• social distance and psychological distance is influenced by:
• attitudes toward social dominance/ resistance;
• desires for assimilation/ preservation;
• enclosure (isolation);
• cohesiveness of the minority group; size of the minority
group;
• and individual factors such as intended length of
residence.
• Unlike the broad sociological perspectives that inform
the concept of identity, the factors that Schumann
identifies focus on the barriers created by minority
groupings. As Norton (2000) points out, the barriers
erected by dominant language and cultural groups are
not taken into account in his model.
• In SLE, Norton uses the term identity "to reference how a
person understands his or her relationship to the world,
how that relationship is constructed over time and space,
and how the person understands possibilities for the
future" (2000, 5).
• Norton contrasts the concept of identity to that of
motivation and develops the notion of investment.
• Investment, which draws on Bourdieu's concept of
cultural capital, "signals the socially and historically
constructed relationship of learners to the target
language, and their often ambivalent desire to learn and
practice it" (p.10).
• Learners make a decision as to whether or not the target
language is worth investing time and effort in acquiring.
By committing themselves to learning the target
language, " they do so with the understanding that that
they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material
resources" (p.10).
• The identities of language learners are not static or onedimensional. They often contain contradictions, change
over time and space, and most importantly, show the
impact of power relations.
• Culture, is an anthropological term that describes the
relationship between individuals and society.
– Comprised of symbolic structures
– Marked by ritual
– Passed down to succeeding generations
– Subject to change and interpretation
• According to Malinowski: a culture serves three needs:
– basic needs of the individual
– instrumental needs of society
– the symbolic and integrative needs of both the
individual and society
• These cultural traits are marks of “ethnicity”.
• Whereas Race is a construction based on sociallyselected physical traits,
• Ethnicity is a construction based on socially-selected
cultural traits.
• As with race, dominant groups will often claim to have no
ethnicity. The term “ethnic group”, for example, is
commonly applied to those people who belong to those
who are not British or French.
• In Canada, ethnic markers are often defined linguistically.
For teachers, this means that one must
remember that students of English have
complex attitudes towards acquiring the
language and that this learning process is
integral to their formation of identity and
their sense of ethnicity.