CRITERIOS DE ANÁLISIS

As alluded to earlier, Bonny Norton Peirce’s 1995 article was at the forefront of the immense changes in the study of language learning, particularly in reference to identity and motivation. Norton and McKinney (2011) describe their identity approach to language learning as,

In common with a sociocultural theory (SCT) approach (Lantolf, 2000), an identity approach views learners as historically and socially situated agents, and learning as not just the acquisition of linguistic forms but as growing participation in a community of practice. Learning in both approaches is thus seen as part of the on- going process of identity construction. (p. 87)

The central concept of Peirce’s (1995) research is ‘investment’ which she coined in relation to the economic metaphor of ‘cultural capital’ derived from the work of Bourdieu among others. Cultural capital refers to the products of education such as qualifications, knowledge, and ways of thinking which are peculiar to a particular class or group.

Bourdieu asserts that as with financial capital, cultural capital has variable exchange value (Bourdieu, 1986). Norton discovered during her work with immigrant women that long- held, well-established principles of motivation did not sufficiently explain her particular

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research context. Motivation theories at the time predicted that learners who do not succeed in learning an additional language did so because they were not sufficiently or appropriately motivated. Peirce (1995) found that that did not accurately relate to the learners with whom she was working. It thus became apparent that there was more to language learning than the purely psychological understanding of motivation which was described as a set individual characteristics of learners. This view of motivation also

ignored the power relations that exist in language learning environments. Peirce noted that in the learning situation that she was investigating uneven power relationships between language learners and target language speakers were prominent and that high levels of motivation did not necessarily result in achievement. The idea of investment complements and expands on the original understanding of motivation.

Peirce (1995, 17) observes that students invest in learning English expecting to gain more symbolic and material resources with the aim of increasing the value of their cultural capital. When the learners’ cultural capital gains greater value, they re-examine their identity and future aspirations. Consequently, the notions of investment and identity jointly determine the socially and historically constructed relationship that learners have with the target language and their occasional ambivalence to learn and practice it. As with the other aspects of the poststructuralist approach, investment acknowledges that student identities are complex and changeable over time and space while they are constructed from socially available resources and what learners exert effort to achieve. This argument makes a case for the importance of considering how identity issues affect learners’

language learning motivation and the way in which students’ disinvestment in some learning activities may be misconstrued as being unmotivated. The core focus of the

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‘investment’ concept is to expand the psychological construct of motivation to include the sociological concept of investment to understand language learning as a result of the relationship between a learner’s drive to learn and the identity changes that are involved in such engagement.

The value that the investment theory has for language learning research is that it can more effectively describe situations where learners may be highly motivated to learn a language but are seemingly uninterested in certain practices. It may also be that students are aware of the instrumental value of learning English, but they appear to be resistant to engaging in certain learning activities. The reason for this may be that learners feel that they are positioned undesirably by particular classroom or learning practices. For example, Duff (2002) found surprising results in her work among multilingual secondary school students in a classroom-based study in Canada when the teacher tried to provide opportunities for non-local learners to speak in class. The non-local students avoided talking in class for fear of being ridiculed by their local counterparts. Their reluctance was interpreted as lack of willingness to learn or to develop their language abilities. These learners withdrew from engaging in speaking activities and instead invested heavily in writing activities and in so doing they resisted being positioned unfavourably and having to assume an undesirable identity as a result of the imbalance in the power relations that exist in the classroom (Duff, 2002, 310 -15).

The investment approach supports the research focus of the current study in that it expands the view of what drives students to participate in language learning actively and why they often resist. It does this by including the concept of identity in relation to its social and historical context as part of the idea of motivation. The research focus of the present

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investigation involves how learner identities may affect their language learning motivation, and these are the two main principles underlying the investment concept as well. The investment approach may also assist in providing a more thorough explanation for issues related to students’ resistant classroom behaviour other than brushing it off as a lack of motivation. Also, based on Peirce’s (1995) observation that students invest in learning English expecting returns in the form of material and symbolic gains, the present research attempts to highlight what makes a possible future English speaking self a desirable entity for which students are willing to invest their time and effort. There are too many different material and symbolic profits for this study to explore therefore it instead focuses on the psychological needs related to these benefits. For example, the drive for higher social status may be linked to the psychological need for self-esteem and acceptance.

It should, however, be noted that, despite the useful contribution of the idea of investment to the present study, the context in which Peirce’s (1995) research was done differs from the context of the present study. Her research was a case study of five women who were new immigrants to Canada where the social situation is influenced by the

immediate presence and dominance of the target language community which represents a site of struggle based on the imbalance of power. In foreign language learning context such as Saudi Arabia, such power dynamics may not be apparent because the situation is vastly different to the absence of native speakers and the anonymity of the imagined community. Also, as a case study, the generalizability of the results of Norton’s research may be limited. In contrast to the relative homogeneity of the participants of the present research, Norton’s study involved a multi-cultural group. However, Saudi Arabia does have a multicultural dimension to its demographics as a result of people from various world

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cultures who live and work there. The influence of these cultures is diminished because of the overwhelming dominance of the Saudi culture. In terms of the language learning context, foreigners, especially English teachers, are not at liberty to exert a significant cultural influence on Saudi students because of the cultural imbalance of power which is slanted in favour of the dominant Saudi culture (see 5.4.1.5).