Investment and imagined communities: A narrative analysis of the identity construction by student-teachers of English

Abstract

The objective of this article is to discuss an exploratory study about the identity construction of eight student-teachers of English as learners of English as an additional language in the region of Vale do Açu, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil using some of the concepts developed by Bonny Norton, that is, investigating the types of investments made and the imagined communities aspired to by those student-teachers. For the exploratory study, a narrative perspective was adopted as identities are socio-cultural narratives constructed in time. The analyses showed that construction of the identities of the student-teachers investigated revolves around two types of investment: those which lead to learn and use the language, and those which lead to learn the English language to teach it. The results have shown that in the analyzed group of studentteachers, the learner-as-user and learner-as-teacher identities seem to confl ate and, in most cases, the learner-as-teacher identity seems to override the learner-as-user identity. Also, since many of the studies carried out on learner identity using Bonny Norton’s theoretical approach had immigrants in contexts where English is used by the community they are living in, this work is expected to contribute to Norton’s approach as the participants of this study are learning English as an additional language in contexts where the community members do not use English and English is mainly learnt in formal environments.Keywords: learners of English, identity, investments, imagined communities.