Book: Language, Identity and Study Abroad
Chapter: Contemporary poststructuralist notions of language, culture, and identity
Blurb:
Building on the earlier work of Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and Bourdieu that was discussed in the previous chapter, I now move to more recent poststructuralist conceptions of language, identity, and culture. In particular, I investigate sociocultural understandings of the relationships between these constructs, highlighting the importance of power, agency, and investment in language and cultural learning, and identity expansion. Border crossings and the potential for identity reconstruction are also discussed in relation to current notions of ‘thirdspace’ and the ‘intercultural speaker’.