Blurb:

In the first section of the paper Activity Theory is used as a heuristic for identifying the key elements of sociocultural perspectives on language and 8 Language, Culture and Identity in Applied Linguistics learning. The research context is then introduced to exemplify the main argument in the paper: a Food and Drink Service course at a College of Further Education, and one of the students enrolled on it. In the main part of the paper is proposed five aspects of identity which concern language and learning: the relational nature of identity, the discoursal construction of identity, identification, the way in which identity is networked, and the way in which identity is continuously reconstructed. The chapter is concluded by outlining the implications of these aspects of identity for learning and for language learning.