Exploring Links between Identity, Motivation and Autonomy

XUESONG GAO and TERRY LAMB

Introduction

Motivation, identity and autonomy have been subjects of intensive research in recent years. In autonomy research, it has been acknowledged that motivation is crucial in learners' autonomous learning, while identity is also seen as a goal or a product of their autonomous learning (Benson, 2007). As researchers increasingly see motivation, identity and autonomy as interrelated, a more convergent approach to exploring these issues may help 'lend some coherence to an increasingly fractious research agenda' caused by 'a proliferation of concepts' (Van Lier, 2010: xvi). To this end, in this edited volume we aim to synergise findings from the three distinctive areas into a concerted pursuit of a better understanding of the role that motivation, identity and autonomy plays in the language learning process.

This book is divided into three sections and includes studies from a variety of contexts, including Brazil, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, the Middle East, and the UK. The first section has four chapters, advancing different theoretical perspectives that could be used to explore the links between motivation, identity and autonomy. The second section contains a selection of empirical research conducted in self-access centres (SACs) and distance education contexts, while studies in the third section are primarily concerned with autonomous language learning in particular cultural contexts. In section 2 and 3, we include studies related to the professional development of in-service and preservice English language teachers or manager-teachers in SACs so that the teachers' side of the story can also be presented.

Emerging Theoretical Perspectives

The first section starts with Ema Ushioda's chapter, entitled 'Motivating Learners to Speak as Themselves'. In this chapter, Ushioda contends that insights from autonomy theory and practice can usefully inform our analysis of motivation, theory and practice. In particular, she explores how processes of engaging, constructing and negotiating identities are central to this analysis. Theorising language learners as fully rounded persons with social identities situated in particular contexts, she argues that such conceptualisation of language learners contrasts sharply with those projected in writings underpinned by psychometric traditions of 'individual difference' research, which ironically rather overlooks learner individuality. She further notices that such motivation research, in pursuing rule-governed patterns linking thought and behaviour, has depersonalised learners. For this reason, she maintains that motivation theory and practice must address the individuality of learners as self-reflective agents, who bring unique identities, personalities, histories, motives and intentions to the social learning context (Ushioda, 2009).

Xuesong (Andy) Gao and Lawrence Jun Zhang's chapter draws attention to the debate over the role of agency and metacognition in autonomy research, which often sees the two concepts as two worlds apart (see Palfreyman, 2003; Wenden, 2002). As the field of autonomy research expands, they believe in the necessity to explore the interrelatedness of the two concepts. In the chapter, they argue that the division of agency as a sociological/sociocultural construct and metacognition as a cognitive construct is unnecessary as each strand of research leads to findings concerning different aspects of learners' autonomous learning. Therefore, research into learner autonomy can capitalise on both areas in order to synergise our understanding of learners' autonomous learning and inform our support for their learning efforts. To illustrate this convergent approach towards agency and metacognition, they analyse a set of data from a longitudinal enquiry into mainland Chinese undergraduates' language learning in Hong Kong. Through interpretations of the data from both perspectives, they advance a view that metacognition and agency be considered complementary to each other in revealing the process and goals of autonomous learning.

In the third chapter, Liliane Assis Sade notes that the increasing interaction among individuals and societies in the contemporary world, and the ever-growing access to new discourses have been contributing to generate a fluid, dynamic, unstable and unpredictable character to human relations. Consequently, certain phenomena, be they physical, biological or social, can no longer be attributed to general laws and simple cause/effect explanations. The positivist paradigm is also no longer appropriate to deal with the complexity of today's world. To achieve a better understanding of such interrelationships, Sade argues that a new paradigm is needed to offer new ways of seeing the same phenomena through a different lens. This new paradigm, as argued by the chapter, focuses on dynamicity and change, not on stability; and on emergence, not on single fixed elements. In this direction, the theoretical framework provided by complexity theory has proved to be useful for a deeper understanding of the complexity that characterises human relations in the global society (Holland, 1995; Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008). This chapter also contends that the participation of...