{"id":1973,"date":"2020-11-02T10:11:34","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T01:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kuis.kandagaigo.ac.jp\/relayjournal\/?page_id=1973"},"modified":"2021-02-26T11:13:39","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T02:13:39","slug":"avila-pardo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kuis.kandagaigo.ac.jp\/relayjournal\/issues\/sep20\/avila-pardo\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Structure, Agency and Second Language Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magdalena Avila Pardo, Universidad del Caribe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Avila Pardo, M. (2020).\u00a0\u00a0Social Structure, Agency and Second Language Learning. Relay Journal, 3<\/em>(2), 257-275.\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.37237\/relay\/030212<\/a><\/p>\n

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Abstract<\/p>\n

This paper examines the issue of the relationship between agency and social structure in the language learning process. It looks at the extent to which contextual conditions impact on learners\u2019 desire to invest in language learning. It employed the critical realist lens to explore the use of English as a foreign language (EFL) amongst undergraduate students in the city of Cancun, which was consciously created as a tourist hub in Mexico. English is identified as desired linguistic and cultural capital, a product of social structure, and students\u2019 investment in language learning as examples of agency. A critical realist theoretical and methodological approach was taken to investigate, using an ethnographic qualitative approach to collecting and collating the data.\u00a0 Alongside a range of data, 11 student informants were taken for in-depth analysis to explore why language learners choose to shape or resist their access to EFL.<\/p>\n

Keywords: agency, social structure, identity, investment, communities of practice. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This paper reports a two-year longitudinal study of undergraduate students, at a government-funded university, who are users of the self-access learning centre (SAC hereafter). The research drew on Block\u2019s (2013) claim that in language and identity research, attention should be paid to \u2018what structures are, how they might be important and how they work as constraints on and shapers of agency\u2019 (p. 23). Using a language entails agency, as it is how individuals relate to the world, however, such relation can be either facilitated or constrained by their contextual conditions. Several authors have offered that language learners are active agents influenced by both their personal histories and the range of settings in which they interact (Benson, 2011; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001; Block, 2003; Mercer, 2011; Mercer et al., 2012;\u00a0Ushioda, 2009). This view suggests that language learning is the interplay between social structure and learners\u2019 agency.\u00a0 Thus, agency is conceived as \u201cconstructed and renegotiated with those around the individual and with society at large\u201d (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001:148). However, SLA theorists have not given much prominence to or elucidated the role social structure plays in second language learning. Likewise, research on language and identity seems to have become \u2018over agentive\u2019 (Block, 2015a, p.23). Therefore, this investigation attempted to clarify the relationship between language learners\u2019 agency and the social context including the psychological angle, by taking into account \u2018notions of personhood and causality\u2019 of the participants which are \u2018historically and culturally produced\u2019 (Frank, 2006, p.282).<\/p>\n

Theoretical Background and Literature Review<\/strong><\/p>\n

The theoretical framework and literature review for this research offers a range of conceptual understanding of the self, identity, agency and structure that are related habitus, forms of capital, and communities of practice. According to socio-cultural theory lens, learning a language is fundamentally developed in social participation within specific settings and using particular practices. This study followed the view of language learning as a social practice supporting the call for interdisciplinarity to gain a better understanding of agency in Second\u00a0Language Learning (SLL) research (Block, 2003, 2013, 2015a; Gao, 2010; Norton, 2013; Vitanova et al. 2015; Sealey & Carter 2004).<\/p>\n

Agency <\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept of human agency has caused great interest across various disciplines, and they have produced different definitions of agency. However, there is still no agreement in terms of defining what it is (Ahearn, 2001; Joseph, 2006; Block, 2015a; Vitanova et al. 2015). Hence, s as Etel\u00e4pelto et al. (2013) argues it has been loosely related to \u201cactive striving, taking initiatives, or having an influence on one\u2019s own life situation\u201d (p. 46).<\/p>\n

The roots of the concept of agency are linked to the self. Agency is regarded as one of the many facets of the self and thus is mainly determined by the influential models that explicate the self. The most significant models in terms of what constitutes both subjectivity and agency are the traditional understanding of the self, the modernist conception of the self, the postmodern also known as postructuralist, and the sociocultural perspectives (see Vitanova et al. 2015). Thus, the understanding of agency in this study is heavily influenced by the socio-cultural perspective that \u201c[t]he human mind is formed and functions as a consequence of human interaction with the culturally constructed environment\u201d, with agency itself \u201csocially and historically constructed\u201d (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001, p.146).<\/p>\n

Agency in Second Language Acquisition <\/strong><\/p>\n

Mercer et al. (2012:3) states that due to the arrival of communicative language teaching and learner centre-centred approaches, there has been a growing interest in learners as active agents. Research therefore, started to focus on learners\u2019 needs, expectations, goals, motivation and beliefs. Consequently, agency, one of the most fundamental characteristics of human behaviour, has generated considerable interest in various studies in SLA and realist approaches. These studies suggest that learner agency is closely interrelated with other learners and contextual factors, playing an essential role in facilitating autonomous, self-regulatory and goaloriented strategic learning behaviours (Benson, 2007; Gao 2010, 2013; Mercer, 2011; Huang, 2011; Yamaguchi, 2011; Duff, 2012). Overall, there is ample support for the claim that agency is mediated through interaction with others and the context as a socially mediated process, which emphasises the role of the contextual conditions.<\/p>\n

Although autonomy was not a key concept in this study, the notion of autonomy is necessarily linked to the sociocultural concepts of agency and identity Agency regarded as the choices and actions language learners take related to their desires, concerns, interests and expectations by setting priorities in the light of their individual circumstances and contextual conditions, and autonomy as the capacity to control the learning process mediated by the sociocultural context (Gao, 2013). Authors coincide that there is a complex relationship between autonomy, agency and identity (Van Lier, 2007; Benson, 2007; Huang, 2009, 2011; Huang & Benson, 2013).Therefore, these facts suggest the need to find out the extent to which social structure shapes or constraints language learners\u2019 agency.<\/p>\n

Social structure and agency <\/strong><\/p>\n

The relationship between individuals and the social context within which they seek to realise their intentions, needs, aspirations, and desires has been a major debate in sociology. This relationship between individuals (i.e., the source of agency) and social relations (i.e., structures) that generate interaction can be interpreted in several ways (Sealey & Carter, 2004). Several schools of thought have been developed in an aim to understand it better; these have moved from giving more weight to either structure or the individual, to ones conceiving them to possess emergent and causal properties (see Sealey & Carter 2004). Hence, for the given purposes of this study, the realist position aligned with the critical realist paradigm offered a thorough approach to the exploration of the impact of social structure on language learners\u2019 agency.<\/p>\n

The realist position asserts that agency and structure interact with each other and have emerging properties from such interaction. Structure is historically anterior, and agency is associated with the use of the power of self-consciousness, reflexivity, intentionality, cognition and emotionality (Carter and Sealey, 2000; Carter & New, 2004). Thus, for the given purposes of this study, the realist position aligned with the critical realist paradigm offered a thorough approach to the exploration of the impact of social structure on language learners\u2019 agency.<\/p>\n

Critical Realism <\/strong><\/p>\n

Critical realism is a philosophical position that started with the British philosopher, Bhaskar\u2019s (1978) writings. Critical realists do not have knowledge of specific structures but seek to provide a meta-theory to offer some guiding precepts about structure and agency (see Cruickshank, 2003; Steinmetz, 2004; Bhaskar and Danermark, 2006). Structures are to be defined as emergent properties, and the human being is conceived as a person, social agent and social actor. The individual, through interacting in social reality, is influenced by pre-existing social structures, and \u2018a sense of social agency (social self) and individual reality (personal self) can be sustained without contradiction\u2019 (De Souza, 2014:148).Therefore, critical realist research is about gaining knowledge of a reality that exists independently of researchers\u2019 representations of it, as an open systems and determined by multiple mechanisms; thus such systems are characterized by complexity and emergence.<\/p>\n

Bhaskar (1978 cited in Sayer, 2000) suggests reality is differentiated and stratified in three different domains of the social and natural world: the real (whatever exists in the social world); the actual (events or what happens when powers are activated); and the empirical (made up of direct or indirect experiences).<\/p>\n

Table 1<\/strong>
\n Domains of reality (Bhaskar\u2019s 2008:2)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Domain of Real \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Domain of Actual \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Domain of Empirical<\/p>\n

Mechanisms\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 X<\/p>\n

Events\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 X\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 X<\/p>\n

Experiences\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0X\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 X\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0X<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to the Centre for Critical Realism (2013), in an open system, events do not follow a logical order so that reality does not correspond to our experience of events. Reality is complex, temporal, and changing. Thus, it needs to contemplate history and social situations framing the differentiation of mechanisms from their exercise, and the occurrence of events apart from our experience (or knowledge) of them. Mechanisms are conceived as how things act, such as the structures, powers, and liabilities shaping an entity predisposition while they operate and interact, and may be applied without being noticeable. Therefore, the realist ontology allows exploration of language learners\u2019 agency within the domain of the real to discover the generative mechanisms and emergent powers from both learners and social structure that may cause or restrain language learners\u2019 agency.<\/p>\n

Communities of Practice \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Block (2015a) claims that agency is exerted as the more spontaneous interactions of our lives in the sociocultural configurations that emerge in the ongoing interactions acting collectively in social formations, such as communities of practice (CoP). Wenger (1998:6-7) asserts that communities of practice are everywhere and they are authentic, meaningful communities centred in specific practices in specific areas of life and learning, such as, at home, at work, at school, and in our hobbies.\u00a0 In some groups, we are main members, in others we are more marginalised. The focus is on participation to understand what learning implies for individuals and for communities.<\/p>\n

Field, Habitus and Reflexivity <\/strong><\/p>\n

Habitus and fields are two key constructs fundamental to Bourdieu\u2019s work to transcend the dualism between structuralist and agency-oriented views. From Bourdieu\u2019s perspective (see Block, 2010), individuals are seen to be embedded in multiple social spaces, or fields, in which they constantly encounter unequal power relationships related to their access and their legitimate control over and use of different kinds of capital of social, cultural, economic and political origin rather than economic.<\/p>\n

Bourdieu\u2019s habitus is the set of dispositions inculcated in each of us by the conditioning that follows our social environment. The key aspects of the social world are experienced as embodied. He illustrates the interaction between structures and agents with the analogy of a game, in which the world is \u2018the game \u2018and the agent is the \u2018game player\u2019. Habitus is then, the \u2018feel for the game\u2019 suggesting that \u2018the good player does at every moment what the game\u00a0requires\u2019 (1990). For Archer, reflexivity is (Archer, 2003: 9, 14).<\/p>\n

Elder-Vass (2010:110) reinterpreted Bourdieu\u2019s habitus and integrated it with Archer\u2019s (2003) reflexivity -the power that individuals possess to monitor themselves concerning their circumstances- in an aim to provide a coherent account of human action. He argues that our dispositions may sometimes be heavily and unconsciously affected by social factors, but that none of us are ever completely at the mercy of our habitus. Nor is our habitus the unmediated product of social structures, but rather the result of a lifetime of critical reflection upon our experiences, including our experiences of those structures. Reflexivity thus becomes a critical attitude towards the dispositions we have acquired from our past, as well as towards the contemporary social situation that we face.<\/p>\n

Identity <\/strong><\/p>\n

Huang and Benson (2013:17) explain that identity is based on perspectives of human learning in general, such as Taylor\u2019s (1989) concept of \u201cthe self\u201d and Gao, Li & Li\u2019s (2002)\u00a0\u201cwho one is\u201d (p. 95). They acknowledge the contribution of theorists such as Lave and Wenger (1991), West (1992) and Cummins (1996) in the field of language education. A growing body of research has explored the multiple and intersecting dimensions of language learners’ identity, and these are concerned with institutional and community practices that have an impact on learning.\u00a0For the purpose of this study, it was investigated the extent to which language learners\u2019 agency contributes to the formation of their L2 identity through their participation in diverse communities.in the touristic city.<\/p>\n

Investment <\/strong><\/p>\n

Norton was inspired by the work of Bourdieu, which points to \u201cthe socially and historically constructed relation of learners to the target language and their often ambivalent desire to learn and practice it\u201d (Darvin & Norton, 2015, p.37). When learners invest in language learning, they do so with the understanding that it will give them access to material and symbolic resources, cultural capital. The notion of investment acknowledges that learners may or may not desire to engage in social interactions and community practices. Hence, Norton (2016) argue that investment \u201cis the complement to the psychological construct of motivation\u201d and influences the extent to which learners exercise their agency in a social context (p. 476).<\/p>\n

Following the call for interdisciplinarity, this study brings together concepts related to social theory and SLL in relation to the concept of the self -habitus and field, reflexivity, investment and identity-. This is with the aim of observing language learners\u2019 identity social process through the interrelationship between individual agency and structure. Moreover, the participants in the study are SAC users, so it is relevant to consider \u201cthe ways that autonomy is socially mediated\u201d (Murray, 2014, p. 5). Therefore, critical realism seems to offer an appropriate abstract framework to gain a fuller understanding of how learners act upon structures to create or resist opportunities to use the target language.<\/p>\n

Methodology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Language learners\u2019 agency and the interrelationship with social and cultural orders was examined through qualitative, partly ethnographic enquiry and the application of methods informed by critical realism. As critical realism undertakes necessary and contingent relations among objects and different theories through causal explanations, this approach helps explain language learners\u2019 actions and the reasons from their accounts as to why actions have taken place within their social and cultural context.<\/p>\n

Selection of participants <\/strong><\/p>\n

The student informants who took part in this study were purposively selected from two ESP courses: Topics for International Business and Topics for Sustainable Tourism. The reasons for selecting students enrolled in these courses were: firstly, English might be particularly important for their future professional careers given the nature of their undergraduate studies; and secondly, being in the ESP courses means that students have been at the university for several semesters, so they might have a substantiated idea of the future uses of L2 and be more likely to accoutre data to better understand the phenomena. From these groups, eleven students were selected as core participants, but only four remained due to time constraints. Then, the other seven core participants were spotted in the SAC, five did their social service (voluntary service), and two were users. One of them was a conversation leader, and the other seemed resistant to English during a conversation session. Therefore, the participants had a maximum variation sample in terms of English proficiency, language learning experience, and demographic features.<\/p>\n

The researcher role <\/strong><\/p>\n

I was an insider\/ participant observer insofar I am Mexican, live and work as an EFL teacher in Cancun, and have been a teacher of some participants, as well as an advisor in the SAC where much of the data collection takes place. These facts contributed to accelerating the process of gaining insider perspectives on the context under investigation. Additionally, my role in the community favoured the ongoing communication with the participants who would drop by to discuss issues regarding their language learning, advice on international exams, or simply to comment about personal life matters. For example, they learnt about the preparation courses for exams and opportunities to apply for some exchange programmes due to our ongoing communication. Thus, our relationship seems to have influenced their trajectories in terms of deciding to certify their language proficiency, and took either the IELTS or TOEFL exams.<\/p>\n

Data <\/strong><\/p>\n

The data sets collected are vast- language learning biographies, visits to homes and workplaces, interviews (with students, parents in English or Spanish), participant observations, online data (social media platforms), photographs, documents to name a few. CR was used to identify steps for analysis as the data was coded step by step.<\/p>\n

Data Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Data pertaining to the participants\u2019 learning experiences and trajectory were interpreted seeking to provide causal explanations for the learners\u2019 outcome in language learning. The focus was specifically on finding out the generative mechanisms of specific events, which involved identifying the underlying structures and mechanisms shaping the learners\u2019 predisposition while they operate and interact that may be applied without being noticeable in the real domain.<\/p>\n

The study was explored as follows:<\/p>\n