Multilingual learners confront challenges not only in mastering new languages but also in forming new identities. Guided by the investment model, we traced the learning of Chinese and English of two Uyghur women who attended a coastal Chinese university and investigated how they navigated the Chinese mainstream education system to university…

The Korean heritage language (HL) speakers exercised their "agency" to speak Korean HL, and transformed their ambivalent language experiences, caused by the contradictory ideologies of assimilation and racialization operating in the United States, into a conducive "third space" (Bhabha, 1994), where they recreated their ethnic…

This study investigates what characteristics are considered important for a hypothetical multilingual person to be perceived as a "native" speaker of English. The data was collected from 521 participants from the United Kingdom, Singapore and South Korea, responding to a survey comprised of 30 questions with opportunities for qualitative…

This study focuses on students' orientations towards multilingualism in a Swedish-speaking educational degree program in Finland. Swedish is one of the two national languages in Finland and basic education is provided separately in Finnish and Swedish, even if the current national policies strongly support multilingualism in education. We analyzed…

This study explores the identity positions that L2 English learners/users would take in case of hypothetical miscommunications. Based on positioning theory, at the time of L2 interaction, L2 learners assign themselves and others specific positions which are established through their learning experiences. It was hypothesized that their current…

This article aims to provide a better understanding of Japanese Mixed Heritage Youth's (JMHY) relationship to heritage language and senses of ethnicity, by analyzing their daily language use as provided by 14 JMHY. All (with two exceptions) do not use Japanese at home, and some have enrolled in Japanese as a second language class at a university.…

Internationalization of university curricula is the main reason why the number of bilingual teaching practices (BTPs) in university courses is on the rise around the world. This article reports the perceptions of this type of practice from 70 science students (43 females and 27 males, 17-24 years old) from a Colombian university. A questionnaire…

There has been an influx of school-aged North Korean refugees defecting to South Korea in recent years. Research examining their integration into South Korean schools has shown that these students consider English to be one of the biggest obstacles to their academic endeavors. However, not much attention has been paid to examining the difficulties…

Localising knowledge and dispositions helps to predict the likely success of top-down language policies. In so far as language acquisition is a pillar of language revitalisation policy, then community perspectives on learning a minority language deserve attention. This article presents the knowledge, dispositions, and ideas of around 1,300…

This study addresses study abroad and second language acquisition. The number of U.S. students studying abroad is increasing. However, students' cultural and linguistic immersion experiences abroad can be disconcerting, challenging their sociocultural identities, values, learning objectives, and expectations. This study employed critical race…

Substantially less is known about the motivations of indigenous heritage language learners than the motivations of learners of colonial languages. This study explores the motivations of Maori indigenous New Zealanders and the identity-related motivations they have for learning their heritage language. Interviews with 19 Maori language learners…

The current study examined how a North Korean defector attending a college in South Korea transformed her identity while learning English. This study was grounded in the notion of second language learning as a struggle of a socially constituted being in which the language learner constantly structures and restructures his or her social identity.…

The experiences of a community of people learning and teaching Lenape in Pennsylvania provide insights into the complexities of current ways of talking and acting about language reclamation. We illustrate how Native and non-Native participants in a university-based Indigenous language class constructed language, identity, and place in nuanced ways…

Drawing on the data collected through classroom observations, participants' written journals, and in-depth interviews, this study examines the hyphenated identity constructions of 1.5- ("ilcem osey") and 2nd-generation heritage language learners. The study observes that ethnic and racial exclusion in a White dominant society was more…

Much research is available that details student experiences of immigration and adaptation to receiving countries and schools, but few studies analyze the metaphors used by immigrant students (IS) when talking about the immigration experience, or offer a comparative lens through which to view identity negotiation in two very different contexts. The…