A Study Of College English Learners' Identity From Sociocultural Theory

From 1980 s, increasing number of researchers in second language acquisition field start to pay attention to sociocultural theory, researchers analyze language phenomena in second language acquisition field based on sociocultural theory, which provide a new perspective of language research. In recent years, identity also becomes a heated topic in second language acquisition and foreign language education field, scholars around the world have conducted some researches on relationship between identity and language of different kinds of people and have made fruitful achievements. However, most of researches in second language acquisition field focus on new teachers' identity, ethnic identity and immigrants' cultural identity. In China, very few researchers focus on identity research of college English learners in second language classroom, and few English teachers focus on college English learner's identity development and change during the second language learning. This study analyze Chinese college English learners' identity from sociocultural theory, which can bring some implications to English teaching in second language classroom.Through questionnaires from one hundred and fifty-two non-English major undergraduate students of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and five college English learners' narrative stories on English learning experience, this study analyzes college English learners' identity from the perspective of sociocultural theory. This thesis find that English learning is a complex sociocultural process, it is also the process of student reconstruct their own identity. Through English learning, students' identity changes. English learning has an obvious impact on students' self-confidence. At the same time, the learners' cultural values and communication styles present some productive and addictive changes. Students' gender, major, family background and language proficiency have a significant effect on students' identity.This study enriches the domestic researches on college English learners' identity, it is also a supplement of current learners' identity research in second language classroom. What's more, it analyzes college English learners' identity from a new perspective, which provides some implications to current Chinese college English teaching and research.