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The Power of Identity and Ideology in Language Learning

Designer Immigrants Learning English in Singapore

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Peter I. De Costa

    1. Wells Hall B257, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA

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  • Brings together the constructs of identity and two aspects of ideologies: language ideologies and circulating ideologies
  • Provides insights into a sociological and anthropological understanding of language anxiety
  • Explores transcultural flows and globalization by way of a unique setting: multilingual and multicultural Singapore

Part of the book series: Multilingual Education (MULT, volume 18)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
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  2. Foreign Talent and Singapore

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 1-12

  3. Reconceptualizing Language, Language Learning, and the Language Learner in the Age of Globalization

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 13-32

  4. Researching, Analyzing, and Constructing the Data

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 33-53

  5. The Sociolinguistic Context of Singapore and Oak

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 55-67

  6. Designer Student Immigration and the Designer Student Immigrant Complex at Oak

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 69-85

  7. Language Ideologies at Oak

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 87-121

  8. The Designer Student Immigrant Complex: Its Impact on Learning

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 123-161

  9. Looking Back and Moving Forward

    • Peter I. De Costa
    Pages 163-172

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 173-173
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Keywords

About this book

This critical ethnographic school-based case study offers insights on the interaction between ideology and the identity development of individual English language learners in Singapore. Illustrated by case studies of the language learning experiences of five Asian immigrant students in an English-medium school in Singapore, the author examines how the immigrant students negotiated a standard English ideology and their discursive positioning over the course of the school year. Specifically, the study traces how the prevailing standard English ideology interacted in highly complex ways with their being positioned as high academic achievers to ultimately influence their learning of English. This potent combination of language ideologies and circulating ideologies created a designer student immigration complex. By framing this situation as a complex, the study problematizes the power of ideologies in shaping the trajectories and identities of language learners.

Reviews

Peter De Costa’s meticulously researched excursion into the lives of Singapore’s ‘designer immigrants’ transports readers to the Oak Girls’ Secondary School world of argumentative text types, Socratic questioning, and benevolent cosmopolitanism, documenting the varied ways these young women manage to navigate the pressures, positioning, and ideologies that collectively constitute the ‘designer immigrant complex’ they are all forced to contend with. With analyses firmly grounded in theory, this work represents an important contribution to the growing body of sociolinguistics of globalization literature. Mark Fifer Seilhamer, National Institute of Education, Singapore

Authors and Affiliations

  • Wells Hall B257, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA

    Peter I. De Costa

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Power of Identity and Ideology in Language Learning

  • Book Subtitle: Designer Immigrants Learning English in Singapore

  • Authors: Peter I. De Costa

  • Series Title: Multilingual Education

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30211-9

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-30209-6Published: 23 May 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-80751-5Published: 27 May 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-30211-9Published: 09 May 2016

  • Series ISSN: 2213-3208

  • Series E-ISSN: 2213-3216

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 173

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Language Education, Educational Policy and Politics, Sociolinguistics

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