Legitimacy of Foreign Language Learning and Identity Research : Structuralist and Constructivist Perspectives

This paper summarizes empirical studies the author and her associates have carried out in the past decade pertaining to English language learning and cultural identity changes in China, and related criticism. In response to challenges on the legitimacy of such research regarding unified definition, cause attribution and context relevance, the paper introduces an epistemological distinction between structuralism and constructivism, which helps to clarify the issues under debate and raises questions for future research. The structuralism-constructivism distinction has implications for cultural identity studies in particular, and intercultural communication studies in general. Since the revival of academic research in the early 1980s, foreign language education research in the People’s Republic of China pertaining to social psychological aspects has largely focused on “individual factors” influencing target language proficiency (e.g., motivation, personality, and cognitive styles), with implications for pedagogical solutions (e.g., Gui, 1986; Shi, 2000; Wang & Liu, 2002; Wen, 2001; Wen and Wang, 1996; Wu, Liu, & Jeffrey, 1996; Zhou, 1996; Zhu, 2006). Beginning in the late 1980s and increasing in the mid 1990s, intercultural communication issues have engaged the attention of many language teachers, especially those of English as a foreign language (EFL). There has emerged a considerable body of literature concerning Chinese linguistic and cultural characteristics, as explicitly or implicitly compared with those in English speaking countries. These characteristics include pragmatic conventions, behavioral patterns, and value orientations, mostly at a general level (e.g., ’95 ICCC Proceedings Editing Board, 1997; Chen & Tan, 1993; Hu, 1988, 1994, 1999). Some of the works have appeared in Intercultural Communication Studies (e.g., Jia & Sun, 2002; Song & Liu, 2002). The membership of the China Association for Intercultural Communication, founded in 1995, is primarily composed of EFL teachers. It is commonly acknowledged that linguistic and cultural differences may lead to miscommunications in cross-cultural contact, and the learning/teaching of a language is bound to involve that of the target culture. However, learners’ social psychological changes other than those classical “individual factors” directly influencing proficiency attracted little attention in the 1980s. Such studies began to appear in the 1990s, in which the author and her associates have engaged themselves. Recently, the legitimacy of their studies has been questioned (Qu, 2005). In this paper, I will summarize these studies and related criticism concerning English learning and learners’ identity changes in China, and then respond to the criticism. As a female Chinese scholar, I am aware that talking about one’s own work is face-threatening, as such an act of “self-enhancement” is against a commonly held Chinese virtue of modesty, Intercultural Communication Studies XVI-1 Gao 101 especially important for females. Yet while acknowledging and endorsing my own need of self-enhancement, I believe the issue is of interest to international academic communities of intercultural communication studies, because it has general significance to language and culture education, and related research is still under-represented in the English-based research literature. In reviewing the studies and responding to challenges, I will introduce an epistemological distinction between structuralism and constructivism, and a related continuum that accommodates existing stances of theories, empirical reports, and criticisms. It is claimed that while the criticism was launched from a structuralist perspective, the studies critiqued demonstrated a constructivist orientation. Further discussion is given to different needs for knowledge, and conditions for employment of structuralist/constructivist perspectives in empirical research. I hope that such an effort will clarify confusions, and provide implications to the formulation and evaluation of intercultural studies of language and culture. An Overview of Related Research Productive Bilingualism Among “Best Foreign Language Learners” In publications (Gao, 2001, 2002) from my doctoral dissertation completed in 1992, I proposed the concept “productive bilingualism,” in contrast with the broadly adopted “subtractive bilingualism” and “additive bilingualism” (Lambert, 1974). With subtractive bilingualism, the native language and cultural identity (life styles, values, etc.) are replaced by target language and cultural identity. With additive bilingualism, the native language and cultural identity are maintained while the target language and cultural identity are acquired; the two co-exist and function in different communicative situations. With productive bilingualism, the competence in native and target languages/cultures enhance each other; the learner benefits from a general cognitive and affective growth and increased creativity. The theoretical basis of “productive bilingualism” parallels Erich Fromm’s general concept “productive orientation”; the empirical basis was open interviews with 52 recognized “best foreign language learners” in China. These interviews on learning experiences revealed common qualities of openness and criticalness directed toward both target and native cultures, an integration of the two, and resulted general gains. Though “cultural identity” was not an explicit key concept in that study, the issue was nevertheless involved and explicitly touched upon by some interviewees. As the participants in this study were primarily limited to a small group of high-achieving scholars, some doubts were raised, mostly informally in classes and after-talk discussions, as to the applicability of the productive model among ordinary language learners. Research on Ordinary Language Learners Upon gaining a national research fund for social sciences in 2000, the research on language learning and identity changes was expanded to ordinary learners, university students in particular. A series of studies were conducted (Gao, et al, 2004), including for instance a large-scale quantitative study on undergraduates, its replication on post-graduates, case studies on English majors and non-English majors respectively, field investigation on participation in conventional English classroom, English Speaking Corner and the Crazy English program, a descriptive study on the use of English names, a discourse-focused study on personal statements for studying abroad, and a matched-guise study on language attitudes toward British English, American English, and the standard Chinese language. Later studies Intercultural Communication Studies XVI-1 Gao 102 along a similar line included discourse studies of student compositions (Bian and Gao, 2006a, 2006b); analysis of a learner’s autobiography (Li, 2005), and the change as well as reproduction of Chinese cultural habitus related to EFL at a social historical level (Gao, 2005). Example: Quantitative Research The results in general revealed evident changes in identity or perception of self among ordinary language learners. The study on undergraduates conducted on a stratified sample of 2,278 undergraduates from 30 universities in 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, using a Likert-Scale questionnaire, revealed identity changes associated with English learning (Gao, Cheng, Zhao and Zhou, 2004, 2005). Out of the 6 pre-defined categories of identity changes, “self-confidence” change, a change assumedly independent of cultural identities, ranked the highest. The next highest was a contrastive category “nil change”; its ranking did suggest features of a foreign language context. Nevertheless, ratings of productive and additive changes were above the critical level, showing perceived cultural identity changes. Two replications of this study, one with 1,017 graduate students (Li, Gao & Qian, 2004) and the other with 706 trainees from a private English teaching organization the New Oriental School (Huang, Zhou & Gao, 2004), showed similar results. Example: Qualitative Research While quantitative studies portrayed an overall picture of learners’ perceptions of identity changes, qualitative studies provided some detailed accounts. In a case study on English majors (Gao, Li & Li, 2002), an informant experienced an identity split or crisis particularly associated with the learning of English writing style. This female student Aiwen was fond of reading Chinese literature and writing Chinese prose before entering college. After several years of strict training in the “linear” style of English essay writing, she was shocked to find her own prosaic Chinese writing style changed toward the linear direction: “My god, how could that be written by myself? ” First she felt sorry about the change and suffered an identity struggle: “I feel a bit sorry. I enjoyed the leisurely loose and roundabout style. Now I am afraid I can never find that look of mine anymore. the style of a free man of letters. ” Yet rather than rejecting her emerging writer identity, she decided to “let it be,” and “look at the baby after it’s born. ” As time went on, she developed a productive orientation which enabled her to explain the beauty of Chinese literature previously of sheer enjoyment, and to perceive Shakespeare beyond a representative “English writer” or “foreign writer”: “I’ve had a ‘blind worship’ for literature since I was a child. I am a ‘victim’ of literature. Yet I used to judge other cultures from the standpoint of Chinese culture, imposing labels on them. In the past I viewed Shakespeare as ‘the best English writer’ and read him to get a taste of what ‘foreign literature’ was like, from a Chinese reader’s perspective. I’m no longer like that. Now I take Shakespeare as MY writer. I’m keenly interested in this person writing from a rich, genuine, and enthusiastic heart. It’s direct communication between two per