UC Riverside

Focusing on the process of learner socialization among Second Language (L2) students, this dissertation investigates one key aspect of this socialization process--the role of student identities in a school-based online language learning activity. Although the integration of online technology is gaining popularity in L2 classrooms for developing L2 students' electronic literacy while cultivating their language skills, research in this area has seldom considered the issue of identity in relation to L2 students' participation and interactional patterns in formal online language learning. Drawing on Gee's theory of Discourse and identity, which conceptualizes identity as multiple, dynamic, and contextually situated, the study asked three research questions: a) what are the dominant norms and values that the institution attempts to socialize the ESL students into, b) how do the diverse discourses that L2 students participate in within their life worlds shape their development of student identity at school, and c) how do ESL students enact their social identities through their discursive practices of online language learning, and how is such identity enactment related to the dominant values of the institution and the discourses students participate in within their life worlds outside school.

Using a qualitative approach that included discourse analysis, the researcher explored a case-study community college ESL classroom that incorporated online discussion forums. Data included records of class and on-line participation for six focal students as well as interviews with these students, their instructor and the department administrator, and institutional documents. Data analysis showed that students' investment in school-based language learning activities was mediated by the social identities with which they affiliated. Furthermore, situated in an institution that highlighted Academic Discourse, the students each negotiated this discourse in their own way, recreating the interactional dynamics and role expectations underwritten by the dominant discourse of the college. The study suggests that L2 students' language practices in school-based online language learning need to be understood in a holistic institutional/instructional context with reference to students' identities inside and outside school and the human agency that L2 student draw on in learning and using their L2 in different learning contexts.