ABSTRACT
Transnational movements raised by globalization to a status of normality, let alone to absolute necessity, have reshaped the world and social practices (VERTOVEC, 2007VERTOVEC, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, v.30, n.6, p.1024-1054.; WEI & HUA, 2013WEI, L. & HUA, Z. (2013) Translanguaging Identities and Ideologies: Creating Transnational Space Through Flexible Multilingual Practices Amongst Chinese University Students in the UK. Applied Linguistics 34/5. Oxford University Press, p. 516-535.). As a social practice, language dimension acquires a renewed importance in the way people use and consume languages functioning as an agent in the exercise of social and political power. Language ideologies, whether individual or socioculturally constructed, may be a source of empowerment or, conversely, disempowerment, forging asymmetries in the way people consume languages. Thus, the pursuit of autonomy in language learning with the combination of its technical, psychological, sociocultural and political dimensions constitutes a space for (inter)personal emancipation and social transformation. Our theoretical framework emphasizes the collective aspects of learner autonomy, based on the sociocultural autonomy concept (OXFORD, 2003OXFORD, R. L. (2003) Toward a more systematic model of L2 learner autonomy. In: PALFREYMAN, D. & SMITH, R.C. (Eds.) Learner Autonomy across Cultures: Language Education Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 75-91.). Drawing on Bakhtin's (1929/2006BAKHTIN, M.; VOLOCHINOV, V.N. (1929/2006) Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Tradução Michel Lahud e Yara Frateschi Vieira. 10. Ed. São Paulo: Hucitec, 196p.;1981)BAKHTIN, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Austin: University of Texas Press. and Vygotsky's (1991)VYGOTSKY, L.S. (1991) A formação social da mente. São Paulo: Martins Fontes. contributions used as groundwork for research in learner autonomy and in consonance with ideas of fluid and hybrid identities (HALL, 1992HALL, S. (1992) "New Ethnicities" in 'Race'. Culture and Difference, DONALD, J. & RATTANSI, A. (Eds.), 252-259. London, California and New Delhi: Sage Publications with the Open University.; BAUMAN, 2005BAUMAN, Z. (2005) Identidade: entrevista a Benedetto Vecchi. Rio de Janeiro: J. Zahar.; MOITA LOPES, 2006MOITA LOPES. L.P. (2006) Uma linguística aplicada mestiça e ideológica: interrogando o campo como linguista aplicado. In: MOITA LOPES, L. P. (Org.). Por uma linguística aplicada Indisciplinar. São Paulo: Parábola, p. 13-43.), this paper discusses agency, empowerment and identity through sociocultural autonomy development in multicultural environments. This chapter, then, is an attempt to show issues of empowerment, autonomy and agency being processed across real-life social language practices. Its findings and results come from two research projects conducted by the authors in two different contexts but related to the same research interest. Both projects aimed to analyze language learning autonomy, agency and empowerment in the continuous process of learners (re)constructing their identities, while learning a second language. Data generation was based on interviews with two speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and learners of English as an additional language, while taking part in exchange programs for international mobility - one of them in the U.S and another one in Australia. Results show that both participants seem to reframe their multiple identities, so that they can adapt and readapt themselves to the new communities of practice (COP), in which they have emerged. Factors like agency, empowerment and sociocultural autonomy seem to be essential and decisive in this process of reframing identities.
Keywords:
identity; sociocultural autonomy; language practices
