Abstract
Drawing on the poststructuralist construct of identity and on Norton's (1995) concept of investment, as well as on Bourdieu's (1977) notion of capital, this qualitative research study relies on data gathered through interviews conducted with two adult female participants from Puerto Rico, who migrated to Central Florida approximately ten years ago. It aims at answering the following questions: (i) what identity-related factors facilitate or hinder the acquisition of the target language by Puerto Rican migrants? (ii) what social forces or barriers impact learning ESL in the context of Puerto Rican migration to the United States? The findings indicate that investment in social and academic practices can benefit students who want to learn the target language, but power inequities in interactions between native speakers and migrants can prevent the latter from interacting in the English-speaking community, making it difficult to acquire the language. The findings may serve to encourage further studies in second language and identity.
Notes
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Graduation Date
2019
Semester
Spring
Advisor
Vitanova-Haralampiev, Gergana
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
Modern Languages
Degree Program
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0007531
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0007531
Language
English
Release Date
5-15-2019
Length of Campus-only Access
None
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
STARS Citation
Soares Gomes, Marcio Rubens, "Identity and Second Language Acquisition: Adult Puerto Rican Migrants Living in the United States" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 6360.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/6360
