Identity Trajectories of Adult Second Language Learners

Rezensionen / Stimmen

This thorough analysis of the integrative search for expanded cultural homes probes why English-speaking adults in an Australian cosmopolitan city, facing the Pacific and oriented to Asia, choose to learn Italian. What new identities do they seek and forge? Palmieri sheds light on cultural enrichment reasoning via contemporary methods of second language identity formation. * Joseph Lo Bianco, The University of Melbourne, Australia * Focusing on non-heritage adult learners of Italian in Australia, Palmieri skilfully integrates various theoretical frameworks to analyse the dynamic interplay among 'identity' and 'community' (imagined community, local migrant community, classroom community...) in shaping their motivation to engage with this language. This is a richly illuminating study of a less researched learning context in the L2 motivation field. * Ema Ushioda, University of Warwick, UK * Given the dominance of English in L2 motivation research, a detailed analysis of learning Italian as a foreign language is more than welcome. Our appetite should be further whetted by the fact that the study employs an integrated theoretical approach that draws on several paradigms, from integrativeness to the ideal self and identity formation. Add to this blend a mixed-methods research design and the result is a motivational cocktail that most readers will find highly pleasing if not fantastico! * Zoltan Doernyei, University of Nottingham, UK *