Investigating Identity Awareness in university level multilinguals: An emphasis on defining investment-based approaches, measurements, and applications

 This ethnographic research study investigates the ideological construction and identity awareness of university-level multilinguals engaging in a linguistic and cultural investment-based (Darvin and Norton, 2015) series over an 8-week intervention. The study takes place over one Spring semester at a local Pittsburgh university and was conducted using semi-structured interviews, in-session observations, learner’s authentic written and recorded reflections, detailed field notes and quantitative data from a behavioral aptitude scale designed by the researcher. The author primarily examined the contextualized language learning experiences of the participants through their reflections and interactions with the Murdock Scale of Investment (2021). 

This dissertation aims to uncover specific learner attitudes toward immersion into university culture in a Western, English speaking environment while establishing the physical and mental characteristics that aid in language learning investment. The comprehensive goal of this dissertation is to assess the effectiveness of the Model of Investment (Davin & Norton, 2015) when instructional practices that promote its principles are implemented as an investment-based pedagogical approach over an 8-week linguistic and culturally immersive intervention. 

Findings from this study revealed that students who dynamically engage in their language learning with an investment-based approach, on average, show a significant increase in their sense of second language identity awareness, and their ability to access their target community in authentic ways. The study further highlighted eight attributes that contribute to effective language learning investment; ability to ask clarifying questions, knowledge of cultural and linguistic nuance, awareness of offensiveness in target language/cultural community, quality of daily conversations, willing and autonomous engagement in the target language/cultural community, meaningful contribution to target community, use of advocating language in and outside the classroom, and the ability to talk about one’s self in an emotional, personal and dynamic manner. When taken holistically, these dispositions allude to a learner who is engaged, invested, ideologically aware of sociolinguistic nuances in the target language and likely meaningfully involved in their imagined community. Lastly, this research study showed that the MSI (2021) is an effective measurement for student’s engagement with linguistic and cultural ideologies in authentic and nuanced ways. It is the intention of this dissertation to offer implications to foster a more vested language learner, add to the growing body of SLA definitions, and to introduce a sociolinguistic measurement for learner investment