The relationship between L2 accent and identity

Abstract

This study is a comprehensive analysis to conceptualize the transparent borders between second language L2 learners and the imaginary image of the novel mentally interactive settings they emerged in. As this novel experience of L2 learners entails a sort of sociocultural shift through shifting language, it requires learners to shift identity as well.  This study sheds the light on the linguistic situational contexts that motivate L2 learner’s identity to be both unconsciously and consciously shifted. This study argues that the L2 learner’s identity is unable to receive a full macro shift, rather it experiences a micro one, hypothetically proposed as “identity-version shift”. This study concludes with a systematic list, each of which guides the learner’s identity version shift: 1) the identity-version shift is mandatory, 2) the identity-version shift is basically motivated by a situated linguistic context, 3) The new version should carry better image than the old one or more socially appropriate, 4) Implicit developing language can offer more authentic stable identity “i.e. children language”, 5) Reconstructing fully new identity is impossible, 6) Shifting between two identities is irrational unless with whom suffer from Schizophrenia.