NARRATIVE INQUIRY AND SECOND LANGUAGE RESEARCH

How do language learners experience second or additional language learning? How do learners’ identities change as they acquire new communicative resources? What is it like to be an emergent bilingual or multilingual in specific social or institutional contexts? These are just a few of the questions in second language research that narrative inquiry is equipped to examine. This chapter considers what a purposeful, systematic, theoretically informed look at the narratives, or stories, individuals tell about their experiences might contribute to research on second language learning and use. From theme-based analyses of the content of learners’ narratives to more literary and discourse-analytic examinations of the act of storytelling, it showcases how narrative research within second language acquisition has become more interdisciplinary, theoretically driven, and analytically rigorous over time. To this end, it highlights what narrative research has contributed and could continue to contribute to a humanistic understanding of second language learning, development, teaching, and use.