Identity shifts witin a French scientific community of English language learners

This talk will give an overview of some of the research methods that can help us to better understand how language learning and identity are perceived by French undergraduate and research scientists who have a primarily instrumental motivation for learning English as a Foreign language. This study explores how participants have been encouraged to think about themselves as language producers through both the written and spoken word. Perceptions of identity can also be assessed when observing attitudes to ‘the other’, and more specifically to other cultures, by experimenting with matched-guise and visual recall techniques. These research approaches have been combined with research approaches which invite participants to think about the mind via 2D conceptualisation (mind-maps) as a trigger to talking about the ‘social brain’ and identity as a communicative tool above all.