Identity in Second Language Pragmatics Research

Abstract Under the influence of identity scholarship in applied linguistics, investigations of the role of identity in L2 pragmatics have been underway since the mid‐1990s. Most prominent is the poststructuralist orientation, which views identity as dynamic, fluid, complex, and multifaceted, sometimes even contradictory, and discursively constructed under the influence of power. The relationship between identity and pragmatics has now been documented in a growing body of research showing that identities and pragmatic language uses are mutually constitutive, with identity influencing pragmatic choices, while pragmatic and discursive negotiation simultaneously shapes identity enactment. Learners exercise agency, even if they also experience identity struggles in relation to power, by accepting or being coerced into accepting the positionings imposed by the sociocultural structure. As a result of multilingual turns in applied linguistics, learners and nonnative speakers, conventionally constructed through deficient characteristics, can be reconceptualized as translinguals who mix and mesh named languages through translanguaging, interweaving their resources in their repertoire for unique rhetorical effects and intricate meaning‐making as part of their hybrid identity negotiation. This entry also discusses implications of this development for pedagogy and teacher education in order for learners and teachers to strategically deploy their multilingual agency in intercultural interactions and language education.