Exploring Imagined Identities and Communities among Learners of English as a Lingua Franca: A Qualitative Narrative Inquiry

Exploration of imagined identities and communities has been recognized as critical aspects in learning English as a foreign language. These two aspects perspectives differ as to how learners view themselves with respect to others through narratives and how they practise the language not only face to face but also in virtual interactions. This study aimed to explore how being a participant in virtual communities of practice affect the identity construction among English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) learners coming from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Jenkins, 2006). Specifically, we tried to find out how three Turkish ELF learners positioned themselves in their virtual communities of practice through their own re-told stories. Based on Wenger's (1998) classification on identity emergence in practice five deductive themes were derived using a constant comparative method. The narratives showed the learner's participation in virtual imagined communities give rise to an imagined identity which highlights the effect of learner's investment in the target language as well as the sense of belonging acquired through an ELF identity.