Empowering learners to invest in imagined and EAP identities to claim as legitimate English users: A multiple-case study

Abstract

While identity has garnered increasing attention from English for Academic Purposes (EAP) scholars, relatively little research has investigated how identity can serve as a critical lens for exploring the ways in which EAP learners navigate complex power dynamics and engage with the discursive norms of distinct academic disciplines and professions. Recognizing that EAP learners negotiate multiple, intersecting identities within EAP contexts, this action research adopts the model of second language (L2) investment to examine how university students invest in their EAP identities that are intertwined with their social, cultural, and imagined identities and claim legitimacy as English users within their respective imagined communities. Drawing on triangulated data sources—including teaching materials, techno-reflective narrative interviews, and learner artifacts—this article presents findings from a multiple-case study of two Chinese EAP students in the discipline of politics. The study investigates how these two cases were empowered to envision their roles within their own sociocultural communities, develop proposals, and present posters addressing key global issues, thereby positioning themselves as legitimate contributors to society. The findings illustrate how the participants developed two distinct agendas—primary education in Africa and gender equity in education in China—through which they simultaneously performed imagined government official identities, disciplinary, authorial, and discoursal EAP identities, as well as their social and cultural identities. The article concludes by discussing pedagogical implications for EAP practitioners and outlining directions for future research.