Agency in second language acquisition and applied linguistics refers to the socially situated capacity of learners to act purposefully, make consequential choices, and exert intentional influence over their own learning and social participation — recognizing that learners are not passive recipients of instruction or input but active negotiators of their linguistic and social worlds. The concept is closely tied to Vygotskian sociocultural theory, Norton’s investment framework, and Lantolf and Thorne’s work on the mediation of human action through tools and signs. Agency is not a fixed individual property but is context-dependent, relational, and constrained by social structures, power relations, and available resources.
In-Depth Explanation
The concept of agency represents a shift in SLA from a cognitive-individualist view — in which learners are information processors responding to input — toward a socially embedded view in which learners are active agents shaping their own trajectories.
Dimensions of Learner Agency
Cognitive agency: The metacognitive regulation of one’s own learning — setting goals, selecting strategies, monitoring progress, and adjusting approaches. This overlaps substantially with self-regulated learning.
Social agency: The capacity to engage, resist, negotiate, or transform social interactions and learning contexts. A learner who creates opportunities to speak with native speakers, who strategically manages identity in multilingual settings, or who resists assimilationist pressures is exercising social agency.
Discursive agency: The capacity to position oneself and others through language — taking on speaker roles, claiming authority, and challenging or legitimizing particular identities through talk.
Agency and Investment
Bonny Norton’s investment theory frames L2 learning in terms of identity and social capital rather than motivation alone. Learners invest in target language learning when they believe it will yield material or symbolic resources; they may disinvest when the social conditions are hostile, marginalizing, or unrewarding. Agency is the mechanism through which investment is enacted — learners exercise agency when they choose to persist, disengage, or negotiate their conditions of learning.
Constraints on Agency
Agency is not unlimited. Structural constraints — institutional rules, socioeconomic inequality, racialized hierarchies, family expectations — constrain the range of agentive actions available to learners. A learner’s agency in a classroom context is shaped by the teacher’s authority structures; a migrant learner’s agency in a workplace is shaped by power relations with employers and co-workers. Critical applied linguistics (CALx) emphasizes that understanding agency requires understanding the power structures within which it is exercised.
Agency in Practice
Research documents learner agency through:
- Diary and narrative studies in which learners account for their choices
- Ethnographic observation of how learners create and seize learning opportunities
- Analysis of how learners reposition themselves in interaction — claiming expertise, shifting languages, or refusing certain speaker roles
Common Misconceptions
“Agency means learners can choose to succeed just by trying harder.” This individualist view ignores the structural constraints that shape agency. Learners in marginalized positions may have limited agency despite full effort. Agency is always exercised within — and sometimes against — social structures.