Language identity among Iranian English language learners: a nationwide survey

The present study is a nationwide survey of language identity among English language learners in Iran. The participants who completed the survey in this research included 1851 English language learners from different parts of the country who belonged to different genders, age groups and English language proficiency levels. The main instrument was a validated questionnaire which included 19 items and was administered online and by hand. The results of this survey revealed that Iranian English language learners had a moderate level of language identity and there was no significant difference between the language identity of male and female participants. In addition, the results indicated that there were significant differences in the language identity of participants across different age groups (teenagers and adults) and language proficiency levels (low- and high-proficiency learners). Finally, the results showed that 73.3% of the participants preferred American English, followed by British English (23.6%), Persian English (1.6%), Canadian English (1.2%) and Australian English (0.3%) as their favourite varieties of English.