The year 2020 marked the 25th year since Bonny Norton published her influential TESOL Quarterly article, ‘Social identity, investment, and language learning’ (Norton Peirce, 1995) and the fifth year since we, Darvin and Norton (2015), co-authored ‘Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics’ in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. From the time Norton's 1995 piece was published, investment and motivation have been conceptually imbricated and often collocated, as they hold up two different lenses to investigate the same reality: why learners choose to learn an additional language (L2). In our 2015 article, we made the case that while it is important to ask the question, ‘Are students motivated to learn a language?’ it is equally productive to ask, ‘Are students invested in the language practices of the classroom or community?’ (Darvin & Norton, 2015, p. 37). We recognize that the relationship between language teachers and learners is unequal, and that teachers hold the power to shape these practices in diverse ways. Teachers bring to the classroom not only their personal histories and knowledge, but also their own worldviews and assumptions (Darvin, 2015), which may or may not align with those of learners. Relations of power between learners can also be unequal. As Norton and Toohey (2011, p. 421) note:

A language learner may be highly motivated, but may nevertheless have little investment in the language practices of a given classroom or community, which may, for example, be racist, sexist, elitist, anti-immigrant, or homophobic. Alternatively, the language learner's conception of good language teaching may not be consistent with that of the teacher, compromising the learner's investment in the language practices of the classroom. Thus, the language learner, despite being highly motivated, may not be invested in the language practices of a given classroom.

2020 年是 Bonny Norton 发表她具有影响力的TESOL 季刊文章“社会认同、投资和语言学习”（Norton Peirce，1995 年）以来的第 25 个年头，也是我们 Darvin 和 Norton（2015 年）共同撰写的第 5 个年头《应用语言学年度评论》中的“应用语言学的身份和投资模式” 。自诺顿 1995 年的文章发表以来，投资和动机在概念上一直是重叠的，并且经常并置在一起，因为它们举着两个不同的镜头来调查同一个现实：为什么学习者选择学习另一种语言 (L2)。在我们 2015 年的文章中，我们提出了一个问题，即“学生有动力吗？学习一门语言？询问“学生是否对课堂或社区的语言实践进行了投资？”这样的问题同样有效。（达尔文和诺顿，2015 年，第 37 页）。我们认识到语言教师和学习者之间的关系是不平等的，并且教师拥有以不同方式塑造这些实践的力量。教师不仅将他们的个人经历和知识带到课堂上，还会带来他们自己的世界观和假设（Darvin，2015 年），这可能与学习者的一致，也可能不一致。学习者之间的权力关系也可能是不平等的。Norton 和 Toohey（2011 年，第 421 页）指出：

语言学习者可能有很高的积极性，但可能对特定课堂或社区的语言实践投入很少，例如，这可能是种族主义、性别歧视、精英主义、反移民或恐同。或者，语言学习者对良好语言教学的看法可能与教师的看法不一致，从而损害了学习者对课堂语言实践的投入。因此，语言学习者尽管有很高的积极性，但可能不会投入到给定课堂的语言实践中。