Progressive Research Journal of Arts and Humanities (PRJAH) Vol. 3, No. 1, 2021 ISSN: 2707-7314 Social Construction of Language Learners: A Bakhtinian Analysis of EFL Learners’ Subjectivity in the Multilingual Context of Pakistan Imdad Ullah Khan 1 * Ayesha Perveen 2 , and Akifa Imtiaz 3 Abstract ESL/EFL scholarship has traditionally adopted a cognitivist and psychoanalytical approach towards learning a language based on the premise that languages are abstract unitary systems. In recent decades, however, there has been a greater emphasis on the role of social, cultural, and autobiographical factors in language learning. Bakhtin’s socially-oriented philosophy of language offers a useful lens to view EFL learning as a situated activity and EFL learners as multidimensional social actors who configure their English learning trajectories within broader social and institutional factors. Based on a broader ethnographic study, analysis in this article takes a Bakhtinian perspective to understand how multilingual EFL learners in northern Pakistan construct their identity at the intersection of social, domestic, and future-oriented factors. The analysis shows that local languages, school, and family language policies, and imagined English- speaking communities have significant implications for learners' orientation and motivation towards learning EFL. The article suggests that responding to the social turn in applied linguistics, EFL classroom, and pedagogy in Pakistan needs to broaden its purview to support individual learners effectively negotiate their complex learning trajectories and build empowering learner identities. Keywords: Imagined Communities; Bakhtin; Subjectivity; Identity; EFL Learning. 1. Introduction How learners’ subjectivity—their sense of self—engages with discourses, ideologies, and points of view associated with relational backgrounds such as the school, the teacher, or the family? Based on an ethnographic study in a low-fee private school in northern Pakistan, this article argues that, while studying language and subjectivity, the researchers often focus on the effect of learned concepts, skills, and behaviors to understand how the learners conceptualize and enact who they are. Research conducted with this approach focuses on the learners as individuals. This article argues that this approach is not very helpful in understanding the construction of learners’ subjectivity. Without foregrounding the complex interaction between the individual and 1 Department of English and Foreign Languages, University of Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. 2 Department of English, Virtual University, Islamabad, Pakistan. 3 Department of English, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. *)Corresponding Author. Email: imdad.khan@uswat.edu.pk