Garfield, SLA gold medalist: Examining the investments of an exceptional US language learner/hyperpolyglot

The Challenge What inspires a man to study 65 languages? Hyperpolyglots are mysteries, but do they hold insights for our understanding and practice of second language education? A veteran, US intelligence officer, and now an adjunct instructor, Garfield has seemingly done it all with the language skills he acquired. His story of resilience will inspire learners and instructors. Garfield is an exceptional language learner and US polyglot. This oral history project explores his trajectory from a childhood coma to knowing 15 languages. It examines his investment in his second language acquisition (SLA), a concept comprising identity, ideology, and capital (Darvin & Norton, 2015). Qualitative content analyses of 10 h of recorded, transcribed audio data produced themes for each component. It was found that Garfield's principal identities were those involving his “passion languages” and his perceived need to prove himself. Important ideologies were a service orientation, a “living languages” SLA approach, and deference to serendipity. Factors impacting Garfield's access to capital were trajectory‐changing individuals, bureaucratic obstacles, and the scarcity of available encounters with the foreign. Pedagogical implications include a reappraisal of polyglots, a recognition of learners' subjective experiences and emerging identities during SLA, and an emphasis on developing learners' willingness to communicate alongside intercultural and global competences.