Читать книгу The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics - Carol A. Chapelle - Страница 192

The different models of second language acquisition have traditionally highlighted the importance of attitudes and motivation. Due to space constraints, reference will be made to only two bilingual education‐friendly models: Gardner's (1985) socioeducational model of second language acquisition, and Dörnyei's (2005) L2 motivational self system.

Gardner's model has been thoroughly researched and tested. It is divided in four stages, with the individual's social and cultural background (including the home, neighbors, friends, and the wider community) representing its base. The second stage includes four individual variables that will affect language learning: language aptitude, intelligence, motivation or attitudes, and situational anxiety. The third stage distinguishes between the formal and informal language‐learning environments and, finally, the fourth stage has to do with the linguistic (bilingual proficiency) and nonlinguistic (attitudes or cultural values) outcomes. A learner's attitudes can change and are conceived as having both a triggering and a product role, as this is a cyclical—not static—model in which attitudes and motivation can be both a cause and an effect. According to Gardner, motivation involves “the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of language learning plus favourable attitudes towards learning the language” (1985, p. 11). One of the main results of Gardner's and his associates' work was the development of the “Attitude/Motivation Test Battery,” a standardized test which encompasses the different components of Gardner's theory of L2 motivation.

Gardner claims that the reasons for learning a second language show two main orientations. The first one is known as integrative orientation, a term which indicates an interest in the people and culture represented by the other group. The second orientation is instrumental, learning the language for pragmatic or useful purposes such as economic advantages or better job prospects and promotion. These orientations are independent of intelligence and aptitude. Gardner objects to the misinterpretation of his theory as a dichotomy of integrative and instrumental orientation, as this dichotomy is only at the orientation level and is not part of the core motivation component.

Nevertheless, the distinction between the integrative and the instrumental orientation is often hard to define. An integrative motive may have instrumental strands or components, making this dichotomy oversimplistic. This is acknowledged in Dörnyei's model, which redefines these motives in terms of perceptions of the self and the ideal self.

Dörnyei's L2 motivational self system, albeit firmly rooted in L2 research, stems from psychological theories of the self and consists of three components (Dörnyei, 2005, p. 106):

1 Ideal L2 self: If the person we would like to become speaks an L2, the ideal L2 self becomes a powerful motivator to learn the L2. This component encompasses the traditional integrative and internalized instrumental motives.

2 Ought‐to L2 self: This component refers to the attributes one believes one ought to possess (i.e., various duties, obligations, or responsibilities) in order to avoid possible negative outcomes. It includes the most extrinsic (i.e., less internalized) types of instrumental motives.

3 L2 learning experience: The last component concerns situation‐specific motives related to the immediate learning environment and experience (i.e., the influence of the curriculum, the teacher, the peer group, and the experience of success or failure).

In this model, motivation would involve the desire to find harmony between one's current self and the ideal or ought‐to self by reducing discrepancy between our actual and ideal selves. Since young learners cannot consider multiple perspectives of the self, this approach is considered to be appropriate from adolescence onward. It is worth pointing out that this model does not invalidate previous results in the field of L2 motivation research, but rather helps to reframe them.

A special part of motivation theory has recently come to the fore. Researchers are lately interested in understanding the causes and nature of directed motivational currents (DMCs), that is, intense motivational drives that are capable of stimulating and supporting long‐term second language learning. If researchers manage to isolate the conditions that constitute DMCs, they may be able to “use them as components of a framework for effective classroom motivational interventions to promote long‐term learning” (Dörnyei et al., 2016, p. xiii).

Last but not least, it has to be underscored that the language‐learning context and the complexity of the identities of second language learners vary a great deal in different contexts and, subsequently, the role of integrativeness has been challenged. In bilingual education programs where a regional language is included the integrative motivation may exert a greater influence on language proficiency, whereas in bilingual programs in English as a foreign language instrumental motives may play a more central role in the learning of English as L2. Similarly, the explanatory power of the ought‐to self is considered to be weaker than that of the ideal L2 self in English as a lingua franca context where the ought‐to self‐image is usually conceived as rather homogeneous. In minority language contexts, however, the ought‐to may not be as unified but rather more fragmented (as potential conflicts may be found within the ought‐to self), which is why there is a need for more finely tuned instruments and procedures to study motivation in multilingual settings than those hitherto applied to study motivation to learn global English (Dörnyei & Al‐Hoorie, 2017).