Foreign Language Motivation

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A language is usually spoken within a particular geographical setting. However, due the advent of globalisation and the spread of English worldwide, English is no longer limited to a certain country or culture, as “for many it [English] now represents the language of the ‘world at large’” (Dörnyei et al., 2006, p. 9). According to Nihalani (2010, p. 25), Crystal (1997) argues that “[t]here has never before been a language that has been spoken by more people as a second language than a first”. Today, about a 1.75 billion people around the world speak English (Robson, 2013). Non-native English speakers outnumber native English speakers by a ratio of three to one (Crystal, 2003). In China and India only, the number of English “users” (Kachru, …show more content…
88; cited in Fang-Mei, 2013, p. 161) “English is the most widely taught foreign language in the world”. One of the determining key factors for learning a foreign or a second language is motivation. Both students and teachers frequently use this term in order to describe the reasons behind the success or failure of learning an L2 (Guilloteaux and Dörnyei, 2008; Dörnyei, 2014b). A motivated individual has “motives” (ie reasons) directing his behaviour and in order to achieve these motives, he “express[es] effort”, "show[s] persistence” and “attend[es] to the tasks necessary to achieve the goals” …show more content…
426) has greatly influenced the L2 motivation research. Since the last decade, L2 motivation has gone through a “radical reconceptualization” towards the self and identity (Ushioda and Dörnyei, 2009, p. 1). Since Global English started to be associated with the international culture, Garnder's (1985) Integrativeness was the centre of the debate raised in the field, as there is no specific L2 community owning the language that the learner desires to identify with (Ushioda and Dörnyei, 2009; Dörnyei et al., 2006). McClelland (2000, p. 109; cited in Dörnyei et al., 2006, p. 12) calls for reconceptualising Integrativeness to “fit a perception of English as an international language”. In this regard, Yashima (2002; 2009) proposes that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners have an International Posture that motivates them to learn English and be linked to the international community. According to Lamb (2004), under the process of globalisation, these learners are building a Bicultural Identity (Lamb, 2004; Arnett, 2002) that allows them to be members of their local environment and at the same time members of the international community which is, for the majority of EFL learners, an Imagined Community (Norton, 2001). In response to this criticism and building on his findings from his longitudinal survey in Hungary
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