10 Attitudes and motivation
Language learning motivation
The analysis of social context in the last chapter makes it possible to
return to the individual learner and ask how social effects are carried
into language learning. The first connection is in the development of
motivation. In a paper that sets out an important model for research
in foreign language teaching that I used as the basis for a formula at
the end of Chapter 1, Carroll (1962) suggested that the critical factors
are aptitude, opportunity or method, and motivation, the latter
predicting the amount of time a learner would apply to the task of
language learning. Carroll s formula may be rewritten as a set of
graded conditions:
Condition 50
Aptitude condition (typical, graded): The greater a learner s aptitude,
the faster he or she will learn all parts of the second language.
Condition 51
Exposure condition (necessary, graded): The more time spent learning
any aspect of a second language, the more will be learned.
Condition 52
Motivation condition (typical, graded): The more motivation a learner
has, the more time he or she will spend learning an aspect of a second
language.
The discussion of language aptitude in Chapter 7 led to the conclusion
that while there is evidence for its relevance in a number of studies, it
needs more precise qualification according to the goal of learning; there
are different aspects of aptitude that are relevant to different situations
and kinds of learning. Thus, it was divided into three more precisely
stated conditions, dealing with the effect of sound discrimination
aptitude on control of the spoken language, of memory on learning
lexicon, and of grammatical sensitivity or analytical ability on the speed
of learning grammar.1 The Exposure condition, which will be discussed
in Chapters 11 and 12, and the Motivation condition are similarly at
present too grossly stated to permit empirical testing.
To be more specific about motivation, three questions arise: Where
does motivation come from? Is there one kind of motivation, or more?
Attitudes and motivation 149
What parts of second language learning does motivation (of whatever
kind) influence?
In one of the earliest statements on motivation in second language
learning, Gardner and Lambert (1959) suggested that an individual s
motivation to learn a second language is controlled by his attitudes
towards the other group in particular and by his orientation to the learn-
ing task itself . Of all school subjects, language learning is the one where
attitude is specially relevant: Gardner points out that:
Language courses are different from other curriculum topics. They
require that the individual incorporates elements from another cul-
ture. As a consequence, reactions to the other culture become impor-
tant considerations. Furthermore, because the material is not merely
an extension of the students own cultural heritage, the dynamics of
the classroom and the methodology assume greater importance than
they do in other school topics. (Gardner 1985:8)
For Gardner and Lambert, motivation comes from attitude.
Attitude itself is to be measured by asking a subject to evaluate an
object: . . . from an operational point of view, an individual s attitude
is an evaluative reaction to some referent or attitude object, inferred
on the basis of the individual s beliefs or opinions about the referent
(op. cit.:9). In practical terms, then, an attitude is a construct derived
from a subject s answers to a number of questions about an object. Its
establishment is subject to all the normal worries of the validity of the
instrument used and of the honesty of the subject s answers to the
questions.
There are two significant kinds of attitude, Gardner believes: attitudes
to the people who speak the target language, and attitudes to the prac-
tical use to which the learner assumes he or she can put the language
being learned. Gardner suggests that the effects of the two kinds of
attitude are different: whereas the first set of attitudes is fairly consis-
tently related to achievement, the second shows a more variable set of
relationships (op. cit.:39).
From studies summarized in Gardner (1985), the measures most
relevant to French proficiency are attitudes towards learning French and
interest in foreign languages; the least relevant are evaluation of the
French teacher and attitudes towards French Canadians. Overall, he
concludes that: It seems clear . . . that attitude measures account for a
significant and meaningful proportion of the variance in second
language achievement and that some attitude variables are more relevant
than others (op. cit.:50).
Attitudes do not have direct influence on learning, but they lead to
motivation which does: Motivation in the present context refers to
the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning
plus favourable attitudes towards learning the language (op. cit.:10).
150 Conditions for Second Language Learning
Motivation itself is a complex construct, as Gardner remarks: . . . mo-
tivation involves four aspects, a goal, effortful behaviour, a desire to
attain the goal and favourable attitudes towards the activity in question.
These four aspects are not unidimensional . . . (op. cit.:50). We might
summarize this claim so far by setting a condition on attitudes leading
to motivation, as follows:
Condition 53
Attitude condition (typical, graded): A learner s attitudes affect the
development of motivation.
Just as there are two kinds of attitude, so there are also two kinds of
motivation. Lambert describes the first of these like this:
One would expect that if the student is to be successful in his attempt
to learn another social group s language he must be both able and
willing to adopt various aspects of behaviour, including verbal behav-
iour, which characterize members of the other linguistic-cultural
group. The learner s ethnocentric tendencies and his attitudes towards
the other group are believed to determine his success in learning the
new language. His motivation to learn is thought to be determined by
both his attitudes and by the type of orientation he has toward learn-
ing a second language. (Lambert 1967:102)
In a series of studies, collected in Gardner and Lambert (1972), a dis-
tinction was proposed between integrative orientation, characterized by
those who learn the second language in order to identify themselves with
the second language speaking group and ultimately join it, and instru-
mental orientation described as any more practical reason for learning.
Gardner later has a modified definition:
Integrative reasons are defined as those which indicate an interest
in learning the language in order to meet and communicate with
members of the second language community. Instrumental reasons
refer to those reasons which stress the pragmatic aspects of learning
the second language, without any particular interest in communi-
cating with the second language community. (Gardner, Smythe, and
Brunet 1977:244)
In Lambert and Gardner s earlier papers, it was originally held that
integrative orientation was better than instrumental, or at least that it
was necessary to achieve native-like proficiency in pronunciation and a
native-like semantic system. Note that this is a further specification of
the application of the Linguistic Convergence and Divergence conditions
discussed in Chapter 9. The specific effect of integrative motivation,
itself a product of integrative orientation or attitudes towards speakers
of the target language, is set out in the following Integrative Motivation
condition.
Attitudes and motivation 151
Condition 54
Integrative Motivation condition (typical, graded): Integrative orienta-
tion, a cluster of favourable attitudes to the speakers of the target
language, has a positive effect on the learning of a second language, and
in particular on the development of a native-like pronunciation and
semantic system.
It should be noted that many subsequent studies have not, however,
treated integrative motivation as limited to pronunciation and semantics,
but have looked for influence on all aspects of second language learning.
The general conclusions of the research into the differential effects of
integrative and instrumental motivations over the years are summed up
in Gardner, Smythe, and Brunet:
These studies were conducted in the context of traditional language
programmes where students study the language as part of their stan-
dard school curriculum. In general, these studies are in agreement
showing that measures of achievement in the second language are sub-
stantially related to measures of attitudes and motivation. Examples
of such measures include attitudes towards French speaking people,
the French language, the course and teacher, desire to learn French,
and interest in learning French for either integrative or instrumental
reasons. (Gardner, Smythe, and Brunet 1977:243 4)
There has been criticism of the work on motivation that it has
depended on the use of factor analysis; studies by Oller and others using
other techniques have not shown its existence.2 Gardner, however, holds
his position:
In general, most but not all of the factor analytic studies support the
notion of an integrative motive as being important in second language
acquisition, while the multiple regression studies appear to cast doubt
on this conclusion . . . Obviously, I am biased, but it is my opinion
that the weight of evidence supports the generalization that an
integrative motive does facilitate second language acquisition . . .
(Gardner 1985:63)
He analyses studies starting with Gardner and Lambert (1959) and up
to Lalonde (1982): Many of them either produce a unitary integrative
motive factor or a set of factors which demonstrate some commonality
between the three major components, integrativeness, attitudes toward
the learning situation and motivation (Gardner 1985:72). These three
factors, then, turn out to share some variance in common with second
language achievement. Gardner is not convinced by contradictory
evidence, suggesting that it could result from failure to control for effects
of training; he also sees methodological problems with multiple regres-
sion analysis. He concludes:
152 Conditions for Second Language Learning
Based on the literature review . . ., it seems clear that achievement in
a second language is influenced by attitudinal/motivational character-
istics. Postulating that achievement in a second language is promoted
by an integrative motive is not tantamount to saying that this is the
only cause or predictor. Undoubtedly many factors operate in the
development of second language proficiency. This is only one but it
and language aptitude are the only two individual differences which
have been well documented to date as being implicated in the
language learning process. (op. cit.:83)
When one looks not at the effect on language achievement (as meas-
ured by various kinds of language tests) but on morpheme development,
the results are less clear, reflecting a critical difference between
microlevel and macrolevel.
In any statistical study where we wish to interpret correlational
results, we need to consider the question of causality: it is a serious error
to assume without further checking that correlation means cause. If cer-
tain kinds of attitude are correlated with higher achievement, might not
the direction of cause be from achievement to cause? Might not those
learners with higher ability in a language consequently have better
attitudes to the language and its speakers? Even if the main causal effect
is from attitude to achievement, might there not also be a reciprocal flow
from achievement to attitude? While one focus of research has been on
attitude and motivation as a cause, they have also been studied as a
result. Such studies ask, in other words, about the effect that a
programme can have on attitudes and motivations, looking at non-
linguistic outcomes of the learning process.
One early study (Lambert, Gardner, Barik, and Tunstall 1963) had
shown some changes in attitudes in students on summer intensive French
courses, with in particular increases in anomie. As the students French
proficiency increased, they became less certain of their identity, and
subsequently stopped following the rule to speak only French.
Gardner, Smythe, and Brunet (1977) looked at a similar group sixty-
two Ontario high school students who had been selected after
volunteering for an intensive five-week French as a second language
programme in a residential environment (with weekends at home). The
students were assessed on twenty-three different measures of attitude
and motivation.3 A large number of proficiency measures were taken,4 on
the basis of which the students were divided into three groups: begin-
ners, intermediate, and advanced. The groups were found to vary sig-
nificantly in attitude scores on six of the twenty-three measures: the
intermediate students had the highest level of need achievement; the
beginners were most and the advanced students least anxious; the begin-
ners were more ethnocentric than the other groups; they also saw the
course as more difficult. The advanced group saw more teacher rapport
Attitudes and motivation 153
(there was in fact more conversation and less drill in this class). The
intermediate students had the least interest in continuing and the least
favourable attitudes to French Canadians. Looking at changes over the
course, students tended at the end of the course to be more ethnocentric,
less interested in foreign languages, and less integrative in their orienta-
tion. Second, they became less anxious in class, found the course less
difficult, were more motivated to learn French, and made greater use of
opportunities to use French. Changes in self-rating were interesting: they
dropped in the second week, but showed recognition of improvement
after that. The teachers reported continual improvement. The tests also
showed considerable increase in achievement.
Gardner, Smythe, and Clément (1979) extended the 1977 study to a
group of adult learners: a sample of eighty-nine Canadians and one of
sixty-five Americans studying in five- and six-week intensive French
programme in northern Quebec. The design was similar: eighteen scales
tested at the beginning and end of the course, two measures of satisfac-
tion, and pre- and post-testing of oral expression and aural comprehen-
sion. After standardization, the variables were factor analysed, and the
principal factors recognized for the Canadian sample were integrative
motivation (favourable attitudes to learning French, a strong desire to
learn French, favourable attitudes to bilingualism and French Canadians,
integrative reasons for learning, and high need achievement, satisfaction
with the programme and its outcomes, and French oral expression);
French achievement (aural proficiency before the course and oral and
aural proficiency after it), and anxiety (nervous in classroom and speak-
ing French outside, highly self-critical, and integrative rather than instru-
mental reasons). For the American sample, the same factors emerged,
but the first was not related to satisfaction with the course or with
achievement in it; satisfaction with the course loaded on the second
factor; and factor three is similar to the Canadian sample. In com-
paring pre- and post-test scores, there were decreases in anxiety,
increases in oral and aural ability, and the Canadian students were
more likely to think in French when speaking it. However, the
Canadian subjects became less positive towards bilingualism, and the
Americans, while having a greater desire to learn French had less
interest in learning French for integrative reasons, less favourable
attitudes towards learning French and to French Canadians. The
differences between the two groups were, it was hypothesized, to be
explained socio-culturally: the American subjects were older, had had
less time learning French, and came from a milieu where French Can-
adians were not a major group.
The general weight of these studies has been to suggest that while
greater motivation and better attitudes lead to better learning, the
converse is not in fact true: learning another group s language does not
necessarily improve one s attitude to the group. Gardner concludes his
154 Conditions for Second Language Learning
analysis with a statement that changes in social attitudes assessed at the
time may be greatest where the programmes involve novel experiences of
rather brief duration (1985:106). He suspects that it is the novelty of the
programme rather than the process of learning a second language that
motivates attitude change.
The socio-educational model
As I mentioned in the first chapter, Gardner has expanded on the work
he began with Lambert and formalized it into what he now calls a
socio-educational model of second language acquisition with four
variables summarizing individual differences: intelligence, language
aptitude, motivation, and situational anxiety. How important each of
these is depends on the beliefs of the community as to the values of
language learning. While all are important in formal classroom learning,
motivation and situational anxiety are dominant in informal learning
contexts, outside the classroom (for example, going to a movie). Second
language proficiency can develop in both contexts, but as motivation
and situational anxiety will determine the extent to which students take
advantage of the opportunity for informal contexts, their importance is
increased (Gardner 1979).
Following this model, Gardner, Lalonde, and Pierson (1983) set out to
investigate the causal aspect of attitudes in second language learning.
According to Gardner s socio-educational model, a student s motivation
is influenced by two kinds of attitudes. The first is integrativeness, now
more precisely defined as a cluster of attitudes relating to outgroups and
foreign languages in general as well as attitudes toward the specific
language community and integrative orientations to language study
(Gardner, Lalonde, and Pierson (1983:2). The second is attitudes
towards the language learning situation as a whole, including the teacher
and the course itself. Motivation itself has three components: attitudes
towards learning the second language, desire to learn the language, and
effort made to learn the language. All three are involved if the student is
truly motivated . Achievement can influence attitude, but the primary
causal relationship is that achievement is the result of attitude and mo-
tivation. The socio-educational model further holds that cultural beliefs
about the second language community will influence both the nature
and the role played by attitudes in the language learning process
(op.cit.:3).
In the 1983 study, this last factor was controlled by carrying out the
research in a region where the second language was not widely used;
cultural beliefs of the subjects about learning the language were also
tested. The study involved formulating the theory to make it amenable
to causal modelling procedures. The technique that Gardner has chosen
to use is the Linear Structural Relations analysis (LISREL) developed by
Attitudes and motivation 155
Joreskog and Sorbom (1978). The technique requires the researcher to
carry out a maximum likelihood factor analysis and then check the
significance of the factor loadings for the variables related to the
concept; it sets up causal relationships among latent variables.
The reformulated socio-educational model postulated two latent
variables (theoretical constructs), built on cultural beliefs: importance of
language objectives and opportunities to use the language. These
influence two attitudinal latent variables: integrativeness and attitudes
towards the language learning situation. These in turn determine the
individual s level of motivation. Motivation and situational anxiety
determine second language achievement. In addition, initial proficiency
is assumed to influence both final achievement and situational anxiety.
The study was carried out with 140 first-year French students at
the University of Regina. Eighteen indicator variables were collected
in questionnaires.5 The measures were obtained at various times over
an academic term. The final causal model supports the following
conclusions. The indicator variables do in fact group into the latent
variables as hypothesized. There are three independent latent variables:
importance of language objectives, opportunities to use the language,
and initial proficiency. Importance of language objectives and oppor-
tunities to use the language are both causally related to integrativeness,
but only the first is causally related to attitudes to the language learning
situation. Integrativeness and attitude towards the learning situation are,
as hypothesized, causally linked to motivation, which in turn causes
achievement. Note that attitudes affect motivation, but are not directly
linked to achievement. Also, as hypothesized, prior proficiency affects
achievement and situational anxiety. However, situational anxiety does
not turn out to be a causal factor in final achievement. Another unan-
ticipated finding is the reciprocal effect between achievement and
motivation (but not prior achievement). The study as a whole is an
important one in clarifying the model and in suggesting how precision
can be added to the work. Gardner (1985) emphasizes the fact that his
model is empirical and developing; he does not claim it to be true or
final.
One issue of concern in some of the studies related to this work is in
the definition of orientation. Clément and Kruidenier (1983) discuss
some of the ambiguities in definitions of integrative and instrumental
motivation: various researchers seem to classify reasons differently.
There are also contextual or cultural differences, depending on social
context, ethnicity, and familiarity with the target group. They therefore
set out to clarify the definitions and so be able to reconcile earlier
studies. They developed a questionnaire with thirty-seven orientation
items from previous studies and gave it to eight groups of eleventh
grade students selected for differences of setting (uni- or multicultural
setting, with London and Quebec considered unicultural and Ottawa
156 Conditions for Second Language Learning
multicultural), language (anglophones and francophones), and official or
minority languages being learned (French and English official, Spanish
minority). Using factor analysis, they studied the responses of each group.
Four orientations were common to all groups: Students learned a second
language to achieve pragmatic goals (i.e., the instrumental orientation), to
travel, to seek new friendships, and to acquire knowledge (Clément and
Kruidenier 1983:286). There were other factors important to specific
groups. There was no support for the construct validity of a general
integrative motivation . Among francophones, it emerged coupled with a
desire to become influential in one s own community; among anglophones
it was found only among the dominant group in a multicultural setting.
They conclude that there is no clear justification for belief in the univer-
sality and exhaustiveness of the integrative-instrumental distinction.
This argument is supported by research reported by Hidalgo (1986),
who studied language attitudes of inhabitants of Juarez, a Mexican city
on the border with the US, in which there was no evidence of distinction
between integrative and instrumental motivation; Hidalgo argues that
this is a result of the special social situation of the city. However, Ely
(1986b) in a study of first year university students of Spanish identifies
two influential attitudinal clusters, one identifiable as integrative and
one as instrumental. A third cluster, learning because it is a requirement,
does not predict achievement.
Another investigation of the model is provided by Genesee, Rogers,
and Holobow (1983). They stress the social context of the relevance of
integrativeness, and suggest adding to clarify its role a measure of the
learner s expectations from the speakers of the target language. In their
study, English-speaking Canadian students were asked both why they
were learning French and why they thought French-speaking Canadians
wanted them to learn French. Summarizing the conclusions of what is
essentially a pilot study, they found that SL [Second Language] learners
perceptions of the TL [Target Language] group s support for learning
their language is positively correlated with the learners self-rated profi-
ciency in the language and to their reported willingness to belong to
social groups that include members of the TL group (1983:220). The
learner s own motivations were, however, the only predictor of perform-
ance in a listening comprehension test and the main predictors of per-
formance in other tests.
In trying to pin down the directness of relationship between attitudes,
motivation, and second language learning, Lalonde and Gardner (1984)
collected data in six different Canadian regions over a two year period.
In their study, they established three composite measures. The first is
motivation, the individual s total drive to learn the second language . . .
a combination of effort, desire, and affective reaction toward learning
French . The second composite measure is integrativeness, a positive
orientation to French speakers and other groups. The third is attitudes
Attitudes and motivation 157
to the learning situation, the learner s evaluation of the course and
teacher. The three composites were generally good predictors of profi-
ciency measure, with the motivational measure significantly better than
the other two, thus supporting Gardner s claim that motivation is the
more direct factor, itself influenced by the other two.
The work surveyed in this chapter sets the requirement for a different
statement of conditions. Gardner s studies make clear that attitude has an
indirect rather than a direct effect on second language learning. If he is
correct, the model will be stronger if it allows for a two-stage effect, with
attitude learning to motivation, and motivation to learning. In fact, I would
argue for more levels: attitude is derivable in some measure from social
context, and motivation is expressed in the learner s strategies or behav-
iours in a specific learning situation.6 The outcomes of attitude conditions,
this would mean, need to be stated as motivations rather than as linguistic
outcomes. Thus, favourable attitudes to speakers of a language, its culture,
and its country lead to integrativeness (a special kind of motivation), and
favourable attitudes to school, to a language as a school subject, and to the
person who teaches it, lead to positive motivation.
The question of attitude may provide an explanation of the age
differences discussed earlier. An emphasis on affective factors like
attitude and on personality offers an alternative hypothesis to those who
argue that the explanation of differences between children and adults is
a critical period, biologically determined. It has the decided advantage
of taking a factor considered true of all children (for example, language
ego-permeability as in Guiora) and suggesting that it is differentially
true of adults; this is surely more easily credible than the notion of a
language acquisition device that sometimes does not decay but usually
does. These notions are clearly formulated by Taylor (1974), who argues
that adult and child second language learners seem to use the same
processes and strategies, if in slightly different mixes. Thus,
There is no cognitive reason to assume that adults will be less efficient
than children in language learning. In fact, as already suggested, it
seems logical to assume that the adult s more advanced cognitive
maturity would allow him to deal with the abstract nature of lan-
guage even better than children. If we reject a hypothesis which calls
for a cognitive deficiency in adults, we are left with the alternative of
accepting a non-cognitive deficiency one based on affective meas-
ures to account for the lack of uniform success in adult second lan-
guage acquisition. (Taylor 1974:32 33)
Attitudes, motivation, and acculturation
Gardner s model derives from empirical studies within the context of
social psychology; Schumann s work described at the end of the last
158 Conditions for Second Language Learning
chapter is more based on research in sociolinguistics. A very interesting
contrast between Gardner and Schumann is that each seems to want to
restrict his work to dissimilar situations: Gardner s is presented as a
model of school language learning and Schumann s as a potential model
of natural second language learning.7 But as I argued in the first chapter,
this distinction is one that needs to be accounted for by a general theory
of second language learning and not used as the basis for restriction of
the scope of the theory. The two approaches do in fact fit together quite
well. Even in the pure classroom learning situation, there are attitudes
resulting from the presence of at least a stereotype of the other language
culture (in the textual material for instance, or represented by the
teacher); even in natural language learning situations, there are choices
to be made of opportunities for language use, and interlocutors who
attempt to teach.8
Gardner s model is a good starting point for the attempt to describe
the conditions considered in this chapter. His model in its latest version
includes a number of important constructs dealt with throughout this
book: achievement, the complexity of which was discussed in Chapters
2 to 5; initial proficiency (the influence of first language knowledge was
considered in Chapter 8); opportunity to use the language, which will be
looked at in Chapter 11; cultural beliefs about the importance of
language objectives, which were considered in Chapter 9 as part of the
sociolinguistic context within which all language learning and teaching
takes place; situational anxiety, which was discussed in Chapter 7; and
finally the attitude to the language learning situation, which relates to
attitude to teacher and school.
What Gardner labels integrativeness is similar in important ways to
Schumann s notion of acculturation, which is the sum of a complex
set of attitudes to the language (or variety of language) being learned,
the social functions for which it may be used, the learner s views
(whether based on experience or not) of the people who the learner
believes (rightly or wrongly) use the language (natively or not), and
the learner s belief of the effect on his or her own self-identification,
character, or power, if he or she comes to use the language in a specific
way.
In his description of the socio-educational model, Gardner (1983)
adds the second language learning situation to the foreign language
learning situation by adding to his model the notion of formal and
informal language acquisition contexts. The model in this version is as
follows. Cultural beliefs with a social milieu influence the development
of two sets of attitudinal variables, the one towards the other language
community (integrativeness) and the other towards the learning situ-
ation. These in turn influence motivation, which is itself composed of
effort towards a goal, desire to achieve the goal, and positive affect
towards the goal. Two individual variables, motivation on the one hand
Attitudes and motivation 159
and language aptitude on the other, interact with formal and informal
second language acquisition contexts to lead to second language profi-
ciency, the linguistic outcome of the process. Both aptitude and mo-
tivation are equally important in the foreign language classroom;
motivation is likely to be more important in informal contexts. Besides
linguistic outcomes, there are non-linguistic ones such as interest in
learning the language, and desire to learn more.
Gardner reports that there is no clear evidence yet of the links
between social milieu and the individual attitudinal variables. Nor has
the full model been tested. Gardner refers in particular to the lack of
testing in informal situations:
. . . this book is concerned primarily with the student in the formal
language class. It may be that the findings and conclusions discussed
here are applicable to individuals who develop second language profi-
ciency in any context, but the important point is that this generaliza-
tion must be put to empirical testing. (Gardner 1985:4)
But besides the general test of the earlier version referred to previously
in the chapter, he reports on studies supporting certain deductions to
be made from the model. Studies by Gliksman (1976) and Naiman,
Fröhlich, Stern, and Todesco (1978) have both shown that students
classified as integratively motivated were more active (more likely to
volunteer answers) in a foreign language classroom. Other studies he
cites show that students who are integratively motivated are more likely
to seek occasions for informal interaction (for example, taking part in
excursions) and less likely to drop out of language classes. There have
also been a number of studies on non-linguistic outcomes. Some earlier
studies suggested that attitudes were in fact influenced by achievement:
that in cases of low initial motivation and poor achievement, negative
attitudes would be reinforced; that students who do well will have better
motivation and students who do poorly will have less favourable
attitudes. Gardner reports on a study he has conducted that contradicts
these results: he found that while attitudes and motivation are in fact
higher for the better student, and while as a general rule attitudes and
motivation become lower in the course of instruction, the changes are
not affected by degree of success. Thus, while there is evidence that
higher motivation leads to increased success, there is neither evidence of
the effect of success on motivation nor evidence that language learning
leads to more positive attitudes towards the groups whose language is
being learned.
Gardner s model is a major development in understanding the relation
between attitudes and second language learning. Its greatest weakness is
in not demonstrating the relationship between social milieu and
attitudes, but this is because its basis is not sociolinguistics but social
psychology. It is from the sociolinguistic factors listed by Schumann that
160 Conditions for Second Language Learning
we can expect to learn about the establishment of the social values that
work in the model: it is sociolinguistics that should show the values
established for the various varieties of language that are potential goals
for a learner.
Social basis of motivation
While there is some serious question about the way to distinguish instru-
mental and integrative motivation, there remains basic value in the dis-
tinction. To see this, we might try distinguishing social from all other
motivations. A language may be learned for any one or any collection of
practical reasons. The importance of these reasons to the learner will
determine what degree of effort he or she will make, what cost he or she
will pay for the learning. A significant part of these reasons and of this
potential cost involves socially determined factors: in other words, the
social dimension may be seen as spreading itself over the other.
Let us take a simple example. I want to buy food regularly from a
seller on my street whose native language is different from mine. If this
were the only factor involved, I would probably be willing to learn the
few words or phrases needed to make this regular transaction work; but
as selling to me is likely to be more important to him than my buying
from him is to me, there will be greater practical pressure on him to
learn my language.
We could add to this simple model more buyers and sellers, and
explore how this will increase the likelihood of buyer or seller learn-
ing the other language.9 But as long as we restrict our attention to our
simple model, with as driving force a simple economic transaction,
we are dealing with a largely instrumental situation. Even here,
though, the instrumental value of pleasing the other party I am
more likely to buy from someone with whom it is comfortable for me
to talk, he is more likely to give good service to someone with whom
he is comfortable gives reason for convergence, bringing in the
social dimension.
The social dimension becomes obviously important when the
language choice is related to a wider social context (for example, my
language is socially dominant, his is that of the ruled group) or when the
social relation itself is valued as much as the practical business (for
example, we are trying to be good neighbours or fellow-citizens as well
as seller and buyer). And for either of us, the need to learn a new lan-
guage is, as Guiora suggested, a challenging of our personal identity so
that this will be added to the complex model explaining whether or not
we will pay the cost.
It seems to me useful to see as underlying language attitude a set of
norms for language choice which are themselves best represented by a
set of preference rules: rules that apply typically but not necessarily, and
Attitudes and motivation 161
the weighting or salience of which is dependent on situations and
attitudes. There appear to be at least two necessary conditions for choice
of language for communication:
(i) Knowledge Condition on Language Choice (necessary): Use (speak,
write) a language which you know.
(ii) Communication Condition on Language Choice (necessary): Use
(speak, write) a language known by the person you want to com-
municate with.
While knowing a language is a gradient condition, that is to say, it is
measured on a continuum (or perhaps, rather, on a number of continua)
and not as a binary decision, the necessary condition for a well-formed
linguistic interaction is that both speaker/writer and listener/reader can
achieve a minimal threshold level of understanding. These two con-
ditions explain why one of the first tasks that parents accept with a new-
born child is teaching it their language, i.e. making sure that it can meet
the Communication condition. Similarly, these two conditions explain
why the continued presence of a significant monolingual in the home
will ensure that other members of the family will know that language.
In communication with oneself (counting, dreaming, writing notes), it is
obvious that the speaker/writer has the fullest freedom. These two
conditions translate into an instrumental language learning or teaching
condition, as follows:
Condition 55
Instrumental Language Learning or Teaching condition (typical,10 graded):
If you need to speak to someone who does not know your language,
you can learn that person s language or help that person to learn your
language.
When the two necessary conditions on language choice have been met,
that is, when the two interlocutors are (or can be expected to be)
bilingual in the same two languages, other conditions apply. The first
pair relates to a preference according to how well the language is known
by each of them.
(iii) Topic Condition on Language Choice (typical): Prefer to use the
language you know best for the topic concerned.
(iv) Accommodating Topic Condition (typical): Prefer to use the
language that you believe the person you are addressing knows best
for the topic being discussed.
Essentially, these two rules fall into two parts. First, they both assume
that choice of language is influenced by amount of knowledge and ease
of expression, which themselves vary from topic to topic (perhaps
domain to domain) depending on the experience of the speaker and, at
162 Conditions for Second Language Learning
another remove, on the experience (cultural history) of users of the
language as a whole. The second part, equally pertinent to our concerns,
is the question of whose preference is to count. There will, of course, be
cases where each user has (or can be assumed to have) equal and similar
control of the two languages, but there will also be cases in which the two
rules could lead to conflict. The resolution of this conflict is partly to be
explained by the absolute and relative status of the two people concerned;
it is partly to be explained by accommodation theory. The rules them-
selves are simple: the conditions that provide weighting for them are much
more complex (see, for instance, Breitborde 1983; Genesee 1983).
The special relevance of these conditions for second language learning
is in helping determine which party learns the other s language.
The next condition is a conservative factor:
(v) Inertia Condition on Language Choice (typical): Prefer to use the
language you used the last time you addressed this person.
To switch language use to a person you have regularly spoken to a
family member, a close friend takes a major effort; thus, the weight of
inertia favours conservatism: parents can be persuaded to speak a new
language to their children more easily than they can be persuaded to use
it to each other.
(vi) Prefer a language that includes or excludes a third party.
There are conditions in which it is considered important to make it
possible for a third party to be able to understand what one is saying or
writing; similarly, there can be conditions that make it important to pre-
vent a third party understanding. In other cases, this condition has no
weight at all.
The final condition is a complex and important one: I am tempted to
break it down into several, but prefer to try to treat it as a single rule,
with the complexities in the weightings that determine its salience in a
specific case.
(vii) Social Advantage Condition on Language Choice (typical): Prefer
to use a language that asserts the most advantageous social group
membership for you in the proposed interaction.
Assume that both you and your addressee are equally bilingual; that it
is a person you have not spoken to before; that there is no third party
involved and that the conversation takes place in a society with at least
two groups of uneven power, each with its associated language. If the
interaction is between a member of the dominating group and of a
dominated group, the Topic condition and the Social Advantage con-
dition suggest that the comfort of the member of the dominating group
will be served by using his or her language, unless he or she chooses
to accommodate to the other party. Assume, however, a conversation
Attitudes and motivation 163
between two members of the dominated group: in such a case, the use
of the language of the dominant group will have nothing to do with
comfort but will count as a claim to membership of that group and so
to an advantageous status in the current situation. The working of
conditions like these depends on the ideological values of both people
involved and derives from general social values.
The model I am proposing for language choice is a competence model:
a set of rules that underlies the understanding of a competent member
of a speech community. In Chomsky s attempt to explain linguistic
competence, this person was an idealized monolingual. In a sociolin-
guistic description, it is of necessity someone who shares not just the
community s rules for forming sentences (linguistic competence in its
narrowest sense) but its rules for language use (communicative
competence). But knowing the rules is not the same as using them; there
will in practice be cases where mistakes are made, or where knowledge
is imperfect. In describing the rules of a speech community, there is
another complication in that various members of the community will
have different values and apply the same rules differently.
These rules describe for a given speech community its assumptions
about appropriate language choice: it sets, in other words, what Genesee
and Bourhis (1983) refer to as the situational norm. It sets expectations
against which an actual performance is judged, and provides an ordered
set of hypotheses to be tested in real life. If someone addresses me in a
language I don t know, my first (and most charitable) guesses are that he
thinks I know it or that he can t speak any other: once I have corrected
the first, his persistence is judged to be because of the second, and if I
later find that this is not so, I move on to a finer analysis.
But the various conditions themselves obtain their relative weighting
in a number of ways. First, there is the question of the relative salience
to the situation of the various domains or clusters of role relationships;
is this a situation where it is appropriate/valuable to assert a role
relationship expressed by choice of a certain language? For example, the
foreign language teacher with a pupil outside class may choose to assert
the teacher role by using the foreign language or the fellow-citizen role
by using the native language. It is under this head that I would prefer to
consider the importance of asserting ingroup membership. Second, there
is the issue of the status of the language itself, a cluster of attributes as
we saw earlier in this chapter arising in part from the functions with
which the language is associated and in part from the status of the
people who are assumed to use the language. Thirdly, there are the
specific and immediate functional claims of the situation, as analysed by
Scotton (1983) in her work on negotiation. For instance, in order to
obtain a better price, the customer might choose to use the seller s
language in contrast to the usual principle that sellers are assumed to
accommodate to customers.
164 Conditions for Second Language Learning
With this greater sophistication in understanding the social context of
language choice, we may return to the issue of second language learning
and summarize the conditions added in this chapter as follows. First, the
effect of these language choice rules is to set values for second language
learning:
Condition 56
Language Values condition (graded, typical): The social and individual
values which underlie language choice rules also determine the value an
individual assigns to the learning of a specific language.
These values translate into attitudes, and the attitudes lead to the devel-
opment of the degree and kind of motivation that has such an important
influence on the amount of effort a learner is prepared to make in learn-
ing a second language.
The attitudinal factor of course is not independent but interacts with
the learner s personal abilities to determine the advantage taken of the
opportunities presented for language learning and use. The original
simple formula suggested this by considering linguistic outcome as the
result of summing ability, motivation, and opportunity: the more of any
one that is present, the less the others are needed. But attitude is not just
additive; it is also focused in its impact. In Lambert s proposal, integra-
tive motivation was especially relevant to the development of phonetic
and semantic mastery of the new language. In the analysis of functional
skills in Chapter 4, we saw also a potential relation between clusters of
goals (referred to there as ideologies) and specific functional skills. In the
case study in Chapter 13, this differentiation will be seen in practice.
It is the social situation, then, that indirectly affects second language
learning by determining the learner s attitudes and motivation. The
social context also determines the existence and kinds of situations and
opportunities that are available for formal and informal second language
learning. The next two chapters will look at the effect of these oppor-
tunities on language learning.
Notes
1 See Conditions 28, 29, and 30 in Chapter 7.
2 But it does in fact emerge in Ely (1986b), a study of first year univer-
sity students learning Spanish, which makes use of factor analysis.
3 The measures were need achievement, ethnocentrism, French class-
room anxiety, French Canadian attitudes, interest in foreign
languages, instrumental and integrative orientation, parental en-
couragement to learn French, attitudes towards learning French,
attitudes towards European French people, motivational intensity,
desire to learn French, orientation index (instrumental versus in-
tegrative), behavioural intention to continue French, opportunity for
Attitudes and motivation 165
French outside the school, and eight measures derived from semantic
differential rating of the concepts my French teacher and my
French class : evaluation of the French teacher, teacher-pupil rapport,
student perception of teacher competence, student rating of teacher
inspiration, evaluation of the French course, rating of difficulty of
the French course, utility of the French course, and level of interest.
4 Students reported their own writing, understanding, reading, and
speaking skills once a week; they were rated by their teachers at four
different times on oral French skills and French aural achievement;
they were tested in the first and last week of the course in a test that
required them to produce a French response to each of twenty-five
situations described in English; their taped responses were judged for
accuracy and fluency.
5 These were interest in foreign languages, attitudes towards learning
French, attitudes towards French Canadians, integrativeness, motiv-
ational intensity, desire to learn French, French class anxiety, French
use anxiety, French teacher evaluation, French course evaluation, self-
report on French skills, teacher rating of French skills, a French
screening test, French grades, student s perception of importance of
course objectives, student s rating of importance of course objectives
as perceived by administrators, opportunities to use French, and
intentions to use French.
6 See the causal model for Hebrew learning proposed at the end of
Chapter 13.
7 While this is still stressed in Schumann (1986), at the end of the paper
he admits that it may also be applicable to other groups .
8 Following Schumann s theory of pidginization to be discussed in
Chapter 11, pages 173 8, it might be argued that pidginization
results not just from a native speaker s absence or unwillingness to
present a natural model, but rather by any available native speakers
assumption of the limited learning ability of the language learner, a
sort of reverse Pygmalion effect. Thus, foreigner talk may be seen as
a way of preventing someone learning your language or alternatively
teaching him or her the limited variety he or she is capable of. All this
will be dealt with later, when I consider the effect of the social
context in providing opportunities for learning.
9 Cooper and Carpenter (1976) showed the effect of this principle in
the Ethiopian markets, and it is further demonstrated in the markets
of the Old City of Jerusalem (Spolsky and Cooper 1986).
10 It is a typical condition because there are other choices such as
to seek a third person as an interpreter, to use gestures, to shop
elsewhere, etc.
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