Attachment to the L1 community

One of the first concepts introduced in the language motivation field was the idea of

integrative motivation (Gardner, 1979, 1985, 2010). According to this concept, L2 learning is different from other school subjects in that it is social in nature, and that it is facilitated by one’s openness to adopt features of the target language community. That is, integrativeness “reflects a genuine interest in learning the second language in order to come closer to the other language community” (Gardner, 2001a, p. 5). In recent years, integrative motivation has largely fallen out of favor since Global English is no longer associated any specific Anglophone community. From the perspective of Global English, also, some integrative and instrumental orientations have become hardly distinguishable (Lamb, 2004). For these reasons, the general flavor of the field has shifted from integrative motivation to

identification with “a non-specific global community of English language users” (Ushioda & Dörnyei, 2009, p. 3). This is one of the basic assumptions of the L2 MSS.

Both of these models are therefore in agreement that some level of openness to the L2 community (according to the integrative motive) or to L2 speakers in general (the ideal L2 self) is important for successful learning. The results of this thesis do not dispute this idea. They suggest that it may not be enough to focus on openness to the L2 community without also considering the other side of the coin, namely attachment to the L1 community. In other words, it is likely that there is no necessary symmetry in one’s orientation toward the two communities; openness to the L2 community can coexist with attachment to the L1 community. When strong attachment is present, this may lower the effect of existing openness to the L2 group. Strong attachment to the L1 community might be motivated by a sense of threat to one’s L1 identity. In this case, learners may need a sense of security through believing that the L2 does not subtract one’s L1 identity (cf. Lambert, 1973).

In this study, attachment to the L1 community was operationalized by three scales: fear of assimilation, ethnocentrism, and religious attitudes. That implicit attitudes correlated negatively with these scales, especially with fear of assimilation, invites speculation on the nature of implicit attitudes. Originally, fear of assimilation was investigated primarily in the Canadian context, where French speakers were at risk of being assimilated into the dominant Anglophone culture (e.g., Clément, 1980). Today, with the unprecedented worldwide spread of the English language, fear of assimilation may no longer be confined to minorities living in

167 the shadows of another a dominant group. Many learners around the world probably feel that Global English is a form of Westernization invading their cultural distinctiveness (see

Dörnyei et al., 2006, for an in-depth analysis). According to Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor (1977), cultural distinctiveness becomes under threat when ethnolinguistic vitality is undermined. Ethnolinguistic vitality depends on three dimensions: language status (such as economic, social, and historical), the demography of speakers of the language (including their number and their distribution), and the institutional support it receives (both formal and informal). Perceived threat to any of these dimensions can raise fear of assimilation into the dominant group.

Thus, fear of assimilation must be conceptualized as a relative construct, one that accounts for both openness to the L2 group and attachment to the L1 group. As Clément (1980) puts it: “Whether the resulting tendency is positive or negative would be determined by a delicate balance, here expressed as a subtractive relationship, of the respective statuses of the first and second culture in a given community” (p. 150). Therefore, it is likely that openness to the L2 group represents only half of the picture. The other half is represented by the confidence in the preservation of the L1 community as perceived by the learner. Without a sufficient degree of assurance, the learner may still experience fear of assimilation.

The ensuing fear of assimilation need not be explicit, however. Proficiency in a language like English certainly leads to undeniable advantages, including in degree

attainment and career advancement. At the social level, in many contexts around the world, English “correlates with urbanity, advanced education, an international outlook that tends to go together with higher social strata” (Schneider, 2011, p. 342). It is also the “language of modernity, superiority, prestige, and sophistication” (Sugiharto, 2015, p. 232). This is an interesting predicament. The learner is faced with two choices, whether to learn the language and reap its benefits ‘selfishly’, or to try and preserve the distinctiveness and vitality of the first language ‘selflessly’. A learner in this situation may be bound to experience ambivalent feelings reflecting an explicit–implicit conflict.

This conceptualization might constitute an interesting twist in the classical construct of integrativeness. It highlights the benefit of identification with the L1 group while learning an L2. Some preliminary evidence might give support to this view. In the African context, Coetzee-Van Rooy (2006) reports that learners who identified more strongly with their in- group are the ones who achieved higher in English. In this case, the target group is the in- group. Research in other contexts has similarly shown that using the L1 as the language of instruction in school, which can be seen as enhancing in-group identification, has a positive

168 effect on success in English (Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian, 2006;

Rolstad, Mahoney, & Glass, 2005; Slavin & Cheung, 2005; Willig, 1985). This might imply that possessing an integrative motivation, but toward the in-group rather than only toward an out-group, has a positive effect on both the affective and the academic levels. A similar picture is found is the context of learning languages other than English. It has been observed that one motive for learning a language other than English is the attempt to connect with one’s own group, whether real or imagined (Duff & Li, 2009). For example, as part of degree requirements, many students select a certain language to study because it is their own

ancestral language, such as Chinese and Korean (e.g., Comanaru & Noels, 2009). Again, the target group to identify with here is the in-group. This might be an interesting dimension to integrative motivation. However, as mentioned above, these findings are at best preliminary and suggestive, as most of these studies were not designed to test the question of L1

identification specifically. Instead, this idea emerged from the data. More direct testing of this hypothesis and its mechanisms and moderators would therefore be an interesting future direction.

As reviewed in Chapter 6, the Saudi context presents a unique situation. The political and religious dynamics have cultivated both Islamic supremacism and animosity toward the West. It has even led to terrorist activities at a global scale. This cultural baggage may take a toll on learning English. The results of this thesis show that religious attitudes are associated with fear of assimilation and ethnocentrism, both being the antithesis of openness to the L2 group. Further supporting this view is the fact that religious attitudes had a negative

correlation with achievement in the language. These results are in line with the notion that religious supremacy leads to higher attachment to the L1 community and lower openness to the L2 group, thus negatively affecting success in learning the language of that group.

The discussion in this section thus far might seem rather unconventional. It has dealt with themes such as religiosity, supremacism, and terrorism, none of which are conventional topics in the language motivation literature. However, looking at such broad cultural

dynamics can help provide a deeper perspective into classroom micro-dynamics. As an illustration, Nespor (1997) reports on his two-year school ethnography to demonstrate that the classroom—far from being an empty ‘container’ to be filled by teacher–student

interactions—embodies the intersections of local politics, regional economics, school– community conflicts, corporate influences, body discourses, neighborhood histories, and popular media. In other words, “the key to understanding education isn’t to be found in what happens in classrooms or schools but in the relations that bind them to networks of practice

169 extending beyond” (Nespor, 1997, p. xiii, original emphasis). Or as Larsen-Freeman and Cameron (2008) put it, “there is no chance that... [our decisions] can be disconnected from the social-political-historical-moral-cultural influences of our time” (p. 76). The language motivation field has recently been moving toward a socio-dynamic approach (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015). This approach is not incompatible with the broader perspective discussed in this section.

This broader perspective also calls attention to the critical role of the language teacher. From this perspective, it becomes inevitable that the teacher’s role bears “value- oriented, moral, and ethical dimensions” (Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016, p. 119). According to Kumaravadivelu’s (2003) analysis, conceptualizations of the role of the teacher have passed through three phases. The first phase viewed the teacher as a passive technician, who is just a transmitter of content knowledge through breaking it down to discrete and

manageable parts. The second phase promoted the teacher to a reflective practitioner, who is a problem-solver following a holistic approach that involves creativity and context-

sensitivity. Finally, the third phase considers the teacher as a transformative intellectual, who educates students “to take risks, to struggle for institutional change, and to fight both against oppression and for democracy outside of schools in other oppositional public spheres and the wider social arena” (Giroux, 1988, p. xxxiii, original emphases). Indeed, conceptualizing the role of the teacher as a transformative intellectual “stretches their role beyond the borders of the classroom” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 14), and has been described as possibly “the most significant development in language teacher identity research” (Morgan & Clarke, 2011, p. 825).

Fortunately, the language class has two unique characteristics that makes this role a bit less formidable of a task. First, thanks to the dominance of communicative language teaching today, the language teacher is typically the only teacher who can simply walk into the classroom and start ‘chatting’ with the students about a topic of choice until the end of the lesson and still be considered ‘teaching’. Although not all teachers have this luxury, many do at least during speaking activities such as group discussions, presentations, and written essays. This puts the language teacher in a unique position to promote critical thinking and to develop ethical standards—beyond learning the mechanics of the language—through

carefully selected topics and well-structured dialogues.

A second unique feature of the language class is that teaching the language involves introducing learners to aspects of another culture (Gardner, 1985). In fact, the language class typically constitutes the learner’s first systematic exposure to the L2 culture, and so the

170 teacher has the ability to mold the learner’s attitudes (positively or negatively) toward that group. In recognition of this potential, Lamb and Budiyanto (2013) advocate exploiting aspects of the L2 culture in order to uncover learners’ stereotypes and to critique them. Lamb and Budiyanto (2013) also argue that this approach, rather than being a purely egalitarian exercise, may foster cultural identification and then inspire both short- and long-term motivation to learn the language.

Thus, language teachers in the Saudi context have the potential to influence their students’ explicit and implicit attitudes, a responsibility dictated by ethical and moral imperatives. This reinforces the view of the teacher as a moral agent (Kubanyiova & Crookes, 2016). The language classroom becomes an ideal opportunity for promoting

tolerance, cross-cultural respect, and peaceful coexistence—or as Brophy (2009) describes it, the “proactive implantation of new motivational systems” (p. 152). This analysis might constitute an initial seed toward a philosophy of language learning motivation.

A century ago, renowned educator John Dewey maintained that, “The criterion of the value of school education is the extent in which it creates a desire for continued growth and supplies means for making the desire effective in fact” (Dewey, 1916, p. 62). Our field has the potential to live up to this dream.

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