From process-oriented to socio-dynamic perspectives

As we stated at the beginning of this chapter, we now see the process-oriented period of L2 motivation research evolving into (or perhaps merging with) a new phase that we have christened the socio-dynamic period. In this final section, we will indicate some of the critical factors that seem to be shaping this change and briefly characterise what we mean by the socio-dynamic phase. Then, in the next chapter we review the range of current socio-dynamic perspectives in L2 motivation research.

3.4.1 The complexity of the interrelationship of motivational factors In critically reflecting on his process model of L2 motivation, Dörnyei (2005) acknowledges two key shortcomings. Firstly, it assumes that we can define and delimit the actional process under focus. While this may potentially be workable in the case of a discrete learning task (e.g. in a research laboratory setting), in a real classroom setting it is impossible to say exactly when a learning process begins and ends, or whether sev-eral learning processes might be running simultaneously, overlapping or interacting with one another. Secondly, the model assumes that the actional process occurs in relative isolation, without interference

from other actional processes that the learner may simultaneously be engaged in. These might relate to other academic studies as well as various personal and social goals. In short, the process model of L2 motivation cannot do justice to the dynamic and situated complexity of the learning process or the multiple goals and agendas shaping learner behaviour.

In a recent book-length overview of the psychology of SLA, Dörnyei (2009b) went one step further when he pointed out that an additional shortcoming of the process model was that although it reframed motiv-ation as a dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person, it was still conceptualised within a process-oriented paradigm characterised by linear cause-effect relations. However, the multiple parallel and interacting cause-effect relationships, accompanied by several circular feedback loops, made the validity of the overall linear nature of the model highly questionable. (See also Section 4.1.1 for further discus-sion of the problems with linear approaches to L2 motivation.) Thus, Dörnyei concluded, ‘it was really a matter of time before I realised that such a patchwork of interwoven cause-effect relationships would not do the complexity of the motivation system justice and therefore a more radical reformulation was needed’ (p. 197). This ‘radical refor-mulation’ involved eventually adopting a complex dynamic systems perspective.

3.4.2 The integration of motivation and social context

As we saw in Section 2.2.2, contemporary approaches in mainstream motivational psychology are shaped by situative perspectives that aim to integrate the notions of self and context in a dynamic and holistic way, and to explore how motivation develops and emerges through the complex interactions between self and context. The influence of this line of thinking has also begun to be felt in the L2 motivation field, largely spurred by critical perspectives on the social psychological and cognitive approaches that have dominated to date. In a pioneering large-scale longitudinal study of L2 acquisition by migrant workers in Europe, for example, Bremer et al. (1996) highlighted the socio-contextual conditions of language acquisition and (by implication) of processes of motivation, focusing in particular on the dynamics of communication encounters between migrant workers and native speak-ers and the linguistic gatekeeping strategies employed by the latter in these encounters.

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One key critical voice to emerge has been that of Bonny Norton.

Norton (2000) questions the notion of an ‘ahistorical’ language learner who can be unproblematically characterised as instrumentally or inte-gratively motivated, with a clear-cut target identity, since motivation and identity are socially constructed, often in inequitable relations of power, changing over time and space, and possibly coexisting in con-tradictory ways in the individual. She argues that SLA theorists have not developed a comprehensive theory of identity that integrates the language learner and the language learning context. She uses the term identity to reference how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future.

She also develops the motivational concept of investment to capture the ‘socially and historically constructed relationship of learners to the target language, and their often ambivalent desire to learn and practice it’ (Norton, 2000: 10).

Norton’s view of motivation, identity and language as socially and historically situated processes is in keeping with the broader ‘social turn’ (Block, 2003) that is now shaping SLA and that has begun to make its influence felt in the L2 motivation field. By ‘social turn’, we mean that there is now a considerable body of opinion in our field which suggests that we should view language learning as a sociocultural and sociohistorically situated process, rather than as primarily a cog-nitive psycholinguistic process (Lafford, 2007; Seidlhofer, 2003;

Zuengler and Miller, 2006). This has implications for how we concep-tualise and theorise the interactions between motivation and social context, and heralds a move away from traditional linear models of contextual and motivational variables to relational and dynamic systems perspectives.

3.4.3 The rise of Global English

Dörnyei et al.’s (2006) large-scale longitudinal survey of language learning motivation in Hungary uncovered a clear trend in students’

perceptions of English as the ‘must-have’ language, diminishing their interest in and motivation for learning other foreign languages, includ-ing the traditional regional language, German. The inexorable spread of English as a global language (Crystal, 2003) and international lingua franca seems to have at least two related repercussions for how we theorise language learning motivation. Firstly, as Dörnyei (2005) argues,

it suggests that we may need to adopt a two-tier approach to analysing L2 motivation, depending on whether the target language is English (as world language) or not. This is because motivation for learning English is likely to be qualitatively different in many ways from learning other second or foreign languages, as English increasingly becomes viewed as a basic educational skill to be developed from primary level alongside literacy and numeracy, and thus, as Graddol (2006: 98–99) has predicted, numbers of English as a foreign language learners could soon begin to decline.

The second repercussion for L2 motivation theory concerns the fact that the ownership of Global English clearly does not rest with a specific geographically-defined community of speakers, especially as English is widely used as a lingua franca between speakers of other languages and not simply in interactions between so-called ‘native’ and

‘non-native’ speakers. Consequently, traditional concepts of L2 motiv-ation such as integrativeness and attitudes to target language speakers and their culture begin to lose meaning, as there is no clear target ref-erence group and English is seen simply as a basic educational skill (much like literacy, numeracy or computer skills) not tied to a particu-lar culture or community.

3.4.4 Entering the socio-dynamic phase

In sum, from the process-oriented period of L2 motivation research, we are now moving into a new phase characterised by a concern with the situated complexity of the L2 motivation process and its organic development in dynamic interaction with a multiplicity of internal, social and contextual factors; and by a concern to theorise L2 motiv-ation in ways that take account of the broader complexities of language learning and use in the modern globalised world. The move towards more socially grounded, dynamic and complex interacting systems in the analysis of L2 motivation is also in keeping with wider contempor-ary trends within the field of applied linguistics that has highlighted emergentist and dynamic systems approaches to understanding SLA (e.g. de Bot et al., 2007; Dörnyei 2009b; Ellis and Larsen-Freeman 2006; Larsen-Freeman and Cameron 2008a; van Geert 2008). In the next chapter, we will examine the key developments in this new socio-dynamic phase in detail.

Quote 3.7 Nick Ellis on language as a complex dynamic system A DST (Dynamic Systems Theory) characterization of L2 acquisition as an emergent process marks the coming of age of SLA research. It is an important theoretical maturation in that it brings together the many factors that interact in the complex system of language, learning, and use.

. . . [It views] language as a complex dynamic system where cognitive, social and environmental factors continuously interact, where creative communicative behaviours emerge from socially co-regulated interac-tions, where there is little by way of linguistic universals as a starting point in the mind of ab initio language learners or discernible end state, where flux and individual variation abound, where cause-effect relationships are non-linear, multivariate and interactive, and where language is not a col-lection of rules and target forms to be acquired, but rather a by-product of communicative processes.

N. Ellis (2007: 23)

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