Motivation and investment

Motivation has long been recognized as one of the key factors that determine second language achievement for the learners. Motivation serves as the initial engine for stimulating second language learning and later plays a role as a continuous driving force which helps to maintain the long and laborious journey of second language acquisition. Dörnyei and Ushioda (2013) assert that it is fair to say that without sufficient motivation even the brightest learners are unlikely to persist long enough to attain any really useful language proficiency, whereas most learners with strong motivation can achieve a working knowledge of the L2, regardless of their language aptitude or any undesirable learning conditions. Motivation in second language

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learning has been the subject of a considerable amount of research in recent decades, which aims to explore the nature of this complex construct and how it affects the process of second language learning. There are generally agreed two kinds of motivation: extrinsic or instrumental and intrinsic or integrative motivation, which were firstly developed by Gardner and Lambert (1972). Instrumental motivation refers the desire that language learners have to learn a second language for utilitarian purposes, such as employment, while integrative motivation refers the desire to learn a language to integrate successfully with the target language community. In the case of this study, the original motivation for the participants to learn English is to perceive English as a useful tool or a bridge: to go to a good college and gain a well-paid job through the English competence, which can be categorized into instrumental motivation.

Norton argues that definitions of language learner motivation (e.g. intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; integrative and instrumental motivation) in the field of second language learning do not fully capture the complex relationship between power, identity and language learning in her research about five immigrant women’s experience of English learning in Canada.Norton’s construct of ‘investment’, which complements constructs of motivation in SLA (Dornyei, 2001), is inspired by the work of Bourdieu (1991), and signals the historically and socially constructed relationship of learners to the language they are learning and their often ambivalent desire to learn and use it (Norton, 2012, p. 3). Kramsch (2013, p. 195) notes as follows:

Norton’s notion of investment …accentuates the role of human agency and identity in engaging with the task at hand, in accumulating economic and symbolic capital, in having stakes in the endeavor and in persevering in that endeavor.

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Norton’s perspective of investment aims to provide further insight into why and what prompts language learners to begin and to continue their language learning. While research on motivation tends to focus on psychological aspects of individual learners as autonomous and unitary subjects, investment highlights the ways in which relations are constructed by learners’ social and historical context, between the learner and the language. These factors are intertwined with the learner’s desire to use the language.

By investing in second language learning, learners expect a return in the form of symbolic and material resources and an increase in their cultural capital (Norton Peirce, 1995). Norton (2000) states the difference between investment and instrumental motivation as follows:

The conception of instrumental motivation presupposes a unitary, fixed and ahistorical language learner who desires access to material resources that the privilege of target language speakers. The notion of investment, on the other hand, conceives of the language learner as having a complex social history and multiple desires. The notion presupposes that when language learners speak, they are not only exchanging information with target language speakers, but they are constantly organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world. Thus an investment in the target language is also an investment in a learner’s own identity, and identity which is constantly changing across time and space. (Norton, 2000, p10)

Both concepts of motivation theorize about the processes of acquiring new skills or knowledge, nevertheless, only investment is based on specific identity negotiation and development, and pays attention to the relationship between the learners and target language speakers; as well as highlighting the fluidity of the entire language learning process. This is because investment targets a more complex and specific learning context than motivation does, especially in terms of ‘class participation’ or

‘community involvement.’ As a result, a learner is not simply invested or not invested,

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but rather specifically invested “in the target language practices of [a given]

classroom or community” (Norton & McKinney, 2011, pp. 75–76). If learners ‘invest’

in the target language, they do so with the understanding that they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material resources, which will in turn increase the value of their cultural capital. While cognitive psychologists might ask, “To what extent is the learner motivated to learn the target language?” the social identity theorist asks,

“What is the learner’s investment in the target language practices of this classroom?”

For example, a student may be a highly motivated learner, but may not be invested in the language practices of a given classroom if the practices are racist, sexist, or homophobic. It can explain why a certain number of language learners “may be highly motivated language learners, but may nevertheless have little investment in the language practices of a given classroom” (Norton & McKinney, 2011, p. 76). In this study, all of ten participants had strong desire to learn English, especially at the beginning of their learning. They made effect on English learning with confirm belief that English would increase their cultural capital which could bring economic and social capital in future. However, many of them did not invest in English learning because the given community had changed, although some of them still had high motivation to learn English. In other words, it is normal a learner “could be excluded from the language practices of a classroom, and in time positioned as a poor or unmotivated language learner” (Norton & McKinney, 2011, p. 76), even if he/she has high motivation.

As identity is fluid, multiple, anda site of struggle, how learners are able to invest in a target language is contingent on the dynamic negotiation of power in different fields, and thus investment is complex, contradictory, and in a state of flux (Norton, 2013;

Norton Peirce, 1995). There may also be important discrepancies between a language learner’s conception of good teaching and the practices of a given classroom. Thus, despite being highly motivated, a learner could be excluded from the language practices of a classroom, or perhaps resist certain classroom practices, and in time be

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positioned as a ‘poor’ or unmotivated language learner. The construct of investment has sparked considerable interest and been extended in the second language learning field (McKay & Wong, 1996; Skilton-Sylvester, 2002; Pittaway, 2004; Haneda, 2005;

Cummins, 2006; Potowski, 2007; Arkoudis & Davison, 2008; Norton & Gao, 2008).

Under these circumstances, all the participants’ English learning can be explained by their original motivation and then their investments which will occur across their constant changing identities across time and space as an individual’s identity is diverse, complex and structured in the social environment. Different identity constructions determine whether a learner invests –and sustains this investment- in English learning and how. Likewise, their identities will change across time and are relative to the surrounding language community, which, in turn, leads to possible changes in their motivation and investment.

Thus, following a recently proposed model by Darvin and Norton (2015), the analysis aims to understand the participants’ “investment” in terms of capital and intersubjective positioning of their learning environment(s) as well as their professional environments, in conjunction with their understanding of systems of power (e.g. Chinese education policies, Chinese government dictates, etc.).

In this model, learners invest in particular practices not only because they desire specific material or symbolic benefits, but also because they recognize that the capital they possess can serve as affordances to their learning. The valuing of their capital is an affirmation of their identity, a legitimation of their rightful place in different learning contexts. At the same time, because of the pull of ideology, the capital they possess may not be accorded symbolic value by structures of power, or the capital they desire becomes difficult to attain because of systemic patterns of control (Darvin & Norton, 2015, p. 46).

This type of analysis highlights the complexity of interconnections between the

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learner and the social world (with special emphasis on the learner identity) based on perspectives of language acquisition as a complex system (Larsen-Freeman, 1997) or as van Lier (2000) sees it, an ‘ecological’ phenomenon. Taking an ecological perspective implies “exploring the deep script of human interaction with the learning process, not in isolation, but within the broader context of students’ concerns, attitudes and perceptions (Tudor, 2003, p. 10). This shifts the focus of language learning towards acquiring a ‘named’ language (cf. Otheguy, 2016) to the notion of acquiring a semiotic social practice.

The notion of ‘ecology’ introduced here includes a concept of affordance – first introduced by the psychologist Gibson (1986) while discussing visual perception. For Gibson there is a direct relationship between environment and animal (or man). The environment provides affordances that can be modified in different ways (e.g. the cutting of trees to create a pathway). This notion of affordance has been brought into play concerning language learning by van Lier (2000, 2004), emphasizing the ideas of possibilities that may come into play during interaction; affordance in language learning “is action in potential and it emerges as we interact with the physical and social world (van Lier, 2004, p. 92). Importantly, in the theory promoted by van Lier affordance is neither seen as a property of the environment nor of the individual, rather it emerges from the interaction between the two. It is acknowledged, however, that the nature of this study does not allow for a full implementation of the framework for research as suggested by van Lier (2004). This author suggests

that research from an ecological perspective should (1) be contextualized, focusing on the relationships within a particular environment as well as the participants’ relationship to the environment; (2) consider factors of space and time; (3) have at least the potential to be interventionist; and (4) be ecologically and phenomenologically valid, by adopting an emic perspective in which the analytical notions and constructs used in the inquiry are compatible with those

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used by the participants. (Murray & Fujishima, 2013, p. 142)

Due to the nature of the data compilation, point three is not feasible for this research.

Furthermore, while the study adopts an emic approach, it does not aim to be a study of interaction, given that observation of the actual classroom or working places of the informants was not a possibility.

As Menezes (2011) explains, each individual has different perceptions of the world and the way in which the individual interacts with the environment will result in social practices (Menezes provides an example of how artists may perceive possibilities in rubbish that allows them to transform it into art). Similarly, the language learner will have different perceptions of their own experiences and the resources around them and their interaction with these will result in different language development. The notion of affordances, as understood from an ecological perspective, is a key notion for understanding how the learners position themselves in relation to English as a Foreign Language at different moments in their narrated lives.

As it has already been pointed out, an approach to understanding a language learners’

perceptions towards the ‘affordances’ of that language (perceived benefits, cf. Darvin

& Norton, 2015; potential opportunities, cf. van Lier, 2004) is closely tied to the interaction between the individual and the ‘ecology’ (Menezes, 2011). However, it is important to underscore that the interaction should be seen as mutually reciprocating vectors. The individual’s perceptions of affordances are not drawn from a vacuum;

individual assumptions of perceived benefits are based on both material and immaterial forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1986); including (symbolic) ‘linguistic capital’.

The ‘symbolic’ linguistic capital comes into being through “socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages” (Otheguy, García & Reid, 2015, p. 281); or, in this case of Chinese-backed foreign language instruction, it emerges as an affordance in service to the production of human capital

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(see Block, Gray & Holborrow, 2012). It has long been recognized that schools (practices and policies) are an important nexus between individual and society and often operate as means of social reproduction (Bowles & Gintis, 1976).

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Chapter 4. Methodology