[中文]译文:
动机与外语课堂激励
——Zoltán Dörnyei
动机是一个影响第二语言和外语学习成就的主要因素之一。因此,前30年已经有大量的研究调查动机在第二语言学习过程中的本质和角色。这些研究中的大部分都受到了加拿大两位心理学家,罗伯特•加德纳和华莱士•兰伯特的启发(见注释34)。他们和他们的同事以及学生将动机放在社会心理学的框架内进行研究(最近的总结可见注释33;35)。加德纳和他的同事也建立了科学研究程序,提出了标准评估技术和工具。因此创设了更高的研究标准,带领第二语言的动机研究走向成熟。
尽管在过去的几年中,加德纳的动机构成也受到过一些挑战(见注释 2;44),但是直到1990年早期,一个有关于第二语言动机的在思维上的标志性的改变出现在报纸上,为了尝试去重新开启这一研究议程,研究者们在这一主题上投放了新的角度(如注释 10;19;51;52)。主要的问题是,加德纳的社会心理学角度太具有影响力。按克鲁克斯和施密特的话说:“这是太突出了以至于备选的概念都没有被认真的考虑。”(第500页)。这导致了一种不平衡的局面,涉及到一个观念,正如斯柯翰提出的:限制了与所存在的可能的影响范围的比较(注释 52第280页)。尽管大家一致承认加德纳的社会心理学模式奠定了重要的基础,但研究者们同时也在寻求一种更实用,从教育的角度去研究动机。这样将会与现职教师的看法一致,同时也将会与那时的主流教育心理学的研究成果一致。
必须被注明的是加德纳的动机理论的确包括了一个教学维度(注释32),他和他的同事一起发展的态度/动机测试包括多个因素(注释 31),这些因素重在评价学习者的教学环境。然而,在加德纳的模式中,主要强调的一般是基于社会环境下的动机成分而不是基于外语环境,这点已经众所周知。例如,态度/动机测试就有一个部分是测试学生对于外语老师和课程的态度。这可能适合去测量,但是从这一部分中得出的数据并没有提供足够的有关环境这一维度的描述,无法产生有用的实际指导。正如加德纳和麦金太尔最近对有关态度/动机测试中特殊的学习情境方面的陈述中指出,“人们仅仅关注于两个目标,大部分是因为这两个目标在别的研究领域也
可以概括”(注释 35 第2页)。最后,加德纳的动机结构中没有包括关于学习动机在认知方面的具体情况。然而,近15年教育心理学在动机方面的研究正是朝着这个方向发展。
这篇论文的目的是在克鲁克斯和施密特的提议下,从教育学的角度进一步了解第二语言学习动机。其中大量相关的动机成分将会有所描述,然后这些成分将会整合成一个多层次的第二语言动机结构。除此之外,还将会形成一套关于如何将研究成果运用于实际教学的指导。我认为关于如何激发学生动机是过去在第二语言动机研究中没有受到足够关注的领域。
有趣的是,牛津和Shearin在近期的一篇文章中开始去追求与当下一些学者相似的目标,通过讨论从不同的心理学分支,如心理学概论,工业心理学,教育心理学和认知发展心理学去讨论动机理论。通过整合这些理论,形成一个具有实际指导意义的扩大的理论框架,这是一个通俗易懂,又有深刻见解的研究。将此研究与前面所提到的研究以及作者本人在本文中的讨论相结合,或许可以为第二语言动机研究的新方向提供一个更扎实的基础。
在开始,我想再一次承认罗伯特•加德纳和他的同事们所做出的巨大贡献。加德纳的理论很大程度上影响了我在这一问题上的想法,我赞成牛津和Shearin的说法:
当下的学者没有想要去推翻这些已有的想法,也不是诋毁加德纳、兰伯特、拉隆德和其他研究者的重大贡献。他们已经将动机问题在第二语言领域引起了很大的关注。我们想保留现存的第二语言学习动机理论中的精华,同时扩大它的范围(第13页)。
的确,在该论文中会尝试将加德纳、克莱门特及其同事所假定的社会心理学构成融入于新提出来的第二语言动机框架中。
第二语言动机的社会层面
在最近的文章中一个重复出现的问题是应该怎么将第二语言动机结构社会化以及社会态度与动机之间存在着怎样的关系。首先,必需认识到的是,尽管“态度”和“动机”在心理学的不同分支中被认为是重要的两个术语,但是在心理学文献中,它们并不是一定要同时使用。“态度”被用在社会心理学和社会学中,在这些领域,社会背景和人际/团体之间的关系模式促发了行动。在另一方面,动机心理学家们已经从个人的角度而不是从社会存在的角度去寻找人类行动的动力,传统地,他们将会关注于本能、驱动力、激励、需要和个人的特点,如:焦虑和成就需要;而现在更多的是关注于认知方面的成功和失败的评价、能力和自我尊重等。(注释53和54)。
由于第二语言学习本身具有多方面的本质和语言角色,因此表现出一种独一无二的情境。a)它是作为学校课程而被教授的一种沟通编码系统。b)它是使个人在几乎所有的心理活动中保持一致的一个不可或缺的部分。同时c)它是社会进行组织最重要的渠道,它是被内嵌在使用这种语言的社团文化之中的。因此,第二语言学习比一般的掌握新信息和知识更为复杂。通常当前的教育心理学除了与环境和认知因素相关,同时也涉及不同的个人特点和社会成分。因此,一个较为适当的动机结构应该是折中的,应该从不同的心理学领域选择因素。
加拿大的语言学习是一个典型的社会问题——是英语和法语社团之间关系的核心——加德纳和兰伯特对于第二语言动机的社会层面特别敏感。社会层面的重要性不是仅仅只限于加拿大。假如我们考虑到,世界上绝大多数国家是多文化的,那么这些国家中的大多数都是多语言国家,并且世界上双语国家要多于单语言国家(注释 32),这样,我们就不可能体会不到全球语言学习中巨大的社会相关性了。
加德纳的动机构成经常被认为是两部分的相互作用,融合型动机和工具型动机。前者是与对第二语言群体的积极倾向和想要与社会中有价值的成员互动甚至变得类似于他们有关。后者与第二语言熟练度可获得的潜在的实际收获有关,例如:得到一份好工作或者得到一份好工资。然而,必须指明的是加德纳的理论和测试量表更加复杂,已经超过了工具型和融合型这两个分类。正如加德纳和麦金太尔所说,“最重要的是,动机本身是动态的。以前从融合型倾向和工具型倾向角度提出的动机特点太过于静态,过于受限”(第4页).
融合-工具型体系的流行部分是因为它具有简洁,直观,有说服力的特点,但是部分也是因为动机的实证研究中也通常会出现仅宽泛定义的“文化影响”和“使用工具”层面。然而,在过去的十年,调查显示,这些层面不能被当成是简单的共性,而是相当于一种宽泛的趋势或者说子系统,而不是特别相关的成分所构成的特殊的背景集合。正如加德纳和麦金太尔总结的,这是简单的并没有意识到的一种直白现象即,社会文化背景在第二语言学习过程中的所有方面都具有凌驾性,包括动机。
克莱门特和Kruidenier 在对加拿大人进行研究中发现,除了工具型倾向外,出现了其他三个截然不同的学习第二语言的一般倾向即,知识、朋友和旅游倾向。而在以前是将旅游倾向归于融合型动机中。而当第二语言是作为外语而不是第二语言时(即,学习者没有与第二语言社团有直接的接触),第四个倾向,社会文化,也被确定。
多纳在匈牙利调查年轻的成年学习者时是在外语学习的情境中,确定了被广泛认为是融合型动机子系统中的3个略微相关的层面:1)对外语、文化和人的兴趣(这点可以与克莱门特和Kruidenier的社会文化倾向相结合);2)渴望扩大视野,避免地方偏狭观念(即克莱门特和Kruidenier的知识倾向);3)渴望新的刺激和挑战(有很多类似于克莱门特和Kruidenier的“朋友”和“旅游倾向”)(注释 26)。第四个层面,渴望融入新的社团(即,“旅游倾向”),与工具型动机的子系统有部分重叠。
克莱门特、多纳和诺埃尔在相同的背景下调查高中学生时发现在这些人群中,工具型和知识型倾向聚集在了一起,同时他们确定了四种其它截然不同的倾向,xenophilic(类似于“友谊倾向”),坚定,社会文化和英语媒体。在另外的外语学习背景下,在一批学习日语的美国高中学生中,牛津和Shearin 也发现了很多学习语言的其它原因,从“喜欢从一门有难度的语言中获得的优越感”到“有一套父母所不知道的私人密码”(第12页)。
这些研究证实了斯柯翰的论证,动机研究者面对的最大的困难是“分清楚那些已有的背景倾向间的关系(注释 51)。在这里似乎将会有一个比以前假定的更大的倾向范围。也会大范围的通过运用不同的方式,改变第一语言和第二语言的学习关系去调查不同环境下的情况(在加拿大之外!)”(第284页)。简而言之,第二语言动机的社会和实际层面的本质总是依赖于谁在哪里学了什么语言。
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[外文]Motivation and Motivating in the Foreign Language Classroom
——The Modern Language Journal 78 (1994)
Motivation is one of the main determinants of second/foreign language (L2) learning achievement and, accordingly, the last there decades have seen a considerable amount of research that investigates the nature and role of motivation in the L2 learning process. Much of this research has been initiated and inspired by two Canadian psychologists, Robert Gardner and Wallace Lambert (see 34), who, together with their colleagues and students, grounded motivation research in a social psychological framework (for recent summaries, see 33; 35). Gardner and his associates also established scientific research procedures and introduced standardised assessment techniques and instruments, thus setting high research standards and bringing L2 motivation research to maturity.
Although Gardner’s motivation construct did not go unchallenged over the years (see 2; 44), it was not until the early 1990s that a marked shift in thought appeared in papers on L2 motivation as researchers tried to reopen the research agenda in order to shed new light on the subject (e.g., 10; 19; 51; 52). The main problem with Gardner’s social psychological approach appeared to be, ironically, that it was too influential. In Crookes and Schmidt’s words, it was “so dominant that alternative concepts have not been seriously considered” (p.500). This resulted in an unbalanced picture, involving a conception that was, as Skehan put it, “limited compared to the range of possible influences that exist” (52: p. 280). While acknowledging unanimously the fundamental importance of the Gardnerian social psychological model, researchers were also calling for a more pragmatic, education-centred approach to motivation research, which would be consistent with the perceptions of practising teachers and which would also be in line with the current results of mainstream educational psychological research.
It must be noted that Gardner’s (32) motivation theory does include an educational dimension and that the motivation test he and his associates developed, the Attitude / Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) (31), contains several items focusing on the learner’s evaluation of the classroom learning situation. However, the main emphasis in Gardner’s model—and the way it has been typically understood—is on general motivational components grounded in the social milieu rather than in the foreign language classroom. For example, the AMTB contains a section in which students’ attitudes toward the language teacher and the course are tested. This may be appropriate for measurement purposes, but the data from this section do not provide a detailed enough description of the classroom dimension to be helpful in generation practical guidelines. As Gardner and MacIntyre (35) recently stated concerning the learning situation-specific section of the AMTB, “attention is directed toward only two targets, largely because they are more generalisable across different studies” (p. 2). Finally, Gardner’s motivation construct does not include details on cognitive aspects of motivation to learn, whereas this is the direction in which educational psychological research on motivation has been moving during the last fifteen years.
The purpose of this paper—following Crookes and Schmidt’s and Skehan’s initiative—is to help foster further understanding of L2 motivation from an educational perspective. A number of relevant motivational components (many of them largely unexploited in L2 research) will be described, and these will then be integrated into a multilevel L2 motivation construct. In addition, a set of practical guidelines on how to apply the research results to actual teaching will be formulated; I believe that the question of how to motivate students is an area on which L2 motivation research has not placed sufficient emphasis in the past.
Interestingly, a very recent paper by Oxford and Shearin sets out to pursue similar goals to those of the current author, by discussing motivational theories form different branches of psychology—general, industrial, educational, and cognitive developmental psychology—and by integrating them into an expanded theoretical framework that has practical instructional implications. This very comprehensive and insightful study, together with the works cited above and the author’s current discussion, may provide a firmer basis for new directions of research in L2 motivation.
At the outset, I would like to acknowledge once again the seminal work of Robert Gardner and his colleagues. Gardner’s theory has profoundly influenced my thinking on this subject, and I share Oxford and Shearin’s assertion that:
The current authors do not intend to overturn the ideas nor denigrate the major contributions of researchers such as Gardner, Lambert, Lalonde, and others, who powerfully brought motivational issues to the attention of the L2 field. We want to maintain the best of the existing L2 learning motivation theory and push its parameters outward (p. 13).
Indeed, there will be an attempt in this paper to integrate the social psychological constructs postulated by Gardner, Clément, and their associates into the proposed new framework of L2 motivation.
The social dimension of L2 motivation
One recurring question in recent papers has been how “social” a L2 motivation construct should be and what the relationship between social attitudes and motivation is. To start with, it must be realised that “attitudes” and “motivation” tend not to be used together in the psychological literature as they are considered to be key terms of different branches of psychology. “Attitude” is used in social psychology and sociology, where action is seen as the function of the social context and the interpersonal/intergroup relational patterns. Motivational psychologists, on the other hand, have been looking for the motors of human behaviour in the individual rather than in the social being, focusing traditionally on concepts such as instinct, drive, arousal, need, and on personality traits like anxiety and need for achievement, and more recently on cognitive appraisals of success and failure, ability, self-esteem, etc. (53; 54).
L2 learning presents a unique situation due to the multifaceted nature and role of language. It is at the same time: a) a communication coding system that can be taught as a school subject, b) an integral part of the individual’s identity involved in almost all mental activities, and also c) the most important channel of social organization embedded in the culture of the community where it is used. Thus, L2 learning is more complex than simply mastering new information and knowledge; in addition to the environmental and cognitive factors normally associated with learning in current educational psychology, it involves various personality traits and social components. For this reason, an adequate L2 motivation construct is bound to be eclectic, bringing together factors from different psychological fields.
Coming from Canada, where language learning is a featured social issue—at the crux of the relationship between the Anglophone and Francophone communities—Gardner and Lambert were particularly sensitive to the social dimension of L2 motivation. The importance of this dimension is not restricted to Canada. If we consider that the vast majority of nations in the world are multicultural, and most of these are multilingual, and that there are more bilinguals in the world than there are monolingual (32), we cannot fail to appreciate the immense social relevance of language learning worldwide.
Integrativeness and instrumentality. Gardner’s motivation construct has often been understood as the interplay of two components, integrative and instrumental motivations. The former is associated with a positive disposition toward the L2 group and the desire to interact with and even become similar to valued members of that community. The latter is related to the potential pragmatic gains of L2 proficiency, such as getting a better job or a higher salary. It must be noted, however, that Gardner’s theory and test battery are more complex and reach beyond the instrumental/integrative dichotomy. As Gardner and MacIntyre state, “The important point is that motivation itself is dynamic. The old characterization of motivation in terms of integrative vs. instrumental orientations is too static and restricted” (p. 4).
The popularity of the integrative-instrumental system is partly due to its simplicity and intuitively convincing character, but partly also to the fact that broadly defined “cultural-affective” and “pragmatic-instrumental” dimensions do usually emerge in empirical studies of motivation. However, in the last decade, investigations have shown that these dimensions cannot be regarded as straightforward universals, but rather as broad tendencies—or subsystems—comprising context–specific clusters of loosely related components. As Gardner and MacIntyre concluded, it is simplistic not to recognise explicitly the face that sociocultural context has an overriding effect on all aspects of the L2 learning process, including motivation.
Clément and Kruidenier found in their Canadian research that in addition to an instrumental orientation, three other distinct general orientations to learn a L2 emerged, namely knowledge, friendship, and travel orientations, which had traditionally been lumped together in integrativeness. Moreover, when L2 was a foreign rather than a second language (i.e., learners had no direct contact with the L2 community), a fourth, sociocultural, orientation was also identified.
Investigating young adult learners in a foreign language learning situation in Hungary, Dörnyei (26) identified three loosely related dimensions of a broadly conceived integrative motivational subsystem: 1) interest in foreign languages, cultures, and people (which can be associated with Clément and Kruidenier’s “sociocultural orientation”); 2) desire to broaden one’s view and avoid provincialism (cf., Clément and Kruidenier’s “knowledge orientation”); and 3) desire for new stimuli and challenges (sharing much in common with Clément and Kruidenier’s “friendship” and “travel orientations”). A fourth dimension, the desire to integrate into a new community (cf., “travel orientation”), overlapped with the instrumental motivational subsystem.
Investigating secondary school pupils in the same context, Clément, Dörnyei, and Noels found that, in this population, instrumental and knowledge orientations clustered together, and they identified four other distinct orientations, xenophilic (similar to “friendship orientation”), identification, sociocultureal, and English media. In another foreign language learning context, among American high school students learning Japanese, Oxford and Shearin also found that in addition to integrative and instrumental orientations, the learners had a number of other reasons for learning the language, ranging from “enjoying the elitism of taking a difficult language” to “having a private code that parents would not know” (p. 12).
These studied confirm Skehan’s (51) argument that the most pressing difficulty motivation researchers face is that of “clarifying the orientation-context links that exist. There would seem to be a wider range of orientations here than was previously supposed and there is considerable scope to investigate different contextual circumstances (outside Canada!) by varying the L1-L2 learning relationship in different ways” (p. 284). To put it simply, the exact nature of the social and pragmatic dimensions of L2 motivation is always dependent on who learns what languages where.
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