Profiling Chinese university students’ motivation to learn multiple languages

This study extends our understanding of Chinese university students’ motivation to learn languages other than English (LOTEs) by adding a contextual dimension to the L2 Motivational Self System. The study drew on Higgins’ (1987. “Self-discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self and Affect.” Psychological Review 94: 319–340.) original Own-Other standpoints and Lanvers’ (2016. “Lots of Selves, Some Rebellious: Developing the Self Discrepancy Model for Language Learners.” System 60: 79–92.; 2017. “Contradictory Others and the Habitus of Languages: Surveying the L2 Motivation Landscape in the United Kingdom.” The Modern Language Journal 101 (3): 517–532.) Self-Discrepancy Theory for Language Learners to enrich the framework, and recruited two different learner groups with Chinese as their first language and English as their second language – voluntary learners of Spanish as a third language and non-voluntary learners of Spanish. The Q-methodology was applied to profile these two groups’ multilingual selves, with four motivational profiles emerging from the analysis: self-motivated with multilingual posture, self-motivated with instrumentality, other-motivated with promotion-focused instrumentality, and other-motivated with prevention-focused instrumentality. The findings revealed that multilingual posture was prominent in the self-motivated learners’ investment in learning Spanish, and the other-motivated learners were subjugated to the macro-level sociological influences of global English and the national foreign language policy. Our findings also suggested a potential gate-keeping role of global English in conceptualising non-Anglophone learners’ LOTE learning motivation. This paper concludes with some methodological and theoretical implications for future LOTE learning motivation research.