The role of language attitudes and ideologies in minority language learning motivation

Abstract

The present article examines the importance of language attitudes and ideologies for studying motivation to learn minority languages by adults. In the contemporary globalised world, proficiency not only in English, but also in other languages, is necessary in order to communicate internationally and find employment. These may be other ‘major’ state languages, such as French or Spanish. However, in many linguistically diverse or multilingual regions, the local languages are important for increasing one’s own social and cultural capital, social cohesion and occasionally also for their economic values. Hence, it is important to study what motivates people to learn minority and minoritised languages. The L2 Motivational Self System has been developed and used for explaining the motivation to learn English in homogenous educational settings. However, this is only one context in which languages are learned. Drawing on qualitative data obtained among Polish post-2004 adult migrants in Wales, this article discusses the relevance of Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System and integrativeness (Gardner & Lambert 1972) in learning minority languages and the role of more subtle, social aspects of (minority) language learning such as language ideologies. It is proposed that integrativeness and language ideologies are vital in the motivation to learn minority languages.