Social representations underlying the motivation to learn English in students of public vocational technical and private schools

Abstract

Motivation in language learning has been a topic of great relevance in the last decades, since it has been established as the reason why a person would invest in learning a language and success in doing so (Ushioda & Dörnyei, 2012; Dörnyei, 2014). More recently, studies have devoted themselves to inquire the effect that socioeconomic factors have on language learning motivation (Gayton, 2010; Kormos & Kiddle, 2013). Nevertheless, they have failed to provide a thorough insight on the underlying socio-psychological phenomena that lead to such relationship. Under the scope of Linguistic Anthropology and its approach to language as a contextually and culturally embedded phenomenon, this study draws on Social Representation (Moscovici, 1979) and L2 Motivational Self System Theory (Dörnyei 2005; 2009) to determine the ideologies and social representations that trigger two socio-economically different groups of students’ motivation to learn English. In order to do so, data were qualitatively collected through focus groups among students from public vocational-technical schools and students from private schools, followed by personal semi-structured interviews. Results showed how motivation to learn English is highly determined by a social representation based on its aspirational aspect; in the case of middle-low status students such representation implies upward mobility towards a higher socioeconomic status in Chile, whereas for high status students the aspiration implies living abroad. In addition, an idealization of the Anglo-American culture and language is identified. Therefore, implications for a more realistic approach towards English as a Foreign Language are discussed.