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Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change: Spanish across space and time
Edited by Jeremy King and Sandro Sessarego
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 340] 2018
► pp. 279–297

Chapter 12
L2 Spanish in the U.S. and the question of motivation

Changing trends in post-secondary language study

University students’ motivation to study Spanish includes a number of practical or instrumental factors (e.g., ease in finding gainful employment and desire to travel) and intrinsic or integrative factors (e.g., personal growth and using Spanish to communicate with family and friends). To better understand students’ current motivation to study Spanish, we examined data collected from university students of lower-division Spanish language courses from two different geographical regions in the United States. The participants completed questionnaires that sought to determine their motivation for studying Spanish. Concurrent with our hypothesis, results of this pilot study indicate that the students of Spanish who participated in this study express more practical (instrumental) motivations to learn the language. A desire to connect with one’s heritage or to speak Spanish with family members proved to be a less important motivator than we had anticipated, as did the geographic region of the students.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Instruments
    • 3.2University demographics
    • 3.3Participants
    • 3.4Procedures
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Motivation to study Spanish (part I)
    • 4.2Motivation to study Spanish (part II)
    • 4.3Motivation to study Spanish – geography (part I)
    • 4.4Motivation to study Spanish – geography (part II)
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1 Research implications
    • 5.2Pedagogical implications
    • 5.3Limitations and future study
  • 6.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 13 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.340.13sch
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