Motivation for learning Chinese in a study abroad context: Vietnamese students in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

This article examines Vietnamese students’ motivation for learning Mandarin Chinese during their study abroad in Taiwan and their construction of self in relation to this language learning motivation. A combination of several concepts of ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, instrumental motive, integrative motive, linguistic capital, and multiple self-aspects is used as a theoretical lens to gain insights into the students’ Chinese learning motivation. The study employs a qualitative research approach in which semi-structured interviews with English-medium students from five Taiwanese universities were conducted. Findings reveal that the students’ motivation for learning Chinese contributed to portraying their ideal and ought-to Chinese selves, which subsume their different instrumental and integrative motives for language learning. The ideal Chinese self they would like to become possesses Chinese linguistic capital, which would confer on them advantages pertaining to their study, career development and social relations. The students’ ideal Chinese self also incorporates and reinforces their (desired) cultural, economic and social selves. Implications for supporting international students’ motivation for out-of-class language learning and their construction of self at the institutional level are then discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• L2 learning motivation
• ideal L2 self
• instrumental
• integrative
• linguistic capital
• study abroad

Acknowledgements

We thank the reviewers and the editor of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development for their assistance and feedback on the earlier versions of this article. We would also like to acknowledge Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their financial sponsorship under the Taiwan Fellowship programme, which is an important support for the research project on which this article is based.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Geolocation information

This study was conducted in Taiwan.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Taiwan Fellowship program.

Notes on contributors

Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen

Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen obtained her PhD from the University of Queensland, Australia, where she now works. She has experience working with ethnolinguistic minority students and training English language teachers for primary and lower-secondary schools in Vietnam. Her research interests include language and identity, language policy, language and intercultural communication, multilingualism and language education.

John Hajek

John Hajek is Professor of Italian Studies and director of the Research Unit for Multilingualism and Cross-cultural Communication (RUMACCC) at the University of Melbourne. Educated at universities in Australia, Italy and the UK, he has published widely and has broad research interests in linguistics, including multilingualism, language education, language policy, pragmatics, and language and identity.