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- Halwani, Manar, 1981-
(författare)
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Engagement, directed motivational currents, and second language learning : adult immigrant perspectives
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dissertation answers calls for the integration of motivation and engagement theory and research among highly educated adult-migrant language learners. Specifically, the purpose of this dissertation is to propose a model to describe the interactions between the motivation construct Directed Motivational Currents (DMCs) and the engagement construct Engagement with Language (EWL). The site of this dissertation is Sweden and hence the language learners of this dissertation were learning Swedish to enter the Swedish employment market. This thesis is a qualitative study with a social-dynamic approach to DMCs and EWL, and second language learning is viewed as a highly interactive process. The dissertation consists of three studies. Each study is based in a different formal language learning setting with the following groups of participants: (1) voluntary migrants with university degrees; (2) voluntary and forced migrant medical doctors, and (3) forced migrant schoolteachers. Semi-structured interviews, observation, and questionnaires were used to collect data to describe DMCs and EWL in concert. The findings of the thesis are that the lenses of DMCs and EWL can be combined to reveal more detail about highly educated adult-migrant language learners learning than earlier models. The findings also suggested ways in which the DMCs and EWL constructs interact, and that these are influenced by learners’ visions of their current and future selves, and by effective profession-oriented language teaching. Based on the analysis of the data from the three studies a novel model, Engagement in Directed Motivational Currents (EDMCs), is posited. This novel model captures the multidirectional interaction between DMCs and EWL, and how DMCs are nurtured by cognitive, affective and social engagement, and EWL is energized by motivational structure and goal, and emotionality. The posited model has relevance for second language pedagogy beyond highly educated migrant adult language learning contexts, and for future research in the area of long-term motivation and EWL in relation to second language learning.
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| 2. |
- Liu, Fei, 1980-
(författare)
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English teaching in China : EFL teacher motivation and demotivation at the university level
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Teacher motivation has been shown to be a major factor that affects students’ motivation to learn a second language; however, English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ motivation has not been given enough attention, particularly in the Chinese context where English plays a key role. Thus, this study investigates the motivation of English teachers at the university level in China in order to prepare the ground for the development of recommendations on how to enhance teacher motivation and thereby improve teaching quality and student performance. 101 in-service native Chinese EFL teachers currently working at universities in mainland China participated in the study voluntarily. A mixed methods design was adopted using a web-based questionnaire as the main instrument to explore EFL teachers’ motivation for choosing a teaching career and factors contributing to their motivation and demotivation. Individual background variables in relation to their motivation, such as their English writing proficiency, gender, teaching experience, overseas experience and types of students taught, were also examined. The questionnaire consists of closed questions adapted from previous studies and open-ended questions targeted at providing qualitative data as well as linguistic data for analyzing EFL teachers’ English writing proficiency. The results show that the EFL teachers were multi-motivated when choosing to enter the teaching profession, the main reasons being intrinsic, followed by altruistic reasons. The majority of the participants (73.30%) reported high levels of motivation at the present stage in their career. Significant differences between the first years of teaching and the present were found in the levels of teacher enthusiasm, interest and dedication. EFL teachers’ motivation was affected by various factors, among which student-related factors were reported the most important. Extrinsic factors such as a low salary and limited sources of income, unpleasant working conditions, and students’ negative attitudes were found to be demotivating factors. The results also indicated a positive correlation between EFL teachers’ level of motivation and satisfaction with self-reported English language skills (r =.435). The EFL teachers with overseas experience tended to outperform those with no overseas experience in terms of their English writing proficiency. Nevertheless, despite no statistically significant correlations between EFL teachers’ career motivation and the complexity of their written English nor between career motivation and gender, highly proficient and proficient EFL teachers tended to be predominately intrinsically motivated to enter teaching as compared with moderately proficient EFL teachers who became teachers primarily for altruistic reasons. More female (84.10%) than male EFL teachers reported becoming teachers for altruistic reasons, whereas male teachers more often reported choosing to be an EFL teacher for extrinsic reasons. Age was found to correlate negatively with the EFL teachers’ career motivation. That is, the older EFL teachers were even less likely to change their career and choose another career path than the younger ones. No significant differences in motivation were found between teachers who teach different types of students.
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| 3. |
- Malinowski, Sebastian, 1986-
(författare)
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"English Philology is just a Bubble" : Unconventional Metaphors in English as a Lingua Franca
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present thesis investigates unconventional metaphors in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Empirical approaches in metaphor research have gained prominence, yet methodologies could benefit from more transparent procedural descriptions and efforts to decrease researcher intuition in the data analysis. Unconventional metaphors in ELF have mainly been researched with form-based approaches, while investigations of the conceptual level are rare. The present thesis aims at enhancing objectivity by utilizing a stringent research design in particular in relation to metaphor interpretation, as well as advancing the understanding of unconventional metaphors in ELF by investigating what aspects distinguish unconventional from conventional metaphors. To achieve these aims, a survey was created, with stimuli based on videos and transcripts from the Corpus of Academic Spoken English. One hundred sixty ELF speakers participated in the survey. The responses were analyzed by identifying co-text (verbatim use of expressions from the stimuli), frames (identified through FrameNet, based on lexical units used by respondents), and other interpretations (individual cases of interpretations that are not co-text related and differ from frames) of the expressions given. This methodology purposely utilizes FrameNet to reduce the influence of the researcher’s intuition on the analysis. Findings indicate that unconventional metaphors can be defined by their novelty, aptness and co-text. Novelty distinguishes unconventional from conventional metaphors by using new or unused properties of metaphors. Aptness is an indicator of quality and determines how well designated properties lend themselves to elucidate what speakers want to express. Co-text reflects the socio-cultural context in which the metaphor is embedded, and it can bias interpretations. Taken together, the research presented offers a systematic approach to unconventional metaphors, enabling a definition of unconventionality based on empirical data.
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