Studying Catalan as an L2 in a foreign context: Who and Why. Learners’ profile, attitudes and motivations

Abstract

Little attention has been paid to central and peripheral languages (De Swaan 2001) in the field of L2 motivation. Based on Gardner (1985), Decy and Ryan (1985) and Dörnyei (2005), this exploratory study seeks to determine which factors may account for L2 Catalan motivation in a foreign context. A total of 83 students learning Catalan in a foreign university completed an online questionnaire about their motives to study Catalan as an L2. Data was submitted to a factor analysis and the results showed that there were five main factors that can account for the students’ motives: (1) positive attitudes towards learning Catalan, (2) knowing through mass media due to the interest in the Catalan society, (3) willingness to move to a Catalan-speaking territory, (4) Catalan as an added value: instrumental purpose, and (5) language interest. Another set of descriptive data was gathered in order to outline the profile of the L2 Catalan learner. Then, T-test, correlations and ANOVAs were conducted to establish distinctions based on the learning motives and personal- and course-related variables. Although significant differences were unveiled for the first, the third and the fifth factor, more nonsignificant differences were found. Thus, the results suggest that L2 Catalan students abroad have a similar profile.