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L2 Motivation and Investment

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The Palgrave Handbook of Motivation for Language Learning

Abstract

Located within distinct epistemological terrains, investment and motivation are complementary theories that examine the extent to which individuals are able to engage with and commit to L2 learning. While motivation originates from social psychology, investment is a sociological construct that signals how the relationship of learners to a target language is historically and culturally constructed. Investment draws attention to how an individual’s commitment to the goals, practices, and identities that constitute the learning process is continually negotiated in different ideological contexts and relations of power. By providing details from one case study, this chapter demonstrates how investment and motivation highlight distinct issues and pose different research questions. While recent theorizations of the two constructs diverge at specific points, this chapter concludes with how investment and motivation continue to enrich each other as they illumine the conditions of language learning in congruent ways.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Ron Darvin

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  1. Ron Darvin
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Correspondence to Ron Darvin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Martin Lamb

  2. Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

    Kata Csizér

  3. Department of Social and Behavioural Studies, University West, Trollhättan, Sweden

    Alastair Henry

  4. School of Culture, Media and Society, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Stephen Ryan

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Darvin, R. (2019). L2 Motivation and Investment. In: Lamb, M., Csizér, K., Henry, A., Ryan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Motivation for Language Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28380-3_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28380-3_12

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