ABSTRACT
Over the past 50 years, research into L2 motivation has followed an interesting trajectory, and has experienced several phase shifts. This chapter describes how the DMC construct emerged within L2 motivation research and have explained why people believe such an important phenomenon has not been identified previously. People suggested that this was primarily due to two main reasons, one, due to the standard separation of initial motivation and subsequent action, and next as stemming from the limited development of the time aspect in motivational psychology, which is unescapably a central characteristic of all long-term motivated behaviors. People went on to describe the significance of a deeper understanding of the DMC construct, and concluded with their contention that DMCs are able to offer a comprehensive framework, bringing together key theoretical accounts of motivation, and that one can then go on to use this as the knowledge base to create frameworks for focused interventions for use in L2 classrooms.
