ABSTRACT
In the English language, the word ‘vision’ is commonly used both in everyday parlance and in a variety of professional contexts, and it is a term that most people can readily relate to, even beyond its core meaning of ‘eyesight.’ Indeed, the notion of vision has been employed widely in a number of different domains, from politics to business management. The widespread familiarity with the notion is partly due to the fact that mental visualisation is closely connected to one of the most common human behaviours, daydreaming, but vision is also involved in many other mental functions. So, what exactly is vision and how is it related to human motivation? In answering these questions, the discussion begins with an initial stocktaking of the multiple meanings covered by the term, before making the case that vision concerns one of the most intriguing human faculties that has solid neuroscientific validity. The second half of this chapter surveys the main theoretical views concerning the widely held assumption that visualising future scenarios has distinct motivational power, and then concludes with a summary of the existing research on vision in SLA, with an emphasis on issues concerning the L2 Motivational Self System.
