ABSTRACT
In Chapter 7 we examined aptitude, a construct that is comprised of many cognitive abilities and helps explain why people differ so greatly in how fast and how well they are likely to learn a second language. Contemporary psychologists working in the general area of human cognition agree that cognitive abilities alone cannot tell the whole story of individual differences. Since humans are conscious and volitional creatures, in explaining perception, behaviour and learning we also need to account for human intentions, goals, plans and commitments. These are conative influences that at the broadest level include volition and motivation, and they can make language learners succeed or fail. In this chapter we turn to the best researched L2 factor in the general area of conation, foreign language motivation. As you will see, SLA work on motivation draws heavily on theories and methods from social psychology. The specific case of additional language learning requires that motivation be conceptualized as a complex set of constructs that subsume social-psychological perceptions and attitudes.
