Ethnic/cultural identity and motivation in foreign language learning in a multicultural environment

Laroche, Kim & Clarke (1997) emphasize that ethnicity is an important force that determines the attitudes and behaviors of people of different backgrounds. Ellis (2008) claims that learners' attitudes toward the culture of target language have an impact on the level of L2 acquisition because L2 acquisition is related with the attitudes towards the target language, target-language speakers, the target language culture, the social value of learning L2, particular uses of the target language, and themselves as members of their own culture. In this context, the attitudes of multi-ethnic groups of participants towards foreign language learning were investigated. The aim of the present study is to find out the relationship between cultural/ethnic identity and motivational characteristics of foreign language learning among multilingual/multicultural individuals who were raised in a multicultural environment and have studied in international schools, and currently reside in in a foreign country. The data collected through a demographic data questionnaire that was administered to see the various racial and cultural/ethnic backgrounds of the international participants, the Multi-group Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) by Phinney(1992) which is accepted as universal ethnic identity measure (Thompson, 2016), and the Motivational Characteristics of Learning Different Languages (MCFLL) by Dörnyei & Clement (2001) to reach a comprehensive motivational construct data which is known as a complex process. Descriptive statistics were used to interpret the data to be able to answer the research questions by describing variables, means, percentages and general inclinations in the collected data. Accordingly, this current study found out that the multicultural participants were found to be attached to their own ethnic identities and have positive opinion about their own cultural identities. On the other hand, even if they have a high orientation which is the reason/s to learn a foreign language, they are facing with the fear of assimilation. Lastly, as the positive attitudes of the participants on their cultural identities increase, their attitudes towards learning foreign languages decrease. Additionally, it was found out that while participants' ethnic identity search increases, their positive attitude toward foreign language learning decreases.