The Importance of Motivation in Second Language Acquisition

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: 2,3, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: This paper will look at one important factor in mastering the acquisition of a second language - motivation. It will be argued that the development of positive attitudes and motivation has a great impact on an individuals success in second language learning. Evidence for these claims will be based on different studies, including one by Moyer (1999) on highly motivated subjects learning German and another by Pfenninger and Singleton (2016) which compares data from motivation questionnaires and language experience essays completed by 200 Swiss learners of English at both the beginning and the end of secondary school. Various researchers believe that age is the one factor which determines whether a subject is able to master a second language to a native-like level or not. However, in this paper it is argued that other factors such as motivational matters also play a vital role in the acquisition of a second language. If indeed this is the case, different concepts of motivation need to be taken into consideration.