Book Description

Attribution theory has attracted considerable attention in recent years, especially in the field of language learning. A great share of the research conducted in this area has attempted to uncover factors that could influence learners’ perceptions of success and failure in foreign language learning. Particular emphasis has been given to factors like age, gender, perceived level of success, and language studied, and some suggestions that learners’ cultures also play a part have been made, although conclusions based on researchers’ assumptions of learners’ culture characteristics can run the risk of falling into stereotyping. This book is the result of research conducted to show that learners’ cultural characteristics (previously researched and analysed by means of grounded theory and factor analysis) may influence not only the attributions mentioned by them for their successes and failures in learning English, but also the way learners see these attributions in terms of their dimensions of locus of causality, stability and controllability (a classification that has been regarded as common-sense and has, therefore, often been made by researchers themselves). This book will be of interest to scholars whose research focus is in theories of motivation and self-theories, especially as they are applied to learning in general, and language learning in particular. It will also be useful to language teachers, especially those working in foreign language learning contexts as they are in a good position to identify reasons for their learners’ lack of motivation caused by their success and failure perceptions, and may have some ideas on how to retrain learners’ attributions, particularly those which are more external and stable.