Understanding L2 Demotivation Among Chinese Tertiary EFL Learners From an Activity Theory Perspective

This study reports on the results of a qualitative inquiry on second language (L2) demotivation among 14 Chinese EFL learners from the perspective of Activity Theory. Semi-structured interviews were applied to collect data. Through the qualitative content analysis approach, this study found that L2...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFrontiers in psychology Vol. 12; p. 704430
Main Author Li, Chili
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Frontiers Media S.A 01.07.2021
Subjects
activity theory
Chinese tertiary EFL learners
formulating mechanism
L2 demotivation
mediational factors
Psychology
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Summary:This study reports on the results of a qualitative inquiry on second language (L2) demotivation among 14 Chinese EFL learners from the perspective of Activity Theory. Semi-structured interviews were applied to collect data. Through the qualitative content analysis approach, this study found that L2 demotivation prevailed among the participants, influenced by an array of mediational factors including subject-mediated, rule-mediated, community-mediated, tool-mediated, and labour-of-division-mediated factors. The findings imply that L2 demotivation results from the contradictory relationship among the above mentioned factors in the activity system and is a socially mediational construct. The findings shed light on the formulating mechanism of L2 demotivation and provide insightful implications for overcoming the detrimental effect of demotivation in the Chinese EFL context and beyond.
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This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
Edited by: Guillermo Felipe López Sánchez, Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom
Reviewed by: Luxin Yang, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China; Peijian Paul Sun, Zhejiang University, China
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704430