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When a child acquires his or her first language, learning to communicate is so essential to human contact and even survival that there should be no question of motivation. In all other language learning contexts, however, desire to master a language stems from a wider range of motivations that are less immediate and essential but nevertheless deeply valued. For Kramsch (2006), the desire to identify with others, their language, and their way of speaking “is the basic drive toward self-fulfillment. It touches the core of who we are” (p. 101). The effort and commitment required to master an additional language can stem from interest in communicating with a specific group of people who use the language, from interest in the language learning process itself, or from a recognition that learning the language can serve other purposes that may or may not depend on actual communication in the language.

Reasons for language learning have been theorized in research on motivation over the past several decades (Dörnyei, 2003), but recent research with heritage learners suggests that their preferences and preoccupations do not necessarily align with those of language learners in general (Husseinali, 2006; Kondo-Brown, 2005; Noels, 2005; Noels, Pelletier, Clement, & Vallerand, 2003). This section provides a brief overview of widely-used approaches to motivation research in applied linguistics as well as recent shifts in the research to recognize the variability of motivation depending on context and experience (Dörnyei, 2009). Some of the constructs used in the study of motivation as an individual difference retain their utility in constructivist research. However, this study aims to show that the desire to learn a language is intimately connected to context and particularly to the communities in which that language is valued in ways that motivation studies usually do not encompass.

2.5.1 Integrative or instrumental motivation. One of the most prevalent models of motivation in language learning is Gardner and Lambert’s (1959) delineation of integrative and instrumental factors. These can be viewed as “language level” motivational subsystems, with learners expending effort to learn a language either for “social, cultural, ethnolinguistic” reasons such as a desire for greater involvement and identification with speakers of the language or, alternatively, because they believe it will contribute to the achievement of academic and professional goals (Dörnyei, 2003, p. 279). For example, someone who

is integratively motivated might believe that “Studying [Arabic] is important because it will enable me to better understand [Middle Eastern] life and culture,” whereas someone who is instrumentally motivated might believe that “Studying [Arabic] is important because it will give me an edge in competing with others” (Tremblay & Gardner, 1995, p. 511).

2.5.2 Intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. Another perspective that has influenced studies of language learning motivation is Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This model identifies three types of motivation: amotivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation. Learners who see no specific reason to continue learning are considered amotivated, while those who proceed primarily because they find learning to be interesting, stimulating, and satisfying are intrinsically motivated. While this form of motivation is considered the most powerful and desirable type, extrinsic motivation can also lead to strong, sustained effort to learn if it is internalized.

According to Self-Determination Theory, motivation that is initially extrinsic, such as grades in school or access to professional opportunities, can become internalized as a result of three factors:

relatedness, meaning that “the behaviors are prompted, modeled, or valued by significant others to whom they feel (or want to feel) attached or related” such as parents and teachers; perceived competence, meaning that the learner feels capable of completing the tasks at hand, and autonomy, which “allows individuals to actively transform values into their own” (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 73). As extrinsic motivation becomes more internalized, it can take one of four forms: external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and integrated regulation. A learner who feels related to members of the target community, who feels confident that his or her efforts will lead to achievement, and who feels enough agency to engage with the target language in the way he or she chooses is, according to Self- Determination Theory, likely to be a more motivated and persistent learner. These internalizing factors may all be more accessible and influential to a heritage language learner than to a foreign language learner.

2.5.3 Motivation in HLLs. The distinction between heritage language learners and foreign language learners is almost inseparable from issues of motivation. A learner who self-identifies as a

HLL, by definition, associates the language with a community that uses the target language and with which he or she has some kind of ancestral identification; in most cases, the HLL is motivated to learn the language by a desire to strengthen connections to this community. The prototypical FLL, then, is

motivated by other factors, including personal and professional goals, enjoyment of language learning, or desire to connect with a different cultural community than his or her own.

In her study of motivation among learners of German at a Canadian university, Noels (2005) compared motivation among HLLs and non-HLLs using both the instrumental/integrative and intrinsic/extrinsic dimensions. She attributed heritage and non-heritage status to learners based on whether they reported having a parent with a German-speaking background and whether they self-

identified as a heritage language learner. The vast majority of these participants was dominant in English and did not speak German at home, so proficiency was not included in the HLL definition here.

Using a survey instrument that combined the two models of language learning motivation discussed above (Noels, et al., 2003), Noels (2005) showed that the learners in the heritage language group and the learners in the foreign language group were more similar than different in regard to most aspects of their motivation to learn German. Both groups identified with integrative and instrumental orientations; their reported levels of intrinsic motivation were similar; and all of these motivations correlated with their sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness and with increased engagement in learning and desire to continue studying the language. Although HLLs’ actual language use differed from that of FLLs because they reported greater contact with German-speaking communities, the only

statistically significant difference in motivation between the two groups was that heritage learners experienced more identified regulation, meaning that they were extrinsically motivated but believed that “learning German helps to achieve goals that are important for their self-concept” (Noels, 2005, p. 301).

2.5.4 Effects of language learning environment. The methods used to identify and test these models of motivation with different populations have been survey-based and quantitative, with learners stating how strongly they identify with certain statements and often self-reporting their competence and achievement in language learning. Noels (2005) acknowledges, however, that understanding the ways

that motivation relates to identity for these HLLs of German is beyond the scope of the survey-based research she has conducted. She calls for “qualitative research to explore the phenomenology of representative learners from each of these contexts” (p. 303).

Increasingly, motivation researchers have come to recognize the influence of context and the limitations of psychologically-based approaches that focus on the individual learner and rely on their self- report of agreement with broad statements about motivation. Gardner (2006) insists that motivation “definitely cannot be assessed by asking individuals to give reasons for why they think learning a language is important to them…” because reasons need to be accompanied and evidenced by observable behaviors; a motivated person “expends effort, persists in the activities, attends to the tasks, shows desire to achieve the goal, enjoys the activities, etc.” (p. 243). Further, he explains that his model of language learning motivation is dynamic and that factors such as self-confidence, willingness to communicate, and language anxiety can be outcomes of language learning as well as antecedents of (future) motivation. Dörnyei (2003) has usefully included factors related to the learner, including need for achievement and self-confidence, and factors related to the learning situation, including the immediate influence of the course, the teacher, and the group in his model of language learning motivation. As Dörnyei (2009) explains, the effects of individual differences including motivation “cannot be identified accurately without taking into account the idiosyncratic features of the specific temporal and situational context we are investigating” (p. 232). These features cannot be fully addressed by the “snapshot” view that survey methods usually produce.

2.5.5 Investment in language learning. When she proposed her theory of language learning

investment (Norton Peirce, 1995), Norton leveled the critique that existing methods and concepts of motivation research were insufficient for encompassing the influence of environment and actual day-to- day encounters with speakers of the target language and the changes in motivation over time. As Norton (2000) explains, investment serves to describe a learner’s effort to learn a language, but unlike the construct of motivation it “signals the socially and historically constructed relationship of learners to the target language, and their often ambivalent desire to learn and practice it” (p. 10). Investment

encompasses identity construction and serves as an alternative to the more traditional understanding of motivation, which seeks to measure the individual’s commitment to language learning at a given point in time, in isolation from other learners and the learning environment, and without reference to actual language use. As Norton herself has insisted (personal communication, April 2010), the concepts of investment and motivation are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they place their emphasis on different considerations regarding the learner and the learning process.

Researchers including Gardner (2006) and Dornyei (1994; 2003) have moved in recent years from a view of motivation as a static trait (a learner can be motivated or unmotivated, consistently motivated by certain factors or others) toward a view of motivation as dynamic and responsive to factors including instructional context, teacher and peer relationships, and the learner’s judgment of success or failure. The contribution of investment, then, is not only that it recognizes the fluctuation of desire to learn over time, but that it considers the influence of the broader sociopolitical context on learners’ opportunities to speak and the differences in power held by learners and their desired interlocutors that influence language learning.

The theory of investment, therefore, provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the desire to learn Arabic as a heritage or foreign language in young learners. In looking at their language learning from this perspective, we are led to ask not only why they are learning but also how their commitment to learning relates to the communities in which that language is used and valued, to experiences with various interlocutors, to the opportunities that learners have to speak, to the sociopolitical issues that may affect their opportunities to use the language, and to the learning environment and process. This theoretical framework, which serves to link language learning, identity construction, and literacy, will be described further below.