维吾尔族英语专业大学生心理语言距离和英语学习动机的相关性研究—以新疆塔

【摘要】 在中国新疆少数民族地区,对于维吾尔族学生的英语教学非常不同于对汉族学生的英语教学,因为英语是他们的第三语言。大多数维吾尔族学生都是在学会了他们的第二语言---汉语之后才开始学习英语的,他们都属于三语习得者。事实上,三语习得比二语习得更为困难和复杂。在他们的母语(维吾尔语)和第二语言(汉语)的影响下,第三语言(英语)的习得不仅受到语言迁移的影响,同时也受到学习者的心理因素的影响。基于Kellerman的研究假设——对母语和目标语之间的语言距离的感知会直接影响目标语的习得。本文试图探讨维吾尔族英语专业大学生心理上感知到维语和英语之间的距离与维语和汉语之间的距离是否一致,以及心理语言距离对英语学习动机是否会产生影响等问题。具体而言,本研究的主要目的是回答下列问题：(1)汉语和英语,对维吾尔族大学生而言,哪一种心理语言距离更近?(2)不同的英语熟练程度是否会产生不同的心理语言距离?(3)对于维吾尔族大学生而言,心理语言距离和英语学习动机之间是否存在关系?即心理语言距离的远近是否会导致学习动机强弱的变化?本研究对象是140名来自新疆塔里木大学英语专业的维吾尔族大学生。通过问卷调查和访谈,结果发现如下：(1)相较汉语而言,维吾尔族大学生对英语有较近的心理距离。换言之,他们对英语有更强的情感偏爱。(2)心理语言距离并不是一直保持不变的。不同英语水平的维吾尔族大学生之间对英语的心理距离不尽相同。一般而言,英语水平高的学生一般会认为维语和英语有更近的心理语言距离,反之亦然。(3)维吾尔族大学生主要有三种类型的英语学习动机：工具性动机、文化性动机和情境性动机。据调查,大多数被试在英语学习中具有较强的文化性动机,其次是工具性动机。然而,大多数被试都具有较低的情境性动机。(4)心理语言距离与英语学习动机之间存在着显著的正相关关系。对维吾尔族大学生来说,较近的心理语言距离会产生更强的英语学习动机。具体而言,维吾尔族大学生的心理语言距离与工具性和文化性学习动机之间存在显著正相关性。然而,心理语言距离与情境性动机之间则未显示出显著的相关性。总体而言,心理语言距离与维吾尔族大学生的英语学习动机之间存在密切的关系。在今后的少数民族英语教学中,教师应更加注意正确引导维吾尔族大学生对英语学习的心理认同感,从而促进其工具性和文化性学习动机。同时,英语教师也要努力改善影响情境性动机的各个因素(如英语课堂质量、教材的选择以及老师的影响等),从而增强维吾尔族大学生的情境性学习动机。最后,本研究从不同角度为少数民族英语学习者和英语教师提供了一些有益的启示,同时对少数民族地区英语教学和学习方面提出了一些建议。希望该研究在提高西北少数民族地区英语教学方面能有一定的参考价值,对今后该领域的研究有一定的借鉴意义。 

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research Background

Xinjiang is a multi-ethnic region，and the population of ethnic minority accountsfor about 60% of Xinjiang's total population. The minority students are a specialgroup of English learning in Xinjiang. They are exposed to the bilingual environment(Uyghiir and Chinese) at birth and live in a very special multicultural communitysince their childhood，which provides them with an innate advantage for a foreignlanguage learning. Most of minority students have a special gift for language learningand they are capable of accepting new things quickly. In addition，due to tiie relativelytypical multicultural and multilingual social environment, tiie minority students aremuch easier to adapt themselves to different cultures and customs.The minority college students, as the elite of their ethnic minority groups, aremore sensitive to cultural diversity. They often need to adapt themselves to a newcultural environment which is different from their familiar native culture. There is abig difference between Chinese culture represented by the Han nationaiity andEnglish culture represented by the English-speaking peoples. Meanwhile, there alsoexists a big difference between Xinjiang minority cultures and the Han culture. Theminority college students are not only influenced by the Han culture, but also affectedby English culture in their English learning. The culture shock which they may sufferis far greater than that faced by Han students. This cultural conflict is bound to afifecttheir English learning. The minority college students will not only suffer a lot ofdifficulties in English learning, but also have great advantages over Han students, Features of Ethnic Minority Education in XinjiangAs we all know, Xinjiang is located in China's western border and its historicaland cultural background is different from any other province in China. Because thesocial，economic and cultural development of Xinjiang is relatively backward，it istrue to the development of education. It has long been inhabited by 12 original ethnicminority groups speaking different languages in Xinjiang, and many of the minoritystudents，English teaching plays a significant role for cultivating high-quality minoritytalents, developing the social economy in the ethnic minority regions and bringingethnic minority culture to the world.

1.2 The Purpose and Significance of the Study

The Purpose of the StudyIn the ethnic minority areas of Xinjiang, Uyghur college students have alreadylearned two or more languages，such as Uyghur, Kazakh and Chinese, so tiiey areexperienced bilinguals. They are apt to compare the similarities and the differencesbetween their mother tongue and L2 or L3，and thus they have different psychologicalcognition and learning orientation towards third language acquisition. Especially inethnic minority areas, Mandarin Chinese is learned earlierand is most widely used intheir daily life; whereas English，as a foreign language，is learned later and is onlyused in English class or on very limited occasions. Minority students will certainlyhave different perception in mind toward the two languages.During my teaching of Uyghur college students, I have found that many Uyghurcollege students have high enthusiasm for and interest in English learning. Meanwhile,most of Uyghur college students also show high language talent in English learningand their English pronunciation is generally better than that of Han students. Bytalking with many Uyghur students, I have learned that most of them think thatEnglish is easier to leam for them than Chinese learning, and that they have realizedthat English is becoming more and more important in their future employment andlife. Therefore, this research attempts to explore the Uyghur college students'psychological distance towards English learning, their mam types of English learningmotivation and the relationship between their psychological distance toward Englishand their English learning motivation.

Chapter Two Literature Review

This chapter is mainly to review some research literature relevant to the presentstudy. For Uyghur college students，learning English as a third language necessarilyinvolves the cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from their known languages. Therefore，this chapter will start with the studies on cross-linguistic influence.

2.1 Studies on Cross-linguistic Influence

In recent years，cross-linguistic influence (CLI) has become a focus in thirdlanguage acquisition. As we all know, the knowledge of a known language must havesome impact on the acquisition of the target language. Language transfer always playsan important role in the acquisition of L2 and L3.During the 1940s - 1960s, many linguists and researchers studied languagetransfer from the academic perspective, and regarded transfer as an inevitablecharacteristic in language learning and use (Fries，1945; Weinreich, 1953; Haugen,1953; Lado，1957). Weinreich (1953) first defined transfer as "a phenomenon ofdeviating from any kind of language norm occurred in the bilingual speaking". Thisdefinition is focused on the negative transfer, because it considers the influeiice ofmother tongue as the obstacle of the acquisition and production of correct targetlanguage.In the 1980s，the definition of transfer made by Odlin (1989) was mostlyaccepted and often cited, because this definition encompasses many differentviewpoints: "transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differencesbetween the target language and any other language that has been previously (andperhaps imperfectly) acquired，，（Odlin，1989). Odlin also pointed out that any studyof transfer cannot neglect the significance of trilingual and other multilingualsituations. The knowledge of two known languages may both affect the acquisitionof a third language (Odlin, 2001).Language transfer includes both positive transfer and negative transfer inaccordance with the varied effects produced by cross-lingxxistic similarities anddifferences. Accordingly, Kellerman & Smith (1986) proposed the neutral concept:cross-linguistic influence, referring to "allowing one to subsume under one headingsuch phenomena as transfer, interference, avoidance, borrowing, and L2-relatedaspects of language loss and thus permitting discussion of the similarities anddifferences between these phenomena."Cross-linguistic influence is a complicated cognitive phenomenon, ofteninfluenced by the perception, conceptualization, psychological association andpersonal choice of language users. There are many factors causing cross-linguisticinfluence，such as language types, learners' perceived language distance(psychotypology), language contact, language status，the learner's languageproficiency, etc.Compared with L2 status，language distance can better predict thecross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition. Cenoz (2001) investigated thecross-linguistic influence of many different western languages and proposed that, inthird language acquisition, learners' mother tongue is much closer to the targetlanguage in psychotypology, and there is more probability of language transfer.

2.2 Studies on Third Language Acquisition

The Definition of Third Language AcquisitionThird language acquisition (TLA) is a new research field along with thedeepening of the research on second language acquisition (SLA). With more andmore immigration and globalization of the current society，third or fourth languageacquisition is very common in bilingual or multilingual communities all over tiieworld, "Rather than viewing the study of third language acquisition simply as anextension of SLA research, the current trend is to consider the L3 learner not as amonolingual acquiring a second L2 but as a learner with a unique and specificlinguistic configuration" (De Angelis & Selinker，2001).

5.2 Pedagogical Implications of the Study............................................... 41
 

Chapter Five Major Findings and Pedagogical Implications

This chapter sums up the findings of the present research, and it further discussesthe pedagogical implications for minority English teaching, in order to put forwardsome tentative suggestions for minority learners and English teachers.

5.1 Major Findings of the Study

The present research has explored the correlations between Uyghur collegestudents' psychological distance towards English and their motivation for Englishlearning. This research has focused on three questions. (1) To Uyghur college studentswhich language is psychologically closer, Chinese or English? (2) Will differentEnglish proficiencies lead to different psychological distances towards Englishleaning? (3) What is the relationship between psychological distance and Englishlearning motivation for Uyghur college students? And will the nearer perceiveddistance necessarily lead to a stronger learning motivation?Based on the results analysis of the empirical research and discussions, the majorfindings can be summarized as follows:Firstly, Uyghur students' emotional tendency towards English is closer than thattowards Chinese. Most participants have greater interest in learning English，and theirattitudes about preference and proximity towards English learning is also higher thanthat towards Chinese learning. At the same time, as many participants are experiencedlanguage learners，they have been aware of the difference between Uyghur, Chineseand English. Therefore, the means of similarity and rdatedness they perceivedbetween Uyghur and English are in the middle range. On a whole, most participantsagree that mentally perceived distance between Uyghur and English is shorter thanthat between Uyghur and Chinese.Secondly, psychological distance is not constant as far as English proficiency isconcerned. As to the participants with high English proficiency，they often perceiveshorter psychological distance from Uyghur to English than the participants with lowEnglish level. In other words, Uyghur college students with higher Englishproficiency often like learning English and have more interest in English and itsculture. Therefore, their psychological cognition and mental proximity towardsEnglish learning is stronger, and then they feel the language distance between Uyghurand English is shorter.Similarly, the participants，who believe the language distance between Englishand their mother tongue is shorter，can often reduce the subjective difficulty fromtheir experience in English learning and learn English well. In a word, psychologicaldistance from Uyghur to English varies from person to person due to his / her ownEnglish proficiency, and on the other hand, the influence of psychological distancecan be strengthened with the increase of English proficiency.Thirdly, mentally perceived language distance does have impact on Uyghurcollege students' motivation for English learning. According to the survey, mostparticipants have the strongest cultural motivation in English learning, followed byinstrumental motivation and then situational motivation. Through correlation analysis，the results indicate that Uyghur college students' psychological distance towardEnglish is significantly correlated with their instrumental motivation and culturalmotivation, which means that shorter psychological distance can promote theinstrumental motivation and cultural motivation for Uyghur college students. As theSpearman coefficient of instrumental motivation (ri= 0.574) is larger than theSpearman coefficient of cultural motivation (12=0.402), the correlation betweenpsychological distance and instrumental motivation is stronger than that with culturalmotivation.According to the analysis on situational motivation，we know that most Uyghurcollege students have lower sense of satisfaction with situational motivation. Theresults of Spearman correlation analysis indicate that there is no significantcorrelation between Uyghur college students' psychological distance and situationalmotivation for English learning. However, the correlation between psychologicaldistance and the influence from English teachers' charm is significant. Therefore,English teachers in ethnic minority areas can make more classroom communicationand interaction with students to improve their situational motivation and thus shortentheir psychological distance toward English.5.2 Pedagogical Implications of the StudyBased on the empirical research, the findings provide us with many pedagogicalimplications for English teaching, as well as English learning in ethnic minority areas.5.2.1 Cultivating Students' Cultural MotivationAccording to the results of the survey on Uyghur college students’ motivation forEnglish learning, most of the participants have stronger cultural motivation. Culturalmotivation also belongs to intrinsic motivation or integrative motivation. When thestudents have great interest in the culture of the target language，they can be moresuccessful in English learning than those students with instrumental motivation.However, Chinese students are under the test-oriented educational system for along time, so many students learn English just for the purpose of passing exams orgetting diplomas. Hua (1998) proposed that certification motivation is the mainmotive of Chinese college students. Holding the instrumental motivation, studentsmay make greater efforts to reach their goals in a short-term basis. In this sense，instrumental motivation plays a very important role for foreign language learning. Liu(1993) put forward the importance of learning motivation and proposed that Chinesestudents' motivation for English learning is mainly the instrumental motivation.Generally speaking, most of students only with strong instrumental motivationcan often reduce the interest in or totally give up the language learning when theyhave achieved the short-term goals. It is necessary for college English teachers toarouse learners' cultural or intrinsic motivation for learning a foreign language. Onthe one hand, English teachers should be aware of the importance of culturalmotivation and its close correlation with students' internal interests of Englishlearning. English teachers should take some measures to improve and foster theirstudents' cultural motivation，by introducing more about the culture，custom, andpeople' lifestyle of English speaking countries, employing interesting teachingmaterials to make students leam the latest knowledge and information, or integratingthe national custom and culture into the English teaching. All those measures caneffectively attract learners' interest in English learning and help them generateintrinsic and deep motivation to leam English more actively.

Chapter Six Conclusions and Suggestions

6.1 Summary of the Study

In recent years，the research on third language acquisition or trilingual educationis increasingly flourishing both at home and abroad. In many ethnic minority areas,English teaching for minority students has become very common. Meanwhile, moreand more linguistic researchers and English teachers get down to do research on it.This study is a new trial to investigate Uyghur college students' motivation forEnglish learning from the perspective of psychological distance.The present study has investigated Uyghur college students' mentally perceivedlanguage distance between Uyghur and English, and the three main types ofmotivation for English learning. Then it has also analyzed the correlations betweenUyghur college students' psychological distance toward English and the three types ofmotivation. Through the data analysis from the collected questionnaires, it can beconcluded that:(1) Generally，Uyghur college students perceive shorter language distance toEnglish than to Chinese. In other words，there is shorter psychological distance fromUyghur to English than from Uyghur to Chinese for Uyghur college students.(2) Uyghur college students with different English proficiency may havedifferent perception for language distance. In general, Uyghur college students withhigh English proficiency often perceive shorter psychological distance to English.(3) Uyghur college students' psychological distance toward English does haveinfluence on their instrumental motivation and cultural motivation for Englishlearning; and shorter psychological distance toward English can lead to strongermotivation for English learning. However, there is no significant correlation betweenUyghur college students' psychological distance and situational motivation in theirEnglish study.The findings of the present paper are expected to help us better understandUyghur college students' psychological emotion for English and the typesofmotivation that Uyghur college students hold in their English learning as well.Meanwhile, the results of the present study are significant for the English teachers andminority students in the ethnic minority areas. By knowing about the minoritystudents' psychological identity with English, teachers can better guide their students'motivation for English study. English teachers should concern more about theparticularity of Uyghur college students in their English learning and help students toget a better understanding of their unique potentialities for English learning. Uyghurcollege students themselves should cultivate self-confidence in learning a foreignlanguage and make foil use of their bilingual learning experience to facilitate theirEnglish learning.

6.2 Limitations of the Present Research

Although a great effort has been made to finish this paper, there are still somelimitations in the present paper. Firstly, the questionnaire on the measurement ofpsychological distance may not completely involve all aspects related to mentalperception of language distance. The mentally perceive distance is a very subjectivefactor and it's hard to be clearly and correctly measured and represented by aquestionnaire. Secondly, the concept of our research on Uyghur college students'motivation for English learning is just adopted from Gao's (2003) research andclassifications of motivation for Chinese college students. The questionnaire may notinclude all types of motivations for English learning. The feasibility of thisclassification of motivation still needs to be tested by more related researches. Thirdly,the participants in the present study are all English major students, and the researchresults cannot be used to represent the overall situation of Uyghur college students'motivation for English learning and the psychological cognition on the languagedistance. Therefore, non-English major students should also be included to make anoverall view of the relationships between Uyghur college students' psychologicaldistance toward English and their motivation for English learning.

6.3 Suggestions for Future Research

Following with the development and progress of foreign language education inethnic minority areas，more and more researchers have conducted studies on minoritystudents' motivation for English learning. However, there has been little research onthe correlation between minority students' psychological cognition toward Englishand their motivation for English learning. The present study is just a new trial toexplore the language distance and English learning motivation from the psychologicalpoint of view.In general, the current paper has offered a lot of researching perspectives andorientations for further research. Firstly, further study can be done with larger samplesof participants. Non-English major participants could be included in the research andthe survey can be expanded to investigate the general situation on the relationshipsbetween psychological distance and English learning motivation in the wholeprovince of Xinjiang,Secondly, js tiie mental perception, of langu^e distance and learning motivationare both dynamic internal factors for language learning, the similar research could bedone longitudinally to investigate the changes or development of the relationshipsbetween psychological distance and English learning motivation over a span of time.The results of such a longitudinal study can suggest the correlation between the twodynamic internal variables on different learning stages.Last but not least, some new researching methods could be adopted in futureresearches to avoid discrepancies aroused by different data collection techniques.Each method has its strengths and limitations. For example, self-reporting method，interviews, observations, and think aloud could be used to overcome the inaccuraciesof retrospective method. The use of multiple methods will be conducive to ensure thereliability and validity of various assessment techniques.

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