An overview of L2 motivation research in Hungary

Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce the Hungarian L2 motivation scene in detail. Hungary is a monolingual country, where people do not speak foreign languages unless they learn them at school, hence the need for L2 motivation research became apparent in the late 1980s when after nearly 40 years of communist rule, the privileged status of the Russian language, as the first and often only foreign language to be learnt, was abolished overnight. The results of research projects carried out in the past 20 years are presented in this article in terms of four distinct learners’ groups: young learners, secondary school students, university students and adult language learners. As for the research directions having received considerable attention in Hungary, they can be summarized as follows: the influence of language- and language-related attitudes on L2 motivation within diverse geographical and educational settings; the impact of intercultural contact on L2 motivation; the issues related to students’ selves and their relationship with L2 learning; age-related differences in L2 learning and motivation; and the role of English as a increasingly global language and its impact on L2 motivation. Concerning possible future research directions, researchers should consider taking a more classroom-oriented focus and investigate the motivational impact of the micro-context within which students are actually learning L2s, they should also concentrate on special needs students; and longitudinal research projects should investigate the dynamic nature of L2 motivation.