A Study Of The Correlation Between L2 Motivational Self System And Learner Autonomy Of Non-English-Major Graduate Students

Learner autonomy has been a hot and widespread topic in the field of language acquisition both at home and abroad since it was first proposed in 1980 s. As an important concept in the modern language teaching and learning, many researchers have conducted lots of studies to probe into the theoretical foundation of learner autonomy and how to foster learner autonomy from various perspectives. Furthermore, as an important influencing factor of learner autonomy, the motivation research has also become a popular topic since it is one of the crucial factors affecting the failure or success of language learning. Meanwhile, the second language motivational self system(L2MSS), as a new theory of second language motivation proposed by D?rnyei(2005), provides a unique way to explore this area. Many researchers have concluded that L2 MSS is widely applicable across various cultural and linguistic backgrounds.Based on the previous research results of learner autonomy and L2 MSS, this thesis regards motivation as one of the key factors which influences learner autonomy, then aims to explore the general situation of the non-English-major graduate students’ learner autonomy and L2 MSS and the correlation between them in Shandong Normal University of China. The participants involved in this research are 70 non-English-major graduate students of Shandong Normal University and two research questions of this empirical study can be summarized as follows:(1) What is the general situation of the non-English-major graduate students’ L2 MSS and learner autonomy?(2) Is there any correlation between L2 MSS and learner autonomy of non-English-major graduate students?Two questionnaires related to L2 MSS and learner autonomy are adopted to implement this research and after the data analysis via the software SPSS 17.0, the major findings of this study are reached. Firstly, the general situation of the non-English-major graduate students’ L2 MSS is at moderate level and the general situation of non-English-major graduate students’ learner autonomy is at medium-to-high level. Secondly, the correlation between the non-English-major graduate students’ L2 MSS and learner autonomy presents that they are positively and significantly correlated, which indicates that the higher the non-English-major graduate students’ L2 MSS is, the more autonomous their English learning will be. Among the three dimensions of L2 MSS, correlation degree between L2 learning experience and learner autonomy is the highest.On the basis of the major findings, the pedagogical implications for fostering the non-English-major graduate students’ L2 MSS and learner autonomy are given. Finally, the limitations of the study are provided and some suggestions for further studies are also proposed.