A Comparative Study On L2 Motivational Self System Between EGP And ESP Learners

Motivation plays an important role in L2 learning and can exert positive effects on L2 learning.Therefore,the study of students' motivation is an important research topic in the field of second language acquisition.D?rnyei's L2 Motivational Self System(L2MSS)is a relatively new second language motivation theory,consisting of three components,ideal L2 self(IL2S),ought-to L2 self(OL2S)and second language learning experience(SLLE).Despite many theoretical and empirical studies on L2 MSS at home and abroad,in the previous studies,the researchers did not notice the diversity of English.They mainly studied the L2 MSS of students who learned English for General Purposes(EGP)and did not study the L2 MSS of students who learned English for Specific Purposes(ESP).In fact,ESP has become an important part of college English teaching.Therefore,it is necessary to compare the English learners' L2 MSS between EGP learners and ESP learners.Under the framework of L2 MSS,this study attempts to address the following two research questions:(1)What is the overall situation of students' L2 MSS when they learn EGP and ESP respectively?(2)Are there any differences in students' three components of L2 MSS when they learn EGP and ESP? If there are any differences or if there are not,what are the reasons?This study uses quantitative method and qualitative method,two questionnaires aiming at 251 civil aviation majors and a semi-structured interview aiming at 12 students.This study firstly conducts a descriptive analysis to get the general situation of students' L2 MSS when they learn EGP and ESP respectively.Then paired samples t-test is done to test whether there are differences in students' three components of L2 MSS when they learn EGP and ESP.Lastly,the reasons for the significant difference and insignificant difference in students' L2 MSS when they take different English courses are analyzed in quantitative and qualitative ways.According to the results of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews,some findings are summarized as follows:(1)when students study EGP,their IL2 S self(3.72)is the highest,and SLLE(3.35)ranks second and OL2S(3.29)is the lowest;when students study ESP,SLLE(3.72)is the highest,IL2S(3.68)ranks second and OL2S(3.29)takes the third place;(2)when students learn EGP and ESP,their IL2 S and OL2 S have no significant difference and their SLLE has significant difference;(3)as for the factors that affect the three components of L2 MSS,after the ESP learning,the influence of international posture on IL2 S increases,and that of integrativeness decreases and instrumentality-promotion is almost the same,so their IL2 S does not have significant difference;the influence of international posture on OL2 S increases,and that of family and instrumentality-prevention decreases and milieu has no influence,so their OL2 S does not have significant difference;the reason for the significant difference in students' SLLE is the increase of their self-confidence because of different teachers,teaching materials and learning environment.According to these findings,some teaching implications are obtained.Firstly,for the great promotional role of IL2 S,teachers should help students build a vivid and specific IL2 S no matter what kind of English they study.Secondly,students' OL2 S should be further increased.Teachers should try to develop their international posture in the EGP class.In the ESP class,teachers should increase the influence of instrumentality-prevention and family on OL2 S.Thirdly,teachers should take some actions such as change teaching methods and increase students' self-confidence to improve their SLLE in the EGP class.