Motivations to learn Catalan outside the Catalan-speaking community: factors and affecting variables

While research on motivation has attracted a great deal of attention in relationship with L2 success, studies dealing with motivation on Languages Other than English and, particularly, on regional languages is scarce [Dörnyei, Z., & Al-Hoorie, A. H. (2017). The motivational foundation of learning languages other than global English: Theoretical issues and research directions. Modern Language Journal, 101(3), 455–468. https://doi-org.are.uab.cat/10.1111/modl.12408]. This study examines the factors accounting for Ln Catalan students’ motivation outside the Catalan-speaking area, and analyses how these factors are affected by demographic, academic, and linguistic variables as well as by the level of contact with the L2 community. University students (N = 194) from four universities in China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States completed an online questionnaire containing 49 motivational items and 12 questions about their profile and background information. Four factors explained variance accounting for Ln Catalan students’ motivation. While factor 1 Ln Academic Experience and Use of the Language is only affected by gender, more significant differences were found for factor 2 Emigration Plans in a Catalan-speaking region and Language Awareness, factor 3 Contextual motivation, and factor 4 Work in relation to university of origin and contact with the Ln community, among other variables.