Undergraduate students' motivation to learn and attitudes towards English in multilingual Pakistan: A look at shifts in English as a world language

We investigated undergraduate students' motivation to learn English in Pakistan using Dornyei's (2009) L2 Motivational Self System as the theoretical framework. We additionally investigated the attitudes of the participants, and how they felt about the status of English as the official language of Pakistan and as the medium of competitive examinations. We did this because attitude is part of Dornyei's (2003) choice motivation, and choice motivation helps explain why a person begins and then sustains language learning. The participants were undergraduate students in three public universities in Pakistan. We employed mixed methods. The first author collected the motivation and attitude data by using a 54-item structured questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, and analyzed the data using descriptive and inferential statistics. The interview data was analyzed by thematic analysis. The findings suggest that the participants reported Attitudes to Learning English, Ought-to L2 self, International Posture, Instrumentality-promotion, Milieu, Ideal L2 Self, and Instrumentality-prevention as the most important motivational factors for learning English in Pakistan. The results indicate that Dornyei's (2009) L2 Motivational Self System is valid in the English-language learning context of Pakistan. The participants mostly favored English as the official language of Pakistan and as the medium of competitive examinations. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.