Expectancy Value, Learning Purpose And Learning Behavior:the Study On Motivation In Learning Chinese As A Second Language

Motivation in learning Chinese as a second language is a very important subject in applied linguistics. Most of the studies focus on the types of purpose but ignore the deep motivation of learning. That is, where the purpose is from. According to language economists, language learning is a process of human capital investment and economic incentive is the deep motivation of language learning. Within the framework of Expectancy-Value theory of language economics and the theoretical construct of sociolinguistics, this study adopts the research methods of questionnaire and interview to examine the hypothesis that the expectancy value learners assign to Chinese is the deep motivation of learning Chinese as a second language.This study illustrates that language capital including economic capital, social capital and cultural capital constitutes learners'expectancy value of Chinese in the learning process. Through factor analysis this study finds three variables of expectancy:economic expectancy, social expectancy, cultural expectancy; four variables of purpose:living, knowing China, working, receiving education; two variables of efforts:persistency, initiative; and four variables of learning style: inputting, drilling, course, and tutor.The research has following findings:1. Regarding expectancy, social expectancy guiding is most important compared with others and Economic expectancy ranks second. Within four purposes, knowing Chinese is the most salient purpose for learning. The research also finds that half of learners assign more than one kind of expectancy value to their Chinese learning and are driven by over one purpose.2. Learners'Chinese proficiency and learning surroundings has much effect on learners'Chinese expectancy, learning purpose and behavior. Intermediate learners often experience a plateau period and their expectancy, purpose and efforts are generally lower than other learners. The review shows that China surroundings are more favorable to learning Chinese than oversea surrounding.3. The quantitative analysis in this study helps to establish a theoretical framework of learning Chinese as a second language. The study finds that learners with economic expectancy tend to have working purpose and learning Chinese by drilling style; learners with social expectancy tend to have knowing China purpose and learning Chinese by inputting and course style; learners with cultural expectancy tend to have receiving education purpose and learning Chinese by course style.To conclude, Chinese expectancy is the deep motivation of learning Chinese as a second language. Based on this conclusion, we put forward the teaching concept of CSD (Chinese for Special Domain). CSD has three domain Chinese:economic domain, social domain and cultural domain.There are following innovations in this study:1. This interdisciplinary study integrates the concept "language capital" in language economics with applied linguistics studies;2. It adopts the Expectancy-Value theory and explores Chinese expectancy's effect on learning purpose and behavior;3. It puts forward the concept of CSD which reflects learners'needs more incisively than CSP (Chinese for Special Purposes).