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| You wish to learn French to win at tennis? |
Bonny: French? You’re not French.
Clyde: When I play tennis with Rochefoucald, I speak French to him. He says my accent is so bad he cannot help but laugh. And when he laughs, he loses the point.
Bonny: That is your motivation for learning French?
Clyde: Mais oui. If I learn even more French, he will laugh more and I will win more often.
Bonny: But if you become good at French, you will develop a French identity. Then when you speak, Rochefoucald will not laugh, he will win the tennis and you will lose your investment.
Clyde: Then I must find a teacher to teach me bad French. Hercule Poirot? Belgian French peut-être. That is the identity I must invest in.
_________________
Voice-over
Motivation for learning a language is being tied to investing in identity. See Norton (2000).
...
Clyde: When I play tennis with Rochefoucald, I speak French to him. He says my accent is so bad he cannot help but laugh. And when he laughs, he loses the point.
Bonny: That is your motivation for learning French?
Clyde: Mais oui. If I learn even more French, he will laugh more and I will win more often.
Bonny: But if you become good at French, you will develop a French identity. Then when you speak, Rochefoucald will not laugh, he will win the tennis and you will lose your investment.
Clyde: Then I must find a teacher to teach me bad French. Hercule Poirot? Belgian French peut-être. That is the identity I must invest in.
_________________
Voice-over
Motivation for learning a language is being tied to investing in identity. See Norton (2000).
...
then, learning to ride a hog is an investment in pork bellies?
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ReplyDeleteClassic! Just as learning to garden is motivates to cook lamb (Gardner and Lambert, 1972).
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