Examining the motivational development of Japanese language learners, Language Acquisition and the Multilingual Ideal investigates the relationship between their future self-images as Japanese speakers and their broader self-images as multilingual individuals.
Through longitudinal investigation and comparisons of two groups of learners, one from Australia, an English-speaking country where Japanese is the most widely studied language, and the other from South Korea, this book studies various aspects of Japanese language learnersโ motivation. Questioning how motivation is influenced both by native languages and by the other languages which learners speak or study, Toshiyuki Nakamura uses dynamic systems theory (DST) to uncover how knowledge of English in these different contexts motivates the learning of Japanese. Employing the concept of โdomain of possible selvesโ as an analytical framework, Language Acquisition and the Multilingual Ideal also provides a detailed description of the development of the learnersโ visions of themselves as users of Japanese and uncovers various aspects of Japanese language learnersโ L2 self and the dynamic relationship between the different L2 selves within a learner.