LANGUAGE LEARNING BELIEFS AND MOTIVATIONS OF MINORITY BILINGUALS
Abstract
The study of language learning beliefs represents one of the fast developing field of bilingual and multilingual researches. Language learning beliefs, as personal myths, help researchers to investigate „motivational transformation episodes” (Dörnyei 2006, 52). These beliefs play a decisive role in the success of language learning. The present study is based on the analysis of 12 interviews carried out at two Romanian universities with minority Hungarian students. The narratives present those continuous changes which characterize not only the differences between two learners but between the language learning processes of the same learner. The beliefs are linked to certain languages and language learning processes and they evolve mostly independently of each other. However, there is still unknown whether beliefs determine the success or failure of language learning or language learning processes influence the development of language learning beliefs.
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