Zoltan Dornyei, e.g., works at a university in Hungary; and is writing in a
foreign language. This may partly explain why the only criticisms of other positions in
his article are indirect, as in the following example:
"In the latter half of the 1980s, researchers at Nijmegen
University (Netherlands) criticised the existing typologies of CSs as being product
oriented, focusing on the surface structures of underlying psychological processes and
thus resulting in a proliferation of different strategies of ambiguous validity
(Kellerman, 1991; Poulisse, 1987; see also Cook, 1993)". (Dornyei, 1995: 57)
Bonny Norton Pierce is a teacher committed to change in teaching and research
practices in language teaching. One of her concerns is to 'problematise dominant social
psychological concepts of motivation in second language acquisition' (SLA). Here she see
problems with the widely-admired work of Gardner & Lambert:
"The work of Gardner and Lambert (1972) and Gardner (1985) has
been particularly influential in introducing the notions of instrumental and integrative
motivation into the field of SLA..... Such conceptions of motivation, which are dominant
in the field of SLA, do not capture the complex relationship between relations of power,
identity, and language learning that I have been investigating in my study of immigrant
women". (Pierce, 1995: 16-17)
Notes
Pierce concedes the influence of Gardner & Lambert, but suggests
their approach fails as a model for her work. We often use the connectors 'however'
or 'although' to concede a point, as in the example below: (see Language Delicacy material for more on this):
"Although Henderson (1969) claims that universities protect
stability in society, recent social unrest in China, Burma, and South Korea is clearly a
result of student activity."
In the next section (How & when) we will see how we can distinguish between less important acknowledgments and those which form an essential part of your work.
Last updated 28 October 2002