Old speech, new voices: examining the language motivations of Portuguese learners in Macau
Date
2015
Authors
Brown, Adrian James
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University
Abstract
In the city-state of Macau, a former Portuguese colony returned to China in 1999, there are two official languages: Chinese and Portuguese. Portuguese is only spoken as a first language by only 0.7% of the population, while the great majority of other residents speak Cantonese. Mandarin (Putonghua) and English are also widely understood and used in the media, education, business and government services, with most residents multilingual to some degree. Since the 1980s, community interest in learning and continuing study in Portuguese has declined, with a preference for other languages (particularly English and Putonghua), economic changes, and anticipation of Macau's return to China all resulting in steep falls in Portuguese language enrolments over time. The additional emigration of many Portuguese speakers prior to the territory's handover has led many to predict the demise of Portuguese as a living language in Macau. Since the mid-2000s however, the University of Macau (UM) has experienced a sustained upsurge of students enrolling in Portuguese as Foreign Language (PFL) courses, both in its Bachelor program and as an Arts elective. This is particularly noteworthy given the long-term decline and stagnation of enrolments in Portuguese-instruction courses, and the low public perception of Portuguese as attested in previous studies on Macau residents' linguistic attitudes and preferences. To examine this previous unexplored trend, I conducted a questionnaire of the current cohort of undergraduate adult PFL learners at UM, Macau's sole public university. By asking students their reasons for studying Portuguese, as well as information about their language, education background and nationality, this study sought to identify what factors might be driving an upsurge in PFL enrolments. This research also aimed to identify whether language learner motivations adhere to previous understandings of language motivation, as attested in the socio-educational model (Gardner and Lambert 1972, Gardner 1985), or whether learners are driven by different reasons for learning Portuguese. The study also considered whether there are any significant learner differences among PFL students, and if so, what this means for Portuguese language policy and language maintenance efforts in the Macau context.
Description
Keywords
Portuguese language, Macau, University of Macau, Portuguese language learners, language motivation, Portuguese as a foreign language
Citation
Collections
Source
Type
Thesis (Masters sub-thesis)
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
Open Access
License Rights
DOI
10.25911/5d6e4c033c4fd