My dissertation investigates second-language learning (L2) motivation among language revitalization practitioners. For this research, I interviewed 28 practitioners who are working to revitalize seven Indigenous languages of the US and one heritage language of Singapore. I also analyzed qualitative text responses to the Global Survey of Revitalization Efforts (Peréz Báez et al., 2019).

I found three key themes in L2 motivation among these practitioners:

• Theme 1: Goals – that is, practitioners articulated a range of goals for their practice, that included language proficiency but also included other kinds of social, emotional, and spiritual goals.
• Theme 2: Relationships – that is, even though L2 motivation is a component of an individual’s language learning experience, practitioners described how relationships with family, with the language community, and with other learners are critical.
• Theme 3: Time – that is, practitioners described how language revitalization requires a long time commitment, and motivation inevitably ebbs and flows over time; they also describe how they are oriented both towards the past and the future in their work.

On the pages for each of these themes, you can see presentations I have made about each of these themes. You can also visit this page about how I conducted the research for this project.

Here are some additional resources to find out more about this project:

• On April 22, 2022, I gave a colloquium to the University of Oregon Department of Linguistics highlighting themes in this research that relate to Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self-System. Here are the slides for that talk: L2 Motivational Self in LR Practice – UO Colloquium Spring 2022 slides and here are the references: L2 Motivational Self in LR Practice – references for Spring 2022 UO Colloquium
• On June 30, 2022, I successfully defended my dissertation (woohoo!) Here are the slides that I presented as a general overview of the dissertation: L2 Motivation in Language Revitalization Practice – Defense presentation 6.30
• There is a lot of literature in L2 motivation, and language revitalization is an exciting and growing area of research and practitioner literature as well. Which is all to say that, my dissertation bibliography is certainly not exhaustive! But you can see the references I used here: References – L2 Motivation in Language Revitalization Practice Taylor-Adams 2022