L2 Motivational Self System

Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS) reframes second-language motivation as a function of the learner's future self-image rather than affiliation with a target-language community. Proposed in The Psychology of the Language Learner (Dörnyei 2005, Routledge) and elaborated in Dörnyei & Ushioda's edited Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (2009, Multilingual Matters), it has become the dominant framework in L2 motivation research and one of the most heavily cited models in SLA of the last twenty years.

The three components

The system rests on a tripartite construct.

The Ideal L2 Self is the L2-specific facet of the learner's ideal self — the user of English they imagine themselves becoming. If that imagined self is vivid and the gap between current and ideal selves is felt as motivating rather than discouraging, the discrepancy generates effort. This component carries the bulk of the explanatory weight in most empirical work.

The Ought-to L2 Self captures the attributes the learner believes they ought to possess to meet others' expectations or avoid negative outcomes — parental pressure, exam requirements, professional obligation. It is more externally regulated and, consistent with Self-Determination Theory, typically predicts effort more weakly than the ideal self.

The L2 Learning Experience covers situated motives tied to the immediate environment: teacher, peer group, syllabus, materials, classroom successes. Dörnyei explicitly framed this as a different kind of construct from the two future selves, grounded in present experience rather than projection. The 2009 chapter conceded that this component was conceptually under-theorised; later work (notably Dörnyei 2019 in Theoretical Issues in Language Learning Research) attempted to recast it through engagement constructs.

Theoretical roots

The model draws explicitly from two psychological frameworks. Markus & Nurius's (1986) "Possible Selves" (American Psychologist 41/9) proposed that representations of what one might become, would like to become, and is afraid of becoming function as cognitive bridges between motivation and self-knowledge. Higgins's (1987) "Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect" (Psychological Review 94/3) distinguished actual, ideal, and ought selves and showed that discrepancies between actual and ideal produce dejection-related affect, while discrepancies between actual and ought produce agitation-related affect. Dörnyei imported both frameworks, attaching the L2 dimension to the ideal/ought distinction.

The L2MSS replaced Gardner's integrative motivation as the field's default explanatory frame. Integrativeness presupposes a clearly identifiable target-language community the learner wants to join — a model that fits Anglophone Canada (where Gardner developed it) better than the globalised English of Seoul, Tehran, or Hanoi, where learners aspire to a deterritorialised English self with no specific community to integrate into. Dörnyei argued the ideal L2 self subsumes integrativeness: what looked like wanting to join a community was really wanting to become a person who could.

Empirical support

Csizér & Dörnyei's (2005) Modern Language Journal paper used structural equation modelling on Hungarian survey data (N = 8,593 across 1993 and 1999) to show that integrativeness mediated the effects of other motivational variables on motivated behaviour, prefiguring the case for ideal-self primacy. Taguchi, Magid & Papi's (2009) chapter in Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self tested the full tripartite model in Japan (N = 1,534), China (N = 940), and Iran (N = 719). All three components predicted intended effort, with the ideal L2 self consistently the strongest predictor and instrumental motives reinterpreted as either promotion-focused (feeding the ideal self) or prevention-focused (feeding the ought-to self). Boo, Dörnyei & Ryan's (2015) review in System (vol. 55) traced 416 publications between 2005 and 2014 and documented the L2MSS as the dominant theoretical framework in the field, accounting for the largest share of empirical work.

Imagery interventions

The model carries a direct pedagogic implication: if the ideal L2 self drives effort, classroom interventions that elaborate, vivify, and stabilise that self-image should raise motivation. Magid & Chan (2012) and Sampson (2012) tested guided imagery and goal-setting routines, finding moderate gains in motivated behaviour. Hadfield & Dörnyei's Motivating Learning (2013, Routledge) translated the model into a 100-activity teacher's resource. The intervention literature is patchier than the survey literature, with effect sizes that look more modest under preregistered designs.

Critiques

Three concerns recur. First, construct overlap: the ideal L2 self correlates highly with integrativeness and with instrumental-promotion measures, raising the question of whether it is a genuinely new construct or the same variance under a new label (Lamb 2012). Second, conceptual circularity: if the ideal self is operationalised through items asking learners how they imagine using English, and motivated behaviour is operationalised through items asking how hard they intend to work, the predictive relationship may be partly tautological. Third, the L2 Learning Experience component remains theoretically undercooked relative to the two self-guides; Boo, Dörnyei & Ryan and later Al-Hoorie's (2018) meta-analysis (Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 8/4) both flag this as the model's weakest link, even while the meta-analysis confirmed moderate-to-strong effects on intended effort.

References

• Boo, Z., Dörnyei, Z. & Ryan, S. (2015). L2 motivation research 2005–2014: Understanding a publication surge and a changing landscape. System, 55, 145–157. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0346251X15001694
• Csizér, K. & Dörnyei, Z. (2005). The internal structure of language learning motivation and its relationship with language choice and learning effort. The Modern Language Journal, 89(1), 19–36. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0026-7902.2005.00263.x
• Dörnyei, Z. (2005). The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition. Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Dörnyei, Z. (2009). The L2 Motivational Self System. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (pp. 9–42). Multilingual Matters.
• Hadfield, J. & Dörnyei, Z. (2013). Motivating Learning. Routledge.
• Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–340.
• Markus, H. & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41(9), 954–969.
• Taguchi, T., Magid, M. & Papi, M. (2009). The L2 Motivational Self System among Japanese, Chinese and Iranian learners of English: A comparative study. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (pp. 66–97). Multilingual Matters.