Ego‐Attitudes in Second Language Learning: an analysis of sex‐related differences

Abstract

Using a pool of items collected from the free expression of a sample of the population studied, factor analysis revealed five distinct aspects of the ego-attitudes of adolescent bilinguals of Asian origin living in and around London. These factors comprised anxiety about the self-image when using English; appreciation of the use of English in the community; the suitability of English in praying; perception of interest in the use of English at home and an 'own-language factor'. These constituted the 'Linguistic Self-Concept Inventory'. An additional 'Linguistic Motivation Scale' was shown to be factorially distinct from these measures. The relationships between scores on these ego-attitude factors and a range of cognitive, social and personality variables, together with the use of 'judges' in constructing the attitude scales provide them with validity. The reliabilities are also satisfactory for attitude scales. There are a considerable number of sex differences among the correlates of the attitude measures. These present a complex picture in which the same attitude is positively related to different levels of cognitive capacity, social and personality measures in the two sexes. This leads to implications for teaching English to this class of second language learners.