Precerpt from My 20th Language: Conative Variables (Leaver)
The Role of Conative Variables in Language Learning
Textbooks often divide language learning motivation into tidy categories: intrinsic vs. extrinsic, integrative vs. instrumental, short-term vs. long-term, self-efficacy vs. obligation. The reality, however, is rarely that neat. Over a lifetime of learning—and in some cases, mastering—languages, I’ve found that my motivations were layered, situational, and constantly shifting.
The umbrella term for this drive is conative values—the will, persistence, and personal disposition that push us forward. Conative values are not fixed; they vary by language, by life stage, and by circumstance. My own language history makes this point vividly.
When I was nine, I learned Latin not because it was on any school curriculum, but because my father knew it, wanted to teach it to me, and it gave me precious time with him. My conative value here wasn’t academic ambition—it was connection. Learning Latin became a way to share his world.
At twelve, my motivation for Spanish sprang from friendship. I had a penpal in Mexico whose English was hard for me to understand. Writing back and forth, I realized I could meet her halfway by learning her language. That personal connection lit the spark.
By my first year of high school, I had the chance to take German—and I signed up simply because it was there. It was the only language the school offered that I hadn’t already studied, and I wasn’t about to let an available language slip away from me. The official reason was to fulfill a language requirement; the real reason was that I couldn’t resist adding another to my list.
Soon after, French entered my life. When Holy Rosary School, a local school for French speakers, closed, all its students transferred to my English-speaking public high school. My pride insisted I keep up with them—not academically in general, but specifically in French. This wasn’t so much “intrinsic” or “extrinsic” as it was competitive camaraderie.
My fifth language, Russian, came in my senior year of high school. I found a tutor from Latvia and began studying after school, simply because I had become enamored with languages and planned to major in linguistics. In the Cold War era, Russian also felt “cool” to learn. But it was hard—harder than anything I had studied before. My motivation to continue came from sheer tenacity. I refused to let a language defeat me. Eventually, that stubbornness reshaped my life: Russian became my primary language, I studied in Moscow, earned my doctorate there, conducted research in Siberia, and became an active participant in the professional life of Soviet—and later Russian—linguists.
Later languages came for varied reasons. Hebrew, Greek, Yiddish, and Italian? Pure fascination. Pashto, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesian, and Portuguese? Practical necessity. I needed them for work in countries where they were spoken, so I learned them to the level required by context. Georgian, Moldovan, and Czech? To show respect to people I was working with; in all cases, Russian could serve as lingua franca but that would not build the bonds that respect for the native language of my colleagues did.
Looking back, it’s clear that my motivations were never singular. They shifted with circumstances: sometimes relational, sometimes competitive, sometimes driven by curiosity, and sometimes by professional need. And often, more than one of these operated at the same time.
Classroom theory would have slotted some of these into “intrinsic” (love of learning, personal interest) and others into “extrinsic” (career requirements, social competition). But in practice, it was never that clean. My motivation for Russian, for example, began as intrinsic curiosity, became extrinsic pride, and ended up grounded in a deeply personal sense of mastery.
Conative values are, by nature, layered. They’re influenced by relationships, identity, opportunity, and even chance encounters. They’re also adaptable—able to intensify, wane, or transform depending on the learner’s goals and environment.
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