Comment on Ambivalence About Communicating in a Second Language： A Qualitative Study of French Immersion Students’ Willingness to Communicate

This is a brief comment on the study done by Peter D. Macintyre， Carolyn Burns， and Alison Jessome in Ambivalence About Communicating in a Second Language： A Qualitative Study of French Immersion Students Willingness to Communicate published in The Modern Language Journal， 95， I， （2011）. The study investigates that under which circumstances French immersion students are most willing or least willing to communicate in French. The study was conducted over a 6-week period. At the beginning， students completed a questionnaire， which included information on the students linguistic background and their frequency of communicating in French. They were asked to provide up to six situations in which they were most willing to communicate in French and six in which they were least willing. Responses were written in a specially formatted 8.5*11-inch spiral-bound diary. They held the diaries for 6 weeks but were not obligated to write something every week. In each diary entry， students were asked to describe with whom they were conversing， where the conversation took place， and how they felt about the experience. These questions were presented in English. The diary entries were grouped into major themes. The researchers used qualitative analysis to understand the psychological processes underlying the diary entries by referring originally to WTC （willingness to communicate） pyramid model. Thus， the data yielded by the study are subjective to qualitative analysis， which provides a window into personal， social， and situational experiences that drive or inhibit WTC.

I was deeply impressed by the way in which the researchers dealt with the unexpected finding that the situations in which learners were most willing to communicate are not radically different from those in which they were least willing. The researchers attempted to analyze the data by using the pyramid model to organize the entries and interpret the themes written by the students. When the researchers came to the point where there is similarity between situations in which learners are most willing to communicate and situations in which they are least willing to communicate， they carefully handle the unexpected results. And that is of great interest to us who are interested in research methodology as the researchers did not gloss over the interpretive problems associated with the unexpected outcomes of the study. They integrate the results and discussion of the data for WTC and UnWTC to highlight the sometimes subtle differences between a context that increases and one that decreases WTC by using WTC pyramid model and self-determination theory.

Under the framework of WTC pyramid model and self-determination theory， the researchers operationalized the key construct—willingness to communicate （WTC） by asking the immersion students to write down journals describing situations in which they were most willing to communicate and situations in which they were least willing to communicate， and more specifically， with whom and where the communication or no communication took place. Thus， the researchers applied qualitative analysis of the data， and as a result， this made the study lack external validity. The external validity may have been strengthened by supplementing the quantitative data， such as the frequency of L2 encounters or the typicality of the experiences among immersion students， which is easier said than done.

作者简介：易妹（1988-），女，湖南岳阳人，硕士，助教，研究方向：跨文化交际。