Since the participants gave their answers to the questionnaire on a 5-point Likert scale where 5 represented full agreement with the given item and 1 stood for complete disagreement, we were able to calculate descriptive statistics and make comparisons between the four subsamples.
Students were in overall agreement regarding the importance of English in the world today and its role in achieving success in their selected professions. They asserted that finding a variety of sources in English on the Internet helped them in their studies, and also that ESP was necessary for getting a good job in their respective fields.
Regarding ELF, a variety of beliefs characterize the thinking of our participants. A high level of agreement was found with the statement that their goal of learning English was to be able to make themselves understood by foreigners from any part of the world. Most students also supported the idea that the ultimate aim was to give the impression of a well-educated Hungarian who is a competent speaker of English. For these participants, developing a NS identity is definitely not on the agenda as their goal is not to learn the language so well that they would be mistaken for a NS. They seemed less certain about the norms they are following, however, and expressed only a moderate agreement with such statements as “The English I speak is neither British, nor American but an international variety.” At the same time they did not think it was ridiculous to speak English with a Hungarian accent at all. The participants expressed a moderate level of foreign language anxiety and agreed that it was easier to talk to someone in English whose mother tongue was not English either and that in NNS-NNS situations they did not worry about making mistakes so much.
The comparison of the results from the four regions shows that in the Western part of the country English plays a less important role than elsewhere, most probably due to the closeness of German speaking Austria and the intensive presence of Austrian businesses and visitors in the town. It shows that in spite of the global importance of English, local interests may require the teaching and learning of a different foreign language. On several items the participants from the East Hungarian, less dynamically developing city behaved differently, indicating that for them learning English is rather a program requirement than a self-perceived
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need or a personal desire. The students in the Budapest sample differ significantly from the other groups in their awareness of how the knowledge of English can help them in their studies by enabling them to access English language books, articles or Internet sources. For this subsample, encountering speakers of the language on a regular basis is also a matter of everyday life.
4.2 Factor analysis
In order to reduce the number of variables to be analyzed and identify latent dimensions in the dataset that might influence participants’ thinking we submitted our data to factor analysis.
The results of the exploratory factor analysis revealed a seven-factor solution (Csizér &
Kontra, in preparation-a). The emerging latent dimensions can be summarised as follows:
1. Aims and beliefs: This factor contains items measuring various beliefs and aims linked to learning the English language. The items range from how important English is in today’s world to items describing students’ aims to obtain native level knowledge as well as to use English as a knowledgeable Hungarian but not like a native speaker.
2. The latent dimension labelled English as a native language incorporates how language learning is guided by the need of reaching native competence in writing and pronunciation and to what extent participants think that one needs to talk and behave like a native speaker.
3. English for specific purposes: This factor describes how important English is for their professional lives. It contains items measuring participants’ needs for English in publishing their work, going to conferences, reading articles in English and other work-related activities.
4. As its name suggests Language use anxiety has significant loading from items measuring how anxious participants are when using English with native or non-native speakers in everyday situations.
5. ELF as an anxiety reducer: This factor summarises the answers to items measuring how using English with non-native speakers might reduce stress in different communicative situations.
6. Opinions concerning American English: A separate factor emerged describing participants’ views about American English. Items loading onto this factor measure how participants equate learning English with learning American English, American culture and pronunciation.
7. Teaching culture: This factor subsumes opinions about how teaching the English language should also mean teaching the culture of the English speaking peoples.
Based on the obtained factor structure, we can highlight some important results concerning the thinking patterns of non-language major university students. Despite the fact that no single ELF factor emerged, there are two factors that contain ELF norms and ELF-like thinking.
Participants’ language learning aims and beliefs include not only items describing ENL norms but also statements measuring language learning aims that do not approximate NS proficiency but set out to use English as a lingua franca. Another factor describing ELF-like thinking is the one labelled ELF as an anxiety reducer. It is a welcome sign that students think that using English in ELF situations might reduce the potential stress factor. On the other hand, the emergence of two different anxiety factors might also indicate that it is not entirely clear to what extent students’ anxiety might depend on whether the interlocutor is a native or
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native speaker of the English language, therefore further research is needed to find out more about the relationship between anxiety, ELF values and language use.
As for ESP use and ENL values, two clear factors emerged supporting the fact that these concepts were part of the thinking patterns of our participants. On the one hand, they are aware of the professional needs of English and the necessary ESP related use of the English language in their career and, on the other hand, they also think about English as the language of the ‘inner circle’ and in what ways they would like to use English in a way similar to NSs.
As for the two remaining factors, Opinions concerning American English and Teaching culture, further research is needed to find out how attitudes connected to the different varieties of English and issues pertaining to teaching culture in the classroom might shape participants’
thinking about ELF, ENL and ESP.
As a result of the factor analysis, we could conclude that both ELF and ENL norms were present in participants’ thinking. The fact that we had a single factor (Aims and beliefs) that contained both ELF and ENL items also showed that non-language major university students’ thinking probably cannot fully consolidate the impact of globalisation in their everyday lives and their language learning experiences in the classroom.
4.3 Results of the structural equation modelling
In order to map the internal structure of some of the most important latent dimensions in this study, we set out to employ structural equation modelling. The aim of this multivariate technique is to test cause and effect relationships in a single model. Figure 1 contains the schematic representation of the final result of our analysis.
Figure 1. The schematic representation of the final structural model (based on Csizér and Kontra in preparation-b)
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Miliő
aims and beliefs English for
specific purposes
English as a native language
ELF as anxiety reducer
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Based on the results obtained from factor analysis, it was no surprise that language learning aims and beliefs were affected by three latent dimensions: ELF as an anxiety reducer, ESP and ENL. These results further underline the fact that in today’s globalised world the thinking of ESP learners/users is shaped by a number of separate influences. As for the strength of these effects, the strongest influence on aims and beliefs is exerted by ENL, the second strongest impact is that of ELF as an anxiety reducer, and ESP has the weakest but still significant impact on language learning aims and beliefs in this study (Csizér and Kontra in preparation-b). These results indicate that the participants’ views on language learning aims and beliefs are most importantly shaped by native influences but the impact of ELF and ESP should also be taken into account.
In addition, it is important to note that both ESP and ELF anxiety reducer factors have indirect impact on language learning aims and beliefs as well. The fact that ESP exerts its influence through ENL on aims and beliefs means that these students view ESP as a further vehicle to approximate native level English. As for ELF as anxiety reducer, it seems that its role is linked to ESP use, which might indicate that students’ are aware of the non-native influence in their professional use of English. Another interesting finding is the absence of a direct (negative or positive) link between English as a native language and EFL as anxiety reducer, which clearly indicates that ELF and ENL are separate concepts in students’
thinking.
In sum, the structural equation modelling provides further support to our findings that 1) EFL, ENL and ESP are distinct concepts and should be treated as such; 2) the students in our sample do neither identify ELF as a form of ENL, nor does ENL influence their beliefs about ELF; 3) Their concepts of ELF and ENL seem to coexist in their thinking, each exerting an effect on their learning aims and beliefs separately.