Communicating in a foreign language: Its effects on perceived motivation, knowledge, and communication ability

Abstract

Attributional bias research suggests that those who find it difficult to communicate in a foreign language will explain their inability in ways that pose the least threat to a positive self image. The applicability of this reasoning to foreign language communication was tested in a two (writing in English or in a foreign language) by two (subject familiarity) factorial experiment. As expected, writing a message in a foreign language led to perceptions of reduced motivation. Participants who communicated in a foreign language about familiar others reported lower levels of perceived foreign language skill than those who communicated in a foreign language about an unfamiliar person. Participants who described unfamiliar persons in a foreign language reported greater familiarity with these persons than participants describing unfamiliar persons in English. Results support the claim that attributional biases may affect some foreign language communication tasks.