The influence of psychological network on the willingness to communicate in a second language.

Emmanuel Manalo,Takehiko Ito

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0256644

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of the psychological network on the willingness to communicate in English among Japanese people. Previous studies have shown that psychological factors affect the willingness to communicate in English for Japanese people. However, the network structure of psychological factors and their effects have not been revealed yet. The present study conducted a network analysis with 644 Japanese people. Consequently, the edge between perceived communication competence and the willingness to communicate in the first or second language was very strong. Node centrality strength showed that these factors were central in the network structure. The results of the network analysis show the effect of psychological networks on the willingness to communicate in a second language, which will be beneficial for language education.

Highlights

Many studies have addressed the psychological processes that shape communication attitudes toward second languages; they first focused on Canadians [1, 2]
Before conducting the network analysis, we performed hierarchical multiple regression analysis to examine the effects of psychological factors on the willingness to communicate (WTC) in English (Table 2)
Before conducting the network analysis, the regression analysis of psychological factors on the WTC in English revealed that the effect of perceived communication competence in English was the strongest for the WTC in English, which is consistent with previous studies [22]

Summary

Introduction

Many studies have addressed the psychological processes that shape communication attitudes toward second languages; they first focused on Canadians [1, 2]. Researchers have proposed the willingness to communicate (WTC) as a positive attitude toward language communication [2]. Positive correlations between the WTC and the frequency of communication in a second language have been reported [1, 6]. Previous studies have not examined the network structure of psychological factors and their effect on the WTC. This study conducted a network analysis to examine the network structure of psychological factors. The position of the nodes in the network is based on an algorithm that makes strongly correlated factors cluster in the middle, while factors with weaker connections to other factors go to the periphery [8]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion