Abstract
Despite the extant literature, studies on how multilingual learners' motivations for L1, L2, and L3 co-evolve and shape a multilingual self is scant. Drawing on the L2 Motivational Self System and dynamic-ecological perspectives, we make an attempt to fill this research gap. We conceptualize motivation as emergent from interactions among ideal/ought-to selves, lived experiences, and contextual affordances. Interviews with 15 language-minority learners from Thailand, Europe, and Hong Kong reveal coupled motivational dynamics: L2 English often forms a stable attractor in high-capital ecologies (e.g., Hong Kong), while L3 (Japanese/Chinese) tends to remain vulnerable unless identity relevance, utility, and participation intensify. In Thailand, rising instrumental value of Chinese perturbs Ought-to-dominated English trajectories, enabling L3 stabilization. European learners in China face participation constraints that keep L3 Chinese peripheral despite immersion, whereas typological proximity (e.g., English-French) supports co-stability via metalinguistic transfer. We propose the Multilingual Self as a Coupled Attractor System, detailing stability gradients and capital/linguistic/participation couplings, and offer suggestions for pedagogical interventions to deepen vulnerable basins and sustain balanced multilingual development.
Keywords: Multilingual self, motivation, identity, multilingual learning