It’s easy to talk about motivation as if it lives entirely inside learners, but this recent study, published in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, reminds us that emotions are social too. Pride, in particular, turns out to be far more than a fleeting feeling – it’s a powerful signal of identity, belonging & possibility.
The study
Sulis, Mairitsch & Mercer (2025) explored how 31 Austrian lower-secondary learners experience pride in relation to their languages & how this connects to motivation. The team worked with three English classes: one rural (linguistically homogeneous) & two urban (high linguistic diversity).
Across an academic year, students took part in five English lessons that were video-recorded for a larger project. Immediately after each lesson, they completed semi-structured interviews (in German) about their linguistic identities, emotions & motivation. In total, the dataset included around 347,000 words of interview transcripts.
The researchers used inductive coding to identify patterns in how learners talked about pride: pride in specific languages (home languages, German, English) & pride in being multilingual more broadly.
The findings
Two distinct forms of pride emerged:
1. Pride in specific languages
This included pride in:
- Home languages: 14 students felt strong pride in maintaining their heritage languages. This was often tied to identity (“I have to know Arabic, it’s my mother tongue”) & to being one of the few who spoke that language in school.
- English: 26 students felt proud when they used English successfully, especially when teachers recognised their efforts. Real-world use (helping family, talking privately with siblings) amplified this pride.
- German: 11 multilingual students felt proud of mastering German, especially when it allowed them to support family members.
Across all three, external recognition – from teachers, peers, family – was a major driver of pride.
2. Pride in being multilingual
Fourteen students expressed pride in their overall linguistic repertoire. This was shaped by:
- Social comparison (e.g. “my *Language Silhouette had four colours, my friends had two”)
- Recognition from others (e.g. visitors from the US praising multilingualism)
- A sense of identity as someone who moves confidently across languages
But 10 students did not feel multilingual pride, often because they didn’t see themselves as multilingual (“three languages isn’t that many”) or because no one had ever acknowledged their multilingualism.
Pride & motivation
The relationship wasn’t linear, but several patterns stood out:
- Pride in a specific language often increased motivation to improve that language (e.g. heritage language writing, English proficiency).
- Pride in being multilingual sometimes acted as a catalyst for wanting to learn more languages (“I just want to speak a lot of languages that not everyone can speak”).
- Linguistic diversity in learners’ environments shaped motivation: students in urban schools were far more likely to want to learn additional languages, including lower-status ones like Bosnian, Turkish or Arabic.
- Beliefs about multilingualism mattered: some students didn’t feel multilingual yet but were highly motivated to “become multilingual” in the future.
These findings echo work on multilingual identity (e.g. Forbes et al. 2021) & the multilingual motivational self (Henry 2017), as well as broader research on pride as a driver of sustained effort (Williams & DeSteno 2008; Weidman et al. 2015).
Teacher takeaways?
- Create moments where learners’ languages are seen & heard. Even brief recognition can strengthen identity & motivation.
- Have your learners create a *Language Silhouette or Language Portrait. It makes an interesting talking point.
- Offer structured opportunities for learners to use their languages meaningfully (e.g. peer support, translanguaging tasks), which can spark pride & agency.
How do you nurture pride in your learners’ languages & identities?
Leave a Reply