Iranian University English Learners’ Discursive Demotivation Construction

Investigating how foreign language learners’ discourse mediates their demotivation construction is a relatively new area of inquiry. This paper examined the discursive construction of four (two males and two females) Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ demotivation at Shiraz University, Iran. Employing Fairclough’s (2003) critical discourse analysis framework, the present study revealed that demotivation is not uni-dimensional and static; rather, it is complex, multi-dimensional, and dynamic, which is discursively constructed in the constant interaction between the individual and the social context. Findings also indicated that the discursive construction of demotivation involved simultaneous interaction of multiple levels of learners’ interpersonal relationships, their future self-guides, and factors in local and broader social, cultural and political milieus.