Chapter 1 Motivation, Language Identities and the L2 Self: A Theoretical Overview EMA USHIODA and ZOLTA ´ N DO ¨ RNYEI Introduction: Why a New Book on L2 Motivation Now? As Pit Corder famously put it some 40 years ago, ‘given motivation, it is inevitable that a human being will learn a second language if he is exposed to the language data’ [italics original] (Corder, 1967: 164). Since then, of course, we have witnessed a vast amount of theoretical discussion and research examining the complex nature of language learning motivation and its role in the process of SLA. At the same time, during the latter decades of the 20th century and the first decade of this century, we have also witnessed the phenomena of globalisation, the fall of communism and European reconfiguration, widespread political and economic migration, increased mobility with the rise of budget airlines, ever-developing media technologies and electronic discourse commu- nities Á all contributing in one way or another to the inexorable spread of ‘global English’, the growth of World English varieties, and repercus- sions for the loss or maintenance of various national, local or heritage languages. In short, over the past decades the world traversed by the L2 learner has changed dramatically Á it is now increasingly characterised by linguistic and sociocultural diversity and fluidity, where language use, ethnicity, identity and hybridity have become complex topical issues and the subject of significant attention in sociolinguistic research. Yet, surprisingly perhaps, it is only within the last few years that those of us working in the L2 motivation field have really begun to examine what this changing global reality might mean for how we theorise the motivation to learn another language, and how we theorise the motiva- tion to learn Global English as target language for people aspiring to acquire global identity in particular. Put simply, L2 motivation is currently in the process of being radically reconceptualised and re- theorised in the context of contemporary notions of self and identity. This volume brings together the first comprehensive anthology of key conceptual and empirical papers that mark this important paradigmatic shift. 1