L’anxiété des langues étrangères: Étude sur les attitudes et l’usage de l’anglais chez sept Francophones

Abstract

It is in the context of the globalization of languages that this study takes place. French attitudes are analyzed by relating them to a Foreign Language Anxiety Scale created by Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope (1986) and updated for the needs of our research. Thus, three situations where contact with English takes place have been identified: school, working life and daily / private life. The goal is to identify, for each of these situations, the level of foreign language anxiety experienced by our informants. To do so, a survey was administered to eleven individuals, of whom seven were selected to participate in in-depth interviews. The study shows that a case of anxiety taking its source in a school environment is reflected later in a respondent’s professional life. It has also been noticed that a daily practice of English done by listening to media (television, music, internet, video games) has a positive effect on language learning in the long run and that its voluntary and personal aspect (not mandatory as it can be at school or at work) influences positively our respondents' attitudes towards English over the years.