acher-specific factors that are correlated with their FLE. Most likely, teachers andstudents could have different perceptions.
The present study, is designed to study the teacher-related factors underlyingChinese junior high school students’ foreign language enjoyment using focused essayand interview.
Chapter 2 Literature Review and Theoretical Bases
2.1.1 Emotion and Positive Emotions
It is not an easy thing to define emotion, despite the fact that it is a very commonconcept. The reason is that a consensus concerning its definition across different fieldsof study, such as philosophy, psychology and anthropology, is very hard to reach.Moreover, MacIntyre and Gregersen (2012) hold that the process of defining theconcept is usually trapped in a circular fashion in which emotions are depicted asfeelings that are explained as states of emotion. Reeve (2005) has offered a definitionconsisting of four components, according to which “Emotions are short-lived,feeling-arousal-purposive-expressive phenomena that help us adapt to theopportunities and challenges we face during important life events.” This definitionimplies that emotion is certainly a multi-faceted construct encompassing not onlyphysiological, affective, but also behavioral and cognitive dimensions.
There has been a wide acknowledgement with regard to the value of emotion inlanguage learning (E.g. Méndez Lopez & Pea Aguilar, 2013). Nevertheless, as held byDörnyei and Ryan (2015), the role that emotion plays still remains underestimated onaccount of the cognitive convention that has been so strong in SLA. As a matter offact, emotions can pose a substantially significant impact on an individual’s languagelearning and target language performance not merely through the employment ofcognitive resources and the regulation of processes, but also through the arousal andmaintenance of his/her interest in learning and the application of modes ofinformation processing. Additionally, emotions can also function to promote an individual’s participation and self-regulation in learning (Schumann, 1994). Just asReeve (2005) has put it, motion gets involved in almost everything human beings do.Therefore, emotion merits a great amount of research attention.
2.2 Theoretical Foundations
The theoretical foundations of the present study are made up of bothBroaden-and-build Theory and Control-value Theory, which are to be elucidated inthe following section.
2.2.1 Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-build Theory
Broaden-and-build Theory was established by Fredrickson (1998) who hasclarified the form and function of positive emotions that are greatly different from thatof negative emotions. Fredrickson (2001) further argues that positive emotions, suchas contentment, interest, joy, love and pride, all are capable of broadening people’smoment-to-moment repertories of thought-action and build their lasting resources forthe future which range from intellectual and physical resources to psychological andsocial resources. With regard to the first function, Fredrickson did some conceptualanalyses of a series of positive emotions to support the view that they can widen a bignumber of thoughts and actions that have come to the mind. Specifically, joystimulates the desire to play, interest arouses the motive to explore, contentmentignites the urge to savor and integrate, pride kindles the wish to share accomplishmentwith others and envision more extraordinary achievements in the future. Finally, lovestarts a recurrent cycle of these urges within intimate and secure relationships(Fredrickson, 2004).
Moreover, the broadened mindsets built by positive emotions will in turn createpeople’s lasting personal resources which can be applied in to subsequent occasionsand different emotional states in order to increase the likelihood of success in copingwith different situations for the ultimate survival purpose. An individual with theexperience of these positive emotions can more easily achieve self-transformation andbecom
