Chapter Two  Literature Review

2.1 Studies on Language Anxiety

2.1.1 Brief Overview of Language Anxiety

Foreign language anxiety is one of the complicated mental phenomena in language learning. It is difficult to give a specific definition to the word anxiety as anxiety is an unreasonable thought, which is a kind of inconspicuous fear in a certain worry condition, especially when an object feels uneasy, unconfident and fearful (Scovel, 1978, p. 130). Maclntyre and Gardner (1991) pointed out that “language anxiety is experienced both by foreign and second language learners and poses potential problems, because it can interfere with the acquisition, retention and production of the new language.” (p. 86) Horwitz and Cope (1986) gave foreign language anxiety a definition as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process.”(p. 128). Maclntyre (1995) confirmed three components of foreign language anxiety: communication apprehension, fear of negative social evaluation and test anxiety.

2.1.2 Classifications of Language Anxiety

According to the previous study, different scholars have different opinions upon the classifications of language anxiety. There is a brief carding as followings.

(1) Facility anxiety and debilitating anxiety

Scovel (1978) held the view that there are two kinds of anxiety: “facility anxiety” and “debilitating anxiety”. “Facilitating anxiety is helpful for students to strengthen their language ability, gain confidence and keep them alert. Debilitating anxiety does harms to students’ performance in some ways, motivates learners to escape new learning tasks and make them feel worried.” (Wang Yu & Wang Su, 2006, p. 138)