The relationship between demotivation and intercultural communicative competence

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between intercultural communicative competence and demotivation to learn a second language. The participants of the study included 60 Iranian EFL learners at the intermediate level of language proficiency. Data were collected through administering the intercultural communicative scale and demotivation questionnaire and also conducting interviews. Data analysis was performed by running Pearson Correlation Coefficient using SPSS 21. The results of Pearson Correlation Coefficient showed that intercultural communication competence was negatively related to demotivation. Analysis of interview data showed that participants believed in negative relationship between intercultural communication competence and demotivation. They also maintained that integrating with other cultures and communicating with people from other cultures are sources of motivation in English language learning. Based on the findings of the study, teachers are encouraged to try to develop learners’ intercultural communicative competence in an effort to reduce EFL learners’ demotivation.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
One of the important elements in learning a second language is familiarity with the culture of the language being learnt. Presumably, having awareness of the cultural differences between the first and second language can help language learners use the second language more appropriately and communicate more effectively. Motivation is also another important factor when it comes to learning another language. Learners can be motivated at the outset of their learning experience but may lose their motivation and become demotivated in the course of their learning. This study sought investigates the relationship between intercultural communicative competence and demotivation to learn a second language. The results of data analyses showed that intercultural communication competence was negatively related to demotivation. Based on the findings of the study, teachers are encouraged to try to develop learners' intercultural communicative competence in an effort to reduce EFL learners' demotivation.
Besides, the investigations on motivation reveal that a great number of ESL/EFL learners attribute their lack of success in learning English to demotivation (e.g. Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2010;Falout, Elwood, & Hood, 2009;Hu, 2011;Kim, 2009). Consequently, many researchers have sought to identify the causes of demotivation among L2 learners (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2010). Knowledge of the sources of demotivation can be of immense help in deleting the obstacles to motivation. In particular, in today's educational programs, motivation is considered as one of the learner's needs, which teachers in general and L2 teachers, in particular should accommodate in their teaching. Put it other way, keeping the learners motivated in the process of learning is essential to effective learning. As pointed out by Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), the main issue is the unfamiliarity of teachers and learners with the sources. Such familiarity can reduce the impact of demotivational factors.
In the words of Dörnyei (2001), teaching an L2 amounts to forceful incorporation of another culture into the learners' own life space. This is likely to influence the motivation of learners either positively or negatively. According to Dörnyei (2001), learners are motivated to learn an L2 in varying degrees given their perception of the target culture (Dörnyei, 2001). Considering the today's increasing internationalization, it is generally believed that learning a foreign or second language can not materialize merely through academic study. In fact, L2 learning has to do with learning a way of communicating (Zhou & Griffiths, 2011). Zhou (2011) asserts that communication in the real world is a contextualized phenomenon and as culture is considered a part of context, communication is not culture-free. Given that there is a close interrelationship between language and culture, it is impossible to separate language learning from learning about the target cultures.
Intercultural competence, defined as the capability to change one's knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors to be open and flexible to other cultures, has turned in a key issue in the globalized society the current century (Alred & Byram, 2002). Hymes (1972) coined the term communicative competence. He defined such competence as having the knowledge of both rules of grammar as well as rules of language use appropriate to a particular context. His studies clearly represented a shift of linguists' emphasis away from the investigation of language as a system in isolation to the investigation of language as communication. Intercultural competence is viewed to be a subfield of "communicative competence" (Deardorff, 2006).
According to Tesoriero (2006), given that language and culture are closely related, being communicatively competent requires that learners be interculturally competent as well. From Tesoriero's (2006) perspective, differences including values, perceptions, traditions, culture, ethnicity, social rituals, political beliefs, sexuality and religion influence people all around the world so that they interpret their surroundings according to their individual attitudes. In the view of Huang, Rayner, and Zhuang (2003), an individual who enjoys intercultural competence is able to forge relationships with individuals from various cultures; he/she can manage to solve complicated conflicts through surpassing the obstacles that arise due to cultural differences so that his/her ability to do business with counterparts from different cultures is improved. Recently, considerable research has been carried out on these differences and thanks to these studies the concept of "intercultural communicative competence" has emerged.
Marek (2009) notes in his research that L2 culture plays an important role in the process of effective L2 learning. Consequently, L2 teachers do well to cover more of the target language culture in the classroom. In fact, learners' respect for cultural differences can be greatly enhanced in the process of L2 learning in the classroom if the L2 teachers take account of culture into the language teaching process. Sebnem, Dicle, and Guldem (2009) conducted an analysis of the intercultural sensitivity levels among university students along with effect of education and intercultural experience on the development of intercultural communicative competence. The results showed that learners' respect for different cultures increases with the increased engagement in international interactions. Although many studies (e.g. José & Aguilar, 2008;Planken, van Hooft, & Korzilius, 2004;Sudhoff, 2010;Usó-Juan & Martínez -Flor, 2008;Zhou & Griffiths, 2011) have so far investigated intercultural communicative competence in the context of ELT, none of these studies has explored its relationship to demotivation. Thus, the current study in an attempt to fill the existing gap, sought to probe the relationship between demotivation and intercultural communicative competence. To this aim, the following research questions were formulated: RQ1: Is there any significant relationship between demotivation and intercultural communicative competence? RQ2: What are the perceptions of the participants towards the possible relationship between demotivation and intercultural communicative competence?

Design
The present study adopted a concurrent mixed-methods design via analyzing qualitative data in an attempt to triangulate the results gained from the quantitative phase of the study (Creswell, 2009). As Creswell (2009), maintains, mixed-methods research is: The type of research in which a researcher or team of researchers combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e.g. use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for the broad purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration. (p. 123) Accordingly, in the current study the researcher used questionnaire scores as quantitative data and semi-structured interview contents as qualitative data. It should be noted that the quantitative part of the present study constituted the main aspect. The qualitative part, in the form of analysis of interview data, had the aim of corroborating the quantitative findings. This combination has been previously employed by scholars and as asserted by Silverman (2013) has been favored by many researchers. It should also be mentioned that since the qualitative part of the study had a corroborative role, the analysis of the interview data was simply in the form of surveying the respondents' statements to examine if the Iranian EFL learners support the relationship between demotivation and intercultural communicative competence or not.

Participants
Participants of the study included 60 EFL learners at intermediate level of language proficiency in a foreign language institute in Tehran. The language institute taught general English courses to adults and young adults at various levels of language proficiency. These 60 learners were studying English courses at intermediate level of language proficiency. They were both male (12) and female (18) and within the age range of 21-28. With regard to their socio-economic background no specific information was available, but since they had enrolled at a foreign language institute at the city center they could be classified as people with average income and from middle class community. Their goals of learning of English were mainly education as they wanted to know English to be intentionally literate and perfume better in their academic and social life. The selection of the participants was based on convenient sampling from the available English language learners at intermediate level of language proficiency. Maximum care was taken to include both male and female learners with equal level of language proficiency. Their participation was voluntary after they were informed about the study and its purpose. To further ensure that participants were at equal level of language proficiency Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered and it was revealed that their scores fell within the same level of language proficiency. In other words, students had scores with the range of 28-36 which is considered intermediate level in OPT scale.

Instruments
Three quantitative scales were used in the study for measuring the variables; language proficiency, intercultural competence and demotivation. Language proficiency of the participants was assessed using OPT. In order to measure the intercultural competence, the Intercultural Communicative Scale (ICS) of Chen and Starosta (2000) was used and to measure the demotivation, demotivation questionnaire developed by Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) was employed.

Oxford placement test
OPT is an English language test that put language learners at their correct level of language proficiency. The test has been published by Oxford University Press and is widely used across the world for language placement purposes.

Intercultural Communicative Scale (ICS)
ICS contains 24 items and has a five point Likert type scaling ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) (See Appendix A). The questionnaire has been developed by Chen and Starosta (2000) and assesses the ICS from five aspects including interaction engagement, interaction confidence, the respect for cultural differences, interaction enjoyment, and interaction attentiveness. Interaction engagement deals with the commitment of individuals in sustaining an interaction and interaction confidence refers to the confidence and self-efficacy of individuals in having interaction with members of other cultures. Respect for cultural differences shows the openmindedness of individuals when encountering different cultures and interaction enjoyment shows individuals' interest in intercultural communication. Finally, interaction attentiveness is about the way people react to their interlocutors in intercultural interactions (Chen & Starosta, 2000). With regard to the validity of the scale Chen and Starosta (2000) estimated the correlation of ICS with other similar scales and reported significant relationships. In order to ensure about the reliability of the ICS, internal consistency of ICS was measured using Cronbach's Alpha, and it was found that ICS had reliability index of 0.78.

Demotivation questionnaire
The demotivation questionnaire that was used in the current study had 35 items constituting five factors; the Learning Contents and Materials, Teachers' Competence and Teaching Styles, Inadequate School Facilities, Lack of Intrinsic Motivation, Test Scores. Each item of questionnaire assessed the participants' demotivating causes on a five-point Likert Type scale (5 = true to 1 = not true). The questionnaire was developed by Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) (See Appendix B). They confirmed a five factors solution for the demotivation construct and reported Cronbach's Alpha values over 0.70 for the questionnaire. The reliability of the demotivation questionnaire was also estimated in the current study using Cronbach's Alpha formula, and it was found that demotivation questionnaire was reliable enough (α = 0.81).

Semi-structured interviews
In addition to the tools used to measure the above variables, semi-structured interviews (See Appendix C) were carried out to seek participants' perception of the relationship between demotivation and intercultural communicative competence. The interview contained three questions that targeted learner's opinions about the possible relationship between demotivation and intercultural communicative competence and the ways the two concepts are related. To address the validity of the interview questions, the researcher initially made three questions and then gave the questions to two Ph.D. holders in TEFL to be reviewed. The reviewers gave comments on the content of the questions and following that due revisions were carried out. The modified questions were also posed to five participants having similar characteristics to the main participants of the study to assure the clarity of the items. Then, based on the feedback received from these five participants, minor changes were made to the grammar and wording of the items.

Data collection
To collect the data for the current study, initially the participants of the study were selected. Sampling of the study was done through convenient sampling in which the most available language learners at intermediate level of language proficiency were selected. The selected participants took OPT to make sure that they were at intermediate level of language proficiency.
In the next phase of the study, data on intercultural communication competence and demotivation were collected by administering the ICS and demotivation questionnaire. The data collection occurred in one of the class hours and took about 30 min. With the help of administrators of the language institute, data collection was performed in one of the class sessions. Before data collection, participants were informed about the data collection procedure. Their consent for participating in the data collection was sought after ensuring the participants that all their personal data would remain confidential and used for research purpose only. Before students started the completion of ICS and demotivation questionnaire, enough guidance was given to the participants in terms of how to complete the ICS and demotivation questionnaire and what each five options of the scales meant. During the completion of the scales, the researcher was present to help the participants with any ambiguity and misunderstanding.
After language learners completed ICS and demotivation questionnaire, 10 language learners were asked to participate voluntarily and individually in a 10-minute interview. The purpose of the interview was seeking language learners' perceptions of the relationship between intercultural communication competence and demotivation.

Data analysis
In the current study, since the collected data were quantitative and qualitative, the data analysis was also two types i.e. quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data included numerical data in the form of scores obtained from administration of ICS and demotivation questionnaire. These data were analyzed using Pearson Correlation Coefficient to detect any possible relationship between intercultural communication competence and demotivation among Iranian EFL learners. To report the results of the interviews, the content analysis approach recommended by Auerbach and Silverstein (2003) were used in this study. According to Auerbach and Silverstein (2003), content analysis is the most common form of analysis for qualitative data. They further enumerate six stages including: • getting familiar with data, • coming up with initial codes, • looking for themes among codes, • reviewing the themes, • defining and labeling the themes, and • producing the final report.
The researcher and a Ph.D. holder in TEFL went through these six stages to report the interview contents. Thus, to analyze the qualitative data, the participants' answers to interview questions were carefully surveyed and content analyzed to understand how they perceived the relationship between intercultural communication competence and language learning demotivation. To ensure the reliability of theme construction, it deemed necessary to establish the reliability of the procedure. To this end, agreements and disagreements were calculated using Holsti's (1969) coefficient of reliability (C. R.), which reveals the number of agreements per total number of coding/theme decisions. The formula applied is as follows: Ole Holsti (1969)  In the codification process, the number of decisions made by rater one turned out to be 5 and for rater two it was 6 and the number of agreements was 5.
Therefore, based on the formula, the coefficient of reliability (C. R.) was calculated as The C. R. value as revealed was 0.90, which indicates excellent agreement. This number showed that the inter-rater's coding results were consistent.

Results
The purpose of the study was investigating the relationship between intercultural communication competence and language learning demotivation among Iranian EFL learners. The data on intercultural communication competence and language learning demotivation were in the form of scores indicating their degree of intercultural communication competence and language learning demotivation ( Table 1).
In ICS, language learners scored 72.70 (SD = 8.13) while in demotivation scale, they scored 62.28 (SD = 9.41). Both of the two sets of scores were normally distributed as indicated by Kolmogorov Smirnov test of normality (P > 0.05). In the next step, to estimate the correlation between intercultural communicative competence and demotivation, results of Pearson Correlation Coefficient was consulted ( Table 2).
Based on the results of Pearson correlation it was found that intercultural communication competence and demotivation were significantly but negatively related (ƿ = −0.67, p = 0.00). This means that people with high competence in intercultural communication are less demotivated to learn English and vice versa.
The results of qualitative analysis of participants' answers to the interview questions were in line with the results of quantitative analysis (negative relationship between intercultural communication competence and demotivation). After analyzing the participants' answers to the interview questions, it was revealed that they mainly believed that a person who is more competence in intercultural communication would be less demotivated to learn English as a foreign language. When asked why they thought so, they expressed two main reasons. One of the reasons was that a person with intercultural competence is interested in intercultural communication. This interest means that such a person is motivated to learn English as an international and intercultural language. Another reason was that if a person is demotivated to learn a language, such a person would never attain a good level of intercultural communication competence. Because it is through learning language that people learn how to speak and behave culturally appropriate. The participants' answers to the question why intercultural communication competence and language learning demotivation are related can be summarized in the following statements: • Interest to other cultures is one of the motivating factors to learn an international language like English.
• Some people like to be a member of international community and this causes more motivation to learn English.
• Many Iranians are fond of western culture which can be a source of motivation to learn English.
• Some people like to act and behave like European and Americans and this means more motivation to learn English.
As it is evident in the above depictions of the relationship between intercultural communication competence and motivation, intercultural communication competence has been associate with more

Discussion
The results of the study indicated that intercultural communication competence and language learning demotivation has a negative relationship among Iranian EFL learners. It was also revealed that Iranian EFL learners had the perceptions that the relationship between intercultural communication competence and language learning demotivation in negative.
The fact that intercultural communication competence was negatively correlated with language learning demotivation was quite line with initial exceptions at the outset of the study. In other words, the hypothesis that intercultural communication competence would be in negative relationship with demotivation was supported by the results of the study. Such negative relationship can be explained by the theoretical definition of intercultural communication competence and demotivation.
As Tesoriero (2006) maintains language and culture are closely inter-related and any factor pertinent to culture might bear relevance to language learning. Evidently, one of the crucial factors in language learning is motivation (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011), and thus it can be inferred that the darker side of motivation i.e. demotivation has a relationship to cultural elements inherent in the process of language learning. Therefore, intercultural competence which can be a positive attribute for language learners can be related to demotivation. In the definition of intercultural communication competence, a desire to start and sustain an effective communication with individuals from other culture is implied. Such desires require sensitivity to cultural differences and having the intention to respect and integrate with other cultures. Ameli and Molaei (2012) maintain that intercultural sensitivity is one of the essential requirements of successful communication in multicultural environment. On the other hand, demotivation means loss of interest in sustaining second language learning efforts (Dörnyei, 2001) due to many reasons which could be social and cultural. As Huang et al. (2003) assert an individual who enjoys intercultural competence is able to forge relationships with individuals from various cultures which can consequently enhance learners' motivation to learn another language and feel less demotivated.
Lack of cultural understanding and cultural information can also be regarded as the connecting point between demotivation and intercultural communication competence. Chi and Suthers (2015) explain that close ties between members of various culture is the key to cultural information and intercultural communication. A person who is demotivated to learn a second language would experience less communication with other cultures and would learn less about the cultural norms of the target community. Therefore, demotivation means less communication and less communication means less knowledge about other culture which consequently leads to less intercultural communication competence.
The negative relationship between intercultural communication competence and demotivation can also be explained from the willingness to communicate perspective. One of the concepts that is closely related to motivation in second language learning is willingness to communicate. Willingness to communicate is defined as the desire and interest of people in having interaction and communication (McCroskey, 1992;McCroskey & Richmond, 1990;Zakahi & McCroskey, 1989) and studies show that willingness to communicate is significantly related to attitudes toward international community (e.g. Asmali, 2016;Ghonsooly, Khajavy, & Asadpour, 2012). Ghonsooly et al. (2012) studied the construct of WTC and its variables in an EFL setting in Iran and found that L2 self-confidence and attitudes toward international community predicted L2 WTC. Asmali (2016) also conducted a similar study in Turkish context of EFL and found that attitude toward international community, their motivation to learn English, and their confidence in English communication had significant and positive effect on their willingness to communicate in English. Such studies imply that lack of motivation would be related to lack of willingness to communicate. Such lack of willingness to communicate can consequently lead to a lack of competence in intercultural competence. In other words, without having desire to communicate and practicing communication, there is little chance of developing intercultural communication.
Thus, it can be inferred that demotivation is negatively related to intercultural communicative competence and on the other hand motivation can have positive associations to intercultural competence. For instance, Integrative motivation has long been mentioned as one of the aspects of motivation to learn a second language in which learners are motivated to learn a second language because they intend to integrate with target language culture and community (Dörnyei, 2001). This partly indicates that a lack of interest to welcome other cultures could cause less intercultural competence. Although integrative motivation is not the only factor explaining learners' interest in learning a second language, it can to some extent explain that lack of interest in other cultures (mainly western culture) may cause less motivation and also less intercultural communication competence.

Conclusion
The study found that intercultural communication and demotivation to learn a second language was negatively related. Furthermore, it was revealed that students had the perceptions that intercultural communication and demotivation are negatively related. They believed that interest in other cultures is a source of motivation and many Iranians like to integrate with international community and western culture. The negative relationship between intercultural communication and demotivation could be justified by making references to theories of motivation, demotivation, and intercultural communication competence. By surveying the theories, it was hypothesized that integrative motivation is the connecting point linking intercultural communication and demotivation. To put it another way, lack of intercultural communication competence may mean lack of integrative motivation that would lead to demotivation in language learning. In addition, some