CAREER ASPIRATIONS AND LANGUAGE LEARNING MOTIVATION: HOW VIETNAMESE LAW STUDENTS PERCEIVE LEGAL ENGLISH

The present study examines how Vietnamese law students perceive Legal English in relation to their career aspirations, and how far career-related motivational dimensions relate to their intended learning effort. Framed by the L2 Motivational Self System and complemented by the notion of career instrumentality, the study adopts an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected through a bilingual questionnaire administered to 72 law students at a private university in Ho Chi Minh City, and qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with seven purposively selected participants. Descriptive analyses revealed moderately high endorsement across all six motivational constructs, with career instrumentality receiving the strongest support (M = 3.85, SD = 1.11) and attitudes towards Legal English closely following (M = 3.65, SD = 1.15). Reliability coefficients were consistently high (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87 to 0.97). Correlational analyses indicated that both the Ideal L2 Self (r = 0.87) and career instrumentality (r = 0.85) were strongly associated with intended learning effort, with the L2 learning experience and attitudes also emerging as powerful correlates. Interview data corroborated and enriched these patterns: participants construed Legal English less as an obligation than as a passport to internationally oriented legal work, whilst identifying dense terminology, rigid syntax, and the perceived remoteness of authentic professional exposure as principal demotivators. The findings support the extension of the L2 Motivational Self System to specialised ESP settings and suggest that pedagogic designs foregrounding authentic, career-embedded tasks are likely to sustain engagement in Legal English courses.