Language enjoyment and emotional engagement: are they distinct or congruent constructs?

Abstract

Emotional engagement and foreign language enjoyment are two widely studied affective constructs in second language acquisition (SLA) research, yet their empirical distinctiveness has never been formally tested. Substantial item-level overlap between their measurement instruments and consistently high inter-construct correlations raise the possibility of a jangle fallacy: two different labels applied to the same underlying construct. This study subjected both constructs to rigorous psychometric scrutiny using longitudinal data collected from 122 undergraduates at three time points across a second language (L2) semester. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were employed to assess discriminant validity. CFA yielded high latent correlations between the two factors at all three time points (mean r = 0.76), and fit indices indicated residual misfit that post hoc modifications could not resolve. EFA produced a unidimensional solution at Time 1 and an unstable two-factor structure across waves. Together, these results indicate that the existing instruments do not permit reliable empirical separation of emotional engagement from enjoyment. The findings challenge the treatment of enjoyment as a predictor of emotional engagement, suggest that this relationship may reflect within-construct redundancy, and call for the development of measurement tools that more precisely delineate the boundaries of each construct.