Small Pieces in a Social Innovation Puzzle? Exploring the Motivations of Minority Language Users

This chapter explores the interactions of 20 individual minority language users in social media. It queries how they are motivated to communicate in these languages, and to what extent their motivations are ideological. Drawing on theories of innovation and psychology, three categories of motivations are established: intrinsic, self-determined extrinsic, and externally-determined extrinsic motivations. Practices driven by self-determined extrinsic motivations were most directly aimed at protecting or promoting minority languages. The other categories of motivations drove a range of relevant practices, although some participants explicitly denied language-ideological goals. The chapter contributes to a theoretical understanding of how motivations can interrelate with specific contexts to produce socially innovative outcomes.