afield of leaders”and he mentions three. So any counts of who were influ-
ential would be biased, unless the listings are weighed. Because many in-
formants did not distinguish between“leaders”and“influenced by”, and
there were such enormous differences between those who mentioned many
influences while others mentioned just a few, the data on“influenced by”are
not analyzed further.
2.10 Influence on...
The aim of this question was to see to what extent there are connections in
time between generations. While the“influenced by”reflects the past, the
“influence on”should provide a picture of who will be the next generation.
Few people were able or willing to state that they had a clear influence on
other people, apart from“my students”. Some informants, when prompted,
mentioned names of students who have become influential in the field.
Merrill Swain, for instance, said that she assumed she had had some influ-
ence on her students. She also suggested that she had influenced many
Canadian parents and educators with respect to French immersion pro-
grams. Some informants were less than reluctant to claim their impact, but
many refrained from mentioning names, and referred to the graduate stu-
dents they had supervised and what positions these had gained in academia,
e.g. Lydia White who mentioned her students Alan Juffs, Silvina Montrul
and Roumyana Slabakova, who all have been very successful academically.
Merrill Swain mentioned Roy Lyster along with a number of other students,
Theo van Els mentioned Nanna Poulissen and myself. While we typically
think of succeeding generations when it comes to“influence on”or“influ-
enced by”, there are also cases where graduate students are mentioned as an
influence, like Gisela Granena mentioned by Michael Long. In most cases
the influence was seen as mutual as mentioned by Andrea Tyler with respect
to Nick Ellis.
A database was set up to list all contacts. The databases used did not
allow me to check whether the“influence on”information was matched
by the “influenced by” information: when X mentioned having influ-
enced Y, it was not always the case that Y mentioned being influenced by
X, but this was not checked systematically. A mismatch might actually be
embarrassing.
“Influence on”appeared to have many forms. It can be based on an
exchange of ideas or books read, but also on contributions to a person’s
career, through alerting people to positions available or recommendations
for applications. A good example of this is Dick Tucker. A general Google
search reveals that many people express their gratitude to him because of his
support in their applications/projects/careers.
Some people are really modest in their assessments. Zoltán Dörnyei:
“With regard to my own influence, I suppose I have been influential in
motivation research in general.”Few would disagree.
22 The informants