摘要：This is a report of a critical analysis of one aspect of Gardner's theory of attitudes and motivation. The analysis examines a few pieces of discourse produced by Gardner and his associates on the topic of learning and teaching goals in that theory. Looked at from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, the theory is found to be problematic at least as far as the discourses on its learning and teaching goals are concerned. More specifically, the discourses on the topic assume a great deal of ideological slanting in the sense that they typically involve the superiority of the second language community and the things associated with it but the inferiority of the first language community and the things associated with it. This ideology, whose main axis is the second or foreign language group's values, culture, etc., is termed here as 'xenocentrism'.
