The paper presents a comprehensive summary of recent research on attitudes in foreign language instruction, discusses it in the light of four functions generally thought of as being characteristic of attitudes, and comments on the usefulness of the attitude concept in foreign language education. Research on attitudes is presented on several dimensions, viz. parental and peer group relations with learner attitudes; student perceptions of the foreign language and culture, of himself as a learner, and of the learning environment (course, teacher, and classroom atmosphers). Attitudes are assigned four groups of functions, viz. the instrumental, adjustive or utilitarian function, the ego-defensive function, the value-expressive function, and the knowledge function. (Author)