The conventional psycholinguistic views of a strictly cognitive nature are reductive with respect to the complexity of the learning process. In language learning, motivation is viewed variously: (1) as a co-essential and equally powerful factor with linguistic aptitude and personality traits; (2) as arising from interaction between organism and environment; (3) as either inchoactive or derivational in nature; and (4) as either intrinsic or extrinsic. Other differences in motivation are contextual. Attitude is a context-generated motivational factor. Motivation and attitudes in second language learning have been examined from a psycholinguistic perspective, including the relationship of language attitude and aptitude, social psychological factors, and interlinguistic situations of diglossia and/or bilingualism. Empirical data point to the socio-genetic character of attitude in second language learning and to the importance of psychoeducational strategies aimed at developing appropriate attitudes toward the foreign language to be studied. Attitudes toward a language as the object of study are not inborn, but derive from social factors, mediated by states of the interacting organism, which together condition dispositional sets of a cognitive-affective nature toward given cultures and their information transmission systems. Therefore, developing sound attitudes is the first step toward achievement of bilingualism. (MSE)