meaning - Is "Motivate your answer" correct English?


Me and a friend were having an argument recently over "Motivate your answer". He said this:



see it like this, motivate = force that drives you, okay? motivate your choices = arguments you considered that have driven you towards that choice



So it appears to be a more literal translation, like:



Give reason to your answer.



Is this the case, or is just simply wrong?



Answer



I would probably go for "justify" your answer with the meaning of "give reasons for your answer". However, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary states that "motivate" has precisely this meaning in formal South African English, so perhaps it is the same elsewhere too.


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