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North American International Students in China: Language Learning and Identity Negotiation
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- Author / Creator
- Mao, Li
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In this study, I critically investigate the language learning experiences of North American Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) international students in China, specifically those related to their investment and identity negotiation in Chinese social networks. Adopting the theoretical core and tools of critical hermeneutics, I focus on the power dynamics that CFL learners encountered in the multi-layered social context of a Northern Chinese city. The research findings show a big gap between participantsâ vague and idealized understandings of China as imagined communities and the complexity of their actual investment beset by isolation and discrimination. In the target universities and programs, many aspects of the teaching and administrative philosophies, policies and practices were disadvantageous to the social interactions between the participants and local peers. In local communities, certain identity categories of North American CFL learners, such as mother tongue (native English speakers), race and ethnicity, and gender, brought out overt and covert othering practices towards the participants and led to the ambivalence of social privileges and vulnerabilities. Facing differentiated treatments, the participants to different extents took their personal initiative and fought for equal and full social participation. However, without sufficient and sustainable social support, agentive acts are a feeble solution to fulfill their social needs in Chinese homogeneous and hierarchical society.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- traditional Chinese learning culture
- identity negotiation
- power relationships
- language learning
- Canadian international students in China
- American international students in China
- critical hermeneutics
- investment
- CFL education in China
- Chinese as a foreign language (CFL)
- learning Chinese in China
- Chinese universities
- China as imagined communities
- study abroad in China
- racism in China
- North American international students in China
- Chinese social environment
- Chinese learning experiences of native English speakers
- gender issues in China
- international education in China
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- Graduation date
- Spring 2018
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.