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Thai university students studying in China: Identity, imagined communities, and communities of practice

  • (Mark) Feng Teng EMAIL logo and Gavin Bui ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: October 9, 2018
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Applied Linguistics Review
From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 11 Issue 2

Abstract

Previous research on studying abroad has documented the value of exploring students’ interactions with the members of their host community with a focus on the theoretical concepts of identity, imagined communities, and communities of practice. Following this line of research, this qualitative study breaks new ground through investigating how nine Thai students studying in China navigated the complex process of identity negotiation in their imagined communities and communities of practice. This investigation revisits intercultural sensitivity, proximity and boundaries in exploring how the students’ communities of practice afforded different opportunities to demonstrate their identities. The findings reveal that the students envisioned belonging to an imagined community of foreign students in China by demonstrating the identities of cross-cultural mediators and dedicated language learners. However, the misalignment between the students’ imaginations and the realities in their host communities caused predicaments with their identity negotiation. The Thai students’ multi-layered experiences and the social contexts of Chinese language learning influenced their identities, which in turn mediated their senses of belonging to imagined communities of Chinese speakers, and their self-perceived Chinese language competencies. Relevant pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords: identity; identity negotiation; imagined community; communities of practice

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Maurice Yip’s comments on the initial draft of this paper. The authors would also like to thank the students for participating in this study, and the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments and feedback.

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Appendix: Sample questions for interview

  1. What motivates you to learn Chinese?

  2. Could you please share with us some stories or interesting experiences related to your Chinese language learning?

  3. What difficulties have you encountered for learning Chinese?

  4. What is the difference in terms of learning Chinese in Thailand and China?

  5. Could you please share with us some interesting stories happened to you after coming to China?

  6. How do you perceive yourself after learning Chinese?

  7. What personally and professionally have you gained after this exchange program?

  8. What emotional anecdotes do you want to share with us during your life in China?
Published Online: 2018-10-09
Published in Print: 2020-05-26

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. Language(s), culture(s), ethnicity(-ies), social class and religious background: intersections in researcher’s identity and ethnography
  4. Doing ethnography among Latinos in London and Barcelona: languages, genders, and ethnicities
  5. Preparing the milk and honey: between ethnography and academia as a racially minoritised academic
  6. Language Choice and Researcher’s Stance in a Multilingual Ethnographic Fieldwork
  7. Regular Articles
  8. Does context really collapse in social media interaction?
  9. Conceptual metonymies and metaphors behind SHUI (WATER) and HUO (FIRE) in ancient and modern Chinese
  10. Strategy development and cross-linguistic transfer in foreign and first language writing
  11. Thai university students studying in China: Identity, imagined communities, and communities of practice
https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2017-0109
Keywords for this article
identity; identity negotiation; imagined community; communities of practice

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. Language(s), culture(s), ethnicity(-ies), social class and religious background: intersections in researcher’s identity and ethnography
  4. Doing ethnography among Latinos in London and Barcelona: languages, genders, and ethnicities
  5. Preparing the milk and honey: between ethnography and academia as a racially minoritised academic
  6. Language Choice and Researcher’s Stance in a Multilingual Ethnographic Fieldwork
  7. Regular Articles
  8. Does context really collapse in social media interaction?
  9. Conceptual metonymies and metaphors behind SHUI (WATER) and HUO (FIRE) in ancient and modern Chinese
  10. Strategy development and cross-linguistic transfer in foreign and first language writing
  11. Thai university students studying in China: Identity, imagined communities, and communities of practice
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