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Translanguaging as sociolinguistic infrastructuring to foster epistemic justice in international Chinese-medium-instruction degree programs in China

  • Yang Song ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 31, 2022
Applied Linguistics Review
From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 15 Issue 4

Abstract

While extensive studies have been devoted to English-medium-instruction programs as a major strategy of internationalization, there is a paucity of research on the content-and-language learning experiences of international students enrolled in non-English-medium-instruction programs in the Asia-Pacific region. Drawing on the notions of translanguaging and sociolinguistic infrastructuring, the present study investigates translanguaging among instructors and international students in Chinese-medium-instruction (CMI) postgraduate programs in the humanities and social sciences departments in a top university in China. Content analysis of student and instructor interviews reveals that despite the monolingual language policy that governs the medium of instruction for international degree programs at the institutional level, translanguaging serves as sociolinguistic infrastructuring to support some international students’ active participation in knowledge construction, as well as to negotiate tensions imposed by epistemic injustice inherent in disciplinary histories in Chinese academia and the enacted CMI curricula. It is argued that, as a defining feature of translanguaging, sociolinguistic infrastructuring highlights the agentive role of both teachers and international students, who coordinate and navigate distributed and diverse material-semiotic conditions, which can be used to foster a decolonial space for knowledge construction in CMI programs. Pedagogical and curriculum design implications are discussed at the end of the article.

Keywords: decolonization; epistemic justice; medium of instruction; sociolinguistic infrastructure; translanguaging
Corresponding author: Yang Song, Department of English Language and Literature, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai 200 433, China, E-mail:

Funding source: China Scholarship Council (partly funded).

Aknowledgments

I am very grateful to all the participants in this study. Their timely and kind help made this article possible. Deep thanks go to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and Dr. Tu Mengwei for helpful discussions on the research idea. All remaining errors are my own.

  1. Research funding: This study is partly supported by funding provided by the China Scholarship Council.

  2. Declarations: The author certifies that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

  3. Geolocation information: China.

Appendix A

Table 1:

List of student interviewees.

Student pseudonyms Country of origin Language and self-assessed proficiency Discipline Year of studya Rounds of interview
Anesa Jordan Arabic (first language, or L1), English (working proficiency), Chinese (HSK 6) Broadcasting 1 3
Amina Kazakhstan Kazakh (L1), Chinese (HSK 5), English (everyday reading and speaking) Journalism 1 3
Ji-ho South Korea Korean (L1), Chinese (HSK 5), English (working proficiency) Rhetoric 2 2
Achara Thailand Thai (L1), Chinese (HSK 5), English (academic reading proficiency) Sign language 2 3
Katarzyna Poland Polish (L1), English (working proficiency), German (working proficiency), Chinese (HSK5) Chinese language and culture 2 2
Pam Vietnam Vietnamese (L1), English (working proficiency), Chinese (HSK6) Chinese philology 2 2
Gina South Korea Korean (L1), Chinese (HSK6), English (everyday reading and speaking) Folklore 2 2
Seo-yeon South Korea Korean (L1), Chinese (HSK5), English (reading proficiency) Higher education 1 3
Leonardo Italy Italian (L1), English (working proficiency), Chinese (HSK5) Chinese philosophy 2 2
Frank Germany German (L1), English (working proficiency), Chinese (HSK5) Comparative philosophy 3 2

  1. aThe year of study here refers to the time when the student interviewees were initially approached.

Table 2:

List of instructor interviewees.

Pseudonym Academic ranking Age range Gender Self-assessed language proficiency Department
Zhao (Ji-ho’s supervisor) Professor 50–60 Female Chinese (L1); English (reading for academic purposes) Chinese Language and Literature
Zhong (Achara’s supervisor) Professor 50–60 Male Chinese (L1); Thai (working proficiency); sign language (working proficiency); English (working proficiency)
Qian (Katarzyna’s supervisor) Professor 60–70 Male Chinese (L1); English (reading proficiency)
Wang Professor 40–50 Male Chinese (L1); English (working proficiency)
Sun Professor 50–60 Male Philosophy
Ming (Leonardo’s supervisor) Professor 60–70 Male
Li Associate Professor 40–50 Female
Zhou Associate Professor 50–60 Male Chinese (L1); Japanese (working proficiency); English (reading for academic purposes) Journalism and Mass Communication
Lin Professor 40–50 Male Chinese (L1); English (working proficiency)
Jiang Associate Professor 40–50 Female
Wu Associate professor 40–50 Female Higher education
Liu Associate Professor 40–50 Female Chinese (L1); English (working proficiency); Japanese (working proficiency)
Table 3:

Coding scheme along the diachronic axis and classification of informants.

Thematic categories Code examples (interview excerpts) Categorization of teacher informants Categorization of international student informants
Sino-centric disciplinary positioning “Under my supervision, they [international students] are doing research by following an Chinese indigenous approach” Qian Katarzyna
Bi-/Multi-polar disciplinary positioning “The discipline of sign language originates from the US whereas China has its own varieties of sign language as well as a distinct sign language system.” Zhao; Zhong; Wang; Sun; Ming; Li; Jiang Anesa; Amina; Ji-ho; Achara; Leonardo; Frank; Seo-yeon; Gina; Pam
American-centric disciplinary positioning with critical reflection “Theories in the field of higher education research in China are mostly borrowed from the U.S. and applied to the Chinese context in empirical studies.” Zhou; Lin; Wu; Liu /
Table 4:

Coding scheme along the synchronic axis.

Coding families Definition Code examples (interview excerpts)
Social infrastructuring Translanguaging in a shared practice in instructor-led learning communities and self-regulated academic learning “In the weekly seminar, if the paper is in English, our summative presentation will be in English, but group discussions are mostly in Chinese and sometimes in English.”
Technological infrastructuring Translanguaging mediated by technological devices and platforms “During the Covid-19 pandemic, my supervisor organizes weekly seminars online and offline to discuss papers in Chinese, English and Japanese.”
Humanitarian infrastructuring Translanguaging in volunteer tutoring and academic writing revisions provided by friends “My senior fellow supervisees will help correct my academic Chinese via WeChat.”
Regulatory infrastructuring Translanguaging as inscribed and/or enacted in the CMI curricula “The department has organized a series of seminars to teach postgraduates how to write academically in Chinese that compares everyday Chinese phrases and those in academic Chinese. It helps.”
Commercial infrastructuring Translanguaging afforded by commercial services of academic writing support and proofreading “It is very difficult to write a thesis in Chinese. I will sometimes write in English and then hire a translator and proofreader to help me.”

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Received: 2022-09-29
Accepted: 2022-10-17
Published Online: 2022-10-31
Published in Print: 2024-07-26

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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  2. Special Issue: Power, Linguistic Discrimination and Inequality in English Language Teaching and Learning (ELTL): Reflection and Reform for Applied Linguistics from the Global South; Guest Editors: Fan Gabriel Fang and Sender Dovchin
  3. Editorial
  4. Reflection and reform of applied linguistics from the Global South: power and inequality in English users from the Global South
  5. Research Articles
  6. Translingual English discrimination: loss of academic sense of belonging, the hiring order of things, and students from the Global South
  7. Applied linguistics from the Global South: way forward to linguistic equality and social justice
  8. English high-stakes testing and constructing the ‘international’ in Kazakhstan and Mongolia
  9. The mundanity of translanguaging and Aboriginal identity in Australia
  10. Multimodal or multilingual? Native English teachers’ engagement with translanguaging in Hong Kong TESOL classrooms
  11. Epistemic injustice and neoliberal imaginations in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy
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  14. Special Issue: Translanguaging Outside the Centre: Perspectives from Chinese Language Teaching; Guest Editor: Danping Wang
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  19. Translanguaging as sociolinguistic infrastructuring to foster epistemic justice in international Chinese-medium-instruction degree programs in China
  20. Translanguaging as a pedagogy: exploring the use of teachers’ and students’ bilingual repertoires in Chinese language education
  21. A think-aloud method of investigating translanguaging strategies in learning Chinese characters
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  23. Facilitating learners’ participation through classroom translanguaging: comparing a translanguaging classroom and a monolingual classroom in Chinese language teaching
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  25. Special Issue: Research Synthesis in Language Learning and Teaching; Guest Editors: Sin Wang Chong, Melissa Bond and Hamish Chalmers
  26. Editorial
  27. Opening the methodological black box of research synthesis in language education: where are we now and where are we heading?
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  30. Review Articles
  31. A scientometric analysis of applied linguistics research (1970–2022): methodology and future directions
  32. A systematic review of meta-analyses in second language research: current practices, issues, and recommendations
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  34. Topics, publication patterns, and reporting quality in systematic reviews in language education. Lessons from the international database of education systematic reviews (IDESR)
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  36. Bilingual education in China: a qualitative synthesis of research on models and perceptions
  37. Regular Issue Articles
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https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2022-0140
Keywords for this article
decolonization; epistemic justice; medium of instruction; sociolinguistic infrastructure; translanguaging

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Issue: Power, Linguistic Discrimination and Inequality in English Language Teaching and Learning (ELTL): Reflection and Reform for Applied Linguistics from the Global South; Guest Editors: Fan Gabriel Fang and Sender Dovchin
  3. Editorial
  4. Reflection and reform of applied linguistics from the Global South: power and inequality in English users from the Global South
  5. Research Articles
  6. Translingual English discrimination: loss of academic sense of belonging, the hiring order of things, and students from the Global South
  7. Applied linguistics from the Global South: way forward to linguistic equality and social justice
  8. English high-stakes testing and constructing the ‘international’ in Kazakhstan and Mongolia
  9. The mundanity of translanguaging and Aboriginal identity in Australia
  10. Multimodal or multilingual? Native English teachers’ engagement with translanguaging in Hong Kong TESOL classrooms
  11. Epistemic injustice and neoliberal imaginations in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy
  12. Commentary
  13. Transidiomatic favela: language resources and embodied resistance in Brazilian and South African peripheries
  14. Special Issue: Translanguaging Outside the Centre: Perspectives from Chinese Language Teaching; Guest Editor: Danping Wang
  15. Editorial
  16. Translanguaging outside the centre: perspectives from Chinese language teaching
  17. Research Articles
  18. Translanguaging as a decolonising approach: students’ perspectives towards integrating Indigenous epistemology in language teaching
  19. Translanguaging as sociolinguistic infrastructuring to foster epistemic justice in international Chinese-medium-instruction degree programs in China
  20. Translanguaging as a pedagogy: exploring the use of teachers’ and students’ bilingual repertoires in Chinese language education
  21. A think-aloud method of investigating translanguaging strategies in learning Chinese characters
  22. Translanguaging pedagogies in developing morphological awareness: the case of Japanese students learning Chinese in China
  23. Facilitating learners’ participation through classroom translanguaging: comparing a translanguaging classroom and a monolingual classroom in Chinese language teaching
  24. A multimodal analysis of the online translanguaging practices of international students studying Chinese in a Chinese university
  25. Special Issue: Research Synthesis in Language Learning and Teaching; Guest Editors: Sin Wang Chong, Melissa Bond and Hamish Chalmers
  26. Editorial
  27. Opening the methodological black box of research synthesis in language education: where are we now and where are we heading?
  28. Research Article
  29. A typology of secondary research in Applied Linguistics
  30. Review Articles
  31. A scientometric analysis of applied linguistics research (1970–2022): methodology and future directions
  32. A systematic review of meta-analyses in second language research: current practices, issues, and recommendations
  33. Research Article
  34. Topics, publication patterns, and reporting quality in systematic reviews in language education. Lessons from the international database of education systematic reviews (IDESR)
  35. Review Article
  36. Bilingual education in China: a qualitative synthesis of research on models and perceptions
  37. Regular Issue Articles
  38. An interactional approach to speech acts for applied linguistics
  39. “Church is like a mini Korea”: the potential of migrant religious organisations for promoting heritage language maintenance
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