The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Chinese university students’ ELF awareness: impacts of language education in China

Chinese university students’ ELF awareness: impacts of language education in China
Chinese university students’ ELF awareness: impacts of language education in China
This paper sets out to investigate Chinese university students’ ELF awareness, which is conceptualised with regards to language education. The study, based on 24 semi- structured interviews, demonstrates that Chinese university students are still framing their understanding of English with the affiliation to idealised notions of monolingual origin of native English, despite being situated in a changing world where multilingual speakers of English are becoming the majority of English users and ELF is becoming a prominent communicative phenomenon. The participants’ account reveals the role of language education as the interface between language ideology and linguistic reality in China. Based on the study, this paper suggests ways of minimising the gap in ELF awareness. While this paper appreciates Chinese philosophy of education, the focus is on promoting awareness of English in relation to its sociocultural context and considering “imagined communities” in the learning so as to come to terms with sociolinguistic reality.
ELF awareness, language education, china, imagined communities
86-106
Wang, Ying
dae44497-8e51-48ab-8173-7844f152f6e9
Wang, Ying
dae44497-8e51-48ab-8173-7844f152f6e9

Wang, Ying (2015) Chinese university students’ ELF awareness: impacts of language education in China. Englishes in Practice, 2 (4), 86-106. (doi:10.1515/eip-2015-0004).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper sets out to investigate Chinese university students’ ELF awareness, which is conceptualised with regards to language education. The study, based on 24 semi- structured interviews, demonstrates that Chinese university students are still framing their understanding of English with the affiliation to idealised notions of monolingual origin of native English, despite being situated in a changing world where multilingual speakers of English are becoming the majority of English users and ELF is becoming a prominent communicative phenomenon. The participants’ account reveals the role of language education as the interface between language ideology and linguistic reality in China. Based on the study, this paper suggests ways of minimising the gap in ELF awareness. While this paper appreciates Chinese philosophy of education, the focus is on promoting awareness of English in relation to its sociocultural context and considering “imagined communities” in the learning so as to come to terms with sociolinguistic reality.

Text
eip-2015-0004.pdf - Accepted Manuscript
Available under License Other.
Download (486kB)

More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 14 October 2015
Keywords: ELF awareness, language education, china, imagined communities
Organisations: Modern Languages

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 383155
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/383155
PURE UUID: 138c4cb9-bcb8-4d7f-965f-58d5b5dc0860

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 10 Nov 2015 14:02
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 21:39

Export record

Altmetrics

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×