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), .
(doi:10.1515/eip-2015-0004).
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
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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
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Date deposited: 10 Nov 2015 14:02
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 21:39
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