Exploring Tertiary-Level Muslim Uyghur Students' Identity Construction Through Multilingual Learning and Use in China

• In Event: 16.057 - Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: 16.057-1 - Language and Social Processes Within and Across International Contexts

Abstract

This inquiry reports on how tertiary-level Muslim Uyghur elites’ identities are constructed and transformed in multilingual learning and socialization after moving from Xinjiang to pursuit study in a top university in an eastern metropolis in China. Analysis of interview, observational and narrative data shows that subjects, even though keep core ethnic identification, develop multilayered even contradictory and cosmopolitan identities appropriating symbolic resources in the linguistic repertoire. Specifically, the two contrastive cultures embodied in Chinese (national language) and Uyghur (heritage language) ignite ethnic resurgence in the host setting, yet the process of Chinese socialization fosters in them ambivalent sense of ‘being Chinese’. Further, English, together with national and heritage language, empowers ethnic elites to develop cosmopolitan worldview and identities.

Authors

• Xiaoyan Guo, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Mingyue (Michelle) Gu, Chinese University of Hong Kong