Becoming a Multilingual Learner? International doctoral students’ academic writing experiences in China

• In Event: Student Agency and Multiple Voices in Student Mobility

Proposal

Over the past decades, higher education (HE) internationalisation has led to a significant increase in international student mobility (ISM) worldwide. While traditional English-dominated Western countries like the UK, US, and Australia remain popular destinations for international students seeking higher degrees, emerging knowledge hubs like China have also become attractive options. The dominance of English in research and learning within the Anglophone HE system poses challenges for non-English-L1 international students adapting to this environment, prompting research on multilingual shifts in international universities in the broader English-dominated monolingual HE context. In contrast, the Chinese HE sub-field is gradually becoming more multilingual and multicultural within the broader global HE landscape. While extensive studies focus on language issues and challenges in Anglophone contexts, research on international students' academic practices in China gains importance. Notably, there is a significant gap in investigating international doctoral students' academic writing practices in multilingual educational contexts like China, where they may encounter various linguistic challenges and develop coping strategies to complete their theses in either Chinese or English.

This study aims to address the aforementioned gap by adopting Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, and capital, along with the notion of global-national-local imbrications in educational policies and practices to explore international doctoral students' academic-writing practices in China from a more sociological perspective. To enhance the understanding, Marginson's suggestion (2008) of utilizing relevant tools alongside Bourdieu's concepts and interpreting empirical insights is taken into account. The notion of global-national-local imbrications is particularly suitable for combining with Bourdieu's concepts, considering the impact of the broader global higher education field. As international doctoral students transition to the Chinese HE sub-field, they encounter navigation and negotiation challenges, being positioned between different fields with distinct logics of practice. This transition may lead to cross-field effects, resulting in tensions and challenges. Thus, complex imbrications gradually emerge, interweaving sociocultural, educational, and linguistic features from global, national, and local contexts. In light of the above discussion, the study seeks to answer the following research questions: How do international doctoral students experience academic writing in the Chinese HE sub-field? How do they cope with the challenges they encounter during the academic-writing process?

An exploratory qualitative study was employed to understand international doctoral students’ academic writing practices in the Chinese HE sub-field. Semi-structured interviews with a total of 23 international doctoral students were conducted to collect data after receiving ethics approval from a ‘Double-First-Class’ research-focused university. To analyse the data, this study utilised a recursive approach from both deductive and inductive perspectives. Based on Braun and Clarke’s (2019) thematic approach, a broad inductive analysis was used to explore key themes that reflected significant patterns of participants’ academic-writing practices. Meanwhile, the researchers employed Bourdieu’s concepts (e.g. field, habitus, and capital) and the concept of global–national–local imbrications to understand these themes and interpret findings. s. In this manner, the analysis was simultaneously inductive and deductive.

Findings in this study illustrate a complex picture of international doctoral students’ academic-writing practices in China. While all participants met the language requirements, they still encountered various challenges in academic writing regardless of whether the programmes were Chinese or English-mediated. More specifically, these challenges are centered in three aspects: 1) difficulties in grammar and vocabulary, 2) lack of understanding of Chinese sociocultural contexts, 3) Lack of academic writing support from the university and supervisors. To overcome these challenges, students employed various strategies, including relying on translation, using technology-mediated supports like Internet-based writing applications, and seeking assistance from external sources such as editing companies and private editors. These findings are consistent with other studies that highlight international doctoral students' language challenges in Western contexts. However, in the Chinese HE sub-field, the academic-writing experiences seemed to present a more intricate scenario, indicating the existence of global-national-local language imbrications. These imbrications potentially underscore the misfits and disjunctures of field-habitus in relation to students' experiences.

In conclusion, this research delved into the academic-writing practices of international doctoral students in the Chinese HE sub-field by employing Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, and capitals, along with the notion of global-national-local imbrications. The findings highlighted the co-existence of English and Chinese in the students' academic practices, reflecting a complex imbrication of global (English) and national (Chinese) language logic. To cope with the linguistic barriers arising from the interplay of global-national-local language policies and logics, many students developed a technology-mediated, in-between habitus. The complexity of their writing practices suggests that the Chinese HE sub-field has evolved into a hybrid in-between field, integrating global-national-local language practices. The study highlights the need to support international doctoral students’writing practices in the emerging learning destination.


References

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative. research in sport, exercise and health, 11(4), 589-597.
Marginson, S. (2013). Global field and global imagining: Bourdieu and worldwide higher education. In The sociology of higher education (pp. 6-18). Routledge.

Authors

• Yabing Liu, The Education University of Hong Kong

• Kun Dai, The Chinese University of Hong Kong