Language ideologies and linguistic entrepreneurship in inter-Asian mobility: voices from international students at Chinese universities

Abstract

This paper provides a bottom-up way of approaching China’s macro-level initiative in the regions of Asia and examines the language ideologies and linguistic entrepreneurship of international students as an agentive response to China’s rise. Using data gathered via semi-structured interviews, we present the narratives of 26 Asian international students enrolled in courses at higher education institutions in Shanghai. The findings reveal that China’s growing presence in the region has increased the instrumental value of Chinese, as a majority of students acknowledged China’s rapid development as well as the dominant positioning of Chinese in the current regional language system. Chinese was ideated as linguistic capital in the local labour market, where the learners were empowered to express their desire for material success and upward mobility. The findings also reveal linguistic entrepreneurship associated with Chinese language learning, and such agentive behaviour was previously observed in the domain of English language learning, especially in South Korea. We argue that the process of commodifying the Chinese language appeared to legitimise the value of Chinese in the regions of Asia, while providing an entry point to problematise our current understanding of English hegemony and linguistic imperialism in the changing global landscape.

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