Multilingual development through study abroad in multilingual Asian universities: a case study of a Vietnamese international student in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

With the rise in the number of international students (ISs) in many Asian universities, some recent research has investigated ISs’ linguacultural experience in the new Asian educational hubs. Current research has shown that while English is used as the de facto academic lingua franca in many of these hubs, the local language of the host nation also plays critical roles in shaping ISs’ social and academic interaction in multilingual Asian universities. Nevertheless, in most studies, ISs were generally positioned as a homogeneous group, dismissing the idiosyncrasies in their historical and sociocultural backgrounds. Informed by multilingualism [Kramsch, C. 2009. The Mmultilingual Ssubject. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press] and the theory of identity and investment (Darvin, R., and B. Norton. 2015. “Identity and a Model of Investment in Applied Linguistics.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35:36–56), this study adopted a qualitative case study methodology to investigate the multilingual development of a male, doctoral Vietnamese international student in a Taiwanese university where English and Chinese are the academic lingua francas. Data were collected through interviews, reflection journals, observation of social media posts, and relevant documents. Findings of the study illuminate how capital, ideologies, and identities worked in tandem to shape the participant’s multilingual development in a Taiwanese university. These findings invite educators to challenge the hegemony of monolingualism and cultivate multilingual users in the globalized world.

KEYWORDS:

• Multilingual identity
• investment
• international students
• multilingual universities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Although English was frequently used as the main language in our interview, this chunk of the interview talk took place in Mandarin Chinese. To facilitate reader comprehension, its English translation is presented.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [grant number MOST 110-2410-H-A49-025].

Notes on contributors

Yueh-ching Chang

Yueh-ching Chang is an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of TESOL at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Her recent publications can be found in Research in the Teaching of English, Language and Intercultural Communication, and Taiwan Journal of TESOL.