Problematising English monolingualism in the ‘multicultural’ university: a Bourdieusian study of Chinese international research students in Australia

ABSTRACT

With English hegemony sustained in ‘multicultural’ Anglophone universities, non-English speaking research students often develop diverse strategies to improve their English. While such strategies demonstrate a form of resilience, the symbolic power of English remains intact. To grapple with this paradox, we draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to probe Chinese international research students’ academic language practice in response to English monolingualism in Australian universities. Findings from semi-structured interviews with 18 Chinese international research students in Australian universities indicate that participants’ academic language practice is influenced by both the doxic English monolingualism and the evolving exercise of academic multilingualism. Drawing insights from Bourdieu-informed sociology of resilience and post-monolingual theorising, we problematise English monolingualism and provide recommendations for (Chinese) international research students, supervisors, and universities to capitalise on linguistic repertories for the sake of enriching academic experience.

KEYWORDS:

• International research students
• Chinese
• globalisation
• Bourdieu
• sociology of resilience
• post-monolingual theorising

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council under Grant [Grant number DE180100107]; Australian Government Research Training Program.