In recent years, China has implemented a national language policy promoting the use of Putonghua (Standard Chinese) in ethnic minority schools. This study investigates how mesolevel institutions (i.e., schools) have responded to this macro-level national language policy change, and how the institutional policy changes have affected Korean-Chinese…

This study investigated more than 3600 online comments responding to an incident in 2019 where a controversial memo was sent to instruct Chinese graduate students at a US university not to speak Chinese in the department. A text analysis based on Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software showed that these comments included more negative-emotion…

In the geographies where various languages are spoken, individuals may have to experience learning one or more languages to fulfil their needs. When societies who live together and use various language groups make contact with people who use other language groups and cultures, they have to interact with each other. This mutual effect is then…

Previous research on English Medium Instruction classrooms has almost exclusively documented the interaction between a teacher and students where the teacher is able to understand and use the first language (L1) of the students. We present data obtained from science classrooms in English-medium-instruction (EMI) high-school programs in China where…

Although some critics consider it time-consuming and demanding, proponents of the monolingual approach for field research (i.e., learning to speak a target field language as part of the research process) argue that it can provide a unique insight into its structures. However, this claim remains largely unsubstantiated in the available literature…

There is a growing number of children learning to read in bilingual environments, yet research on the uniqueness of reading acquisition in these bilingual children, particularly L1 majority bilinguals, is limited. With a sample size of 690 4th-grade students, this study investigated predictors influencing L1 Chinese reading in Chinese-English…

As the most commonly established and attested language contact phenomenon, loanwords, also known as lexical borrowings, may undergo transformations when borrowed from the source language (SL) to the borrowing language (BL). Previous studies have separately illustrated the role of perception and phonology in the borrowing process. However, the…

In this article, we--three Asian MotherScholars in the field of language and literacy education--conducted a collaborative self-study to examine how our individual and shared experiences as transnational mothers of emergent bilinguals have shaped our ways of promoting bilingualism and biliteracy. Our study drew on transnational feminist…

From the perspective of translanguaging and instruction theories, this Open Access book examines Chinese English Medium Instruction (EMI) lecturers' linguistic and pedagogical characteristics. This book demonstrate that 'English' in EMI is not a monolingual issue and EMI lecturers have applied their bilingual advantages to systematically and…

Bilingual children have been shown to differ from monolingual children in several domains of human cognition. Comparatively few studies have investigated social-interactional processes in bilingual populations. Here, we investigated whether monolingual and bilingual children demonstrate similar susceptibility to an aspect of social functioning…

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…

Guided by translanguaging pedagogy, this study examines how monolingual English teachers in a Pre-K school in China navigate between English and Chinese to construct a translanguaging classroom. Findings based on classroom observations and interviews reveal that, despite being constrained by their monolingualism, the English teachers enacted…

Drawing from Darvin and Norton's (2015) investment model, this study investigates ethnic Tibetan students' multilingual practice and its influence on these students' ethnic identity construction at an interior university in People's Republic of China (PRC). Based on multiple data sources, findings from this study indicate that Tibetan students…

This dissertation examines how the transmission of language ideologies on a US campus shapes Chinese international students' experiences regarding English academic writing. The study is motivated by past research that demonstrates the challenges of mastering English academic writing, particularly for people who did not speak English early in life.…

Most children learn a language such as Mandarin Chinese that uses lexical tone to communicate meaning. This study aimed to examine the phonological specificity of tone representations in monolingual and bilingual learners of Mandarin. Two age-groups were tested: toddlers (2.5 to 3.5 years) and preschoolers (4 to 5 years; N = 80). Using a…