04437nam a22005415i 4500 978-981-97-2175-7 DE-He213 20251030112029.0 cr nn 008mamaa 240504s2024 si | s |||| 0|eng d 9789819721757 978-981-97-2175-7 10.1007/978-981-97-2175-7 doi P40-40.5 CFB bicssc LAN009050 bisacsh CFB thema Xu, Wen. author. aut http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut 76419 Linguistic Entrepreneurship in Sino-African Student Mobility [electronic resource] / by Wen Xu. 1st ed. 2024. Singapore : Springer Nature Singapore : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. VIII, 234 p. 1 illus. online resource. text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier text file PDF rda 1. Introduction -- 2. International student mobilities (ISM) and African students in China -- 3. Setting the context: The hierarchical ordering of languages in the world -- 4. The logic of linguistic exchanges and model of investment -- 5. Chinese language ideologies reflected in African students’ discourses -- 6. Discourses on Chinese as ‘linguistic capital’ -- 7. Sleepless in China: Linguistic investment and a burden of perfectionism -- 8. Transcending time and space: new images of the world and self -- 9. Conclusions and implications. This book explores African international students’ lived experience within Chinese higher education, including their language ideologies, investment in Chinese language learning and the (re)shaping of identities and aspirations. Whilst high English proficiency has been sought by globally mobile students to play the ‘class game’ and gain entrée to the circle of elites, considerably less attention has been paid to how shifting global structures and China’s semi-peripheral position shape its language learners’ investment and identity construction. Drawing upon a series of interviews, the book deciphers African students’ logics of linguistic exchanges within the geopolitical and geo-economic context of China-African relations. The students invested heavily into Chinese language learning and use, while displaying perfectionism, linguistic entrepreneurship and linguistic insecurity. As the value of their Chinese linguistic capital increases, they reassessed their sense of themselves and produced different social identities, which includes the idea of ‘the world is my oyster’, contributing to Africa’s sustainable development and the disposition to ‘tell China’s story well’. This work transgresses monolingual dominance (i.e. English) in the existing body of international student mobility and second language acquisition (SLA) research, as great importance is assigned to Chinese as linguistic capital in South-South student migration. The book is of interest to researchers in international higher education, international student mobilities, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, languages education, and Chinese language teaching and learning. Wen Xu is an Assistant Professor of Chinese Language Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research interests focus on the intersection of language, education and society. Currently, her research projects and publications encompass studies of international students’ lived experiences in China. Sociolinguistics. 69115 Language and languages Study and teaching. 59962 Educational sociology. 58182 Education, Higher. Sociolinguistics. 69115 Language Education. 70729 Sociology of Education. 69758 Higher Education. 68980 SpringerLink (Online service) Springer Nature eBook Printed edition: 9789819721740 Printed edition: 9789819721764 Printed edition: 9789819721771 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-2175-7 ZDB-2-SLS ZDB-2-SXS 59664 59664