A Study Of Investment Of The Thai Students In Learning Chinese In Five Universities Of Yunnan From The Perspective Of Bonny Norton's Investment Theory

The construct of investment is first introduced by Bonny Norton in her article “Social Identity,Investment,and Language Learning”(1995)which has been a landmark in the realm of applied linguistics,integral to the sociocultural turn in the language education(Block,2007).Norton proposes investment instead of motivation to explore the complicated relationship between the language learners and the target language.Norton argues that the construct of investment conceives of the language learner,not as ahistorical and unidimensional,but instead she reckons that language learners have a complex social history and multiple desires.Based on years of in-depth study on the investment and language education,Norton proposes A Model of Investment in 2016,which locates investment at the intersection of identity,capital,and ideology.With the advancement of his ideas over the past two decades,investment is now considered foundational in language education(Cummins,2006;Kramsch,2013;Miller & Kubota;2013;Ortega,2009;Swain & Deters,2007).Tremendous studies have been conducted to investigate the complex relation between language learners and the target language at home and abroad,especially in the English context such as taking English a second language(ESL),and outstanding results have been achieved: Social identity,investment and language learning from Bonny Norton(1995),Passing for a native speaker: Identity and success in second language learning by Ingrid Piller(2002),Negotiating identity: discourse of migration and belonging by Emily J.Farrell(2008)and so on.Nevertheless,the studies on learning Chinese based on Bonny Norton's investment theory remain unexplored.Therefore,taking Norton's "investment model" as the theoretical framework,the purpose of this paper is to explore the investment situation of the Thai students studying Chinese in five universities in Yunnan.Qualitative and quantitative methods are used in this study.A questionnaire survey and interview is employed to collect research data,and SPSS 18.0 is used to analyze quantitative data.Referring to Norton's Model for a research of five Canada immigrants,this study collects research data with a questionnaire survey and an interview.What makes this study different from the former ones is that the questionnaire has been carefully revised to conform to the Chinese language learners and the Chinese language learning context.The questionnaire items explore the generalized situation of those students' attitude,idea,likes and dislikes and etc.While the interview offers detailed information on the Thai students' investment on the Chinese language learning as the qualitative method of data collection.Combined these two research methods and data together guarantee validity and reliability of the findings.SPSS(the Statistical Package for Social Sciences)is adopted to analyze the statistical data which have been used all over the world.This study shows that the majority of the Thai students hold a positive attitude towards Chinese and Chinese learning.Despite the fact that learning Chinese is generally considered very hard,all the Thai students reckon that it is an urgent need to master Chinese for the sake of the future job,travelling and making friends with Chinese people etc.As Jin Haiyun said in 2013,globalization and Belt and Road's Initiative have spurred an upsurge in Chinese learning,making Chinese an important means of communicating with countless speakers.Secondly,changes of ideology to Chinese and the Chinese language learning are contingent to the change of personality and social context.While some Thai students complain,Chinese learning is troublesome when they study in Thailand,nearly all the Thai students under investigation express that all the teachers from those five universities can handle the cultural difference in their teaching very well and make cozy context to try to make those participants feel at home.Thirdly,the negotiation of identities is subject to the different learning context between Thailand and China.All the Thai students studying in the five universities try to think and act like Chinese.Identity changes across different social environment and helps those international students adapt themselves to the Chinese society.This study,through trying to answer such questions as how the ideologies of those Thai students' change,may provide some insights on the Chinese language learning and teaching in the Chinese learning context.