Language Socialization Process Of Chiese As Second Language Learners

The past decades have witnessed a remarkable progress of internationalization of higher education in China.Despite of the rapidly increased number of foreign students pursuing for academic degrees in China,research on Chinese as second language(CSL)learners remains scarce,even less are those in mainland China contexts.The current thesis thus takes this gap as the point of penetration and conducts year-long case studies on three CSL learners,language learning behaviors under the fiamework of language socialization theory.The term language socialization denotes a process by which novices or newcomers in a community or culture socialize with experienced speakers through language to gain communicative competence,membership,and legitimacy in the group.Under this paradigm,language learning is not only what we refer to in traditional views as the acquisition of linguistic code,but a complicated combination of social contexts,interactional activities,and psychological factors.With the guidance of language socialization theory,this thesis presents detailed accounts of how CSL learners are socialized or dy-socialized in contexts vary from daily communication,language classroom,and academic writing discourse.Participants are chosen regarding their language proficiency to fit in different contexts.The investigation explores participants’ language competence,learner agency,identity development,and their influences on language use by conducting three Discourse Completion Tests,three interviews,attendant observation and field note records.Conclusions are firstly,while CSL learners’ linguistic socialization in daily communications enhances steadily and smoothly,the pragmatic socialization remains unstable and delayed;secondly.given that asymmetrical power relationship exists in L2 contexts,CSL learners can be active agents to break the vulnerable SCL position and create a reciprocal socialization environment;finally,second language learners’ identity develops in an unbalanced and nonlinear way in academic writing discourse.During the development,second language learners’ identity is always affected by their previous language learning/using experiences,as well as the unequal social relationships between second language learners and the native speakers.This thesis is expected to shed lights on CSL teaching and learning in Chinese context.