Self-identity changes and English learning among Chinese undergraduates
: This quantitative study investigated Chinese college students’ self‐identity changes associated with English learning. The subjects were 2,278 undergraduates from 30 universities, obtained from a stratified sampling. Based on existing literature of bilinguals’ identities, the self‐designed questi...
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Published in | World Englishes Vol. 24; no. 1; pp. 39 - 51 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Oxford, UK; Malden, USA
Blackwell Publishing Ltd/Inc
01.02.2005
Blackwell Publishing |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | : This quantitative study investigated Chinese college students’ self‐identity changes associated with English learning. The subjects were 2,278 undergraduates from 30 universities, obtained from a stratified sampling. Based on existing literature of bilinguals’ identities, the self‐designed questionnaire defined six categories of self‐identity change: self‐confidence, subtractive bilingualism, additive bilingualism, productive bilingualism, identity split, and zero change. Results showed that in the Chinese EFL context, English learning exerted influence on learners’ identities, the most prominent being self‐confidence. At the same time, learners’ values and communication styles underwent some productive and additive changes. Sex, college major, and starting age for English learning had significant effects on certain types of self‐identity change. Female students scored higher than male students on self‐confidence and productive changes. Compared with natural and social science majors, English majors demonstrated more changes in self‐confidence, subtractive, additive and productive changes. With self‐confidence change, those who started English learning under 8 scored lower than groups of higher starting ages. With additive change, the 9–12 group scored higher than the 13–15 group. With identity split, the above 16 group scored higher than groups of lower starting ages. |
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Bibliography: | istex:D46C7F4498741C8B499BB7116D4C93CE694C479D ArticleID:WENG386 ark:/67375/WNG-H13TMPP9-S National Research Center for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing 100089, The People's Republic of China. E‐mail clarion@water.pku.edu.cn cheeringhao@pku.edu.cn zhouyan@public.bta.net.cn gaoyh@pku.edu.cn English Department, Peking University, Beijing 100871, The People's Republic of China. E‐mail ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 |
ISSN: | 0883-2919 1467-971X |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.0883-2919.2005.00386.x |