Language as a refuge: Understanding British university students' initial motivations for learning Mandarin Chinese

Siying Shen is a PhD candidate in the School of Education at the University of Leeds. She was previously an English language teacher in higher education in China. She has also taught the pre-sessional English language course in the Language Centre at Leeds. Her current research interests include L2 motivation and identity, classroom engagement, and multilingualism.

In the recent decade, applied linguistics research has seen a surge in interest in languages other than English (LOTEs) learning contexts in the midst of a 'multilingual turn' (May, 2019), including those of Mandarin Chinese. This growing attention to Mandarin is partially due to its instrumental potential perceived in the current era, meaning wider career opportunities and advancement globally. However, while many studies on Chinese learning motivation appear to highlight the pragmatic implications behind the 'Mandarin fever', most research contexts seem to be limited to short-term (amateur) courses where individuals often learn Chinese just as a side interest.

In this presentation, I would like to argue that focusing on such contexts only would risk overlooking important nuances in the motivational rationale of this diverse learner group that can go beyond reflecting an instrumentalist language ideology. I will elaborate the argument by drawing on findings from a larger longitudinal qualitative project conducted in a British university context, where participants study Mandarin as (a significant part of) their degree course. It has been found that participants' initial motivations for their enrolment represent their high level of commitment in Mandarin and diverse motivational orientations, which are closely bonded with their past histories and imagined identities in various life domains. Although the pragmatic orientation (e.g. Chinese as an employable skill) is also salient in the current research context, this inclination tends to co-exist with participants' other motives that reflected their humanistic values. These include how they perceive Mandarin as a refuge, a site for healing, which they not only use for themselves but also are glad to build for the 'other'.