This study navigates the constructive role of English as a foreign language (EFL) as a critical intercultural discourse of locus of enunciation and linguistic citizenship through which teachers in Chinese educational context act as agents of action and social change. Based on a critical discourse analysis of learner diary entries, the study traces…

To facilitate intercultural communicative competence, language learners are invited into the triadic capacity of Thirdness, where the social and critical interpretations of intercultural dialogue are explored. Little is known of the specific pedagogical stages to create such a terrain for the development of students' sustainable intercultural…

We start this coda with a discussion of the impact of the pandemic on higher education in our contexts. We then highlight the focus of this special issue, namely international students' language learning and intercultural encounters in Chinese universities. Reflecting on the relevant findings reported in this collection of studies, we relate…

The presence of Africans in China has been phenomenal since the late 1990s. In recent years, there has been a dramatic uptick in people from Africa coming to the major cities of China such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Yiwu, Shanghai, and Beijing. They are in the process of building linguistic, cultural, and economic bridges between their source…

Against the backdrop of globalisation, many English language teaching (ELT) curricula emphasise the need to promote awareness of intercultural communication. However, in many settings, the current ELT practices still predominantly focus on Anglophone cultures or interactions with Anglophone speakers, as the teachers and materials may not fully…

Language variation in a context is influenced by various factors. While there has been some research regarding English language variation, there has not been much research pertaining to Chinese variation (Gao, 2017; Xu, 2015). In the present study, we examined different language usages among different social classes of Tianjin in China in order to…

The development of English as a global language has urged the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) to implement some reforms in relation to textbook design and curriculum development as well as the approaches to and goals of English language teaching (ELT). From the multilingual perspective, Global Englishes (GE) and…

The decolonization of knowledge is increasingly high on the agenda of applied and sociolinguistics. This article contributes to this agenda by examining how peripheral multilingual scholars confront their linguistic and epistemic exclusion from global knowledge production. Based on the product of such a challenge -- a Chinese-centric special issue…

English is an important medium for global communication but its use in different communities is inevitably shaped by their local languages and cultures. International education research shows that differences in English language practices could introduce difficulties and stress into intercultural communication between international and host…

Owing to its economic growth and social changes in the past two decades, China has become a popular destination for tourists, investors, and diverse communities of migrants. When foreign-language-speaking migrants interact with Chinese criminal justice system, they rely on interpreters to participate in the proceedings. Based on four-month trial…

This article investigates the intercultural competence and identities of undergraduate heritage language learners (HLLs) studying abroad under the auspices of the U.S. Flagship Program. Based on survey responses and interviews with HLLs from Flagship Programs across the country, the article aims to assess the preparation of HLLs for study abroad…

Recently, Cosmopolitan English and Transliteracy won the 2018 Research Impact Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the largest international organization that specializes in the teaching and studies of composition. This recognition seems to signal a turn to transliteracy education, i.e., English writing…

The emergence of transnational joint venture universities provides a new model of education internationalization where the stakes are high and where the opportunities to study the under-researched field of student intercultural engagement are multidimensional and compelling. Since their institutional mission statements often involve language about…

Appropriacy is the paramount consideration of such an inherently polite speech act as thanking in its use. Traditional study of thanking focuses more on the quantitative investigation of its diverse forms and functions than on interpretation of the process in which it is used appropriately and adequately or not among English native or nonnative…

This article examines English as a Second/New Language teacher attitudes based on three personal stories and suggests study abroad as a way to foster necessary teacher dispositions. How can a teacher candidate master the array of teacher dispositions required by various sets of English as a Second Language (ESL) and Bilingual/Bicultural Education…