In this contribution, we analyze the complex interweavings of French, Chinese, and English langua... more In this contribution, we analyze the complex interweavings of French, Chinese, and English languages and associated identities among university students in Vancouver, Canada. Selected data are presented from a broader three-year ethnographic study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Our specific focus is on the languages, literacies, and identities of a cohort of multilingual students who, having graduated from French immersion schools in British Columbia, have chosen to continue their studies in a small French Cohort in an Anglophone university. We present data from classroom observations, recorded in-class interactions, and interviews. We find that, while in English language academic literacy courses, students frequently exercised their plurilingual competence by using Chinese languages in and around learning, in the French Cohort English played a similar role, albeit in less creative contexts. In detailed interviews with the only two Chinese-speaking students in the French Cohort, we found that the coming together of French, Chinese, and English was, nonetheless, a key feature in the negotiation of complex multilingual, multicultural Canadian identities.
In this contribution, we analyze the complex interweavings of French, Chinese, and English langua... more In this contribution, we analyze the complex interweavings of French, Chinese, and English languages and associated identities among university students in Vancouver, Canada. Selected data are presented from a broader three-year ethnographic study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Our specific focus is on the languages, literacies, and identities of a cohort of multilingual students who, having graduated from French immersion schools in British Columbia, have chosen to continue their studies in a small French Cohort in an Anglophone university. We present data from classroom observations, recorded in-class interactions, and interviews. We find that, while in English language academic literacy courses, students frequently exercised their plurilingual competence by using Chinese languages in and around learning, in the French Cohort English played a similar role, albeit in less creative contexts. In detailed interviews with the only two Chinese-speaking students in the French Cohort, we found that the coming together of French, Chinese, and English was, nonetheless, a key feature in the negotiation of complex multilingual, multicultural Canadian identities.
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BOOK CHAPTERS by Yan Zhu