1.4 Aims and Organisation of This Study
With the background discussed in the previous sections, the aims for the current study are threefold:
1) In the theoretical dimension, to propose an integrated semiotic and sociocultural framework combining relevant linguistic, social and socialpsychological theories to model disciplinary identities construction in an individual, linguistic, historical, situated and social integration, and to introduce the idea of group membership affiliation to provide a deeper insight into the dynamic and multi-faceted construction of identities in the use of language in a specific community of discipline;
2) In the methodological dimension, to develop a system to measure the construction of disciplinary identities in the mediated process of group membership affiliation realised by the proximity of self and context, and a comprehensive linguistic and sociocultural analysis framework;
3) In the practical dimension, including the above-mentioned theoretical and methodological aims, to enhance the theories and concepts in language and identity research by providing alternative qualitative data and classroom discourse texts, and to offer a research example for examining Chinese learners’ identities construction in a transnational institution, particularly for those who are insiders and others in the field of international higher education.
The dynamic nature of identity construction demands that the current study adopt multiple research methods, with a strategy broadly aligned with the qualitative case study.The free talks, public documents (such as official announcements, administrative documents, policy planning) and the students’ written personal recounts were administered to examine the contextual, historical, social and imagined variables in constructing the situated cultures of the institution and the discipline.Interviews with six Chinese students and eight non-Chinese teachers and students were conducted in over two years, in order to obtain more insight into the multiple factors driving the Chinese students’ disciplinary identities construction in development over time.Four classroom discourse texts collected from video recording are the core situated texts in this study, enabling a deeper look at the linguistic instantiation of disciplinary identities in interactions and re-construction of academic knowledge through developmental realisation within one single text, as well as variations of texts.The validity and reliability of the instruments are tackled with the techniques such as triangulation, member-checking and constant comparison.
The rest of this book is organised into seven chapters.Chapter 2 reviews different divisions of literature on identities, conceptualises the disciplinary identities construction mediated by group membership affiliation in a community of discipline and proposes an integrated social and linguistic approach to identity and disciplinary identities construction.Chapter 3 explains the semiotic and analytical framework, while Chapter 4 describes the methodology of the investigation.Chapter 5 introduces the contextual information on the institution and the discipline, and the non-Chinese participants’ general impression of the ‘Chinese students’ in the institution.Chapter 6 presents the findings on the appraisal analysis of the proximity of possible disciplinary selves in imagination and the discursive analysis of the individual development in and through engagement and alignment from a combination of imagined, historical, situated and social factors.Chapter 7 demonstrates a detailed functional analysis of the ways in which the Chinese students perform and negotiate disciplinary identities in classroom discourse.Chapter 8 concludes the book with the summary of findings and the implications for the future research.
【注释】
[1]Project 211 is ‘A Chinese government programme， initiated in 1995， that is aimed at strengthening institutions of higher education and key disciplinary areas as a national priority for the twenty-first century.The ‘21’ and ‘1’ within 211 refer to the ‘twenty-first’ century and ‘one’ hundred universities， respectively.To be included in the programme， universities had to meet scientific and technical standards and offer advanced degree programmes.It includes the Project 985 universities’ （QAA， 2012， p.13）.
[2]Project 985 is ‘A project to promote the development of world-class universities in China， which was initiated in May 1998 and named after the date：year ‘98’， month ‘5’.Much of its funding is devoted to academic exchanges whereby Chinese academics participate in conferences abroad and foreign lecturers visit China’ （QAA， 2012， p.13）.
[3]The year of welcoming the inaugural class of the students.
[4]Source：‘National Medium and Long Term Education Revolution and Development Plan （Year 2010-2020）’ ［《国家中长期教育改革发展规划纲要（2010—2020年》］.This only-staff-access English version document was obtained from the intra network of the university under research； the Chinese version is available online：http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_838/201008/93704.html