6.3.3 Matthew:Negative Past Self, Positive Present...
Matthew’s biographical background
Matthew was born and grew up in a medium-sized city in northern China.He talked very little about his family, but he did mention his family belongs to the middle class.His elder sister got married in America, which influenced his future objectives to some extent.He planned to ‘pursue higher level study in the USA’, to which his parents held different opinions.His mother supported him, saying that ‘Go! Just go there to pursue higher degree.The more you study, the more knowledgeable and competitive you will be in the future’; on the contrary, his father considered that he should gain more working experience and then decide what to do next.
Matthew had clear life goals or orientation for his future:‘I have compared the education and living styles of Britons and Americans; I therefore decide to go to America after graduation...I think I will become more knowledgeable and skillful in such a fiercely competitive environment.In the long run, I want to set up my career in China though.If I can study and work in America for a few years, I will be more competitive in China’s employment market.Living in China, which has a large population and limited natural and social resources, I would better to prepare myself now for the future’ (Free chats 1 & 2, 2014).Matthew had actively taken part in many social activities.Once, for example, he organised a fund-raising campaign for a fellow classmate who had leukaemia, and the campaigners successfully collected 70,000 CNY.Starting from the first semester of Year 1 at UNNC, he taught some non-Chinese staff members and students Chinese.He also took internships in many institutions, including the Bank of China.The most impressive thing he did in 2015 was initiating an early career project with two fellow classmates, which was supported by the university.Looking forward to implementing this project to ultimate success, he decided to start his own business after graduation, rather than pursuing a higher degree abroad.
Matthew’s attitudinal orientation to the field
Matthew’s recount records the changed classroom engagement from passive to active， positive self-demanding on essay writing and expectation on self-learning.At the beginning of the recount， the scope of the events of ‘not particularly like answering question’ and ‘not enough’ interaction with teachers in the classroom are negatively appraised by ‘affection not that deep’ （感情不是那么深）.
This is in contrast with his positive evaluation of ‘my change’ （我 的 改 变） in ‘second year second semester’， which is explicitly appraised in positive Appreciation （‘big’， ‘active’， ‘good’） of the change， Judgement （‘care’， ‘positively’） of his learning motivation and Affection （‘fun’， ‘interest’） for the general learning experience.In the meantime， the resources of Graduation， Force （‘very’， ‘always’） intensify his positive Attitude to the change.
Matthew’s satisfaction with his present change above is found in the nominalised quality ‘regret’ （遗 憾） which at the same time reconstructs his negative Affection for and Judgement on his ‘essay writing capacity’.Recognising this disciplinary assessment as his ‘weakness’ （弱项）， he then sets a goal to ‘improve’ （提高） it.
In describing his expectation for teaching， a dual negative and positive attitude towards the previous experience is found.Matthew orients the gaze ‘towards this semester teaching’ by saying there is ‘no too big expectation’.The implicitly negative attitude is intensified in his proposed solution of what change ‘can’ （能） make is ‘just’ （只是） to enhance learning ability.The followed adversative ‘but’ （但 是） structurally turns to his positive appreciation of ‘this semester’s teaching’ which is more ‘effective’ （有效） than before； but on the other hand， it implicitly reveals his dissatisfaction with the past teaching.Instead of giving explicit feeling about teaching experience， Matthew emphasises his changed self-learning behaviour and appreciates it as ‘active’ （主动）.
Matthew’s proximity of disciplinary selves in the field of discipline
Matthew constructs negative past self and positive present self in the recount.Similar to Owen’s appraisal, Matthew starts the narrative with recording and evaluating the past negative learning experience.But different from the previous two narrators’ focus on the general out-of-classroom learning experiences, he describes his positive recognition of the specific disciplinary conventions:classroom interaction and essay writing.The shift from negative past self to positive present self is made in his explicit explanation of how and why he changes his attitude to past learning events.Another difference found between Matthew and these two first year narrators is that there is no explicit future self in his recount.However, his positive appreciation and judgement of his own present positive self imply that he has gained motivation from the past successful learning experience, which enables him to confidently ‘set goal’ for the future learning and he can change ‘from myself side’.