How do International Students Reconstruct their Identity as Readers when they Transition into Canadian Post-Secondary Education?
Date
2019-01-22
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Abstract
With increased numbers of Chinese international students in the Canadian higher education system and their growing needs to transition into a new cultural reading environment, this study endeavours to explore the difficulties that four Chinese students encountered, and figure out how they experienced, responded to, and transformed to a new cultural reading environment. With data from semi-structured interviews and journal entries, this study brings each individual participant’s experiences, perceptions, and feelings of reading in English to the fore. I analyzed participants’ unique experiences in order to understand their reading difficulties and readers’ identities. Through these examinations, this study shows that participants’ identities as readers are reconstructed in a new cultural reading environment, based upon their Chinese culture, academic fields, a new English cultural background, and their personalities. Moreover, data analysis reveals that, while reading in English, participants constructed the meaning of different language reading materials through the different lens of their identities as readers. Based on my findings, second language reading is discussed regarding the second language reader’s cultures and identities. The present study highlights the importance of social dimensions in second language reading. It concludes that readers’ identities reflect readers’ different cultural memberships. As Chinese international student cross cultural boundaries, their identities as readers shape how they interpret and understand the meaning of reading materials. When readers apply different reader’s identities while reading, they have the potential to interpret reading materials differently.
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Keywords
reader’s identity reconstruction, second language reading, sociocultural reading, Chinese international students, postsecondary education
Citation
Chen, D. (2019). How do international students reconstruct their identity as readers when they transition into Canadian post-secondary education? (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.